Take up thy bed and walk

I was over there>
at the Wee Irish fella's the other day and I realized he had a FUCKING SEARCH  function.
I had NO fucking IDEA you could do that?

You know how many fucking HOURS I've spent looking for an old post by trying like fuck to remember the (no doubt witty but) tangentally related title?

Any fuckin ways, go knock yourself out, see how many fucking times I've talked about Katie Mara in her undergarments, go on.

First five searches are free, on me.

Woo hoo!

Raj

3 and a half minutes of Grace

1990 or 91, I can't remember which, I was (among many other things) doing part time stage grunt work at the local CTV affiliate.That year, the CCMAs were in Edmonton, at the big soft seater.
If you've ever had any involvement with the Ento-tainment inductry in Canada, especially music, you'll know that the CCMAs are a pretty big deal.
I'm pretty sure I was pulling dolly on that gig.
Anyways, as you can imagine, a live TV broadcast of an awards ceremony is a fairly involved undertaking.
So we were in there for a couple of days getting set up and doing practice runs and stuff.

That year, the big huge superstar headliner at the Awards was the incomparable Ms. k.d. lang.
As you may know, this was around the time that she had begun to move past her Psycho Cowgirl style of presentation

And towards a more serious, torchy style more closely approaching that of her lifelong idol, Ms. Patsy Cline

I'm foregoing the expected mention of what a fucking TOMATO Ms. Cline is, due to the fact that she bears more than a passing resemblance to me Ma

If you know anything about Ms. lang, it's that the whole reason she became a singer was Patsy Cline. Like Clapton and Robert Johnson,  Joe Cocker and Ray Charles, or Keef and Chuck Berry, the genesis of her entire career can be attributed to the influence of one person. Ms. lang has actually said in interviews that, as a young performer, she was on more than one occasion, literally posessed by the spirit of Patsy Cline.
(As a side note, if one were ever to doubt k.d.'s resolve and commitment to her life's work, one should forget about it. I've been to Consort, Alberta. Went to a rodeo dance there. If one were to choose the 10 Worst Places to Grow Up as k.d. lang, Consort would be about 8 of them.
Imagine Prince growing up in Harlan County, KY.)

Any fuckin ways, two things you need to know here.

One, at this particular time, k.d. was the biggest thing to come out of Alberta ever. Bigger than Michael J Fox

Bob Goulet

Tommy Chong

and the dudes who fucking cured diabetes all combined.

She also hadn't performed out for some time, IIRC.
So her singing at the show was quite a big deal, sort of a homecoming thing.

The nother thing you got to know is that crews, I mean TV/Film, and to some extent, theatre crews, are notoriously fucking jaded.
You know how, like, musicians don't dance? Because they're too cool?

Sort of like that, your average crew dude will take pride in not being phased by any performance on which they're working.

So anyways, there's all this hubbub going on the afternoon of show day, and among all the other hooha, the various performing acts are going up and doing a quick run through of their numbers with the house band.
And nobody's paying any attention, you know shit's getting hauled up into the rig, road cases are being trundled hither and yon, the air is filled with the sound of hammering and drilling and shit.
And then the floor manager goes out over headsets and radios and tells everyone that Ms. lang is on her way in to rehearse, and when she does so all work is to cease and we're all to sit down (and shut the fuck up, obviously) until she's done.


So everyone stops what they're doing, and takes a seat.


National Treasure Tommy Banks

who is, of course, the house band leader, steps to the middle of the stage, and this was just fuckin wildly weird, because, you know, like, the house lights are all up and there's gear and shit all over the place, and there's no audience except this 35 or 40 crew swine, but Tom just walks up the apron and says, straight up,

Ladies and gentlemen. Ms. k.d. lang.

And she comes out, she'd ditched her glasses and goofier haircut at this point and was just wearing a black suit. Pretty much looked like this

Thing is, there was this....deal in the air, I swear to fuck, like the last 3 seconds before a huge motherfucking lightning strike, suddenly the ions in the air became charged.

And she sang.

She sang Patsy Cline's Crazy.

This little lady with the Elvis haircut stood in the middle of that stage and sang this song, in a fucking soundcheck, and it was like she'd been preparing for it since the day she first drew breath.
Beyond talent, beyond technique.
More strength, conviction, and total intimacy with the song as a living, breathing thing, than I'd ever heard.

Or ever have since.

Remember what the guy who plays Sam Phillips

says to John Cash in Walk the Line:

If you was hit by a truck, and you was lying out there in that gutter dyin...and you had time to sing one song...one song that would sum you up...well that's the kind of song that truly saves people

(actually they say Mr. Phillips

never even said that, that John and Luther and Marshal passed the audition with flying colours, but so what)

Well that's what we heard that day.

And the song finished and she turned around and walked upstage to where Tommy was sitting at the piano, put the mike down, gave him a polite nod and probably thanked him, and left.

Dead silence.

I looked over at Hammy, my housemate, sometime drummer, and one of my very best friends (today he's an award-winning TV writer, back then he was just a TV cameraman and smalltown ballplayer).

And he has tears on his face.

And I got tears on my face.

And slowly, like in a dream, one by one, everyone gets up and slowly goes back to work.

I'd like to explain to you why it was such an extraordinary experience, how a girl just singing an old ballad written by Willie Nelson could move this entire group of cynical mutts to awed and reverential silence...but you know what?

Nothing I could say would explain it as eloquently as Elmo the Cook does.

Ms. lang never recorded it, to the best of my knowledge, and hardly ever performed it live.

Raj

Tribe, Cisco. Cisco, tribe.

Well it's always a special day when we meet someone new who isn't begging for a shot to the fuckin gob in the first 15 minutes.

Let alone someone who continues to not piss you off for hours and even days, for fuck's sakes.

Seriously, how often does that happen?
Anyways, I'm pleased to welcome our newest member of the tribe.

Cisco

Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and ice cream fuckin sandwiches.

He happens to be one of them sons a bitches that actually take their website content and posting duties seriously.
I hate them fuckers.

If you aren't a lame fuckwad, you'll visit his most excellent and richly populated site,

Black Sunshine Media
There's all kinds of cool stuff on there.

Welcome, Cisco, to the end of the road.

Raj

Local Fauna

Saturday I watched this girl get off her scooter and walk away from me.
She was wearing yoga pants.
And either no skivvies or a thong or something.
Because, you know...damn.

I swear, looked like a couple of St Bernard puppies wrasslin under a caboose blanket.

Raj

Moving on

You rest now, beautiful.
We got it from here.

XOXOXOXO
 

Raj

In TOTALLY over me head here 2

I was going to include this at the end of that last one, but I had to stop because I was about to pass out.

Many years after marrying Chuckie

Oona saw Reds

After which she wrote a letter to Nicks, saying

Thanks to you, I now can love my father

So, you know, there's that.

Raj

In TOTALLY over me head here...

Lordy.

Well it's Russian Month again (technically more like 2 or 3 months, but that has no rhythm).
Just like every year around this time.
I don't know why, maybe it's the weather.
Anyways, on your feet, hogs, let's go.

Right, so last year, I was really concentrating more on

Russian

gangsters

and

all.

This year, we seem to be focusing more on The October 17th Revolution, and the events leading up to it.

Now this also allows us to enjoy a slough of good old-style cinematic extravaganzas (I know, I also didn't even know there was a first vaganza, let alone an extra one).

So we ended up screening, basically back to back

I forgot about the wild divergence between the actual performers and their representations on these old drawn posters...It's almost like they made up the artwork before casting

You can't imagine how fucking HUMUNGOUS this movie was when it came out...with one of the most hideously awful scores ever, the theme of which was played NONSTOP for the next 10 years

and

First off, these are some BIG assed movies, make no mistakes.

They all have actual Intermissions (something I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing a return to, not like it would ever happen), and at least one of them has a fucking Overture, for crying out loud.
Actually, IIRC, Reds was the last Hollywood release to have an Intermission

Anyways, there's all kinds of wild casting shit and everything, Zhivago is, after all, David Lean, and N&A certainly wants to be.

But, thing is, Reds features, as is known, fucking Beatty

as Jack Reed

and is basically the story of Reed's relationship with Louise Bryant

as portrayed by Diane Keaton

(In truth, I've never been much of a fan of either Beatty OR Keaton, I've never been able to fathom how the two of them could become two of the biggest stars in the world doing one single shtick, him where he just blabbers away non stop while running around flapping his arms up and down and her doing her trademark spectacularly unattractive bewildered and neurotic verge-of-tears thing, but, whatever)

(I should say, I do thoroughly enjoy watching Heaven Can Wait, repeatedly

but at least in that he's supposed to be an eccentric goofball)

And, Reds is actually a spectacularly good movie.

And I'll admit, when it got to that train platform scene, the one on the poster, I got pretty lumpy-throaty type deal.

Anyways, despite them both presenting these timeless love stories against the backdrop of the Revolution, Reds and Doc Z are, obviously, very very different films.
In the 16 years between them, Hollywood changed a lot.

Also, of course, the two directors represented two insanely divergent styles of movie making (although I'm sure Beatty would have been dead chuffed to be even mentioned in the same sentence as Lean).

BUT beyond that, here's where things start to get kind of squirrely.

Now, I'll need you to stick close to me here, it's easy to get lost.

So, OK, Reds stars Diane Keaton, who was Beatty's long time girlfriend, right?

While Doctor Zhivago stars...that's right, (the mind-blowingly beautiful) Julie Christie

Who was also a long-time girlfriend of Beatty's, at least 7 years or so

OK, I'll grant you, the 2 of them together are so fuckin pretty it's a wonder they didn't just explode

Coincidence?

Maybe, but hold onto your X-ray Specs, things are about to get REAL fucked up.

As you probably also know, Reds was notable for what was maybe Nicks' last non-self-parodying performance, his Oxscar nomulated (and blisteringly good) portrayal

of the fantastic, one & only award-winning dramatist and poet (and Famous Drunk) Eugene O'Neill

one of my personal favourite writers of all time.

Now, like many Famous Drunks (present company excepted, and we know who we are), Mr. O'Neill wasn't exactly Father of the Year.

Although this doesn't come up in this movie, his track record as a father left something to be desired.
After at least 3 marriages, he ended up with 3 children.

His eldest son, Eugene Jr.

A classicist at Yale, took up the family trade and became quite a notorious boozer himself, committing suicide at 40.

O'Neill's second child, son Shane O'Neill (you know that thing about the Irish and drink? TOTAL myth, not a shred of truth to it), well he

became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later.

Jeez, buddy.

But wait, O'Neill also had a daughter, the lovely (and most funkily named) Oona

Not too shabby lookin either!

So far so good, right?

Wait for it.

Although she didn't seem to have a drinking problem, Oona and O'Neill had a serious falling out.

So serious, in fact, that he totally disowned her when she was 18.

He strenuously rejected her current choice of a romantic companion.

Although she had already dated both (this already blows my fucking mind)

One would certainly prefer to assume she went out with him when he looked like this

Orson fucking Welles, AND

J fucking D SALINGER for the love of Pete, O'Neill TOTALLY lost it when she told him she was in love with, and wanted to marry, none other than

Yeah, I ain't making this up.

Dude was, in all fairness to O'Neill, FIFTY fucking FOUR years old, to Oona's EIGHTEEN.

That's two years older than ME for fuck's sakes.

So, sadly, she and her old man never spoke again.

Oona, sure enough, married Chucks. They went on to have, by all accounts, a close and loving relationship for 34 fucking years.

They had eight children together.

The oldest of whom was, of course, well-known actress Geraldine Chaplin.

Star of, that's right

DOCTOR

FUCKING

ZHIVAGO.

Fuck me.

I think this is what it feels like to be Rain Man.

Raj