The Impossible & Hatred

I don’t think Naomi Watts, for her role in The Impossible, will win the Oscar for best actress. I don’t even think she deserved the nomination for what she did in The Impossible. This movie has gotten a bunch of praise from any number of critics, but other than the awesome opening when the tsunami came rushing in and killed over a quarter of a million people and caused all the destruction and devastation, there wasn’t much plot. Okay, so it was based on a true story about this family that somehow survived and somehow found each other again, but still, the search wasn’t enough story to hold me. Just nothing much happened. I had the feeling all through it that I was watching people acting like people in tragic circumstances, especially Lucas, the oldest son played by Tom Holland. He kept screwing his face into what he must have considered anguish, but to me it looked like he was really on the verge of cracking a smile. And Naomi Watts just didn’t have much acting to do. She did a lot of groaning and sobbing but had almost no dialogue. So where is the great acting? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too out of synch with modern film trends. I don’t much care for vampires or werewolves or zombies or gnomes, and until they get rid of the glasses, I can skip all the 3-D gimmicks. I just found it impossible to get very excited about The Impossible.

A neutral feeling for The Impossible is one thing, and dislike is another. Then there’s hate. I don’t think there’s ever been a movie I hated. I just like some less than others. And I haven’t hated a person in a long time. I guess the last one was that really hateful student I once had in one of my writing classes. But he shouldn’t have been worthy of my negative emotions. The nature of hatred is that it does absolutely no one any good. The object of one’s hate isn’t any worse off for it, but the hater often finds his own soul poisoned, life gray and grainy, nights sleepless, tension in the belly that just won’t go away, a whirling in the brain as he gets so caught up in the hate he forgets all the good stuff in life. But oh, the satisfaction of getting even. Even that, though, leads to sorrow. Such is the nature of retribution—everyone gets splattered and no one wins.

Hello, Dolly

Another enjoyable evening at the Arizona Broadway Theatre, this time saying Hello to Dolly and the rest of the Yonkers crew. This place just keeps getting better and better at everything they do. This was my first experience with Hello Dolly, and I loved it. Again, the sets, costumes, choreography, and singing were exceptional, improving each season from eight years ago to the present. Morgan Springer, who played Dolly Levi, had an Ethel Merman voice, as big as Ethel’s but better than Ethel’s; Daria DeGaetano as Irene Molloy should be turning out cd’s. I know I’d buy them. The choreography has gone from adequate, just all right, in their first several seasons to near-Broadway levels with Dolly and her crowd. Gower Champion, looking down from above, would be proud. The sets have gone from okay to really clever and detailed, especially the set for the restaurant scene where everyone welcomes Dolly back. The costuming simply made me shake my head. The number and variety of the period outfits, especially Dolly’s gowns, was amazing. I keep singing ABT praises to friends and neighbors here in the West Valley, hoping they’ll join us in our attendance, hoping for continued success and growth for this truly professional theatrical venue.

If you don't believe me about the professionalism of ABT's Hello, Dolly, then check out this YouTube video.

Death & Moses

My mother died almost seventeen years ago. Doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long. My father went nearly fifty years ago. When my brother called to tell us about my mother’s failing condition, I remember our flying to South Dakota to see her. We just had to get there to say goodbye. Such a permanent thing, that last goodbye. So many last goodbyes over the years—mother and father, aunts and uncles, my sister Helen, my brother Dick, friends from the distant past, people I taught with. So many goodbyes. I remember my mother saying in her ninety-third or -fourth year that all her friends were gone ahead of her. It was almost as though she were telling me that she was ready. I’ve never really dwelt on the concept of death, but the older I get, the more I’m confronted with the grim reaper, or the green ripper, as John D. MacDonald called it in one of his Travis McGee series. Every now and then I get this wave of depression at the thought of my own mortality. It’s never an intellectual thing, something to ponder philosophically. One moment I’ll be thinking about what I’m doing and then suddenly a black cloud of depression will overwhelm me and I feel this rush of emotion about what it will actually mean when I die. Life, this long (all too short) practical joke, will be over. And what will my existence have meant in the scheme of things? Not much, I’m afraid. And then the feeling will go away for several months, only to pop up again when I’m not paying attention. I think, like my mother, that I’m more and more ready for it, ready to face the ripper and beat him senseless. Dylan Thomas instructs us, “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Although I may be ready, I have enough bad temper in me to rage against it, to go ungently into that good night.

And while I’m talking about time and mortality, how about a little theological humor:

When Moses went up Mr. Sinai to receive the two tablets, he stopped to speak to God. According to some of the less well-known gospel, Moses decided to engage God in some metaphysical questions. He said to God, “A million years is a long time to mankind, but what is it in Your perspective?’
God replied, “About a minute.”
“And a million dollars,” Moses continued, “is a fortune to most of us, but what is it in Your perspective?”
“A penny,” God answered.
Moses was thoughtful for a moment. Then, “Well, would it be possible for You to lend me a penny?”
“Just a second,” God said.

Tiger, Drugs, & John Adams

I’ve been watching the golf tournament at Torrey Pines and yesterday they got fogged out. It looked like you could almost walk on top of the stuff. I don’t remember any tournament being delayed because of fog but this day wasn’t only delayed, it was canceled. They’ll try to get in a round today, maybe even a bit of the fourth round, and then finish up on Monday. And Tiger is leading. What a nice start to the year for him. It remains to be seen if he can hold it up in the final two rounds. He’s looked good for two rounds in the recent past, but then he goes in the shit can on the weekend.

I got a prescription statement from my HMO on Saturday telling me what I’d gotten in the last month, what I paid and what my insurance paid. Yikes! I saw that my prescription for Clobetasol Propitionate shampoo, a 4-oz bottle, cost me $6.00 and the insurance paid $337.82. How in the world is that even possible? That figures out to about $85 an ounce. How in the world is that even possible? I’ve complained before about the exorbitant charges for certain prescription drugs—like the salves for my squamous-cell legs, the soriatane pills for my psoriasis, the drops for my post-op eyes. And now this shampoo that isn’t much better than the over-the-counter stuff I’ve always used. When oh when will we finally crack down on pharmaceutical companies and their outlandish prices?

Thanks to Netflix we’ve been watching the 2008 HBO series John Adams and I’ve been very impressed, not only with the acting and authenticity of the costuming and sets and historical details, but with the down-home quality of the story. After all these years, I now have a much better understanding of and appreciation for the history of our nation’s birth and the difficulties that followed. Paul Giamatti is John Adams, Laura Linney is Abigail Adams, and David Morse, with a bunch of facial transformation is George Washington, and Tom Wilkinson is the lecherous old Dr. Benjamin Franklin. If the portrayal is accurate, Abigail Adams was the driving force behind John Adams, counseling him, pushing him, making him more than the well-known barrister he was before the revolution. The acting, especially of Giamatti and Linney, is really excellent.

Torrey Pines

We got up this morning to light showers and cooler than usual temperatures. But how can one complain about calm, cloudy, mid-sixties weather? I guess one could, but one would get no sympathy from anyone living in the northern tier where they’re getting yards of snow and temps down under.

We sat around this morning waiting for Rick from Sit Well Upholstery to come pick up our two rocker/glider chairs. A little pricey but the chairs are La-Z-Boys and cheaper to reupholster than to replace. Squeakie doesn’t know what to do now that her favorite place to sleep is gone. I guess she’ll just to have to find another favorite place until Rick brings the chairs back.

This afternoon, we watched the golf at Torrey Pines in San Diego, Tiger and the boys playing the two courses there. It was nice to see the 2013 tour get under way again. I don’t know how many more tours I have in me, so each one is now extra special. Tiger played the tougher, longer south course and looked very good except for a few putting errors. I really hope he can get back on track this year. The most striking thing about him is his chiseled look. I don’t think I’ve seen any athlete look more fit than Tiger. And speaking of fit, the shots of the coastline there were simply spectacular—the Pacific crashing onto the beaches below the golf course, the skies with cluster clouds looking unrealistically beautiful, the southern California trees and plants framing each camera shot. For those who missed the coverage, tune in tomorrow to see what I’m talking about. You don’t have to be a golf fan to appreciate the beauty of the camera coverage.

Cataracts

Yesterday I visited my eye clinic again for sweet Dr. Chong to again stick a knife in my eye, this time the left one. This time, unlike with the right eye, I experienced a little pain, but nothing unbearable. And in what seemed like no time at all, Rosalie picked me up at the discharge door and drove me home, eye guard in place like a modern-day Captain Kidd.

This morning, after I took off the eye guard, the world looked bright and white and clear. On the drive to my post-op with Dr. Chong, I was able to read all the road signs, even the ones way down the road. Wonderful. After another measurement Dr. Chong told me that both eyes were now 20-30, which for an old guy like me is pretty good. She said I’d be able to get along with a cheapie pair of glasses, 2.5 magnification for reading, 1.5 magnification for working at the computer, and nothing for the rest of my visual world. That means I’ll be able to throw away the glasses I’ve been stuck with for the past sixty years. I’ll again be able to see a golf ball in flight and in landing. And now that I don’t hit the ball as far as I once did, I’ll be able to see where it lands even easier than in the past. Wonderful. Now if science and technology and medicine would just hurry up and find a way to replace the entire body, I could be a new man and live to be a thousand. Whoa! I don’t think I’d WANT to live to be a thousand. But I’d sure settle for two or three hundred.

This seems like an appropriate place for a Senior Citizen joke:
At a local coffee shop, a group of seniors were sitting around talking about all their ailments.
"My arms have gotten so weak I can hardly lift this cup of coffee," said one.
"Yes, I know," said another. "My cataracts are so bad; I can't even see my coffee."
"I couldn't even mark an "X" at election time, my hands are so crippled," volunteered a third.
"What? Speak up! What? I can't hear you!’ said one elderly lady.
"I can't turn my head because of the arthritis in my neck," said one, to which several nodded weakly in agreement.
"My blood pressure pills make me so dizzy!" exclaimed another.
"I forget where I am, and where I'm going," said another.
"I guess that's the price we pay for getting old," winced an old man as he slowly shook his head.
The others nodded in agreement.
"Well, count your Blessings," said a woman cheerfully. "Thank God we can all still drive."

Oscar

The nominations are out and there are at least three that got overlooked that shouldn’t have been . . . overlooked, that is. And one inclusion that never should have been . . . included, that is. Nine movies up for best, with Beasts of the Southern Wild one of them, yet there was no Moonlight Kingdom. How is that possible? I still can’t understand how Beasts has gotten such raves from so many people. Did I miss something? There was no story, or at least very little story. And the 6-year-old who played Hushpuppy was adorable. But let’s face it, she was only six. And somehow or other Quvenzhane Wallis (try to fit your tongue around that name) is one of the five women (women?) nominated for best actress. How is THAT possible? I would think that the other four might find her nomination offensive. How in the world can anyone compare what this little girl did to what Jennifer Lawrence, Naomi Watts, Emmanuelle Riva, or Jessica Chastain did in their respective films? Especially Jessica Chastain, who WILL win for best actress for what she did in Zero Dark Thirty. Then there are the oversights for best director. Benh Zeitlin, the very young director of Beasts of the Southern Wild, has been nominated, and Ben Affleck for Argo and Kathryn Bigelow for Zero were overlooked. Where in the world were the Academy voters looking? Rosalie had not seen Zero Dark Thirty and I thought she should. So we went, she for the first time, I for the second. Was I bored seeing it again after only a week? Not on your life. It was as powerful and tense this time as last time. Amazing. Great story, great film, great Jessica Chastain, great Kathryn Bigelow. And if, for some weird reason, young Miss Wallis should be named as best actress, I will never again watch an Academy Awards. Oscar can just go play with his golden self.

Guns Again

Here I am, beating that same old drum again, just as is nearly everyone else who has an opinion to express regarding “gun control.” It’s less a matter of controlling guns than of controlling who should be able to buy guns. It’s less about controlling all guns than of controlling those awful assault rifles that fire so many bullets in such a short time. Gun owners fear that any move to ban some kinds of guns could result in a ban on all guns. That’s an unreasonable assumption. Neither President Obama nor those who agree with him want to take all guns away from all people. A background check on buyers is reasonable and in no way infringes on the Second Amendment. A limit on the size of magazines is reasonable and in no way infringes on the Second Amendment. Fish and Game departments have for a long time set a limit on the number of shells a hunter of birds can have in his shotgun, and no hunter cries foul (or fowl) because it infringes on his Second Amendment rights. According to the following poll, a majority of Americans believe that some action must be taken. A majority. Doesn’t that suggest that we really SHOULD do something about gun violence? A majority of us say yes.

Eye Surgery

I had eye surgery early yesterday afternoon, the first eye, second eye a week later. An interesting experience. I wasn’t very anxious about having it done because wife Rosalie had the same procedure several years ago and she had no pain or any problems during or afterwards. In fact, I was eager to have it done because of my rapid loss of visual clarity. Amazing how fast my eyesight went from good to bad. Dr. Chong assured me that this procedure would let me see again even without prescription lens, or at least without the progressive bifocals I now have. Just a pair of cheapie magnifying glasses for reading. After nearly my entire lifetime of wearing glasses, I may be able to throw the suckers away. Oh, happy day. A week from today I’ll have my left eye done, after which I’ll be seeing like a youngster.

Dr. Chong—Eva-Marie Chong—looks like she’s about fifteen and is cute as a newborn’s toes. I wanted to ask her if her parents were such fans of the old Brando movie On the Waterfront that they named her after Eva-Marie Saint, the only other Eva-Marie I’ve ever heard of. But I didn’t. Maybe next week I’ll ask her.

I arrived at the eye clinic at 1:00, about thirty minutes before my appointment to allow for the necessary paperwork. Rosalie drove us there and waited for me in the chilly lobby when I was taken in for my pre-op. If I had one person ask me if I had any allergies, I had a dozen people ask me. Blood pressure taken (a little higher than I expected but still okay), temperature taken (lower than normal, maybe because it’s been so damn cold here in the Valley), IV into the back of my left hand, countless drops of something into my right eye. Then they wheeled me into the operating room where Dr. Chong greeted me again, asking me again if I had any allergies. Again I said no. Then she told me what I’d be experiencing during the operation—some pain but nothing very painful, bright lights, and noises that would sound like an oboe or some animal on a hunt for game. And it would take only about fifteen minutes. She cautioned me to let her know if I felt any undue pain or if I felt a cough or sneeze coming on (wouldn’t want a lady with a knife in her hand trying to cut into my eyeball just as I sneezed). I assured her that I’d let her know. The sedative they’d given me made me sleepy but not out of it. I saw the bright lights, with a tiny blue rectangle in the center of the lights dancing around with a faint pink border. I heard the sounds—more to me like an alien coming to call than an oboe or a wild animal. But then, nearly everything I hear sounds like an alien. And before I knew it, she was done. The attending nurse taped a pad and shield to my eye and they wheeled me back to the recovery room where I was able to sit up. Then I was given a fruit bar and a cup of hot chocolate. Without my having anything to eat since the night before, the bar and chocolate were oh so welcome. I was then led out to the front where Rosalie picked me up and then the drive home. Just another process in fixing what’s wrong with me. Now I have Dr. Chong for my new eyes, the Midwestern Dental School for my new mouth. And I guess any day now I’ll need new ears. No, on second thought, if I lose my hearing that might be a blessing, not having to listen to dumb conversations. But I would miss my music.

One more related comment about having cataract surgery. I had to get three prescriptions for eye drops for pre-op and post-op applications—Vigamox, Nevanac, and Prednisalone. The Vigamox and Nevanac are both tiny bottles, 3 ml. each, and together they cost $130. I ask again, how can pharmaceutical companies ask that much for their magical products? How can they justify that price? I don’t know, but I sure wish our legislators would crack down on exorbitant charges for pills and drops and lotions.

Hand Art

How about a little hand art? Aren’t these amazing? And I just have to include some pics, front and back, of a piece of hand art I got a long time ago for holding spare rings. That's no gesture to you, dear reader, just a place to hang my rings. I usually save that gesture for rude drivers.

I got up this morning to a temp in the mid-twenties, a hard freeze. In my nineteen years here in the Valley, I don't remember having so many freezing days in a row. Must be part of the global warming stuff that has turned the lows and highs around, record cold here, record warmth in Chicago and New York. All our shrubs in back and front are now just black leaves. But they'll come back to life when it finally warms up. Until then, here's a finger for you, Mr. Weather.

Zero Dark Thirty & Two Jokes

I hate to sound like the little boy who cried wolf. Some might think I’m too effusive about films I’ve seen. But, okay, here I go again. I just saw the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen. The only word I could think of when I left the theater was “powerful.” Or maybe it was the most powerful I remember. At my age my memory may be suspect. I’m talking about Zero Dark Thirty. I think it’s close to a shoo-in for best picture, even though all the critics are backing Lincoln, even though there is controversy about the film’s depiction of coercive interrogation techniques, more bluntly called torture. I also think Jessica Chastain is a shoo-in for best actress. Any critics who would include the young girl in Beasts of the Southern Wild as a nominee for best actress should have their critic badges ripped from them. Quvenzhane Wallis was a cutie pie, but what she did could hardly be called acting. Jessica Chastain was acting, and acting well enough to win an Oscar.

Zero Dark Thirty begins with a darkened screen, the only story movement the bits of phone conversations during the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. After a minute of this, the opening scene follows Maya (Jessica Chastain), a young CIA interrogator, as she is introduced to the offensively ugly coercive interrogation techniques we were using early in this century—water boarding, sleep deprivation, physical beating. Most Americans would rather not admit that these black holes, interrogation sites, even existed, nor that the U.S. would resort to such inhumane tactics. Through Maya, the story traces the eleven years from 9/11 to the night raid on Bin Laden’s hideaway fortress in Pakistan. And even though we all know the outcome, the tension builds to an amazing level. I felt like I had a seat next to President Obama and Hillary Clinton in the War Room. I shared with them the suspense of this very risky move and the awe at our having pulled it off successfully. Yeah, it should be a shoo-in for best movie and actress and who knows how many other categories.

Here are two jokes about oldies you may not have seen. Thanks, Larry.

An old fella was celebrating 92 years on this earth. He spoke to his toes. "Hello, toes," he said. "How are you? You know, you're 92 today. Oh the times we've had! Remember how we walked in the park in the summer every Sunday afternoon, the times we waltzed on the dance floor? Happy Birthday, toes!"
"Hello, knees.", he continued. "How are you? You know you're 92 today. Oh, the times we've had! Remember when we marched in the parade, all the hurdles we've jumped together? Happy Birthday, knees."
Then, he looked down at his crotch. "Hello,Willie, you little bugger. Just think.
If you were alive today, you'd be 92."

An elderly couple in their 70's were about to get married.
She said: I want to keep my house.
He said: That's fine with me.
She said: I want to keep my Cadillac.
He said: That's fine with me.
She said: I want to have sex six times a week.
He said: Put me down for Fridays.

Promised Land & Loaded Teachers

I find myself pulled in two directions after seeing Matt Damon in Promised Land—east toward villainy and antagonism and west toward heroism and protagonism. Both his character, Steve Butler, and the hydraulic fracturing process for getting natural gas out of the ground are dual in nature. Damon works as a front man for the eight-billion dollar corporation called Global Crosspower Solutions. He and Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), his mentor, show up in the small Pennsylvania farming community to buy drilling rights from all the landowners. And both of them (Who doesn’t love Matt Damon and Frances McDormand?) initially appear as nice people doing evil deeds for an evil company. They discuss their plans to bilk the residents as they buy clothes to help them masquerade as “down home” farm folk. The dichotomy continues. At an open meeting in the high school, Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), an aging science teacher with major scientific pedigree, challenges Damon about the dangers of fracking. Later, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), an environmentalist from a group called Athena, shows up to present the other side, to try to subvert the evil gas company’s plans. Even the townspeople are split about evenly as to whether they should or should not sell the drilling rights. Are Steve and Sue bad people posing as good people or are they good people trying to help this dying community? Is fracking an environmental disaster or is it a safe process to help us become energy self-sufficient? Neither question is answered. The scenery of farmland Pennsylvania is beautiful, the acting is good if not excellent, the film is worth seeing, despite the viewers’ ambivalence as they exit the theater.

Now we have plans all over the nation for arming teachers and--get this--custodians. Wow, is that a stupid idea. I was a teacher, and when I think about having a gun in my room, I wonder where I'd have to keep it to stop some bloody nutcase who crashed my party. Would I keep it locked up in a cabinet so that no student could get to it? I don't see how that would be very effective. At the initial announcement that some baddie was in the building, shooting it up, I'd have to lurch to the cabinet and unlock it, shakily extract the gun, nervously take off the safety, maybe accidentally squeeze off a few rounds into the ceiling or into one of my really bad students. Nah, that just doesn't seem like a very good plan. Where else would I carry it? I guess either tucked in at the back of my pants or in a shoulder holster. John Wayne reincarnated. Wow! Have we really come to that?

English Ups and Oz

Last night I had a linguistic dream in which I was explaining to an old friend how difficult English is for foreign-born people to learn. Just so many anomalies, so many idioms. We like to force words into new meanings that don’t always make much sense. I told him about the first line of the song in The Wizard of Oz, “We’re off to see the wizard.” “To be off” suggests an actual movement toward something. I can just see Dorothy, the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow skipping through the Oz countryside, the Emerald City in the distance (Oh, and don’t forget Toto). So they’re off to off the wizard. That is, they’re going there to kill the wizard. They aren’t really. But there’s that second “off” to explain. Reverse it and you might get, “We’re on to you” (We know all your secrets). Or “We’re onto you” (We’re now sitting on you). And look at “going” in “We’re going to be going to the Emerald City.” The first “going” has nothing to do with a moving forward as in the second “going.” It means future time, as in “Sometime in the future we’re moving toward the Emerald City.” We love to take preposition/adverbs and force them into joining forces with some verb to take on new meanings: give up (surrender), suck up (either to renew fortitude or to falsely flatter), take up (begin a new hobby), sign up (join), seize up (piston freezing by friction), shut up (close one’s mouth), chin up (raise one’s chin [a verb], but chin-up [a noun in which one raises one’s body by pulling oneself up to a bar]), shine up (falsely flatter), fix up (repair), show up (appear), slow up (And why does “slow up” mean exactly the same as “slow down?”), stick up (a verb suggesting the act of putting a gun in someone’s face) and stickup (a noun indicating the act of putting a gun in someone’s face), stuck up (nose in the air), and throw up (Do we regurgitate up or down?). You know, all this linguistic consideration is giving me a headache. I think I’ll just throw up my hands. Eeeooo, now there’s a disgusting image.

The Browning of America

A bit of news last year that most people didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge. As of May 19, 2012, in this country there were more babies (under 1 year) of color than white. The media called it “The Browning of America,” a label that says a lot about the future of our country. Demographers also predict that by 2042 we will have no ethnic majority, just a majority of brown-skinned folks of mixed ethnic backgrounds. I remember reading something by Phillip Wylie half a century ago in which he said he looked forward to the day when we’re all a little tan. Well, fifty years later he’d be happy to see his wish coming true. Since our very beginning, the U. S. has been known as the melting pot, meaning we were a nation of immigrants amalgamated into one new nationality. Well, now we’re seeing us as a melting pot of ethnic diversity, a mixture of races too diverse to be labeled. Amazing that as recently as 1967 there were still anti-miscegenation laws in most of our Southern states. What idiocy. One of my nieces, as pale as virgin snow, married a man as black as Columbian coffee. And they have a lovely daughter who is latte tan. She will grow up in a society that no longer looks askance at children of mixed ethnicity, may even marry someone also mixed and have children even more mixed. And who will care? I hope no one. Tiger Woods has described himself as Cablinasian, a mixture of Caucasian, Black, Indian, and Asian. But we don’t need to invent new labels to describe ourselves. I look forward to the time when we no longer need labels for anything—not our religious preference, not our political persuasion, not our ethnic makeup. Especially not our ethnic makeup.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Thanks to Netflix (or no thanks to Netflix) we watched Beasts of the Southern Wild last night, and I came up scratching my head. “Whuuu?” I thought. “What did I just see?” Maybe the one or two times I fell asleep kept me from seeing some really insightful scenes. Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), the six-year-old protagonist, narrates through most of the film, and I had a terrible time trying to decipher what she was saying. Generally, I guess she was talking about being one tiny piece in the overall scheme of the universe. I guess. Praise for the young star may be overstated in that she didn’t really have much acting to do, just sort of be herself bobbing and weaving through her junkyard community of Louisiana Bayou misfits. After reading a few reviews of this movie, I expected more. And I got less.

The wind is blowing today. Sun is out, but it’s windier’n hell. Today was our day for pickup of recyclables. When I went out to retrieve our plastic tubs, I found them at various distances down the street, doing a little plastic dance as they slid to the west. As I said, windier’n hell.

Our new year, 2013, is three days underway, and all our resolutions are now in play. Number one is for both of us to give up smoking . . . again. It’s very expensive and so very bad for one’s health, but it’s such fun. “Fun” may not be the right word but it comes close. How about time-fillingly satisfying? We’ve been smoking recreationally for half a year now. Recreationally means about ten a day, almost all of which we’ve been smoking on our back patio. Charlie, who always accompanies us wherever we go, was most confused this morning when we didn’t go out on the patio. “Come on, guys. Let’s go out, let’s go out. Come on, come on!” And when we finally let him out by himself, he just looked at us, waiting for us to join him. We didn’t, and soon after, the wind and chill got to him and he decided to come in.

A writer’s words to live by: “Writer’s Block: when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.” And finally, “Even if it’s crap, get it on the page.”

Jack Reacher

Robert Duval, what could you have been thinking when you signed on to this project? Couldn’t you see all the holes in the plot? About as many holes as several assault weapons could put into the several cars Reacher drove. But you signed up for it anyway. All right. So, what can any true fan of the Lee Child series say about this first (probably not the last) cinematic episode in the life and times of Jack Reacher? Well, anyone who had never read any of the Reachers might think this was a good action film. And it was. Lots of shooting. One lengthy example of the requisite car chase (Reacher after the bad guys, cops after Reacher), lots of screeching tires and smashed bumpers. And several hand-to-hands with Reacher just demolishing up to five bad guys at a time. All in all, then, it was worth going to see, especially if you hadn’t already read the seventeen novels in the series. But I have read them, and I just couldn’t force myself to see in Tom Cruise the Jack Reacher I know and love. Just not tall enough or big enough. Maybe I’ll get over that after I’ve seen more of the inevitable sequels. But next time, whoever writes the screenplays, please don’t leave unexplained the motives of the bad guys; please don’t insert any needless comic bits like the Three Stooges bathroom scene wherein two bad guys try to beat on Reacher with a baseball bat and a crowbar, succeeding only in whacking each other; please don’t feel that your audience needs to see a female lawyer’s boobs hanging out; please don’t include any conveniently located large chunks of concrete behind which Reacher can take refuge from the bad guys’ bullets; and don’t, please don’t, invite Robert Duval to play the comic sidekick to Tom Cruise, or, I guess I mean, Jack Reacher.

And after this film about a seemingly random mass shooting with a sniper rifle, I just have to include this political cartoon by Mike Luckovitch in the Atlanta Journal.

New Year's Eve

We’re on the eve of another year, and I can’t wait to see what 2013 will bring us. We’re about to tumble off the fiscal cliff, and despite the dire warnings, I don’t think anyone will get very hurt when we hit bottom. It may sound worse than what will be. Somewhere down the road congress and President Obama will take care of it. Also somewhere down the road, we’ll see new legislation regulating guns. It won’t take away the handguns and rifles the NRA hold so dearly, just the big stuff no honest citizen needs. I don’t see this sort of legislation as threatening the Second Amendment. The stock market will stay solid; the world economy will become more steady. All will be right with the world. Now, if we could just get those Middle Eastern countries to stop killing each other.

Rosalie and I are going to have a safe and sane New Year’s Eve, just as we always have. We’ll have a nice meal of salad, baked potato, New York strip steak, and a piece of Sara Lee’s apple pie to top it all off. Then we’ll try to stay up for the ball drop in New York. That will be 10:00 here. And that’s about as long as we can make it, old folks that we are.

This will be my 630th post over the three and a half years I’ve had this blog site. When I began I never dreamed I’d find enough to write about for over 600 blogs. Just goes to show how verbose I am. But I’ve enjoyed it, and enjoyed the readers from all over the world who may have stumbled onto my Doggy-Dog World. Thank you. And if any of these readers whom I don’t know would like to write to me, I’d love to hear from you. My e-mail address is jertrav33@aol.com. If you write, I’ll answer.

Meanwhile, happy New Year. Prospero año y felicidad.

Django Unchained

The end of another year and lots of movies we’ve seen or still want to see. Our latest choice was to see what Jamie Foxx would do with his role as the slave Django in Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino apparently set out to out-Western every Western ever made, and out-bloody every bloody shootout ever filmed, Western or cops-and-robbers or whatever. It was a humorous satire with an underlying moral theme. The humor was seen in the outlandish outfits Django chose to wear, especially the Blue Boy suit he picked out when Dr. King Schulz (Christoph Walz), Django’s savior, lets him choose anything he wants as his new wardrobe. More humor in the choice of background music as stereotyped by all the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns of yesteryear, the incompetent band of KKKers who decide to forego their head bags because they can’t see what they were doing, the overblown scenic views too perfect to be real (the mountains, the rocky campsites, the bar with beer taps and glass mugs, the unlikely number of plantations underlings who respond to the shooting in the plantation mansion at Candyland, the amount of horrific bloodshedding in that final shootout, the high-stepping routine Django goes into with his horse as he shows off for his wife Broomhilda at movie’s end. But always, beneath the humor and satire, is the indictment of an institution like slavery, an institution that too many antebellum whites could condone, could unthinkingly, inhumanely, believe that a human being could be owned, a piece of property to whom the owner could do anything with impunity. The acting was excellent—Walz as the ex-dentist bounty hunter, DiCaprio as the effeminate Calvin Candie, Foxx as the “fastest gun in the South,” and Samuel L. Jackson as the truly evil reverse “Steppin Fetchit” house slave. But Christoph Walz is the best and will probably receive a nomination is the Oscar race.

In reviewing this year’s trends in film, I keep seeing too many action films that rely too much on improbable high speed chases through crowded streets with cars and trucks exploding by the hundreds, too much dialogue laced with ear-singeing profanity, too much needlessly graphic violence and bloodshed. Why can’t more films create their tension in simpler situations? I remember Speilberg’s directorial debut in Duel, where Dennis Weaver (remember him from Gunsmoke?) is trailed by a faceless semi driver who’s out to get him as Weaver journeys west to California—simple plot, amazing tension. I remember Cornel Wilde in The Naked Prey, a safari guide who must flee for his life from tribal warriors who have been offended by white members of the hunting party—simple plot, amazing tension. I remember Spencer Tracy as Santiago, the old man in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, as he first battles the huge marlin he’s hooked, then the sharks that come to take it away from him—simple plot, amazing tension. And even in Westerns of old, when Alan Ladd in Shane has just one climactic gun fight with the villainous Jack Palance, we don’t have or need hundreds of bodies in multiple gunfights with blood and gore all over the place, just Brandon DeWilde pleading with Shane to “come back!” as the wounded gunslinger rides off into the sunset. Simple plot, amazing tension. Do we really need all that mayhem and profanity today? Look at some recent offerings that didn’t need either: The Gray, with Liam Neeson fleeing a pack of wolves across frozen countryside; 127 Hours with James Franco fighting his head and his arm in that Colorado chasm; Life of Pi with Suraj Sharma battling the sea, befriending Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger with whom he’s sharing the lifeboat; The Inside Man with Denzel Washington trying to decipher Clive Owen’s actions in the bank.
We saw a handful of previews before Django, with the latest in the Bruce Willis Die Hard saga the one that most represents all I find unnecessary in today’s films. Even from the preview clips our ears were offended by the cacophony of the car crashes and explosions and the blueness of the language, our eyes were offended by the improbability of the physical feats of Willis and his son. Who needs it? I’ll take more Inside Men and Pi’s.

Guns, Guns, and More Guns

Another comment about guns and gun control. In McBain’s Mischief, written in 1993, the author, tongue in cheek, had this to say, “Sixty-one percent of all the murders in this city were committed by firearms, but that was no reason to take guns away from people, was it? After all, in eight percent of this city’s murders, feet or fists were the weapons, but did anyone suggest amputation as a means of control? Of course not.” That sounds like the sort of skewed logic Wayne LaPierre, NRA lobbyist, might make. "If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," he said recently. Well, Wayne, then you’re crazy. “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” they constantly say. But people who kill people find it way more difficult to complete that act if they had only fists or feet or a knife or a rope or a baseball bat, or even a vial of strychnine. And that could only be done one at a time, slowly, not twenty or twenty-six at a time, rapidly, as with those damned weapons capable of firing multiple bullets in only a few seconds. Here’s what the Second Amendment says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Where, in that statement, does it suggest that our citizenry needs to bear automatic weapons? Nowhere. It’s now way past time to tighten our controls over what arms we people have the right to bear.

The Way

I've posted a few more pictures of Charlie on The Caterwaul. He'd love to have you check him out.

Netflix sent us The Way, with Martin Sheen hiking 800 kilometers through spectacular Spanish scenery. El Camino de Santiago, the “way” referred to in the title, is a pilgrimage beginning in France, then through Basque country and the rest of Spain. The story was simple; the scenery behind the story made that long trek worthwhile, for both the pilgrims on their way as well as for the viewers of the film. I was so entranced that, if I were a wee bit younger and a whole lot more fit, I’d love to make that same journey. As with Charucer’s Canterbury pilgrims, those on this modern pilgrimage had their stories to tell. Tom (Martin Sheen), an American ophthalmologist, has learned that his son Daniel (Emilio Estevez) was killed just as he was beginning el camino. Tom decides he will make the trip in his son’s place, scattering Daniel’s ashes along the way. He meets several others on the journey—Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), a Canadian trying to stop smoking; Joost (Yorick van Wageningen), a Dutchman trying to lose weight; and Jack (James Nesbitt), an Irish writer suffering from writer’s block. The four form a loose bond, at first with some antagonism, especially from Tom when he’s questioned about why he is on the journey. But the four come together more and more as they move through Spain. As I said, the story is simple. The screenplay was written by Sheen’s son, Emilio Estevez, who also directed. This movie was in the Valley for only a short time, shown exclusively at a Harkins theater way over in the East Valley, there and then gone, as happens with too many films with limited appeal to the mass audience. If you haven’t seen it, go to Netflix. It’s a trip you’ll find well worthwhile.

I’m rereading some of the McBain 87th Precinct novels, and stumbled onto this joke. McBain loved to insert jokes in his stories, and this one broke me up.

This guy is giving a lecture on supernatural phenomena, and when he finishes the lecture he asks the crowd if any of them have ever been in the presence of a ghost. The hands go up, and he counts them, and he says, “That’s about right. I usually get a response of about fifty percent to that question. Now how many of you who just raised your hands have ever been touched by a ghost?” The hands go up again, and he counts them, and says, “That’s about right, too, sixteen, seventeen percent is what I usually get. Now how many of you have ever had intercourse with a ghost?” Well, this old guy in his nineties raises his hand, and the lecturer asks him to please come up to the stage, and the guy dodders to the front of the auditorium, and climbs the steps, and the lecturer says, “Sir, this is really astonishing. I give these lectures all over the world, and this is the first time I’ve ever met anyone who’d actually had intercourse with a ghost.” The old man says, “What? Would you say that again, please?” And the lecturer yells, “THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I’VE EVER MET ANYONE WHO’S ACTUALLY HAD INTERCOURSE WITH A GHOST!” and the old guy says, “Oh, excuse me. I thought you said intercourse with a goat!”

And here’s another from my brother Bob:

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left. With AIG, you would have less than $15 left. With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000. But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all of it, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling refund, you would have $214 cash. Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It’s called the 401-Keg. A recent study found the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.

Happy Christmas Eve eve, everyone.

Killing Them Softly & The Guilt Trip

Killing Them Softly was . . . interesting. Very simple plot. The premise seemed to be that mob violence and mob business is just like any other business, turning on budgetary concerns about how much certain products cost. And Brad Pitt, although as easy to watch as ever, could hardly be said to be soft about his killing. Hardly. There was blood all over the place, up close and personal. The use of the camera was the most interesting thing about this film, allowing the viewer to share in the experience of a heroin high as one of the loopy thugs who had robbed a mob poker game of about $200,000 shot up and spiraled into a narcotic buzz, taking the viewer along with him. The language throughout was enough to burn these tired old ears, and the settings, like the aftermath of WW II blitz bombings, depressing enough to make us all thankful to be living anywhere but there. This was a most forgettable film. In fact, I’ve already forgotten it.

I’ve always admired Barbra Streisand’s voice, and I’ve loved her acting in any number of films, especially The Way We Were and Prince of Tides. Not so much so in those two bombs about the Fockers. But in Guilt Trip she was again on track. In fact, her performance as Andy’s mother was about as good as anything I’ve seen this year. Andy (Seth Rogen) is trying to promote his product, an eco-friendly all-purpose cleaner called Sci-O-Clean, unsuccessfully promoting it to various corporations around the country. His mother, Joyce, agrees to accompany him from New Jersey to San Francisco as he pitches his cleaner. Andy has asked her along because he wants to reunite her with an old boyfriend, a businessman in San Francisco named Andy Margolis, the man she’d named her son after. The comic scenes along the way are low-key but satisfying. In fact, the relationship between them, both mother and son as well as Rogen and Streisand, are the glue that holds the whole thing together. And, how satisfying to see a film without the usual slew of toilet humor and four-letter barrages. Thank you, Seth. Thank you Barbra.

My brother sent me this bit of Christmas cheer, a bit of holiday doggeral, and, even though some of you may have already seen it, I offer it to those who have not. Thanks, Bob.

My husband and I fought constantly.
Why I married him, I'll never know.
For all those miserable years I said,
"My husband's just got to go!"

I tried poisoning his cakes, stripping his bed
And salting his pork chops with lime,
Wiring his chair and igniting his hair
Even though arson's a crime!

But I failed at each plot
" 'Till I suddenly thought
Of a way that would set me free!
I got rid of him for good and, know what?
They couldn't do a thing to me!

I took him back to Wal-Mart!
They'll take anything back, you know.
They said they couldn't recall selling him,
But they must've if I said so.

They just credited him to my Visa and said,
"Ya'll come back now, ya hear?"
They were so nice, so polite, so pleasant and so,
I think I'll take back his mother next year!

They'll take anything back at Wal-Mart,
Though it's broken, rotten, or sweet.
You know what else? This time of year,
You don't even need a receipt!

Brenda's Cafe

I had a date with an ophthalmologist this morning, so we drove to Sun City to Brenda’s Café for breakfast. Brenda’s is a tiny place within a tiny shopping plaza on the edge of Youngtown, serving only breakfast and lunch and closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The place was jammed with old folks chowing down, six booths, eight tables, and a counter with six stools. And every booth and table was full. But two fat old people got us just as we arrived, and we took their booth. When I say “fat old people,” I’m not exaggerating. It seems like there’s an inordinate number of oldies who are nearly double the weight they should be. Both Rosalie and I are overweight, but we’re not even close to the ones who can barely hoist their fat butts out of a chair or booth. We watched one such make her ever so slow approach to the counter where she plunked herself down beside what looked like her daughter, who was sitting there like a mountain shoveling down eggs and bacon and home fries and toast and more bacon and more home fries. I would have thought she might have trouhle removing the stool from her fat butt when she finally got up. But she didn’t, and there was no loud pop as she rose from the stool. But aside from all the obese butts, Brenda’s is maybe the friendliest place I’ve ever encountered. All the waitresses (all seniors) and Brenda seemed to know all the customers, hollering at them as they left, “See ya Monday, Charlie (or Mabel or Sis or Hank)! Merry Christmas!” And everywhere you looked were small Christmas figures that sang and danced when you squeezed their hands or punched their bellies. All over the place, one or more in each booth or on each table, propped up in various shadow boxes, sitting on the backs of the booths. There was even a four-foot Santa outside the entrance that went “Ho, Ho, Ho!” when you got near him, and then sang a Santa-like version of “Jingle Bells” as he rocked up and down in time to the jingling bells. And after a fine breakfast of coffee, eggs, home fries, a bacon strip, a sausage patty, and a biscuit downed with honey, we paid our really modest bill and waddled out to the accompanying shouts of “Thanks for comin’ and have a Merry Christmas!” Yeah, maybe the friendliest place I’ve ever seen, and you bet, Brenda, you’ll see us again.

Then on to see Dr. Eva Marie Chong. After all the preliminary eye checks, it was determined that I shouldn’t have been using Viseine’s Redness Relief drops because they restricted blood vessels in the eyes and were exactly the wrong remedy for anyone with dry eyes. Okay. Then she told me I had cataracts in both eyes, causing the burning and blurred vision I was now experiencing. I could, she told me, either ignore it and live with it or I could have cataract surgery and intraocular lens implants in both eyes. I agreed to the surgery since Rosalie had had the same procedure done with no ill effects and considerably better vision. I’m beginning to feel like a bionic man—new teeth, new eyes. Now, if I could just figure out how to get an entire new body I’d be all set.

Annie

We saw Annie at the Arizona Broadway Theatre last night and, as usual, enjoyed it. I can’t get over how this small, local dinner theater continues to improve with every show. Annie isn’t one of my favorite musicals, with “Tomorrow” the only song I knew. But the singing and dancing were again stellar, especially that of the eight orphans. The dog that played Sandy was delightfully professional; the girl that played Annie (Morgan Goldberg) was good but not great, without much of a voice; Miss Hannigan (Johanna Carlisle) was very good as the drunken head of the orphanage; Daddy Warbucks (David Simmons) was good, although he looked more like a 50-gallon drum than a Thirties billionaire. His was the most barrel-like of anyone I’d call barrel-chested. But the best feature of the production was the set design, especially the one in the Warbuck’s home—a New York skyline outside the window, a carpeted staircase, and an eight-foot lighted Christmas tree. We’re so lucky to have such a good venue for musical theatre here in the West Valley. Too bad more of our Sun City West neighbors don’t take advantage of it. Next up is Hello, Dolly in January.

Guns Again

It’s time to talk about guns again. In light of the twenty children and six adults shot and killed in Newtown, Connecticut, it’s way past time to talk about guns again. I’m not opposed to the Second Amendment; I’m opposed to its application in a modern society. The Founding Fathers correctly protected the rights of individuals to own guns—rifles, shotguns, handguns—weapons they needed to hunt game for the family table, needed to fend off varmints both animal and human (sometimes one and the same) that threatened them and their families. This was a time when there was little police presence to protect them. And, the Founding Fathers thought it might again be necessary for a civilian army to rise up to battle invaders from Britain or Mexico or even Canada who threatened our borders. That was then. This is now. Why is it now necessary to protect the rights of individuals who want to own assault weapons with high capacity magazines, or even weapons more lethal than that—grenade launchers and mortars and bazookas, maybe even a tank or two? We now have armed police forces all around us to protect us from most varmints. We have military forces to guard our borders. We have National Guard units to protect us. We have militia groups (heaven help us!) to supposedly guard us from invaders within. Sportsmen and hunters and gun collectors don’t need fully-automatic or semi-automatic weapons that fire as many or more than thirty rounds in fifteen seconds. Jared Loughner fired 31 shots in about fifteen seconds in Tucson from his Glock 19. James Holmes in July of this year had a 100-round drum magazine in that Colorado theater, killing twelve and wounding fifty-eight. Why would Nancy Lanza, ardent gun collector, not have kept her “collection” more safely locked up, knowing she had a son with mental issues? Where is the sport in having such weapons? What hunter needs such weapons to bring down a deer or moose or elk or bear? Or even an elephant, for that matter? Why did we allow the 1994 law against high-capacity magazines to expire in 2004 and not renew it? Let’s keep the right to bear rifles and shotguns and handguns. Let’s renew a ban against high-capacity magazines. Let’s require background security checks for anyone wanting to buy such weapons. Let’s tighten controls over gun sales at gun shows. Good God, let’s stop the mass killings in our country.

Great Acting

How could I have forgotten comedies and romantic comedies? It’s a Mad Mad Mad World has to be at the top of the comedies, and Pretty Woman at the top of the romantic comedies, followed by Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. There, that’s done.

Now, what about actors and actresses? In the past, there were so many men and women who had pure star power, but they weren’t necessarily good actors. Look at this list of male stars—Paul Newman, Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, John Wayne, Clark Gable. Of this list of super stars, only Paul Newman stands out as a great actor. The best of American and British actors has to be Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier with Orson Wells a close second to Brando. Modern screen stars are Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise, but no one would say any of them is a great actor. So, after Brando and Olivier, the rest of the good ones, past and present, are Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Sidney Poitier, George C. Scott, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

The women stars of the past are Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Greta Garbo, Liz Taylor, Grace Kelly, Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Hepburn, Betty Davis, and Joanne Woodward, with the last three the best actresses, Joanne Woodward the best of the best. Of the modern stars, the best are, in descending order, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Frances McDormand, and Charlize Theron. I’m sure I must have overlooked some great ones, but I can’t think of any. For example, Holly Hunter is a sleeper that most of us don’t think of because she’s been out of the spotlight for so long, but has she been very good in everything she’s been in.

I love movies and the people who star in them. What would I do in my old age if I didn’t have darkened theaters to go to, a place to watch beautiful men and women create other people and other places on the big screen?

Best Movies

My consideration of the best Christmas songs led me to other bests, naturally best movies and books. I’m good with movies, having seen damn near every film ever made. Lots of critics think Citizen Kane is the best ever, but I have to confess I’ve never seen it, so I can’t really rank it. Others say Casablanca, and again I must confess I’ve never seen it. How can that be for a rabid film viewer to have never seen either of these films? I don’t know. Maybe I’d better Netflix them. Aside from those two, here’s my list for straight drama in descending order: On the Waterfront, Gone with the Wind, From Here to Eternity, The African Queen, Picnic, and The Graduate. You’ll notice that none of them are from the last thirty years. I know there have been some great movies in that period, but they’re still too close to me. Best musicals? An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain. That’s it, no more. Best horror—what else but Psycho, followed by The Innocents and The Uninvited. The many many horror flicks in the last thirty or forty years are based too much on buckets and buckets of gore. That much blood and too many masked villains leaping out of closets don’t make for great films, sometimes not even very good films. War movies—Saving Private Ryan, The Bridge over the River Kwai, The Great Escape, Schindler’s List, Mash, and Stalag 17. Again, All Quiet on the Western Front is always mentioned, but again, I’ve never seen it. Science fiction—2001, a Space Odyssey and Star Wars. What about a genre that’s almost forgotten, the western? Okay, Shane, Stagecoach, Red River, and The Searchers. You’ll notice I’m leaving out High Noon. That’s because when I saw it a year or so ago, I realized just how hokie it was, despite Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Now I’m at the bottom of my categories, prison flicks. The best of these has to be The Shawshank Redemption, The Bird Man of Alcatraz, and The Green Mile.

I know I must have left out a bunch that I simply didn’t think of. Let me know if you think of any that should be included. Let me know if you agree or disagree with my assessment. And tomorrow I’ll move on to actors and actresses and books.

Christmas Songs

I’m listening to Christmas carols and songs. Or is that redundant? I think of carols as being about Christ and his birth, and Christmas songs as being about the season and Christmas and trees and getting together with loved ones. Anyway, that started me thinking about which of the carols and songs are the best, the greatest, and which great ones are best versions sung by best singers. First, let me get rid of all the really irritating seasonal songs—out goes Elvis’s “Blue Christmas,” ditto for Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad,” and so long Gene Autrey’s “Rudolph,” bye bye Burl Ives’s “Frosty,” and now we can forget those irritating little kids who want two front teeth and saw Mommy kissing Santa, and most obnoxious of all, Randy Brooks’ “Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

Now, back to the best. I’d have to rank Mel Tormé’s “The Christmas Song” as the best and his the best version, although there are a bunch of others who have sung it well. “Jingle Bells” may be the most often sung, but it’s too much a jivey little thing to be considered a great song. And if you want to hear a really frenetic version of those bells, Barbra Streisand’s triple-tempo will grate on your nerves for the entire season. One of the least well known but best songs is by Faith Hill, “A Baby Changes Everything.” Then there’s the old Claude Thornhill band’s theme song, “Snowfall.” And the very best version of this one is by The Manhattan Transfer. So many of the songs we know and sometimes love have been sung by so many different artists, it’s hard to pick who’s the best. But here are some suggestions: “The Little Drummer Boy” by Faith Hill, “River” by either Dianne Reeves or Madeleine Peyroux, “I Wonder As I Wander” by Barbra Streisand, “Some Children See Him” by Kenny Loggins, “White Christmas” by--who else?--Bing Crosby, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ by Johnny Mathis, “The First Noel/Mary Mary” by Sarah McLachlan, and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” by Andy Williams. Nearly every singer worth his/her salt (and some not worth even two grains) have put out at least one Christmas album. So, which do I recommend? I go old school and pick Sinatra’s oldie, Andy Williams’ oldie, and Barbra Streisand’s not so oldie. Everybody’s got an opinion. Let me know what you think.

I’ve included a YouTube selection by a YouTuber, some of which I agree with, some I don’t. Again, what do you think?

Merry Christmas

I’m no Ebenezer Scrooge, but the older I get the more I think about Christmases past and present. They all seem to be shrinking, getting smaller and smaller, simpler and simpler, with less and less anxiety about money and what to buy for children who no longer need toys or clothing.

We used to put up lights around the ceilings of the living and dining rooms, over the fireplace. The trees were seven feet tall, and always were much prettier once we got them up and decorated than when we bought them. One year I brought home a blue spruce and Rosalie puffed up like a balloon. She had a severe allergic reaction to it and we had to undress it and haul it away, replaced by a northern pine. It was always such a pain to untangle the light strings, find that one damn burned out bulb that kept the rest of the bulbs unlit. Then the garland and tinsel and many colored-balls and school-made ornaments from one child or another, placing under the tree all the packages to one another and our children. Finally we could sit back and admire our accomplishment. But then Christmas passed and we had to reverse the process, dismantle the tree and rewrap the light strings and garland, put back in boxes all the balls and ornaments, haul the now tinder-dry tree to the street for pickup with needles shedding all over the house like cat dander. And every year the trees grew smaller.

We continued with live trees after we got to Arizona. And I strung lights outside along the front eaves, wrapping strings around the trunks of the two pineapple palms. That lasted only three or four years until we both decided that outside decorations were foolish and unnecessary.

After seven or eight years I got the bright idea to hang strings of lights from the ledge above our mirrored wall to the floor, sort of draping them in the shape of a tree, anchoring them to the floor with various heavy objects—the fireplace firepot from Donna and Larry, the brass cats I bought in North Carolina, a complete works of Shakespeare I used in college—then circling it all with garland, hanging the balls and ornaments, placing the fewer and fewer packages around the base. Turn out the house lights, turn on the strange tree. And there it was, a Christmas tree without needles. And the cats loved it. They would take turns getting inside the light strings to sit and watch us watching them. That lasted three or four years until I got tired of climbing the ladder to attach the strings of lights. Rosalie was sure in my dotage that one day I’d fall and break my neck.

Instead, we bought a small, artificial fiber-optic tree from Ace Hardware which we now have on a table in front of the mirrored wall, with several lighted Christmas houses at the base, two lighted balls outside, one hanging from the front door light, one hanging from the light near the garage door, and a fiber-optic snowman on the stereo. That’s it. Simple. We’re now at that stage in our lives where we have almost no presents under the tree. Rosalie and I need no more “stuff” in our lives, so we told the kids never to give us anything that wasn’t consumable—a box of candy or a bottle of Scotch or a gift card to Red Lobster. Presents to our kids are now money-filled envelopes. Simple. No more Black Fridays or Cyber Mondays, no more encounters with hectic crowds at the mall, no more wishing away the season only to get to a New Year, when the three hundred and fifty-nine days to the next Christmas will seem more like a hundred. I think we now need to put Christ back into Christmas. And so should most of the rest of the world.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Golf & Football

I got up to wind and cold, and on to the golf course for a 9:30 tee time. Oh, my, was it cold. I had four layers of clothes on and I was still cold. And I paid good money for a very bad round. I keep thinking I've sunk as low as I can get in terms of golf scores, but I keep sinking lower and lower. Or, in the way of golf scores, sinking higher and higher. That's rather paradoxical, but then, so is my game.

All of which reminds me of the Cardinals. They have taken ineptitude to a new level. They're no longer losing close games--they're losing by distant numbers. Fifty-eight to zip at Seattle yesterday. I'm embarrassed to say I'm a Cardinals fan. The only good thing that can come from this miserable season is for them to lose the rest of their games and get an early draft pick, a quarterback who can actually throw the ball to poor Larry Fitzgerald. But then they also have to find three or four offensive linemen to allow that quarterback some time to throw and to open up a few holes for a running back that they'd also have to draft. I'm not sure they'll have enough draft picks to find all the people they need. I wonder if they can draft a new coach while they're at it. Ah, well, as we used to say in high school after a bad season, "Just wait'll next year."

Two Reviews: Pi & Hitch

We saw Life of Pi a week ago and were impressed, especially with the young man who played Pi Patel, who had to share a lifeboat with several creatures from his father’s zoo. We went to the non-3D version, but I would guess the 3D would have been more spectacular—animals leaping, fish flying, waves rolling. The plot is quite simple, with young Pi and his family and all the family zoo animals on a Japanese cargo ship bound for Canada, where Pi’s father intends to reopen his zoo. But in a violent storm, the ship capsizes and Pi finds himself in the water, then into a lifeboat, where he discovers his boatmate under the canvas at the rear of the boat, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. They are later joined by a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan, soon after to be provisions for Richard Parker. Pi (Suraj Sharma) takes refuge on a makeshift raft that he keeps tethered to the lifeboat. The 227 days he spent with the tiger are as much a spiritual journey as a lesson in survival. The two form a tenuous alliance for most of the journey. It was a strangely moving story, and young Sarma made us believe in the indomitable spirit of man as we make our difficult journeys through life. And I now believe that one day, movies will be made with digitized characters instead of real people. It was hard to tell when the animals were real and when they were digitized, especially the tiger. If they can fool us with animals, then why not with people?

Yesterday, we saw Hitchcock, both of us wondering what they could do with a story about the corpulent, head-cocked director of suspense films. We found out. It was 1960 and Hitch (Anthony Hopkins) was adamant about making a film focusing on Ed Gein, an infamous serial killer of the day. Almost no one, even his wife Alma (Helen Mirren), thinks this is a good idea. When Paramount refuses to make it for him, he decides to finance it on his own, risking his reputation and nearly all the money he has. The story seems to be lighter in tone than one would expect from a movie about the making of Psycho, maybe the best and best known horror film ever made. The story involves two strands, the making of Psycho and the many facets of Hitch’s character, his love of, his inattention to Alma, his predatory fascination with beautiful women, especially the women he chooses to star in his films. And Scarlet Johansson, as Janet Leigh, is especially fascinating.

One of the funniest moments comes at the first showing of Psycho, as Hitch anticipates the audience reaction to the shower scene, with its iconic shrieking violins. Hopkins had fun playing with his role as Hitchcock, but it was Helen Mirren who stole the show as Alma Reville. Welcome to the Bates Motel.

Happy Holidays & Weight Loss

My Florida friend Larry sent this to me, and if you haven’t yet seen it, see it now. It’s delightful. Well, even if you've seen it elsewhere, see it again. Thanks, Larry.

And here’s an exercise for you to try if you put on a few extra pounds over the holidays. It seems to work, at least it did for me.

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 50
Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.
With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax.
Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato bags.
Then try 50-lb potato bags and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.
After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag.