Haines His Way

Long URLs always get abbreviated here--the links still work.    For instance:

http://hometown.aol.com/jmkauffman/sheddinglight.html

All you never wanted to know about Frances Farmer.

Thanks for the link, DR JMK.  BTW (By the way in internet lingo), did I ever tell you that I was the love child of Francis Farmer and Cecil B. DeMille?

I'm in a new section of the book - always slow going, but I seem to be in the swing of it now.

I think I shall now have to go out, whilst the rain has slowed, to get my Diet Cokes and see if there are any packages for me.

TCM is now showing the pre-1948 Paramount product that was property of MCA/Universal.   We may see some Frances on TCM sooner or later!  In fact I think some of those movies used to start on TV with that great MCA logo with turning letters - and I always wondered what MCA stood for.

Music Corporation of America, I later found out.  Before the internet there were LOTS of mysteries.

DR CP - I think your friend Mr Harlan Ellison has written extensively about his dealings with WGA.

Harlan, like myself, has served on the board of the WGA.  It's a tough job.  Most people try to do their best, but sometimes things can get fractious and difficult.  

Harlan is in my camp about the perils of condoning and encouraging any culture that promotes writers being thrown off of scripts willy-nilly and others writers feeding off their brother writers' misery.  

I think what infuriates Harlan about the guild is the same thing that infuriates me about the guild...the level of timidity and cowardice in the general membership and their mentality of victimhood.  They're like that character in Li'l Abner with the perennial cloud over his head.

Worse, they want to whine about their ills, but they want to do nothing about standing up for themselves and drawing a line in the sand and make the necessary sacrifices you sometimes have to make to achieve something of real value.  

I just can't believe that whenever there is talk of a possible strike you have writers whining: "But what if we're on strike for six months?  How will I pay my rent?  How will I put my kid through college?"  I want to tell these people:  "It's a little late to being worrying about that, for God's sake.  You chose to be in the Arts!  You could be out of work for six months and it have nothig to do with a strike...It could just be the vagaries of the business.  How would you pay the rent then or put the kid through college?  You'd go out and get a real job or do whatever you had to do to meet your obligations."

But there is this mentality that they want the leadership to get them everything in the world, but they aren't willing to sacrifice for it.  The mentality of something for nothing.

What they don't understand is if they don't eventually get some backbone and stand up and fight occasionally, they won't have any kind of work that will sustain them over a career anyway.  People didn't understand when SAG went on strike over commercials that those people were fighting for a livelihood.  If they hadn't drawn their line in the sand,  no actor would've have been able to make his living doing commercials again.

A  lot of union members have gotten even more intimidated in this union-busting climate that we're now in.  I was delighted to read the other day in Equity news that Equity would not let an actress who had left the union to go work in a non-union production of Miss Saigon back in the union when she suddenly got an offer to do a union production.  She said that she only quit the union because it was too hard to get work as a union actor.  Equity, God bless them, told her, well too bad.  There are plenty of union members who have a tough time getting union employment but they don't betray their union and fellow union members by undermining the union to take non-union work.  The woman apparently show absolutely no remorse and felt she should be able to cross back and forth over the union lines whenever it was convenient for her.  Unfortunately, union membership has responsibilities and obligations that come with its privileges,which she chose to ignore and so she is now paying the price.  Bravo, Equity!

JMK, by the very virtue of the fact that there had been fourteen writers on a script tells me that the problems with that movie wasn't the writing.  If you've got fourteen writers on anything, you're not developing a script, you're just guessing and don't have a clue.  

Nor is it unusual for the last writer on the project to claim that he wrote the draft that got the movie made.  I've heard this story so many times before...most of the time it is simply sour grapes bullshit when they don't get credit.  These things are more complicated than that.

I have the EXODUS laserdisc and could never get all the way through it the quality was so poor. When I read that the DVD was taken from the same limited master, I skipped on it.

I would like to see it again some day, but not unless someone gets their hands on a decent print of it. I saw it at the theater all those many decades ago, and it made me cry it was so touching and is quite a stirring film. But when you can barely stand to watch the TV screen because everything looks smeared and out of focus - forget it!

We've finally gotten a break in our rain. But we have more in the forecast for tomorrow. Still, even at its worst, the rain has not been heavy at all, just constant from early this morning until just about 30 minutes ago.

Good Afternoon!

Whew!

I drove over to the beautiful University of Richmond campus, and took a run on the track of their Fred Hardy Track and Field complex.  I wasn't sure exactly what the distance for one lap was, but I figured four laps would equal about one mile.  -There were lots of meter markings, but I couldn't remember my metric conversions.

I did 12 laps!  Whew! It was another case of mind over perceived fatigue.  After the first couple of laps, I stopped looking at my watch each time I pushed the lap button.  I wanted to surprise myself with my average lap times.  Well, when I looked down expecting to see that I only had two laps left... I had three laps left!  Grrrrrr!  So, I pushed through, and even pushed a little harder during the last lap.  It felt great to actually do the 12 laps.  And I even did my push-ups and crunches on the astro-turf infield! - very comfortable.

Once I got home, I started looking up the track info on the UR website just to see how long the track was.  Well, the basic info page said it was 40m(eters).  So, I pulled up a metric conversion website, entered 380m and came up with only 3/10 of a mile or so.  WHAT?!?!?!?!

So, I Googled for more information on the track.  On the UR Athletics website, it said the track was 400m(eters).   Amazing the difference a zero makes!  So, after entering 3800 meters into the conversion table.... Just under 3 miles!  YEAH!

And I have to say the Spenko insoles I bought last week truly made all the difference in the world!  I may go ahead an invest in another pair for my cross-trainers so I don't have to switch them out.  They also have some cheaper-priced insoles for work shoes, and I may get a set for my loafers.

And running on a track was also nice too.  It's been a while since I've run on a track, and I had forgotten how comfortable it is.  I like the Vita-Course track in Byrd Park, but, as I found out after reading on the web, the generally uneven surface can cause back and leg muscle issues for some people.  Ah!  -Which is why I decided to run on a track today.  My back feels fine, and the very slight pain in my side was just the usual runner's cramp/stitch.

And that's my fitness report for today!

*And, yes, I'm posting publicly about my progress and activity.  The "publicity" is helping to keep me "honest" and keep me going.  Ah, the things we do for motivation.

Lovely postings today.  No packages, but then I really wasn't expecting to see any show up via UPS or Fed Ex.  I should have lots of things showing up this week, including two nice amazon orders, which will hopefully be here by Wednesday at the latest.

JRand54, did you get the Ann Sothern PRIVATE SECRETARY DVD? I have been watching the episodes over the last few days and they are a lot of fun! I love, love, love Ann Tyrell...she just makes the show! I wonder what ever happened to her...I have never seen her on anything else, but she is wonderful character actress.

I've written a bit more - I ended up discarding in its entirety the route I'd gone this morning - decided it didn't feel right, and went directly to the next section I'd planned, which I now know was exactly the right choice.  Funny when that happens.  

LOXODROMIC!

Speaking of LOXODROMIC, we've had a good hour-and-a-half of dryness.  We need a lot more, but the skies in this neck of the woods are still pretty gray.  In other places, the blue sky is peeking out.

I think I'm going to rustle up some grub now.

Is that the dashing and dapper Marc Chapeaux?

I'm praying we're done her for a few more hours, rain-wise.

It was Bree's son, Jennifer.

Bree has a son named Jennifer???

 

...at least "AI" will be broadcast in Hi-Def, so...

Shouldn't that be Hi-Deaf?  

We had some sprinkles a few minutes ago, otherwise it's still dryish, and the sun even made an appearance for about twelve seconds.

Meanwhile, I think our esteemed BK should consider himself lucky.  Or maybe...

Earlier today, whilst der Brucer kicked me off the computer before I had caught up with all the posting hither and yon (which is why I was so late with posting for the day), Fletcher decided I was exactly who he wanted to take him for a walk.  This means, of course, for a run.

What Fletcher had forgotten to tell me was that it was raining.  Not heavily, nothing like Los Angeles has been seeing, but wet all the same.

Fletcher had a wonderful time, running as fast as my legs could go, trying to get me to go even faster.  We ran down the street to the cul-de-sac, beyond which is nothing but marshlands.  We ran back up the street to the corner where a singlewide trailerhouse used to stand before a car whipped around the corner too fast and wiped out both trailer and car.  And we ran back to our own house.  

Half-way through this last run, Fletcher suddenly stopped, looked at me with a smile on his face, and licked my hand.  To truly appreciate rain, you have to have a dog who thinks the stuff is grand.