Haines His Way
Archives => Archive 1 => Topic started by: bk on March 23, 2004, 12:00:51 AM
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Well, you've read the notes, you're bewaring the Ides of March, you know the routine, and now it is time to post until the fershluganah cows come home.
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The dogs are in trouble.
We had some shopping to do yesterday, but when we returned we couldn't find the remote to the livingroom television. We suspect Bonnie is the culprit, because she has been on a chewing spree of late, and her chew of choice is plastic. Also, as she usually does when she's feeling guilty, she ran to my bed, rolled onto her back, and waved her front paws in the air while wagging her tail, as if to say "Don't hate me! Love me instead! Please? You know you really love me!"
There are a couple of problems. For one, we can't really be sure Buster isn't to blame, although he didn't act guilty in the slightest. Second, although we found one of the batteries to the remote, the contraption itself is still missing. Either that, or it had an "invisible" button that we'd never discovered ourselves and has been discovered for us.
So, we are living without a remote for now, which is frustrating. On the other hand, this could be the imputus der Brucer needs to finally get that wide-screen television he's been promising himself for years. Preferably one with a solid steel remote.
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Favourite Mercer songs:
Dream
Laura
Skylark
Darkest Before The Dawn
The Sweetheart Tree
The Days Of Wine And Roses
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Just before I go to bed... Johnny Mercer...
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG (makes me cry!)
AUTUMN LEAVES
THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
IF I HAD MY DRUTHERS (Guy Haines' version)
More tomorrow... Good night.
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As for Johnny Mercer, "He Shouldn't A Hadn't A Oughtn't A Swang On Me."
No, that's the song! From The Great Race, silly people! :D
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First of all, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I'm still unsure about all the details, but apparently the news has spread quickly throughout our town. My one friend said it was on the news tonight, so I'm sure I'll read about it in the paper. It's just so horrible that this happened. :(
Johnny Mercer songs:
Moon River
Autumn Leaves
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby
Accentuate the Positive
Jed and I have been engaging in a sparkling phone conversation for the last few hours. He is a wonderful listener, even if he doesn't always tell me what I want to hear! ;)
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I am still up. Why am I still up? Probably becuase I cannot sleep yet. Damn insomnia.
Jed and Laura on the phone for hours? Do I sense canoodling going on? :)
Johnny Mercer songs...just gonna echo a few that have already been named
Autumn Leaves
Black Magic
Days of Wine and Roses
Ahh...brings back memories of high school jazz choir...
Off to try to sleep..g'night all
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Phone call with Laura II was sparkling, indeed. She's every bit as charming and personable in voice as she is here on the board.
Now I've just gotta learn how to tell her what she wants to hear! :D
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And now I must sleep! Mercer songs will have to wait until this afternoon...
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Mercer Songs:
Whistling Away the Dark (#1 favorite)
and in no particular order
Laura
Moon River
Out of This World
Jeepers Creepers
Blues In The Night
Come Rain Or Come Shine
When October Goes
Jubilation T. Cornpone
Top banana
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers brief score is great.
And I am sure there are other songs I like that have Mercer lyrics but haven't realize they are by Mercer.
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First of all, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I'm still unsure about all the details, but apparently the news has spread quickly throughout our town. My one friend said it was on the news tonight, so I'm sure I'll read about it in the paper. It's just so horrible that this happened. :(
Extracts from today's Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16783-2004Mar23.html)
Loudoun Teen Dies In Shooting
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2004; Page B03
A 15-year-old was killed last night and two of his friends were being questioned by police after a gun went off in the basement of a home in an otherwise quiet Loudoun County neighborhood, police said.
Donald Nicholas Shoemaker, a freshman at Broad Run High School who went by "Nick," died shortly after a single gunshot pierced his chest about 6:30 p.m. at an Ashburn home, said Lt. Col. Randy Badura, a Loudoun police spokesman.
Shoemaker was visiting a home in the 43900 block of Bruceton Mills Circle, "a nice, middle-class neighborhood of $500,000 homes just down the street from AOL," Badura said. "It's not the kind of thing we usually get here."
Shoemaker, also an Ashburn resident, was with the friends, one of whom lives at the house with his grandparents, neighbors said.
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"One of the boys was visibly upset and kept telling a police officer that it was an accident," neighbor Robert Bombaugh said.
Another neighbor, Lisa Bowman, said that the youth who lives in the home where the shooting occurred is 16 and that he lives with his grandparents, who she said are in their eighties.
Word of the shooting spread quickly in Loudoun. It was the county's second fatal shooting this year. Two homicides were reported there in 2003.
"Everybody's in shock," said Muriel Heanue, an assistant principal at Broad Run High School "We are all in shock. This is something totally unexpected."
She said crisis teams will be at the school today to help students "deal with this tragedy."
der Brucer (hoping against hope that we wont hear, yet again, "I didn't think the gun was loaded."
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Oh, I am so excited! I will be seeing the sublime Miss Barbara Cook this very Saturday evening. Theatre Development Fund (or TDF), a theatrical services organization offering discount tickets (they operate the TKTS Booth in Times Square) and other services, has tickets available for this weekend. I saw Miss Cook's wonderful show two years ago and couldn't think of missing this one called Barbara Cook's Broadway. I'll also be seeing some other theatre courtesy of TDF. Sixteen Wounded, a new play with Judd Hirsch about a Jewish baker who takes on a teenage Palestinian boy as an apprentice is opening soon and I'll be seeing it next Tuesday. Early next month I'll be seeing the new Mark Medoff play, Prymate which just had a run in Florida and got a write-up in the NY Times. Andre de Shields is one of the stars along with Phyliss Frelich (sp). James Naughton will play the other male lead here in NYC. It's about two researchers who communicate with an orangutan (I believe that's the species) through American Sign Language. The orangutan is played by de Shields. One of the researchers wants to continue using the orangutan in AIDS research experiments and the other just wants to let him grow old. It should be very interesting. I'll also be seeing, not courtesy of TDF but just because I have the ticket, Twentieth Century w/Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche next Wednesday.
My two favorite JM songs have been mentioned but I'll mention them again
Laura
Autumn Leaves
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Yes, I have read the Notes; and the notes are, wrong, arong, wrong! (That's three wrongs - if two wrongs don't make a "right", then I guess three wrongs don't make a "left".)
Today is not, I repeat not, the Ides of March - they are more than a week past!
As Info Please (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/ides1.html) informs:
The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:
· Kalends (1st day of the month)
· Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months)
· Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months)
The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3 would be V Nones—5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of counting days was inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be counted as one of the 5 days).
In Classical Triva (http://www.travel-italy.com/ct/episodes/ides.html), Victor Estevez opines (ala Kimmel):
Beware the Ides of March. Julius Caesar ignored that warning and you know what happened to him.
But what are the Ides of March? Is there any such thing as a single Ide? Are Ides anything like Druthers? The Ides of March are what Romans called March 15.
There's no such thing as a single Ide. Ides are nothing at all like Druthers. Druthers are smaller, hairier, and have fewer moving parts.
Do other months have Ides? Yes, every selfrespecting month has Ides. May I call April the 15th the Ides of April. No, you may not, though local newscasters, for whom a little knowledge is always a dangerous thing, inevitably refer to the tax deadline as the Ides of April. Anyone with a third grade education (if he or she went to school in the 40's) can tell you right off that in April the Ides fall on the 13th and can recite the rhyme: March, July, October and May, the Nones fall on the 7th day.
In his bio, Mr Estevez notes that, although he did not write a musical with Dancing Dildos, his sordid past includes:
While at Fordham I directed the glee club, moderated the literary magazine, and with my colleague Peter Matthews, S.J., a gifted musician, wrote four original musical comedies produced at Fordham: Charms and the Man (Aeneid IV), Once Upon A Crime (Macbeth), My Son the Hun (Attila and Rome,) and There Goes the Neighborhood (Columbus in Cuba), in addition to an opera buffa in five acts with Latin libretto, Agrippina. Summers at Fordham I acted with the Fordham Summer Players, eventually rising to the title role in Fiorello!
der Brucer (no, Panni, Estevex is not a misplaced Hungarian!)
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DR Ben,
Barbara Cook! How wonderful. (Translation: %#(*&@' jealous.)
Johnny Mercer songs. I checked this excellent website
www.johnnymercerfoundation.org
Along with a catalogue - about 1,000 titles - there's this quotation from E.Y. Harburg:
"Johnny Mercer is the greatest of the folk poets. I think it has something to do with him being from the South. He has the descriptive flair of a Mark Twain, and the melodies of Stephen Foster seem to be a part of him."
15 favorites:
The Angels Cried
Black Magic
Bless Your Beautiful Hide
Blues in the Night
Come Rain or Come Shine
Elevator Song (Top Banana)
How Long Has This Been Going On
I Wonder What Became of Me
In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening
Moon River
One More for My Baby
Satin Doll
Too Marvelous for Words
Whistling Away the Dark
You Can Tell When There's Love in a Home
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I'm so happy DR DERBRUCER beat me to the punch on announcing the Ides were LAST WEEK, BK! You don't think all that AOL angst wasn't in the cosmos? Blame it on old JC (Caesar, not Mel's bloody boy)! Of course, the Ides got Mel, too, by letting DAWN OF THE DEAD get ahead of him at the box office.
I was happy to see Tammy mentioned. Where is she these days? How is she?
So, it's Johnny Mercer today? Isn't "Huckleberry friend" a great term? Let's see:
ALL of Li'L ABNER (yes, BK!)
Most of ST LOUIS WOMAN (I once was asked to restore this show for the Houston Grand Opera, gave all my research notes to Rob Fisher of Encores!, and he hired Ralph Burns!)
All of SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
BLUES IN THE NIGHT
TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS
HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD
MOON RIVER
SKYLARK
THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
I know I'm missing something I'll be sorry about later . . .
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DRs Sarah and Laura,
Such sad news about Nick.
An "accidental" gunshot killed a friend when I was in college. Sue Wilson was a beautiful person and a talented artist. One never forgets such a loss. The young man responsible for the death received support and comfort from Sue's parents.
My thoughts are with Nick's family, friends and classmates.
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Re:A BRAND NEW WEKK
« Reply #21 on: March 15, 2004, 09:31:17 AM »
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Greetings on The Ides of March.
Sorry BK, I posted on the actual Ides of March.
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An "accidental" gunshot killed a friend when I was in college. Sue Wilson was a beautiful person and a talented artist. One never forgets such a loss. The young man responsible for the death received support and comfort from Sue's parents.
In 1964, Judy Blevins, a girl with whom I'd gone through 12 years of school was shot in the face by her boyfriend while "goofing around." Forty years later, and we're still allowing irresponsible morons access to guns.
I'm sorry. DRs Sarah and Laura.
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Early next month I'll be seeing the new Mark Medoff play, Prymate which just had a run in Florida and got a write-up in the NY Times. Andre de Shields is one of the stars along with Phyliss Frelich (sp). James Naughton will play the other male lead here in NYC. It's about two researchers who communicate with an orangutan (I believe that's the species) through American Sign Language. The orangutan is played by de Shields. One of the researchers wants to continue using the orangutan in AIDS research experiments and the other just wants to let him grow old. It should be very interesting.
I envy you the opportunity.
Playbill (http://www.playbill.com/news/article/84973.html) commented:
Mark Medoff's Prymate to Jump to Broadway's Longacre May 5By Robert Simonson
March 15, 2004
In a surprise late entry in the 2003-04 Broadway season, Mark Medoff's new drama Prymate, recently premiered at Florida State University at Tallahassee, will jump to Broadway this spring. Opening is May 5.Michael Parva and Chase Mishkin will produce. The theatre will be the Longacre, Mishkin told Playbill On-Line. As at FSU, Ed Sherin will direct. Tony nominee Andre De Shields starred in the Feb. 20-29 Florida staging. His involvement in the New York show has not been officially announced.
Phyllis Frelich (Children of a Lesser God) will be in the Broadway cast.
The work follows the story of two scientists who are battling for control over the life of an aging gorilla, and debates whether the animal should be allowed to grow old peacefully or be tested in hopes of finding a cure for a deadly disease. The ape communicates through American Sign Language.
The show's profile was heightened considerably by a feature article written by Bruce Weber that appeared in the New York Times.
Medoff is the author of 1980's Children of a Lesser God, his last play on Broadway.
The Talahasse Democrat (http://www.tallahassee.com) crows:
Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2004
FSU relishes recognition from play 'Prymate'
By Kati Schardl
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
Broadway shows are often tweaked into top form during out-of-town previews in cities such as Boston and Philadelphia before opening on the Great White Way.
Mark Medoff's new play "Prymate," which opens May 5 at the Longacre Theatre in Manhattan, ventured a bit farther afield for its preview performances - FSU's Richard G. Fallon Mainstage Theatre, to be exact.
Having his latest work vault so swiftly from Tallahassee to Broadway is sweet indeed for Medoff, FSU playwright-in-residence and Reynolds Scholar.
"It's like a mid-life dessert," Medoff said from his home in New Mexico. "Every element of my psyche has gone very Zen-like. I'm just having a good time."
"Prymate" opened in Tallahassee on Feb. 20 and ran for two weeks. It starred renowned deaf actress Phyllis Frelich and television veteran Robert Walden as scientists and former lovers dueling over the fate of a Graham, a gorilla taught to communicate in American Sign Language. Broadway sensation Andre De Shields was cast as Graham, and daytime TV star Heather Tom played Walden's sign-language interpreter. The local production was helmed by FSU artist-in-residence and noted director Ed Sherin. Frelich's husband Robert Steinberg designed the set.
All but Walden, whose replacement should be announced by the end of the week, are on board for the play's New York run at the Longacre. It's the same theater where Medoff's Tony Award-winning play "Children of a Lesser God" ran for nearly 900 performances in 1980 and 1981.
Frelich's performance in "Children" earned her a Tony for best actress. "Prymate" is her fifth collaboration with Medoff.
The May 5 opening makes "Prymate" eligible for consideration for this year's Tony Awards in the new play category.
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The FSU production of "Prymate" attracted immediate attention from movers and shakers in the theater mecca of New York. New York Times writer Bruce Weber flew down to cover the opening and wrote a substantial feature story that ran on the front page of the paper's Arts section.
"The minute we opened, we had people who were interested (in the play)," Medoff said. "A lot of producers and theaters requested copies of the script, and we started talking with several theaters - one in New York, one in L.A. and one in Chicago.
"The current producers (including lead producer Chase Mishkin) entered the picture a week ago, and within 24 hours we made the deal to do the play on Broadway."
"In the New York theater world, you've got to have an intriguing hook to grab the attention," Sherin said before departing Wednesday for New York. "We had an African-American actor (De Shields) in the lead role as a gorilla. That did the trick.
In his NY Times Article (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30912FD3D580C708EDDAB0894DC404482), Bruce Weber opines:
On a Florida Campus, Theater Turns Daring
By BRUCE WEBER (NYT)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Feb. 22 -- The startling image that opens ''Prymate,'' a new play by Mark Medoff being presented at Florida State University here through next Sunday, is that of a black man perched on a desert butte. He is dressed in dark shorts and a dark T-shirt, his shoes and socks also dark. On all fours, he is supporting most of his weight on his knuckles. It's the pose of an ape, and the man -- the actor André De Shields -- is snorting and baying, scratching himself, occasionally beating his chest with absent-minded, simian hubris. He is playing a gorilla.
This direct confrontation of racial sensitivity is only the most obvious of the obstinately original qualities of this production. The play also depicts an interspecies sexual act and a woman's deliberate infecting of a man with the AIDS virus, and it argues with Darwinian force that the dividing line between humans and apes is indistinct. It's a peculiar fit in a conservative Southern capital, on a campus where creationists make regular public appearances and where the football stadium is far better known than the theater for boldness and innovation.
''Prymate'' is being produced under the auspices of the university's theater school, with student stagehands and staff, but with an all-professional cast that in addition to Mr. De Shields includes Phyllis Frelich, Robert Walden and Heather Tom, and a prominent director, Edwin Sherin. The creators were all acutely aware of the show's potentially inflammatory nature.
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The dean of the theater school, Steven W. Wallace, joked about job security and declared that the theater program was part of a research university and that work like this was what constituted research and experimentation for artists.
''Nobody's going to go into the chemistry department and say, 'I'm sorry, but you can't mix those two chemicals together,' '' Mr. Wallace said.
In a signal, perhaps, of how unusual such a production is here, the opening passed without a murmur of controversy. The first-night audience stood and applauded, and the review in The Tallahassee Democrat was a rave, never mentioning any of the orthodoxy-challenging themes or that the idea that a black man playing a gorilla might be eyebrow-raising. The university provost, Lawrence G. Abele, said the only thing that bothered him was that the play underscored the stereotype of egotistical scientists; he's a biologist.
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It was also Mr. Sherin who had the idea to cast Mr. De Shields, with whom he was working in ''Ghosts.'' In a previous production, Graham had been played by a man in a gorilla suit, and the introduction of a black actor instantly infused the play with racial overtones. The idea of Graham as a celebrity plaything to be gawked at, entertained by and ultimately demonized came out in relief.
Mr. De Shields, who is 58, prepared for this very physical role by visiting the Museum of Natural History and the Bronx Zoo. He describes the character of Graham as being ruled by a mantra -- ''I desire'' -- that has been somewhat mitigated by the civilizing influence of Esther. ''But when his world is threatened,'' he said, ''that goes all to hell.''
He admits he has been chastised by other black actors for taking on a role that perpetuates a racial insult, but responds to such criticism by asking if only white actors should be allowed to play gorillas.
''Intellectually I understand that position,'' he said, ''but if we objectively embrace that point of view, what we avoid is the real possibility of healing.'' It was the opportunity to make this point, he said, that made him see the role as important.
''It occurred to me that being qualified to assay this role, it is inescapable I'm bringing to it a sensibility that is racially explosive,'' he said. ''No conscious adult can come to the play and not think of O. J. or Kobe Bryant or of any African-American male who has achieved trophy status.''
der Brucer (Kudos to FSU!)
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Forty years later, and we're still allowing irresponsible morons access to guns.
The "irresponsible morons" being:
A. The kid(s) playing around with the gun
B. The bystander "kids" who apparently voiced no objection
C. The adults who had a loaded gun where teenagers could have accesss to same
D. Parents unwilling or unable to inculcate their offspring with a proper respect for firearms
E. All of the above
der Brucer (you don't expect me to add gun manufacturers to the list!)
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The night has a thousand ides.
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DRs Laura II and Sarah, it's very sad to hear about this young man's death. Though it sounds like it was an accident, it doesn't make it any less tragic. My prayers are with his family and also with you and your classmates.
Also, a belated welcome home to WFO's Joe! Glad to hear that you're home and finally in a warm and safe place to properly grieve for your mom and to tend to your health.
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Favorite Mercer Song: no contest--"Skylark". One of my favorite songs to hear and sing in general. It's almost indestructable--even if it's badly sung it still sounds good.
The Ides of March still give me the shudders from when I played Brutus in a very bad production of Julius Caesar and ahd no idea what I was suppose to be doing with the character. Also, there was the night when Caesar's blood bag misfired as I knifed him and I wound up with a face covered with red-dyed corn syrup. I spent the rest of the performance looking like Lucy after the grape-stomping episode.
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As DW Joy and I honeymooned in Mercer's home town, one might say his songs underscored that happy time. Yet, when we finally found a piano bar, I requested And the Angels Sing and the pianist said "I'm sorry I don't know that one; who's it by?"
I'm Old Fashioned
Laura
Skylark
I Fought Every Step of the Way
Going Up (Elevator Song)
A Word a Day
The Country's in the Very Best of Hands
Namely You
Love in a Home
P.S., I Love You
Whistling in the Dark
Charade
This Time the Dream's On Me
Wow, I kept that down to a baker's dozen. Mercer wrote with a great number of different composers, including himself. If it weren't so dated, I think My New Celebrity Is You would still be popular today.
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Mercer (who wrote so many of my all-time favorites):
DREAM -- one of my favorites by any composer
Early Autumn
I Wonder What Became of Me
Laura (with verse)
You've Got to have a College Education (It's very catchy--unfortunately)
Whistling in the Dark
I Thought About You
Hooray for Hollywood
Something's Gotta Give (another favorite with special meaning)
Jeepers Creepers
Skylark
I'm Old-Fashioned
My Shiing Hour (another top fave)
And so many more. Mercer wrote poetry to music.
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Favorite Johnny Mercer song:
My Shining Hour.
Seeing Margaret Whiting sing it was the only reason to sit through DREAM a couple of seasons back.
And, DR S. Woody White, I can both sympathize and empathize. Last night I returned home from work to find that our adorable 18 month old puppy had devoured -- well, demolished, at least -- my dear partner's reading glasses. Nothing ingested, but she was certainly a naughty girl! Thankfully he has his old pair to rely on until he gets a new pair.....but she was certainly skulking around, having realized what she had done.
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Question. At the top of this page it says:
News: The latest quadruple Juliana's Journal was uploaded on March 21st...
But I only see one new entry (january 7th).
Btw, how come we are so many months behind in the journal? It really makes a BIG difference.
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Fave Mercer: Dream
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DRs LauraII and Swishy: Good vibes to you both. What terrible news. I really hate the idea of guns being available where kids can gain access to them. But it feels so totally foreign to me. I do not know anyone in Montreal who keeps a gun in the house.
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Having given previous post space to Gibson's The Passion Of
Snuff Films Christ, 'tis only fair to post about the sequel.
Extracted from LATimes (http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-dawn19mar19,2,1610888.story):
'Dawn of the Dead'
"Dawn of the Dead" is the best proof in ages that cannibalizing old material sometimes works fiendishly well.
By Manohla Dargis
Times Staff Writer
March 19 2004
Good zombie fun, the remake of George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" is the best proof in ages that cannibalizing old material sometimes works fiendishly well. The story opens with a hush in a Milwaukee hospital as an emergency-room nurse (Sarah Polley) wearily moves through her final hour at work. Too exhausted to notice the casualties flooding into the ward, Ana returns home to her last untroubled sleep, only to wake to the nightmare vision of a child ripping a man's throat out with its teeth.
Jumping into her car, Ana makes a nerve-racking escape to the safest place on Earth or at least Wisconsin — the mall. ...As zombies proliferate outside — malls apparently are destination sites even for the undead — the survivors pump iron in the sporting-goods store, whip up lattes at the Hallowed Grounds coffee bar and pledge allegiance either to one another or their own worst selves.
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This "Dawn of the Dead" doesn't break new ground, but it's a reminder of how good horror movies sweep you away with equal parts pleasure and dread. Although Snyder and his special effects team pour on the gore (they're keen on exploding zombie heads) what makes the film pop aren't the buckets of blood, but the filmmakers' commitment to genre fundamentals. One consequence of the mainstreaming of horror is that although movies and television are now awash in viscera, we tend to rationalize this turn toward the Grand Guignol with sober forensics. When Marg Helgenberger pokes around on TV's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," it's easy to pretend that all the ravaged flesh is finally in the service of law and order. There's no such pretense with these zombies — they live only so we can watch them die.
'Dawn of the Dead'
MPAA rating: R, for pervasive strong horror, violence and gore, language and sexuality
Times guidelines: Extreme gore, strong language, mild sex
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[Well - that should entice our Scarlet Street Coven into attending!]
In a Companion Piece (http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-ailworth23mar23,2,7175569.story) the reporter observes:
A first-time director breathes new life into 'Dead's' zombies
Zack Snyder, 38, jumps from commercials to box-office gold with his horror-classic homage.
By Erin Ailworth, Times Staff Writer
....
So Snyder decided to try his hand at being George A. Romero.
"I got the camera, and I said, 'This is nuts,' " he said of directing what the zombie fan calls a "re-envisioning" of Romero's cult classic. "I've got actors and I've got to tell them what to do? They could write books on what to do."
der Brucer (sure all actors will want Snyder as a director!)
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posted on the actual Ides of March.
Ides! Ides! Ides! Ides!
You deal? Avers????
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Favorite mercer songs:
Horray for Hollywood
Moon River
Days of Wine and Roses
Laura Come Rain or Come Shine
Most of the songs from Lil Abner
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All my favorite Mercers were already mentioned, but I'll mention two I really love anyway:
"That Old Black Magic" and "On the Atcheson, Topeka, and the Santa Fe."
But all of the ones he did with Henry Mancini are hauntingly beautiful and unique. I love them all.
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Good morning all!
First off, my sympathies go out to Laura and Swishy and all the people in your area affected by the stupidity of your country to fight common sense gun control laws. Safe storage boxes with locks on them? Firearm licensing so that people with high-risk psychological assements can't access weapons to hurt themselves or others around them? God forbid says the NRA :o
DR Jennifer, by Canadian law, you are allowed to keep long-guns (ie. rifles and shotguns) in your home as long as they are kept in a locked, secure and approved storage place and they are ALWAYS kept unloaded when not in use. Ammunition must be kept separate from the weapon itself. Access to handguns has been limited in Canada since 1934 and, with the most recent Firearms Act of 1995, have been banned altogether (although grandfather rules do exist which allows people who owned them before 1995 to continue to do so and transfer them within their families only at the time of their death). So there are many people in Montreal with firearms in their homes for legal, responsible uses.
The big difference between why you find more firearms in people's homes in the US than in Canada is that, unlike in the States, most guns used here are for hunting and firearm-related sports (like target shooting) while in the States most people have guns for so-called "protection purposes". I guess it's taken us faster to understand that:
- A 1997 American Journal of Public Health study showed that family members that had a history of buying a handgun were twice as likely to die in a suicide or homicide as were persons who had no such family history of gun purchase. This increased risk persisted for more than five years after the handgun was purchased.
- One study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that having a gun in the home made it nearly three times more likely that someone in the family would be killed.
Sorry for the rant, but things like this make me so angry.
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oooh... Moon River is now in my head and I can't get it out.
Argh!
MOOOOOOOOOOON RIIIIVVVVVVVVVERRRRR WIIIIIIIDERRR THAN A MILLLLLLLLLLE
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If you're going to have a song stuck in your head, "Moon River" is one of the best.
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Thanks DR Emily, I didn't mind your rant. But you did bring up a very interesting point. Why do people in the US have guns for protection, while people in Canada don't?
Also question about steaming vegetables in the microwave: are you guys saying that a veggie like broccoli would only take one minute to steam?
And are the nutrients still the same if you microwave rather than use the stove?
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I missed the Ides? We don't have to beware the Ides? The Ides are cool now? Those darned Ides, they're here, they're there, they're everywhere, like The Scarlet Pimpernel. Those Ides have made a fool out of me and frankly I think it was a sinister plot by said Ides, I think the Ides messed with my mind.
The good news? For the first time since Thursday evening, I logged onto AOL without a problem.
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The big difference between why you find more firearms in people's homes in the US than in Canada is that, unlike in the States, most guns used here are for hunting and firearm-related sports (like target shooting) while in the States most people have guns for so-called "protection purposes". I guess it's taken us faster to understand that...
Well, at least one Canadian Judge doesn't "understand" either:
The Edmonton Journal (http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=bc027455-c1b6-41b6-8a5d-da5da8d09f40) extract:
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
EDMONTON - Ordinary Canadians need guns to defend themselves from wild animals or from "homicidal rapists or robbers," says an Alberta judge who ordered government officials to grant a firearms licence to a woman they thought was a suicidal alcoholic.
People living in "the coniferous forests of rural Canada" are sometimes killed by bears and cougars if they don't have guns to protect themselves, provincial court Judge Don Demetrick said in a written judgment released Monday.
"Similarly, in the concrete jungles of urban Canada, ordinary persons sometimes urgently require a firearm for use in lawful self-protection against the lethal attack of two-legged predators such as homicidal rapists or robbers, and of those mentally ill persons who on rare occasion engage in mass homicide for no rational reason," he wrote.
"Decent but defenceless urbanites die annually in Canada as innocent victims of criminal or mentally deranged violence in circumstances where their timely and lawful use of a firearm could have prevented or reduced the tragedy."
The St. Paul judge also took a shot at the federal Firearms Act, saying it forces Canadians who want to own guns "to endure ... a gauntlet of bureaucratic scrutiny and the time-consuming inconvenience of obtaining an official permit."
Demetrick made the comments in overturning a decision by Alberta firearms officer Richard Clarke to deny Brenda Pogson a firearms possession and acquisition licence.
....
der Brucer (whose research indicates that Canada's somewhat draconian Firearms Registry laws are under broad assault from lots of the populace)
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I missed the Ides? We don't have to beware the Ides? The Ides are cool now? Those darned Ides, they're here, they're there, they're everywhere, like The Scarlet Pimpernel. Those Ides have made a fool out of me and frankly I think it was a sinister plot by said Ides, I think the Ides messed with my mind.
The Ides of March let you slip by so the impending Kalends (no relationtion to Kato) of April can git ya!
der Brucer (wondering if it's Kato's guest house wherein Panni makes domestic)
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I left MOON RIVER off my list. Mea culpa. (That's in honor of the non-Ides.)
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- One study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that having a gun in the home made it nearly three times more likely that someone in the family would be killed.
Another study, NOT published in The New England Journal of Medicine - for obvious reasons - found that more people in the United States are killed each year by their doctors (This form of manslaughter is called "Medical Misadventure") than by car accidents, falls, drowning, gunshot, bludgeoning, strangling, and other 'untimely' means. makes ya want to ban MD's, don't it?
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Here's another statistic, from another "study" - When the Florida "right to carry" laws were passed in the last dozen or so years - pushed by elderly retirees who had been victimized unmercifully by bad-ass Youth At Risk - suddenly the crime rate in Florida went WAY down, and the criminals moved to Atlanta, where decent people were NOT aloowed to defend themselves. Pesky crooks, they go ply their nefarious trade where they are unlikely to get injured.
And another study: Vermont has about the most lenient Gun Permit, Carry, and Possession laws in the whole nation. And their crime rate is about the lowest.
And in Switzerland, where every adult male is REQUIRED to keep a gun, LOADED, in the house, gave even Hitler pause... Der Fuhrer decided against invading Switzerland, and moved againt the French.
Ah, the French. Love the wine, the cuisine, the Louvre, the music, the Beaumarchais...
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So, who can tell that little PennyO is an Armed Citizen, with a carry permit and everything?
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I feel the breeze of a new show in the air:
Pistol Packin' Penny O: Annie Get Your Gun - the sequel!
der Brucer
Quote of the day for BK from a site on the Atkins diet:
"But how long can anyone eat a burger sans bun, or a steak without the potato?"
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Or a French without the Fries? Or lox without the bagel? Or butter without the roll? Or Alfredo sauce without the fettucine. Damn them, damn them all to hell.
Lovely Mercer lists - I knew everyone would name all my other faves. Love Skylark large.
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Der Brucer,
I’m going to have to counter some of that post you just made (it IS my job after all!)
First off, note that the article came from Alberta. There is a very vocal segment of the population in this province, with its traditional independent streak and history as the wild wild west, which has ALWAYS been against the Firearms Act and indeed, against gun control of any kind. So... taking an argument from the Edmonton Journal isn't exactly the most unbiased way to go about this because they are simply trying to appeal to their readership which is made of a large chunk of people who feel that the ownership of any firearm - military assault, handgun or otherwise - is a right. It may be one in the United States, but Canada has NEVER considered gun ownership a right, but rather sees it as a privilege that can and indeed HAS to be regulated.
Secondly, Canada's Firearms Act is anything but Draconian. It is simple common sense legislation that the LARGE MAJORITY of Canadians support. Highlights of the FA are:
- It prohibits the ownership of fully automatic military assault weapons, semi-automatics which can be converted to automatics, along with a few other selected models not suitable for hunting or target shooting, short-barreled handguns, sawed-off shotguns and large capacity magazines
- It requires all firearm owners to receive a license to possess or acquire firearms (renewable every five years)
- Standard safety checks are performed to ensure that the individual does not pose a risk to public safety. Spouses and previous spouses with whom the applicant has lived within the last two years are notified of the individuals’ application. If someone with a license becomes violent or commits a crime that would make them illegible to own firearms, the Chief Firearms Officer will be able to revoke the license
- All firearms must be registered. New firearms will be registered at their point of sale and imported firearms will be registered at their point of entry. Every registration certificate will have a Firearms Identification Number (FIN)
- Firearms must be stored unloaded, with the ammunition separate. For handguns and other restricted weapons, the firearms must be stored in a locked container, unloaded and made inoperable (trigger locked), with the ammunition stored separately
- All license applicants must take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and/or pass the test for the course, or show by some other approved means that they know about firearms laws and safety practices
- It ensures that mandatory penalties are applied for crimes which use firearms including 4 years for serious offenses with a firearm and 1 year for a stolen weapon
Now, I don't know about that... but Canada's gun control laws seem fairly straight-forward and based on common-sense to me...
Oh an about the Firearms Act being under attack from the population at large. Last year, Canada’s Auditor General came out with a blistering report against the Liberal Government then under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for the ballooning costs of the gun registry (note… not the entire ACT just the registry part of it). Her argument was that cost overruns since 1995 had forced the registry to go 14000% over budget, from costing an original $2 million to a blistering $1 billion. None of this had been reported to Parliament which the government was required to do.
The media immediately picked up on this story and Canadians everywhere were shocked. However, most outlets failed to give the context of the price estimate quoted by the Auditor General:
- The money was spent over 10 years. Going forward the costs will be $70 million per year. The old, flawed system cost $30 million per year.
- Costs are high in part because the government has refused to make users pay. It has
waived fees as an incentive for gun owners to comply.
- People who were against the implementation of the registry made frequent attempts to increase the cost of the program – including sending the Canadian Firearms Centre phone books with postage due, making repeated fake phone calls to help lines in order to force the government to hire more workers, asking many times for the CFC to send them expensive copies of the Firearms Act and even, upon occasion, forcing the CFC to close down its offices when envelopes with white powder were sent via the mail shortly after the 9/11 attacks in the United States
- The annual cost of a license to own as many guns as one wishes is $12 per year ($60
renewed every 5 years). This is half the annual cost paid in Toronto or Montreal for a license to own a single dog or cat.
- No one even knows how much we spend to keep highways safe. In New Brunswick, the federal Government is investing $400 million to widen a stretch of highway where 43 lives were lost over 5 years. In the same period, guns killed 5,000 people.
- Prevention is not cheap, it is an investment in our future, for example, the meningitis
inoculation program initiated in Quebec last fall, which came in response to 85 cases
reported in 2001, and cost the province $125 million.
- As the Government of Ontario learned from the Walkerton tragedy, inappropriately cutting costs of water testing proved very expensive. The former Ontario Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Richard Schabas, has warned the federal government not to make the same mistake by cutting the gun control program.
- Lots of government programs are much more costly: for example, snow removal in Montreal costs $130 million each year.
- Canada’s passport office costs $125 million per year to run.
Shortly after the Auditor General’s report, the Environics Polling Group (Canada’s largest public opinion research organization) did a poll on Canadians and their support of the Firearms Act.
The results demonstrate, that even with the hullabaloo surrounding the costs of the program, most Canadians in every province – including Alberta – continue to show huge support for the law.
So that ends my rant. I MUST get back to school work now… sheesh (and yes… Moon River is STILL in my head)
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Here's another statistic, from another "study" - When the Florida "right to carry" laws were passed in the last dozen or so years - pushed by elderly retirees who had been victimized unmercifully by bad-ass Youth At Risk - suddenly the crime rate in Florida went WAY down, and the criminals moved to Atlanta, where decent people were NOT aloowed to defend themselves. Pesky crooks, they go ply their nefarious trade where they are unlikely to get injured.
And another study: Vermont has about the most lenient Gun Permit, Carry, and Possession laws in the whole nation. And their crime rate is about the lowest.
And in Switzerland, where every adult male is REQUIRED to keep a gun, LOADED, in the house, gave even Hitler pause... Der Fuhrer decided against invading Switzerland, and moved againt the French.
Ah, the French. Love the wine, the cuisine, the Louvre, the music, the Beaumarchais...
Penny, I gotta love you but your wrong...
"Opponents of gun control often use Switzerland as evidence that access to guns is not linked to crime or violence. They argue that since virtually all adult males are members of the army and have military weapons, there is nearly universal access to deadly weapons yet few gun-related problems in Switzerland. However, Swiss criminologist Martin Killias, of the Université de Lausanne, argues that the rate of households with firearms is actually comparable to that of Canada (27.2%). There is strict screening of army officers and ammunition is stored in sealed boxes and inspected regularly. Despite these controls, Switzerland has rates of gun suicide second only to the US among the countries Killias surveyed and a gun murder rate comparable to Canada's (pre-Firearms Act). Although firearms regulations in Switzerland is fragmented and controlled at the regional level, wide ranging reforms are being undertaken to establish national standards."
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Democrat Gov. learns from Republican Attorney General:
From FNC (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114952,00.html)
West Virginia Governor Blasts T-Shirt
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Bob Wise sent a letter to Abercrombie & Fitch on Monday demanding that the clothing retailer stop selling a T-shirt that spoofs the state with the slogan, "It's All Relative in West Virginia."
Wise said the T-shirt depicts "an unfounded, negative stereotype" of the state.
"I write to you today to demand that you immediately remove this item from your stores and your print and online catalogues," Wise wrote. "In addition, these shirts must be destroyed at once to avoid any possibility of resale and proof be given thereof."
der Brucer (first we burn the T-Shirts, then the books!)
::Crown of busty women in A&F T-Shirts throng the capital in Wheeling::
::cue Shower music From Pcycho::
::Women all strip off their shirts, fling them at the Governor while yelling:
"T-Shirts - Here's your G-D T-Shirts"
(with apologies to Mel, not Gibson)
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Democrat Gov. learns from Republican Attorney General:
From FNC (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114952,00.html)
West Virginia Governor Blasts T-Shirt
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Bob Wise sent a letter to Abercrombie & Fitch on Monday demanding that the clothing retailer stop selling a T-shirt that spoofs the state with the slogan, "It's All Relative in West Virginia."
Wise said the T-shirt depicts "an unfounded, negative stereotype" of the state.
"I write to you today to demand that you immediately remove this item from your stores and your print and online catalogues," Wise wrote. "In addition, these shirts must be destroyed at once to avoid any possibility of resale and proof be given thereof."
der Brucer (first we burn the T-Shirts, then the books!)
::Crown of busty women in A&F T-Shirts throng the capital in Wheeling::
::cue Shower music From Pcycho::
::Women all strip off their shirts, fling them at the Governor while yelling:
"T-Shirts - Here's your G-D T-Shirts"
(with apologies to Mel, not Gibson)
Only thing wrong with your scenario, Derbrucer, is that the crowd would actually consist of white, slightly buffed and smooth chested fratboys, who will not only strip off their t-shirts, but their worn denim jeans as well. And then they'll make a mad dash for the fountains, where they will frolic and horseplay with each other as their young lean bodies glisten with the water and sunlight. Their faded flannel boxers, soaked heavy, begin to perilously slip further down their hips and round, white a---
Whoops...sorry...got caught up in the moment...whew...is it hot in here, or is it just me...
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Der Brucer,
I’m going to have to counter some of that post you just made (it IS my job after all!)
... but Canada's gun control laws seem fairly straight-forward and based on common-sense to me...
My God, I don't have enough trouble, now someone's paying other DRs to "counter" me (http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/fragend/confused-smiley-009.gif)
Often one man's "common-sense" is another man's Intrusive Big Brother.
How do you feel about the "common sense" argument down here that says a marriage should be restricted to one man-one women!
der Brucer (who goes not gracefully countered into that dark night - and who will spare you all the voluminous counter quotes I can get from the Canadian National Firearms Association)
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Let us not talk of guns or no guns - let us talk of Moon River and Accentuate the Positive and Dream.
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Only thing wrong with your scenario, Derbrucer, is that the crowd would actually consist of white, slightly buffed and smooth chested fratboys, who will not only strip off their t-shirts, but their worn denim jeans as well. And then they'll make a mad dash for the fountains, where they will frolic and horseplay with each other as their young lean bodies glisten with the water and sunlight. Their faded flannel boxers, soaked heavy, begin to perilously slip further down their hips and round, white a---
So now you're writing scripts for A&F ads?
der Brucer (who much prefers Dan scenario to his own)
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Favorite Mercer: Midnight Sun. One of the most gloriously poetic lyrics of the 20th century.
DR Noel: Didn't you mean Whistling Away the Dark? :)
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DR DerBrucer: You know that when DR Emily said it was her job, she wasn't referring to YOU, but to her ACTUAL JOB (for gun control).
:)
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Let us not talk of guns or no guns - let us talk of Moon River and Accentuate the Positive and Dream.
Well, if no guns, then butter:
My favorite Mercer song is:
It's a Nuisance Having You Around Emily
Emily, Emily, Emily has the murmuring sound of May; All silver bells, coral shells, carousels and the laughter of children at play say, Emily, Emily, Emily and we fade to a marvelous view.
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DR DerBrucer: You know that when DR Emily said it was her job, she wasn't referring to YOU, but to her ACTUAL JOB (for gun control).
:)
I did not. Like an innocent lamb I've been led into the lion's den!
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This may have been mentioned over the last few days (and maybe would be better placed on the DVD Board), but has anyone else listened to the commentary on the new release of Ten Commandments? The lady, who evidently sat around Henry Wilcoxon's house watching the movie over and over, and later wrote a book about it, made me laugh out loud several times, including this bon mot: "The Ten Commandments, if anything, is the anti-film noir. " Yes, I'm sure that's how all of us first reacted to it. And this non sequitur: "The Bible says Moses died when he was 120, De Mille changed it to 80, which cuts it exactly in half." That must be the new math.
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MERCER!
That Old Black Magic
Moon River
My Shining Hour
Skylark
and a lesser known song--Two of a Kind
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So now you're writing scripts for A&F ads?
If only I could. Alas, A&F has discontinued its catalog.
I am inspired, though, to write a little story for Honcho magazine. In keeping with today's topic, I think I'll call it "Moon River, or Accentuating His Positive"
(I don't know what that means either, but it sounds dirty.)
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I wrote:
DR DerBrucer: You know that when DR Emily said it was her job, she wasn't referring to YOU, but to her ACTUAL JOB (for gun control).
:)
I did not. Like an innocent lamb I've been led into the lion's den!
I was wondering, when you put that questioning smiley.
So now you know :)
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JMK - How is Gabe doing?
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LOL, JMK!
I'm still into Hitchcock bigtime. Just went to the library and picked up the DVD of Shadow of a Doubt (seen it before) and the VHS of Topaz (haven't). I'd be interested to know what DR's who've seen Topaz think of it - NO SPOILERS, please! There were a lot of interesting comments RE: Saboteur a few days ago.
We just got our first Netflix shipment today - pretty good, considering we just joined Sunday night. Of course, having a distribution center a 30-minute drive away probably helps. So now we've got Pirates of the Caribbean, but are still waiting on To Catch a Thief (still have never seen it, believe it or not!) and Mr. Vampire, a wacky Chinese horror movie with hopping vampires.
I'd heard complaints about DVDs arriving in bad shape, but I must say that the one we've received is in much better shape than the ones I get from the local library or Blockbuster, which typically have copious smudges, smears, and scratches on them. Of course, this is only the first one - I suppose it might be a different story later on.
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An Interesting column from theDetroit News (http://www.detnews.com/2004/editorial/0403/22/a11-98625.htm) (extracts)
Monday, March 22, 2004
Hudson taught painful lesson on marriage
By Deb Price / The Detroit News
In 1955, Hollywood secretary Phyllis Gates was young, in love and living the fantasy of many American women: A handsome movie star had swept her off her feet and married her. Her doting husband pampered her with jewels, lovemaking and talk of children. She rubbed elbows with Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Humphrey Bogart.
Yes, the early days of her marriage to Rock Hudson felt idyllic.
But the sweet nothings quickly disappeared, leaving only a bitter nothingness. Hudson became distant and depressed, started arguments just for an excuse to storm out of the house and disappear for hours. When he traveled, he stayed away as long as possible and rarely called home.
Clueless about what was wrong, Gates blamed herself, feared there was another woman and eventually sought psychiatric help. Her therapist helped her comprehend that she’d unwittingly married a gay man — something Hudson never admitted to her — and that she was powerless to make the relationship work.
Gates divorced Hudson after three years. But by then her life was ruined. She never remarried, never had the children she’d longed for, never got over the heartbreak. To this day, she can’t even bring herself to watch TV reruns of her ex-husband’s movies.
…
In a gut-wrenching first-ever interview March 11 on “Larry King Live,” Gates explained her accidental involvement in a gay-straight marriage: “I didn’t see any inkling” that Hudson was gay. She added, “Maybe I was a dope. ... It hurts, terribly. I mean, how can you compete?”
Watching that interview, Amity Buxton heard a painfully familiar story. She, too, had lived through the nightmare of being married to someone of the opposite sexual orientation.
The founder of the Straight Spouse Network (www.ssnetwk.org), Buxton says she wishes President George W. Bush had seen Rock Hudson’s ex-wife talk about how her life was shattered by having unwittingly married a gay man who felt he had no choice but to try to hide behind a straight spouse.
Unlike many of Bush’s critics, Buxton isn’t afraid his policies will throw her out of work. She fears they’ll overwhelm her with new business.
Pressed to justify his call for amending the Constitution to ban gay people from marrying one another, Bush declared, “Marriage between a man and a woman is the ideal. And the job of the president is to drive policy toward the ideal.”
But Buxton, who for decades has counseled thousands of heterosexuals devastated by having married gay spouses, warns that driving gay people to lie to themselves or to others inevitably leads to sham, mixed-orientation marriages and broken lives.
“The legalization of marriages of same-gender couples would decrease such personal family disasters and increase the number of stable couples contributing to community life,” Buxton wrote Bush recently. “With fewer divorces and more couples staying together, marriage as an institution might begin to heal.”
Buxton sees gay-straight marriages as a “cautionary tale” about what happens when society insists on pretending that everyone ought to marry someone of the opposite sex.
“Homophobia hurts not just gays but straight spouses as well,” says Buxton, who is happily remarried. “The anger, the fear, the grief (of straight-gay divorce) escalate because there is nobody to talk to about it. ... All because people couldn’t be true to themselves.”
der Brucer (who spent 18 years acting "Rock Hudson")
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So all this talk of Johnny Mercer has got me thinking that I should read the bio that came out last year. (As if I don't have enough unread books...). Anybody out there have thoughts on the book. Good? Worth a read?
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...with hopping vampires.
Sounds akin to one of my (Guilty Pleasure) favorites:
"Five Million Years to Earth" (AKA "Quatermass and the Pit" -1968).
der Brucer (hopping, hopping, hopping...)
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Yes, I have read the Notes; and the notes are, wrong, arong, wrong! (That's three wrongs - if two wrongs don't make a "right", then I guess three wrongs don't make a "left".)
Today is not, I repeat not, the Ides of March - they are more than a week past!
As Info Please (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/ides1.html) informs:
The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:
· Kalends (1st day of the month)
· Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months)
· Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months)
The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3 would be V Nones—5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of counting days was inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be counted as one of the 5 days).
In Classical Triva (http://www.travel-italy.com/ct/episodes/ides.html), Victor Estevez opines (ala Kimmel):
Beware the Ides of March. Julius Caesar ignored that warning and you know what happened to him.
But what are the Ides of March? Is there any such thing as a single Ide? Are Ides anything like Druthers? The Ides of March are what Romans called March 15.
There's no such thing as a single Ide. Ides are nothing at all like Druthers. Druthers are smaller, hairier, and have fewer moving parts.
Do other months have Ides? Yes, every selfrespecting month has Ides. May I call April the 15th the Ides of April. No, you may not, though local newscasters, for whom a little knowledge is always a dangerous thing, inevitably refer to the tax deadline as the Ides of April. Anyone with a third grade education (if he or she went to school in the 40's) can tell you right off that in April the Ides fall on the 13th and can recite the rhyme: March, July, October and May, the Nones fall on the 7th day.
Was that in the 40's B.C., or A.D.?
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Forgot about Emily (the song, not the person). I love that song.
Topaz is a major guilty pleasure of mine. Don't know what VHS you got - there are two. One is the theatrical cut, and one has seventeen additional minutes which is the preview cut, and which is much preferable to the theatrical cut. The DVD features the longer cut, and I recommend the DVD anyway since the VHS has lousy color, and it's a beautifully shot film.
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An Interesting column from theDetroit News (http://www.detnews.com/2004/editorial/0403/22/a11-98625.htm) (extracts)
The founder of the Straight Spouse Network (www.ssnetwk.org), Buxton says she wishes President George W. Bush had seen Rock Hudson’s ex-wife talk about how her life was shattered by having unwittingly married a gay man who felt he had no choice but to try to hide behind a straight spouse. n’t be true to themselves.”
der Brucer (who spent 18 years acting "Rock Hudson")
The very first longform I ever wrote (in Canada) - RUNNING MAN - was about just that subject. I interviewed many men who had been in that situation. Had I known you then, der Brucer....
It was very complex - isn't everything - because most of the men I spoke to loved the women they married and did not want to hurt them. After the movie aired (and was denounced in Parliament, I'm proud to say) I got so many letters from people saying that I must have been hiding under the bed (so to speak) because I got it right. The other complexity, not of the Hudson variety, in my story was that the man was also in denial. He'd grown up in a society where his feelings were an "illness" which had a cure. He tried the cure - marriage - and it didn't work. So he put it away in a compartment of his life which occasionaly acted on, but only in one-nighters. And then he fell in love with a man... Interesting story (made it up). I still have some of the letters "To the writer of the filth" which told me I was going directly to hell - and not collecting $200.
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BTW - The other day I read a review of a new low budget indie film which is apparently the Hudson-Gates story, thinly disguised and well done. I'll have to dig up the review and find the title.
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Thanks for your response, BK. It's good to know somebody likes it, as it is generally considered to be lesser Hitch. Especially since it's nearly 2 and a half hours long, I'd like to think that we'll be enjoying ourselves for that long while we watch it.
This is the "supersized" version, so we made out well on that score. I'm sure the DVD version is superior, and I'd been considering getting the DVD instead, but since I've never seen it and, like I say, it's not generally well-regarded, I figured we'd just see the (free) library VHS instead. If we enjoy it, we might wind up with the DVD eventually.
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Favorite Johnny Mercer song:
My Shining Hour.
DR Stuart, how could I forget one of my alltime faves!!!! I first heard it on a Mabel Mercer album and I think it's one of the purest melodies ever written with an effortless lyric grace and yearning.
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aren't there any songs with "bruce" in the title? ;)
*hugs der brucer... different political culture and all*
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Favourite Johnny Mercer song above all others:
OUT OF THIS WORLD
...with a lovely melody supplied by Harold Arlen
Other favs:
BOB WHITE
DAY IN, DAY OUT
SKYLARK
FOOLS RUSH IN
LAURA
DEARLY BELOVED
I REMEMBER YOU
JMK...was the lady who sat around Henry Wilcoxon's house and watched the TEN COMMANDMENTS Kathy Orrison by any chance? I became friends with Mr. Wilcoxon during the last couple years of his life. His constant companion and biographer was Ms. Orrison. He was a fascinating and very nice man who had suffered a lot of hardship and had even been a victim of DeMille's cruelty. Even late in life he was very handsome with this leonine mane of hair. I actually have some momentos from my association with him. A purple glass ash-tray sits on my office coffee table. It used to hold Mr. Wilcoxon's pipe. It now holds coins. I also have some cordial glasses that were his and several books of his.
One of my favourite stories about Wilcoxon was told by Clint Walker at his funeral (Wilcoxon's; Clint's still very much alive). Walker had a small bit as The Prince of Sardinia in Ten Commandments. He was in a long courtroom procession scene with lots of extras. De Mille called action and started the scene when a comb that Walker had slipped in his costume fell out and clattered to the floor,ruining the shot and making DeMille shout angrily," Who did that? What was that noise?" Walker had visions of his career being over before it started, when Wilcoxon bent down and picked up the comb and said, "I dropped my comb, C.B." Wilcoxon knew that C.B. would grumble a bit but not tear him a new a-hole and fire him like he would Walker. It gives you an idea of the man's graciousness.
He also told funny stories about both he and Claudette Colbert fighting to be filmed from their left sides...which was the good side for both of them.
I'm meeting my director on my mini-series for the first time tomorrow. This is always the most terrifying meeting for any writer. I will need all your good vibes that it goes smoothly and well.
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Favorite Johnny Mercer:
Moon River
Come Rain or Come Shine
Dream
Lil' Abner -- the whole score
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So all this talk of Johnny Mercer has got me thinking that I should read the bio that came out last year. (As if I don't have enough unread books...). Anybody out there have thoughts on the book. Good? Worth a read?
DR Panni, I've browed through it several times at Barnes & Noble, and I found it interesting. I'm still debating on buying it.
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smooth vibes to DR Charles Pogue!
[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%] ;) :) ;D :o 8) :-* :) ;) [/move]
Loved the Clint Walker/ Henry Wilcoxon story!
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[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%] ;DGOOD VIBES FOR CHARLES POGUE! ;D[/move]
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JMK, I agree. MIDNIGHT SUN is a lyric tour de force.
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I just read the news from Laura II. It is so sad for all involved. Laura how is your brother? Is the school offering counseling or doing something else to help the students?
Sarah, you have my deepest sympathy. You have had to deal with too many losses lately.
Hi all, I just wanted to post this. I got this news from Sarah.
Though we all know things like this happen, they will never cease to be shocking & upsetting made more difficult when people we care abut like Sarah and Laura are hurt by it.
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She said crisis teams will be at the school today to help students "deal with this tragedy."
One of my questions answered. Thank you.
So, so sad.
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MERCER!
That Old Black Magic
Moon River
My Shining Hour
Skylark
and a lesser known song--Two of a Kind
Thnaks Arnold. It's always good to have a Bobby Darin reference. Great album with Mercer & Darin.
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GOOD DIRECTOR VIBES, FS POGUE!
(He wouldn't have job without YOU.)
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Who's the director?
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DerBrucer, can you debunk this? DearReader Laura uses plastic wrap in the microwave. I have been told the plastic wrap we have in this country, unlike in England, has chemicals that are not good for us. Plus, microwaving them makes it worse.
SWW-great story on the missing remote. ;D
Thank you DB, I was going to check those Ides of March as I know them to be on the 15th.
Dan-in-Toronto I just got chills reading about the parents of your friend Sue. What incredible, wonderful people they were.
Stuart what is your puppy’s name and please post a picture.
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...But all of the ones he did with Henry Mancini are hauntingly beautiful and unique. I love them all.
This is the first time I've ever heard "He Shouldn't A Hadn't A Oughtn't A Swang On Me!" referred to as "haunting." I suppose, in a slower tempo than usual...
;D
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Panni, the director is Roger Young...I don't know him.
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Thanks DR Emily, I didn't mind your rant. But you did bring up a very interesting point. Why do people in the US have guns for protection, while people in Canada don't?
Somehow, the idea of having a gun for "protection" has always struck me as absurd. Guns are offensive weapons (in many ways). The idea of using them for "protection" would only work if we could deflect bullets with them, the way Wonder Woman used her bracelets. And bracelets make much better accessories.
Also question about steaming vegetables in the microwave: are you guys saying that a veggie like broccoli would only take one minute to steam?
Yes.
And are the nutrients still the same if you microwave rather than use the stove?
The difference is negligable. It increases with increased time, of course, but it's the heat that changes the nutrients, and regular steaming will also cause those changes.
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Good idea to "Accentuate the Positive." All this heavy talk is, well, heavy, man.
But I'll be back tonight with lots of mindless chatter about AMERICAN IDOL. It's country night tonight, you know. :D
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DerBrucer, can you debunk this? DearReader Laura uses plastic wrap in the microwave. I have been told the plastic wrap we have in this country, unlike in England, has chemicals that are not good for us. Plus, microwaving them makes it worse.
SWW-great story on the missing remote.
Thank you DB, I was going to check those Ides of March as I know them to be on the 15th.
Dan-in-Toronto I just got chills reading about the parents of your friend Sue. What incredible, wonderful people they were.
Stuart what is your puppy’s name and please post a picture.
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
MOONRIVER
SKYLARK
CharlesPogue-GOOD VIBES for a lovely first meeting with the director.
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I just finished eating a ham and swiss cheese sandwich on challah.
It was delicious and decidely heretical (in a non-Kosher way)
yummmmmmmmmmm
BK, one of these days we must have a topic du jour about sandwiches... argalagrahaglagaha
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fourth page dance
[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%] ;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D;D[/move]
[move=right,scroll,6,transparent,100%] :o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o[/move]
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I'm afraid I don't care much for TOPAZ. There are some good set pieces (the surprise execution of someone is beautifully filmed), but it always seems a muddle to me every time I watch it. I do recommend the DVD, however, as along with the full cut and the alternate endings, there's a decent documentary on the DVD and the enhanced for widescreen encoding makes the film look great.
Here we go again with the Phyllis Gates stuff. She can cry poor innocent me all she wants, but I'll NEVER believe she didn't know what she was doing with her quickie engagement and marriage to Rock Hudson.
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On the other hand, you're in your 70s, you've no one to contradict you, there's interest in your story and there is MONEY to be made.
What does she care if "thinking" people come to the conclusion that if her story were true, it would make her one of the stupidest people who ever walked the face of the earth?
She's the only person who was ever married to Rock Hudson.
Not even 60s' Hudson beard Marilyn Maxwell ever got that close.
Speaking of Maxwell, has anyone ever read any comments by her about her "association" with Hudson during the 60s?
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Stuart what is your puppy’s name and please post a picture.
DR Jane, her name is Morgan. Officially, Morgan LeFay Brittany Fairchild. (And only because my Dear Partner vetoed my original name choice: Agnes Pooch.)
She is a lab/shepherd mix. And is the cutest thing on earth, except when she eats reading glasses. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I have a photo to post. If I do, it would be from eons ago, simply eons.
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[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%]Good vibes to DR CHARLES POGUE[/move]
Johnny Mercer ;D
They have all been mentioned but:
Lil Abner Score
Accen-chu-ate the Positive
Moon River ;D
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I'm probably going to ruffle some feathers, but I'll stick my nose in anyway,and request that we all PLEASE cease and desist debating gun control in this forum.
It could be incredibly hurtful to some of our readers who have so very recently suffered a traumatic loss to come here and read some of the comments that are being made. Please, let's just offer them our sympathy and good wishes and leave it at that.
GOOD VIBES to DR Charles Pogue.
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Lulu is right and that's what I was trying to get at in my ealier post, without coming right out and saying it.
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Stuart, baby pictures of Morgan will work.
Echo, our Bernese Mountain Dog, ate money when she was a puppy. Fortunately I was able to paste enough of the pieces together & take it to the bank for brand new money.
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While we're being a bit more sensitive, I'll admit right now that I think it's possible that, as some point, Phyllis Gates believed Rock Hudson loved her and married her for that reason.
I have trouble believing she never knew or figured it out during the course of her marriage, but that's not important. (Of course, she's the secretary to a man who's trying to keep the truth about his client out of the press...why on earth would his secretary have any access to that????).
I've found a Larry King show transcript of a Tribute to Rock Hudson with Tony Randall, Gina Lollabrigida, Dale Olsen (Hudson publicist), Elaine Stritch, Liz Smith and Diane Ladd:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/01/lkl.00.html
Interesting bit of news from Mr. Olsen...that Rock and Phyllis remained married for SIX YEARS!
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I should have taken our discussion off-board to e-mail and I apologise to everyone.
The most important thing is that Swishy and Laura have lost someone from their community. No matter how it happened or what the political implications one can see in it, someone is going to go to bed tonight without their son, brother, family member or friend. That is a tragedy and I should have not turned this into a debate.
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http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/01/lkl.00.html
I don’t have time to read all of it, but the Diane Ladd story is very touching.
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There's a very funny song called Bruce. It's about cross-dressing. Wish I had more details, but that's it.
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Blossom Dearie?
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In addition to the entire song score of LI'L ABNER, my favorite Johhny Mercer songs are:
Moon River
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive
That Old Black Magic
On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe
Days of Wine and Roses
Whistling Away the Dark
Come Rain or Come Shine
Talk to Me Baby
Autumn Leaves
When October Goes
Hit the Road to Dreamland
P.S. I Love You
Perhaps some noted person on these boards can point me in the right direction to finding the bridge (the one about King Solomon) for Hit the Road to Dreamland.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't state that my favorite Johnny Mercer album is Nancy LaMott's Come Rain or Come Shine.
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Democrat Gov. learns from Republican Attorney General:
From FNC (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114952,00.html)
West Virginia Governor Blasts T-Shirt
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gov. Bob Wise sent a letter to Abercrombie & Fitch on Monday demanding that the clothing retailer stop selling a T-shirt that spoofs the state with the slogan, "It's All Relative in West Virginia."
Wise said the T-shirt depicts "an unfounded, negative stereotype" of the state.
Gee! This is the same governor who LIKED the movie WRONG TURN! A movie in which the characters COULD have been wearing said T-shirts! For a movie about West Virginia inbreeders, its ironic that it was filmed in CANADA! I guess we really can BLAME CANADA!
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MERCER!
and a lesser known song--Two of a Kind
not that lesser known to Bobby Darin fans. . . . ;)
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. . .and has ANYONE mentioned "Blues in the Night?"
(I've perused and perused, but don't think that I saw it.)
Count me in as an "Emily" fan, too.
My second favorite Johnny Mercer album would be the Painted Smiles recording, MOSTLY MERCER; the album which introduced Nancy LaMott to the listening public.
(http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd000/d014/d0143490d2o.jpg)
This various-artists collection of specially recorded songs in small-band arrangements does not pretend to feature Johnny Mercer's best or best-known songs, instead combining the well-known ("You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," "Blues in the Night") with many interesting obscurities. Nor, as the title indicates, is the album given over entirely to Mercer. There are two ringers, both debut recordings: "Ask Me Again," a George and Ira Gershwin song discovered by Michael Feinstein, who accompanies Rosemary Clooney in performing it; and "Time You Old Gypsy Man," lyricist E.Y. Harburg's final song. Other performers include Eydie Gormé, Jennifer Holliday, and Anita O'Day. Highlights include "I Wonder What Became of Me," afrom the musical St. Louis Woman, by Henrietta Valor; "Out of This World," by Judy Garland imitator Jim Bailey; and the comic "I Fought Every Step of the Way," aby Laura Kenyon, Armelia McQueen, and Mary Gordon Murray. — William Ruhlmann
1. I'm Old Fashioned performed by Rosemary Clooney
2. My Mama Thinks I'm a Star performed by Kaye Ballard
3. I Remember You performed by Eydie Gorme
4. It Had Better Be Tonight performed by Fran Jeffries
5. I Wonder What Became of Me performed by Henrietta Valor 6. My Shining Hour performed by Mimi Hines
7. Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry performed by Marilyn Cooper
8. You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby performed by Nancy LaMott
9. Blues in the Night performed by Jennifer Holliday
10. Ask Me Again performed by Rosemary Clooney
11. Hooray for Hollywood performed by Anita ODay
12. Out of This World performed by Jim Bailey
13. Time, You Old Gypsy Man performed by Kaye Ballard
14. I Fought Every Step of the Way performed by Laura Kenyon, Amelia McQueen and Mary Gordon Murray.
15. Midnight Sun performed by Sara Riva Krieger
16. How Little We Know performed by Mark Sendroff
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Thanks for your response, BK. It's good to know somebody likes it, as it is generally considered to be lesser Hitch. Especially since it's nearly 2 and a half hours long, I'd like to think that we'll be enjoying ourselves for that long while we watch it.
This is the "supersized" version, so we made out well on that score. I'm sure the DVD version is superior, and I'd been considering getting the DVD instead, but since I've never seen it and, like I say, it's not generally well-regarded, I figured we'd just see the (free) library VHS instead. If we enjoy it, we might wind up with the DVD eventually.
And it also two (or is it three) alternate endings
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I would also like to mention a wonderful album of Mercer songs that was recorded live at the Cinegrill by the wonderful and talented Mr. Lee Lessack.
(http://www.lmlmusic.com/artists/les_g_cdcover4.jpg)
Some of the rarer songs where:
Pineapple Pete, The Bathtub Ran Over Again, The Air-Minded Executive and Whatcha-Ma-Call-It.
Here is a list of the songs
1. My Shining Hour
2. Too Marvelous For Words / Day In - Day Out / That Old Black Magic
3. Dream / Laura
4. The Air-Minded Executive
5. I Thought About You
6. The Travel Medley: Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home / On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe / Jeepers Creepers / Glow Worm / Lazy Bones / I'm An Old Cowhand / Come Rain Or Come Shine / Blues In The Night
7. Days Of Wine And Roses / Charade / Moon River
8. I Wanna Be Around
9. I Remember You / Skylark
10. Whatcha-Ma-Call-It
11. When October Goes
12. Pineapple Pete
13. The Bathtub Ran Over Again
14. Whistling Away The Dark/ Autumn Leaves
15. Out Of This World
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I'll post rather than just read - but have nothing much to say -- and here it is.
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Actually - I do have something to ask. For the dog people among you. Abie the wonderdog is behaving strangely. He's playful and seems healthy... BUT -- here is a dog who from the time he was a pup has eaten every bit of his food the moment I put it down in front of him. Suddenly - for the past three of four days - I put down the food and he won't eat. Eventually, with much coaxing from me, he eats it. But that's so unlike him. I've always fed him an excellent brand of dry kibble (Flint River). I've bought some canned food and will try adding just a bit to his evening meal tonight to see if that works. But it may not - he hates change. Any ideas on what might be going on? (He's only a year and a half.)
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To all of you dear readers:
Thank you so very much for your sympathy. News has trickled in from different sources. While it turns out that the boy was actually a freshman (and not a sophomore like Sarah and my bro are), does that really even matter? No. I never expected anything like this to happen in our community, whether it was accidental or not. My brother said most kids at school today were fine. They received a little bit of information (i.e. drugs were involved), and a crisis team was supposed to be there.
Btw, DerBrucer, thank you for posting that article. I read it in the Washington Post earlier. It was almost surreal to read it and think about how I know Mrs. Heanue, who's mentioned in it, and how Bruceton Mills is about 10 minutes from my house. I think the hardest part was seeing a reporter in front of my old school on the news today. I know the press is allowed to come investigate for news stories, but I think that they should have respect and not bother the students and faculty who are trying to cope with this loss.
One last thing:
A few years ago, when I was a sophomore, I believe, a boy from Broad Run was shot and killed on a path at night. Rumors circulated until police caught the killer up in PA. If I remember correctly, he was caught after he killed someone else in PA, and then he killed himself. That horrible incident differed in the sense that the killer was not found for a few weeks, and it was totally random. In this case, the boy who shot Nick is in custody, and hopefully things will get back to normal (whatever that is) soon. My heart goes out to all of the families and people involved, and I thank you for your support, thoughts, prayers, and vibes.
Sorry I have been the bearer of bad news twice in a row. :(
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Good evening all.
Most of my favorite Johnny Mercer songs have already been mentioned so I'll just repeat 2. You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby and Autumn Leaves.
Best vibes to DR Charles Pogue. Hope all goes well.
I'm very sorry to hear about the shooting. Such a senseless loss. I don't like guns. Never have, never will. I even get a little scared when I'm in a store or out someplace and there is a police officer with his gun. I know they have to carry one but I don't want anywhere near it.
I really don't need any vibes or anything but I can’t let the day go by without mentioning that today is the 25th anniversary of the death of the most important man in my life, my Father, Charles who I was named for by way of his stage name, “Danny Blaine”. There are so many things I wish I tell him now that I’m older.
DR Jane, our dogs are very much alike. When Bear was a puppy, I was counting some savings bonds and dropped a few. Quick as a flash, Bear chewed up about a hundred and fifty dollars worth before I could get them away from him. I took what was left to the bank and the lady was very helpful but said it sure put a different spin on “My dog ate my homework”.
:)
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Shame on Michael Shayne. As keeper of the BK website (www.brucekimmel.com) he should have been the first to read Kritzer Time and post his review. Shame, I say. Skammen.
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. . .and has ANYONE mentioned "Blues in the Night?"
I did. This morning!
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Danise - You don't want vibes, so I won't send you any, other than my good wishes, but I found what you said about your father very touching. There is a Jewish custom - a Yahrzeit candle - a candle that burns for 24 hours, lit on the aniversary of the death of a loved one. I usually don't do the full 24 hours because even though the special candles are supposed to be quite safe, I don't like to leave a burning candle when I'm not in the house. My point is, that looking at a "live" burning flame is somehow for me a very comforting way to feel the presence of a loved one long gone.
I don't want to be presumptuous, but I will be... Perhaps you could light a candle tonight - and, as you watch the flame flickering and dancing, tell your father those things you mentioned that you would lke to say now that you're older.
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I started reading Kritzerland yesterday and am enjoying it very, very much! Now I am understanding all of this Leslie Parrish stuff! LOL!
I am reading during my afternoon break and whilst I use the cardio at the gym.
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Thanks, Panni. Perhaps I'll do just that. :)
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Good afternoon.
Funny story about work today. Tonight I have a jazz choir gig, and I have to go straight from work to call, so I came to work dressed in what we wear, which is jeans and our matching t-shirts. Yes, not the brightest idea. Quinn grabbed me with his chocolatey hands, and instantly my clothes are smeary and dirty. There was nothign to do but put them in the wash. I rooted around in my trunk and found some leftover costume peices from Pirates that I'd made...enough to cover me semi-decently while the clothes washed. Riley took one look at me dressed in an oversized black vest with fringe, red and white striped tights, and a huge shirt, and just about died laughing. I admit I looked pretty silly, but desperate times...
I finally downloaded AIM on to this computer...AIM express was being a royal pain in the patoot. They use AOL for their internet and I hate, loathe, and despise it.
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Panni: One possibility for Abe is that he might have an inflammation of the gums, or a bad tooth....you might have him checked out.
Of course, if he had a sore mouth, he probably wouldn't eat even if you coaxed him. Maybe he's just testing you to see if you care.
If this persists longer than a week, I'd ask a veterinarian...
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Panni: One possibility for Abe is that he might have an inflammation of the gums, or a bad tooth....you might have him checked out.
Of course, if he had a sore mouth, he probably wouldn't eat even if you coaxed him. Maybe he's just testing you to see if you care.
If this persists longer than a week, I'd ask a
veterinarian...
P.S. Another thought. My cat has done this. And all I had to do was change the kind of cat food I was feeding her.
Animals get tired of the same old thing day after day, I'm betting. In nature, they get variety, but in our homes, not so much.
He might just want you to spice it up a bit, and to that end, your idea of mixing in a little soft food could just be the ticket.
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B & B won't eat their "big" dog hard food unless I put one of those little packages you give the "little" dogs.
Of course, Bear is just a "little" dog in his heart. He'll sit in your lap, if you'll let him. All 125 lbs of him.
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We seem to have had a thirty-five minute LULL. Skammen.
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Thanks, RLP - I mixed in a tiny bit of canned food tonight and he ate heartily.
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I'm loving all these dog stories. I can't wait to get a dog of my own...as soon as I'm in an apartment complex that allows them :)
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DR Panni: Thanks for asking--Gabe seems to be doing well. It looks like we have averted surgery. He does have to wear the long arm cast for at least another two weeks, then be refitted with a short arm cast for another two weeks after that, but we're on the way (ooh! A Paint Your Wagon reference).
DR Charles Pogue: Yes, indeed, the woman doing the commentary is Ms. Orrison, and she repeats the Walker comb story on the commentary. She actually has some interesting facts to impart, but really too few considering how much time she evidently spent with the Wilcoxons. Her comments are of the "Look, there's Clint Walker again" (she must mention him every time he appears) or "Look, there's June Wilcoxon doing the orgy dance while she has asthma" ilk. The other thing that bothered me was her proprietary language--she frequently says things like "We only got the shot after two takes," etc., implying she was there. The "anti-film noir" comment just set me off so completely I had to pause the film for a moment whilst I calmed my hysterical laughter.
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Thank you all for your thoughts. Although I wasn't very good friends with the boy who was killed, it still hurts. Today was a hard day. They did have grief counselors at school if anyone needed them, and teachers seemed a bit more...relaxed...than usual.
While everything Laura said is correct, I wanted to add to some things. While academically, the boy was a freshman, it was because he was held back last year due to excessive drug use. He has spent the majority of this year at a rehabilitation school, and had only returned a few weeks ago. I had numerous classes with him in middle school, and he was in our age bracket.
And drugs were involved in the shooting. I was tlaking with a VERY reliable source today, but I won't post anything I now know, just to be on the safe side. This kid has had a long history of being a nuisance. He was nice and friendly, but a bad student, and he made bad decisions. It's so sad, because he had finally returned to BRHS, and everyone thought he was going to turn around and change himself.
There were TV cres parked on the front lawn of the school today, interviewing teachers and students, which I found kind of shocking. I know it's what the community wants, but they were sort of "in the way". It was awkward. The vibe was jsut horrible at school, and it was relieving to finally leave.
It just makes you count your blessings.
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I thought I'd check in after watching Whoopi Goldberg's show tonight: it's a funny episode about gay marriage, and I was suprised but happy to see the New York City Gay Men's Chorus singing at the end. I love Mary Testa and she's got a good moment.
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I HAVE GOOD NEWS! :)
My aunt's surgery was today. They found and removed a mass that is "not benign but also NOT invasive cancer." It had not spread at all, and they will not follow up with chemo, radiation, etc. Apparently my aunt was watching Wheel of Fortune when they left her hospital room (she's expected to return home on Friday). She did of course have a radical hysterectomy, but that was the best case scenario.
Thanks for the good vibes! They WORKED!! :)
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Great news, Lulu!
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Thanks for the good vibes! They WORKED!!
Never underestimate the power of HHW vibes!
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Vibes to everyone, including me.
Now, where in tarnation IS everyone? We haz slowed to a crawl.
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Thanks for sharing the good news, Lulu.
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Sarah, I'm very sorry you and your friends and community are having to deal with this tragedy. The feelings of unease will last a while, but they will diminish. Just try to be there for those who need your support, and you will be doing your part to make things better.
...There were TV cres parked on the front lawn of the school today, interviewing teachers and students, which I found kind of shocking. I know it's what the community wants, but they were sort of "in the way". It was awkward. The vibe was jsut horrible at school, and it was relieving to finally leave.
It just makes you count your blessings.
No, Sarah, your community consists of the school, the people there, and their families. It doesn't include everyone within broadcasting range. You were right to be shocked at the reporters, who may have been "doing their job," but were intrusive and damaging to your community.
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Danise I believe Echo did eat someone’s homework once. We also had a cat that liked to shred papers and occasionally that included homework. ;D
Lulu you could not have given us better news today, of all days.
Panni I relieved to hear the wonderdog was just bored.
And of course, more good news that Gabe doesn’t need surgery.
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Very sorry to hear of the events in Laura and Sarah's town. So sad.
I got home yesterday to find Kritzer Time there waiting for me! Got started on it last night, and am very much enjoying it.
It's been a bit odd seeing my little hometown in the top national headlines the past week. The whole brouhaha regarding the lesbian Methodist minister... yup, that's in my (and Ann's) very own handy-dandy hometown! Seeing national news interviews with folks who used to live just down the street is kinda strange. :)
And that's my helter-skelter batch of thoughts for the moment.
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I received this little missive from the In These Times mailing list:
<<Despite President Bush's pledge that homosexuals "ought to have the same rights" as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation.
According to the Federal Times, the president's appointee at the Office of Special Counsel ruled that federal employees will now "have no recourse if they are fired or demoted simply for being gay." While the Bush Administration says it is legally prohibited from firing a person for their conduct, they have the legal right to fire or demote someone based on their sexual orientation. To carry out the directive, the White House has begun removing information from government websites about sexual orientation
discrimination in the workplace.
Not only does the new directive contradict the president's own promise to treat homosexuals as equals under the law, but it also contradicts what the Administration told Congress. As noted in a bipartisan letter from four Senators to the Administration, "During the confirmation process [of the president's appointee], you assured us that you were committed to protecting federal employees against unlawful discrimination related to their sexual orientation.">>
Isn't this a great administration?
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How cool is this???
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Shame on Michael Shayne. As keeper of the BK website (www.brucekimmel.com) he should have been the first to read Kritzer Time and post his review. Shame, I say. Skammen.
Actually I have started to read it but have been extremly busy this week. But I needed some relaxation so I have started to freshen up www.brucekimmel.com and will be adding a new section for Kritzer Time.
But I will put the site on hold and finish the book first.
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Great news DR Lulu.
Instead of a candle my parents use a special plug that looks like a candle. You plug it in and it lights up (it has a picture of a candle on the front). I agree, I wouldn't want to leave a candle burning unattended.
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Books first, sites second, that's what I say. Damn them, damn them all to hell.
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Am I going to be the first person to use the word "wussburgers" tonight?
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BK, you need to stop damning people to hell.
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Wussburgers, yes.
I never damn "people" to hell.
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I just damn those damn dirty apes. If you need a reference, Swishy, as to where these lines come from, feel free to ask.
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AMERICAN IDOL tonight:
I felt it was a mediocre night oberall. SOme of the people who excelled last week had off nights tonight, and the two powerhouses prevailed once again.
My favorites were Fantasia and LaToya. Fantasia did a quiet, lovely rendition of her song, the polar opposite of her style for the last few weeks. I admired that she could give a controlled, mature performance for a change.
While she was dressed in a classy way and handled her song in a classy manner, I thought her behavior when the judges didn't flip for her was anything BUT classy. Sorry, but I didn't vote for her because I didn't like her inability to handle criticism, even if it was misplaced criticism.
Latoya's song was country to its core and her rendition was about as far away from country as it's possible to get. She was smooth, professional, excellent, but I didn't hear a trace of country.
Many people chose ballads this week, and for some it was wise: Matt Rogers finally showed it has a fine voice, not outstanding, but worth listening to. Jon Peter, on the other hand, showed shaky control and more camera appeal than vocal expertise.
Camile again showed neither. Shaky voice, "goat" vibrato, and a terrible tendency to breathe at the wrong moments, probably from sheer terror.
Amy had a good night and Diana started slowly and then built to a rousing finish. Same with George. Started slowly and got better later. John Stevens again crooned his way through "King of the Road" but it's bland. He hit the notes and covered his lapse with the lyrics pretty well, but I couldn't imagine listening to an entire CD of this same crooning style. There are no peaks or valleys to his singing, and after awhile, it's just too monotonous for me.
Jennifer, who did very well last week, picked a lousy song this week and didn't do herself any favors with another bad attitude after some judges' slams.
Don't these kids know the world is watching?
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Great news, Lulu! Thank you for sharing the good news!
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I, too, thought tonight's "American Idol" way too shaky.
And I'm sick to death of the "judges" NOT GETTING IT.
Tonight they were bitching that the songs were too safe, that they were too low-keyed. That's because LAST WEEK, Simon was bitching about the songs being too oversung. If they weren't so freaking hypercritical at every turn, perhaps -- PERHAPS -- some of these singers could develop into something unique without jumping through hoops.
Tonight, though, I was pleased by Diana DeGarmo, Jon Peter Lewis (I thought his singing voice revealed layers heretofore unheard -- he HAS a gorgeous voice), Fantasia (VERY classy performance), Matt Rogers (FINALLY, his voice is beginning to reveal itself as a beauty) and Amy.
Diana came closest to blowing me away, but for the most part, no one did. Fantasia, as Matt said about LaToya, did not sing "country," even if the song was classified as such.
The ONE song that was my favorite of the bunch -- "Desperado" -- was totally massacred by the hideous Camile Bellasco.
Simon Cowell has some serious problems but they are HIS problems. The trouble is he imposes them on the singers. His comments to Matt were not only weirdly ludicrous but indicative of the imbalances of Simon's judgment.
A couple of weeks ago, he likened a performer to someone he called a "pop star" and used the term in a belittling way. Tonight he told a contestant that they were looking for a "pop star" and he didn't think they were it. I wonder if he has any idea what they are looking for. Whatever it is, it will be dependent upon the public to find it because Simon hasn't a clue -- to offer, that is.
Again, LaToya misfired for me. She was singing notes too low for her in most of the song's early going (and this is true of many of the singers tonight)...I heard the backup singers for most of the song...it was out of her range and she was not particularly effective for me. Hated the song. I also hate the heaps of praise the judges continue to lavish upon her average, at best, performances.
For me, she was no better than Jennifer Hudson who was in good voice despite the song choice.
Most of the songs were so-so...even if they WERE No. 1 Hits for other singers.
Stop the freaking THEME NIGHTS and let the singers find good songs on their own.
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No, the judges on American Yodel do not have a clue. Look at the two top winners last year: do either of them fit in the mold of what a pop star is supposed to look like? Hardly. And they both have voices that are far better than your average pop star of today.
I do agree that too many of the contestants played it safe tonight, going for ballads instead of some of the gutsier material that Country has provided. If they have coaches who are helping them pick their material, then it is the coaches who are to blame, for not being well versed in the form selected for the week.
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Could we at some time do a topic du jour of favorite classic film lines?
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DR Robin: I was shocked (as in :o) to read your post about the Bush Administration's attempts to reinstate discrimination in the workplace against gay men and lesbians. Since you weren't able to post the article in question (working from another source), I decided to track down the Federal Times Online (http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2727185) piece myself.
On the one hand, I have to consider the following quote from the article:
(Scott) Bloch, who began a five-year term as special counsel in January, said he does not believe the list of prohibited personnel actions outlined in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act covers discrimination based on sexual orientation.
It is a marked departure from how the previous special counsel, Elaine Kaplan, enforced the law and appears to contradict the Office of Personnel Management’s guidance to agencies and employees regarding workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. OPM has held since 1980 that discrimination based on sexual orientation is covered as a prohibited personnel practice under the 1978 reform act and can be appealed to OSC. The act covers all conduct “which does not adversely affect” performance, although it doesn’t specifically list sexual orientation.
Technically, Bloch is correct. In 1978, references to sexual orientation would not have been written into such things as the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. This doesn't make his opinion any the less odious; it just lines it up with the "Hate the sin and not the sinner" attitude some churches have taken and spins it into reverse.
But, consider this as well:
Bloch said a senior OSC staff member first raised the issue shortly after Bloch took office in January by questioning a slide show presentation, used in training sessions with employees at federal agencies, that referred to OSC’s enforcement of sexual orientation discrimination. A couple of weeks later, Bloch said he decided to remove references to sexual orientation from the slide show and all other OSC materials posted online after reviewing the law and discovering that sexual orientation isn’t mentioned.
From my reading of the article, it is not the Bush administration that is removing the references (as the posting from the In These Times missive you received suggests), but only those references within the Office of Special Council, directly under Bloch's management, that have been removed. Indeed, the Federal Times article includes the following:
Bloch’s predecessor, Washington attorney Kaplan, called his reading of the law “dead wrong.”
“The legal position that he is taking, that there is some distinction between discrimination based on sexual orientation and discrimination based on conduct, is absurd,” Kaplan said. “It is a distinction that has not been made by OPM, the Justice Department or anybody else in the executive branch.”
Thus, this is the action of one man, imposing his viewpoint on those working for him but as yet without support from other offices.
Finally, it's worth reading the final paragraph:
Bloch earned his law degree from the University of Kansas and was a partner in a Kansas law firm, where he specialized in civil rights law, employment law and legal ethics, according to the White House. Before he was nominated as special counsel, Bloch was deputy director of the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
Hmmmm. While some of us aren't in Kansas any more, it appears somebody got left behind.
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A quick follow-up. Der Brucer had earlier located an article in the Washington Post (http://) dealing with the Bloch incident, but hadn't had a chance to post it. (Hmm, a Post post.) An excerpt:
The senators, in a letter to Bloch, said the removal of the reference "appears inconsistent" with assurances that Bloch, as a presidential nominee, gave the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
"During the confirmation process, you assured us that you were committed to protecting federal employees against unlawful discrimination related to their sexual orientation," the senators wrote. "We are concerned that the recent changes to OSC publications might give federal employees the opposite impression and we ask that you reaffirm your previously stated commitment and advise us of steps you will take to inform federal employees of their rights and remedies under the law."
The letter, dated Feb. 19, was organized by Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), members of the Governmental Affairs Committee, and also signed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the committee chairman, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the panel's ranking Democrat. The committee oversees Bloch's office.
Interesting, that Sen. Collins (R-Maine) also signed the letter, making it a bi-partisan rebuke. It's a story worth following for further developments. (In other words, if we find a post-Post post.)