Movie Review of the Month: Fists in the Pocket (Italy, 1965)

I started watching this film twice and gave up 10 minutes into it. For some reason, the beginning is a bit confusing, and the initial scene with the family is bizarre. Then I tried watching it again the other night, and was totally taken in by it. In fact, I watched it a second time this evening. Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) was the debut film for Marco Bellocchio in 1965 with an incredibly penetrating and complex performance by first timer Lou Castel. The story centers on Alessandro (Lou Castel) and his attempt to do away with his dysfunctional family, in order for his older, and normal (read, bourgeois) brother to be able to marry. When Bellocchio took a copy of the film without sound to the Venice Film Festival for consideration, he was told to abandon it altogether, to not finish it.

I think you have to understand the context of the film to understand how revolutionary and shocking it was at the time. Italian society was stiflingly bourgeois and Catholic in the early 60's. Cinema was still identified with the past masters, such as Antonioni and De Sica. Bellocchio turned these values on their head with his outrageous plot full of black humor, and presaged (along with fellow film student Bertolucci) the student riots in Europe in 1968. I believe it was Lou Castel, years later, who characterized the film as the "rumble before the earthquake".

If you're a serious film person, and haven't seen it, you must.

Tony Snow Job

I consider myself a little left of moderate, and Tony Snow, obviously, much further on the conservative side. However, I never minded watching him when he moderated the Fox Sunday News show. Yes, he was narrow minded, but there as a semblance of intelligence. But now that he's become the White House spokesperson, well, he's followed the first requirement for the job: check your intellect in at the door. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has lost mounds of respect for this guy. Why anyone would think it was a step UP to go from Fox News to the White House ventriloquist dummy, is perplexing. But, then, to hear him spout the lamest excuses for the administration's arrogance and bullying of Congress, the courts and, lately, U.S. Attorneys.

His latest retort to the Democrats issuing subpoenas for top White House advisers is to accuse them of playing "politics", something we all know the Republicans consider anathema. The Bush administration has typically acted with sheer arrogance and from the viewpoint that the Executive Branch is sacrosanct. It feels no need to consult Congress, by casting their decisions as in the interests of American safety. Bush has gotten away with this attitude of moral superiority, largely because of a Republican-dominated Congress, and some clueless Democrats who were just as asleep at the wheel.

Anna Turns 21!

My darling Pisces daughter turned 21 on March 12th. Her mom and I took her to Craft, the restaurant at the W, for a superlative meal, and then to the Ghost Bar afterwards for drinks. She had the time of her life, needless to say. The staff at Craft treated her very well, wishing her happy birthday as we entered the restaurant, and at the end bringing out a special box of chocolate truffles made just for her. The food is really as good as I've tasted in Dallas, and that's saying a lot. It was a nice place to celebrate the occasion of a 21st birthday. hip, sophisiticated design, modern and urbane. She felt really special. Afterwards, we took the elevator to the Ghost Bar, for ungodly expensive drinks, but, hey, it'll be her only 21st Birthday, ever. Great view of downtown Dallas (but not so great view of half a dozen parking lots below). You can check out a few photos on my flickr.com site HERE.

She left for NYC for 4 days today, her first trip like this on her own. She was so excited this morning, as I took her to the airport. I asked if she wanted me to come in while she checked in. She said no, matter of factly. This was a first. I know most 20-year-old women long since don't want their father to accompany them to do something like that, but our relationship has been different. She's always wanted me to do those kinds of things. I knew the time would come, however, and it has, and though it's bittersweet in one way, it's really wonderful to see her grow into her own person She's really a beautiful person through and through. I've always tried to stay conscious that our father-daughter relationship was not about me, but about her. I'm ready for her to be her own person because she's ready.

I had the feeling that the next phase of our lives together had begun. Last night was a celebration of milestones, and human passages. I recently watched a documentary about the great songwriter, ex-Small Faces founder Ronnie Lane, who died of complications from MS at 51. Several times through the documentary he says, "Life is a short movie."

I'll leave it at that.

Al Gore for President

I want to go on record with this prediction before it becomes really obvious: Al Gore is going to announce his candidacy in about a year, after Hillary and Obama have self-destructed. He is a prime candidate for the Democratic Party:
1) He has lots of Senatorial experience.
2) He has no embarrassing vote for the war in Iraq
to explain away.
3) He can raise the money easily, just on the internet.
4) He can capitalize on his longstanding warning about
global warming, now that the Republicans have quit denying
its legitimacy.
5) He won a freakin' Oscar!
6) We'll finally have a President with an intellect again, and one who can
articulate complex thoughts. Not a President who says, for example, that he tried diplomacy in Iraq "to the max."

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

If you don't listen to the weekly Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio, you're missing out on one of life's great musical pleasures. Okay, so I don't subscribe to XM Radio, but was fortunate to find the shows online. Listening to a show today, Dylan played a number from Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and he strongly suggested that the listener go to YouTube and see her in action. I did, and here it is for you, too!

We ain't gonna study war no more.

Is PBS Getting Weirder?

Has anyone noticed that PBS seems to be searching for the 21st century version of The Lawrence Welk Show? They seem to be debuting a whole host of insipid musical shows lately. I just caught a glimpse of a show called "Heavenly Voices". The point seems to be to sing in a voice not too dissimilar from the theme song to "Black Adder" (but, seriously), or to try to sound like the Vienna Boys Choir using one pair of vocal chords. The singers seem to favor this intense and hushed, breathy voice. The female singers wear dresses that take their cue from the stage curtains, singing "Dust in the Wind" with slow motion shots of Colorado aspens in fall foliage fading in and out (must be the "breathtaking visual effects" described in the promotional literature).

Then there's the VERY bizarre show "Celtic Woman", comprised of several ethereal-looking "Celtic" women (I'm assuming here), and a violinist named Máiréad, who sways around the stage playing the instrument like Nancy Wilson on guitar.

I won't even go into all the musical nostalgia shows reuniting old 1950's and 1960's groups (or what's left of them). We have Petula Clark, for example, and Peter and Gordon, all straining their voice to sound like they were teenagers again. And seeing all the old, overweight people in the audience, hands in the air, swaying back and forth, singing along, is enough to make one want to outlaw nostalgia. It gives Gerry & the Pacemakers a whole new meaning.

So, all this to say, please donate to PBS so they won't be so desperate!

Richard Thompson at the Lakewood Theater

Just saw Richard Thompson for the second time in the last 2 years. If Clapton is God, then there must be a "Supremer Being" who created God, and that would be Richard Thompson. One of the original founders of Fairport Convention, Thompson has for the past 40 years made his own way ("still paying the mortgage", as he put it last night) in a world where most songs long for the "Top 100" to validate their existence. Thompson's genius is that he has merged the medieval English/Scottish troubadour with the English Music Hall entertainer. Ray Davies and Paul McCartney also come out of that English Music Hall tradition. And it's precisely that Thompson IS so English that he has stayed so fresh.

But, in Thompson's case, add to that, the most accomplished guitar player playing today, and you see where he enters the pantheon of modern music. When he plays, he is usually keeping a bass line running, simultaneously playing lead with three of his fingers, and interspersing chords among that symphony of sounds: in effect, he makes one guitar sound like three guitars. And, might I add, flawlessly. Eliza Gilkyson, who has been opening for him on this tour, said it best: "He doesn't wank". Anyone who plays acoustic guitar knows how difficult it is to avoid hitting an occasional wrong string, or muting a string accidentally. Thompson is playing at lightning speed, with almost all 10 fingers moving this way and that, and doesn't make a single error.

Add to that, he is one of the best living songwriting talents, with moods ranging from dark ("From Galway to Graceland") to satirical ("Dear Janet Jackson": suggesting she use her breasts for their original purpose).

If you have more than tin for a musical ear, you have to put Richard Thompson among the artists you want to hear before you die.

P.S. Thanks to the Richard Thompson website for including this tribute on their website, which you must check out here.

Favorite Photos from Other Blogs #1

Was checking some other blogs today and found this great photo of a men's bathroom in New Zealand.

Poor Decisions...Life is Precious and Cheap

The criminal trial process (see previous blog entry) wore me out, emotionally and psychically, and I decided on an early bedtime last night. I went to bed thinking about how comfortable my home is and how much I love it. I had my cat sleeping on the bed, a good book, these creature comforts that you normally take for granted. I then called my daughter at Texas Tech, and she told me she had made an 81 on a tough Geology test. I told her about how the trial had involved a group of 18-20 year old guys making very poor decisions, and how much I appreciated the fact that she has always used good judgment with regards to the people she had hung around during her teenage years and presently. I think I appreciated everything in a new way. And then this made me think of Kris McLarty, the defendant, now 21 years old, going to bed last night in a jail cell, realizing he was going to be in prison for the rest of his life. I couldn't stop thinking about him, and trying to imagine how he grew up. What decisions did he make that led him down this path? Who was there for him, to teach him about the value of life? He obviously didn't have a father, and his mother barely cared for him. It came out in testimony that when he was 16, living in Dallas with his mother, that he moved to New Orleans to finish his high school education, which he did. Was there some desire to get on the straight path? I wish prison was more rehabilitating, because I know it's not. Is anyone there going to care about him? Kris had apparently made a lot of poor decisions in his life, and this murder was the one that he didn't get away with. And neither did Juan Castillo, who lost his life.

Juan's young widow came up to the witness stand after the Guilty verdict had been delivered, for what is called the "impact statement". This was her chance to speak directly to the defendant, and let him know how the murder had affected the victim's family. She spoke very eloquently. Several of the jurors started to cry, and I had to fight back the tears myself, because it pushed all the buttons about parenting and children at all levels and about how simultaneously cheap and precious life can be. I was so grateful my two children, both in their 20's, had made the right choices about friends. Juan's widow mentioned that their daughter would grow up with a big void in her life because her father would not be there. This thought struck me two ways: sad that this girl wouldn't know her father, and sad that this daughter would one day learn that her father was killed in a drug deal, that amounted to $400. I feel sure it will be explained to her that is was all out of her father's love for her and wanting to support her and her mother. But would she see that it was poor judgment on her father's part? That he foolishly risked his family's welfare in this way? That pain will resonate for her in more than one way.

Yin and Yang at Criminal Court.

I just spent the week on a jury listening to a capital murder case. It's a life-changing event, and very sad. This case involved a drug deal which resulted in the death of a 20-year old Juan Castillo, whose wife was 2 months pregnant at the time. He was working full time at a tire center, to support his family, but he was also selling marijuana on the side to earn extra cash. He was shot trying to sell a pound to a 18-year old black guy named Kris McLarty who had decided he wasn't going to pay for it--and he had a gun. This all happened the day before Katrina hit, and one of the guys involved had just fled New Orleans to Dallas. Kris, the defendant, had no family show up in court, except for his mother on one day, who only showed up under intense coercion on the defense attorney's part. She seemed like she was done with her son, and didn't care about him. She wasn't there today when we delivered the sentence of guilty, which carried an automatic life sentence. The deceased's family, about 10 or 12 family members, were there during the entire trial. This affair was a sad tale of a bunch of 18-20 year olds all using bad judgment. Really, really sad.

The other side of this experience was meeting the other 11 people on my jury, whom I wouldn't have met under other circumstances, like Edna, a sweet diminutive black woman in her late 60's, not many teeth, but with a really infectious spirit. She also wore a very cute, turban-like cap. One day red, the next day the same cap in cream color. Edna had been a cook all her life (as was her mother), is now retired, but still loves to cook at home for her son and her father. She is a single parent with a now 36-year old musician son living at home with her. She also loves to look at beautiful paintings, and she writes poetry. When I asked her what kinds of food she cooked, she opened her purse and pulled out a Polaroid snapshot of several plates of food on her dinner table, including a plate of homemade biscuits. I thought it was so sweet that she carried around a photo of food she had cooked at home.

Japanese English 1

I've collected Japanese-versions of English since I started going to Tokyo in the early 1980's. I found this today on ebay for a "HeartWarm" toy chick and egg. The description reads:

Thank you for bidding a Chibun-no-ichi hiyoko chicken and egg. If you touch its head, it will talk to you. If you leave it along, it will sad.

Friends

Two of my longtime, dearest friends, Bailey and Laurie, came for a brief visit on their way back to NYC from a vacation in Merida, Mexico. We had less than 24 hours together, and yet it felt like we had all the time in the world. We went straight from DFW airport to the Nasher Sculpture Center. Laurie is an urban landscape designer in NY, and she was most interested in seeing Peter Walker's landscaping of the Nasher. She had just heard a talk of Peter's and he seems almost transcendent in that field. Very highly regarded. Laurie has done a lot of major gardens in and around the NYC area.
Bailey had a hankering for ribs and beer, so that was our next stop. Lots of great conversation, hearing about their trip and what has been going on in our lives. I used to go to New York several times a year for 15 or more years, so we used to see a lot of each other, but I have no reason to go as much these days, so we keep up mostly by phone and email.
I got to know B & L back in the early 80's when I started collecting Japanese toys. They ran what I regard as the premiere store in the world of new and vintage artifacts chronicling our cultural mythology, and was called, naturally, MYTHOLOGY. The store was a work of art in itself, with the most fabulous window displays you could imagine (some with performing artists in them!). The store was frequented by everyone from Andy Warhol to Waylon Jennings. It inspired and, as they say, informed, my store Right Brain/Left Brain. Bailey went on to "frame fame" when Kirk Varnedoe hired him at the Museum of Modern Art to come up with a frame vocabulary for the Post Impressionist works. Bailey designed and had frames built for a dozen or more works, which included Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and Cezanne's "Bather". He also put together a wonderful book, published by Abrams, about the vital relationship a frame has to the artwork it surrounds. Check out Defining Edges.
I seem to be in a phase of my life currently when friendships, new and old, are being re-evaluated. And I realize how intensely I value the ones that have proven to weather time and distance.

Children

Several friends of mine are going through the painful part of relationships right now--poor communication, bad break-ups, sad endings. The kinds of things that make us not want a relationship. I've been there, too, of course. I found this photo today that I took of my children, Britt and Anna, several years ago. Sometimes when I've just talked with one of them, or am just thinking about some memory of them as children, I can hardly contain the emotions.

You Say It's Your Birthday....

...Happy Birthday to you. We celebrated Dad's 80th this weekend. My cousin Amal made all the Lebanese food, and it was a feast. I had to photograph the baba ghanoush, with the "80" in pomegranate seeds.

Roswell Incident 1947

Some friends and I went to Roswell, New Mexico, in 1997 for the 50th Anniversary of the "Roswell Incident". The whole town got on the bandwagon. The local hair salon covered its walls in aluminum foil and featured alien hair-do's, the bridal shop had an alien mannequin in the window with a bridal gown, and so on. People dressed up like aliens and paraded around. At night, a band played out on the former site where the UFO was purportedly discovered. It was a great event.
To see a few more photos, check out my flickr site.

B

This is my stepson Britt at Prince Hamburger's in Dallas (above left). I've been involved in his life since he was 3, and it's been one of life's great experiences. He must have been around 6 or 7 at the time of this photo. He's now 27 (above right), living in L.A., writing freelance, and running his own record label with his wife Amanda. You can check it out at notnotfun.com.

Fito y Fitipaldis

Despite the internet and digital downloads, we're sometimes so insulated musically here in this country, it seems, or at least, limited to music in English. When I lived in Berlin in the late 70's, it was an eye opener to hear great German bands and singers that I never would have heard back in the U.S.
Last year, a roadie in Spain sent me a bunch of unused tickets he picked up working shows in Spain, in trade for some other memorabilia. Most of the bands I hadn't heard of, but it's been an adventure checking them out. One, in particular, really rocks. It's a Spanish band called Fito & Fitipaldis. Check out one of their new songs Por la boca vive el pez. I think you'll like it.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr. DAY

As I listen to old speeches and film footage from Martin Luther King's life, how can one help from comparing it to modern day America? The so-called conservatives and so-called "born again" Christians (I love the bumpersticker that says "Born O.K. the first time") tout this country as a fundamentally Christian country. And there's an element of superiority when comparing us to other nations around the world. And, yet, as King reminds us, this country was built on the backs of enslaving other races---Native American, African American, and Chinese American, to name the primary ones. Remember that, in the 1950's, mixed marriages were seen primarily as immoral. This country, officially founded in 1776, is, to this day, antithetical to its founding principles 231 years down the road.
And now, that Americans have somewhat agreed that African Americans should be more or less equal, we've found a new group to discriminate against--gays. Okay, so it's now no longer seen as immoral for blacks to marry whites, but it IS immoral for gays to marry. To quote Susan B. Anthony:

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

It's astounding what humans will do to each other, especially in, but not limited to, the name of some god. We're on this planet together, and you'd think we'd figure a way to co-exist, but bloodshed and religious superiority seem to be the order of the day.

This idea of this day needs to be seen in a larger context of just blacks and whites; it needs to be a platform for us to be introspective about the way humans treat other humans.

I know these thoughts all sound like platitudes. But large truths tend to get buried that way.

Bridge School Benefit 1999

I went to Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit on Halloween night 1999 at the Shoreline Auditorium outside San Francisco. I met my friend photographer David Warrington there. He knew Neil's manager and was able to get a photo pass. He that night, which I particularly liked. On Neil's left are his wife Pegi and Eddie Vedder. On his far right is Emmylou Harris in a shocking pink wig (remember, it was Halloween!).
Neil and Pegi started the school many years ago to help their son and other kids who were born with severe speech and physical impairments. Starting in 1986, Neil started annual benefit concerts to raise money for the project. He has had the most stellar of guests, all of whom perform for free. Some include The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, Green Day, Emmylou Harris, The Who, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews and many more. And let me tell you, there was so much smoke in the audience, there was no need to bring your own stash.
You can read more about the Bridge School here.

Sam Emmett

I came across this portrait I shot of my grandfather Sam during in the 1970's. Sam was a great storyteller, and a teller of tall tales. His stories fascinated us as kids, and we still refer to imaginary characters he created, like Mr. Perkins and Mr. Abernathy. The fact that both sets of grandparents were Lebanese made we children's life very rich, because it was steeped in a culture separate from the West Texas culture all around us. I think it must have given me a sense that there was a greater world outside my hometown of Lubbock.