45 Years Ago

Bad title, but this is the 45th anniverary of JFK's murder. That many years ago. I was in a typing class when the teacher told us the news that he had been wounded, and then the principal came in and said he had died. In the territory I lived in no one really liked Kennedy, or Bobby especially, but it was a shock that such an event had actually happened. And that afternoon we got our first snow of the season. I remember the sleet and the ice in the middle of all the trauma. And that is my memory of Where Were You When You Heard About It. It snowed in the midwest early this morning, but melted very fast. Just more wind and ice air tonight, and is supposed to get into the high 40s tomorrow. The Iowa Hawkeyes pounded Minnesota into the ground this afternoon 55-0 and won the bronze pig they always play Minn for. Last night I watched a video of Daddy Long Legs--a 1955 cinamascope musical with Astaire and Leslie Caron, which I had never seen before, and was not very good, despite it being a chance to see Fred and Leslie dance, which is always something to behold. And I am now watching a local station late night showing of an episode of Monk, who I have gotten hooked on watching. Not very good stories, but fun to watch Shaloob act. The stock market went up yesterday over 8,000, but layoffs are going on all over the country--including some big business outfits in Des Moines, and a number of people are being laid off by the city. The wife of the Governor was snitched on the other day by someone downtown who saw her smoking in the governor's official car. She has promised to never do it again. One of the problems with Iowa's antismoking law is that it encourages snitching to the Law. HRC is due to become Sec of State. This is going to be all for right now. I want to slide in a late Saturday night video of some movie I will pull off the shelf, and report on it next blogging. You all take care. Di di mau!

Cold Windy November Night

The title says it all. It is down to 11 degrees tonight and we are getting our usual evening howling winds. Sometime in the next several days the first snow is supposed to fall, but so far nothing has happened. For some lighter stuff, a flamingo the other day at the city zoo got enough growth in his clipped wings and flew away from the flamingo pen and landed at the nearby public golf course, where he walked around the links for a while till he was cornered and put back in his pen at the zoo. A lady driving north of Ames the other morning got distracted and drove her car into the back of a rendering company truck. She was not hurt but has inspired jokes about driving her car into a dead wagon truck or a guts truck. Anyway it was a very messy stinken situation. The stock market today fell to 7,555, the lowest average since March of 03. And national unemployment is at 6%. The 3 big auto corporations sent their head honchos to Congress the other day to ask for money to stay in operation, but today they were turned down till they came up with plans to reform their companies. The media spotlight has been on the fact that the big guys all flew to DC in their very expensive private jets. O is picking his cabinet, with HRC probably getting Sec of State. The others all are Clinton relics, who may be very smart but all are DC wheeler dealers, with things they have done that should be explained. The First Lady of Iowa, Mrs. Culver, Confessed today that she had broken the law by smoking a cig in a state limo. Someone had seen her doing it, and snitched to the state health gestapo. I think this is going to be all for right now. The carmakers' crisis is what has been all over the news the last few days, and the ongoing Wall Street crashing. There are a few financial "experts" who are showing up in public claiming than things are going to get much better by late '09. We will see. You all take care in this frigid climate. Di di mau!

Winter Sunday Night

Not very original title, but here we go. The Bears got shamed by the GBPs this afternoon 3-37. I should read the sports page tomorrow morning to see what happened, but the Bs will be back--we know that. Meanwhile life goes on. And I will not hide in bed in grief. Last night I put in a video of The Rainmaker--with Matt Damon and Danny DiVito and Mickey Rourke and a bunch of other actors--filmed in Memphis and slightly similar to The Verdict. A kid lawyer learns the nature of real life. I got half way through the thing and should finish it this evening or tomorrow. But I replaced it in the vcr with a really strange flick called Secretary, with Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a boss and his strange secretary with an S&M fixation, and he gets one too, I think. A 2 character movie I am not sure why was even filmed, but it is intriguing enough that I should watch it again to see what it is really about. It seems to have gotten good reviews, so maybe it is Very Deep. I decided to not sit in front of the TV today to see more talking heads being gloomy about the world economy. Yes, things are very bad, but drowning in the talking about it for hours at a time will fuck you up. The other news is the current fires sweeping across southern California in the Orange County area. Geraldo says right now that 50, 000 people are fleeing from the flames. A 500 unit trailer park burned, and yesterday the fire was into Yorba Linda(Nixon's hometown). Not sure yet about the fires getting into Anaheim. There was a thing on this afternoon about the Jonestown suicides. I had forgotten that this is the 30th anniversary of that horrible thing. And on the 22nd will be the 45th anniversary of JFK getting killed. That long ago! This is going to be all for right now. I just do not have any more to right about I have deep insight into. You take care. Di di mau!

Winter Weekend in the Dark

Here we are on a dark cold windy Saturday night in mid November. Nothing unusual--it is normal seasonal weather, but the gloom and the economic mess seem to be getting into peoples' heads--everyone seems to be very grouchy, including me. Fox News is doing a series on TV and The Presidency tonight, and is covering the Lewinsky scandal. Actually an interesting show; I had forgotten or not thought for a long time about some of what went on. Busch met with 20 world leaders to discuss the world money crisis, and O is picking his crew and staff. That is the bare summary of events in the last few days. I am trying to come down from the campaign, and have gone into world affairs shutdown, but will come out of it soon. I am not feeling overly healthy and Up right now, and have been having trouble relating to other human beings, but will get back to normal acceptable social behavior soon, I hope. I' better get better. No nervous collapse like I had about 30 years ago. Enough of that! I watched a tape last night of Kings Row, the movie where Ronnie gets his legs cut off and says "Where's the rest of me?" Interesting somewhat daring movie for 1942--a lot like Peyton Place--hidden evil secrets in a pious small town. Like PP KR has too many characters you cannot keep straight, but there is a great scene at the end where Bob Cummings has to tell off Ronnie for laying around letting Anne Sheridan baby him, and Ronnie sees the light and gets fired up to start living. Vintage Ronnie! This docu on Fox is now into Gore and Bush and the campaign of 2000, and it is very interesting, and fair. I hope it gets rerun again so I can tape it. One thing they have not shown is the Snickers commercial with the donkey and the elephant trying to outdo one another on who invented the internet and who still wears his dad's pants and who invented pants. A classic TV political ad, even if the real message was to get you to eat Snickers. This is going to be all for right now; it is getting late or early. You all take care. Di di mau!

Cold Cold Cold

Very dark and cold on this Sunday night. We have winter every year, so there should be no trauma or sadness about it, but I feel gloomy for some reason, and want to blame it on the season. Poor me. I am going to have to accept O as president, even if I am leary about him being our Leader. I am leary about his biography and a lot of the people he listens to, and a lot of his ideas--such as that the Constitution and the total of American history suck. The other day he made a comment about his bi-racialness and referred to himself as a Mutt. No one in the media made anything of this, but it bothered me. Going on to other things, I am half watching a video of Our Friends and Neighbors--a high rated movie which seems to be about a bunch of yuppies with relationship angst. They fuck and they talk and so far that is all they have done. Some time I will have to just sit and watch what it is that they are doing. Maybe there is something in this flick, but so far I have not seen much. I found a video at a thrift store of The Time Machine--from 1960 with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux--that is a favorite with the geeks on Big Bang Theory. Maybe sometime I should actually read HG Wells' original story. A somewhat dated and clumsy movie, but in 1960 nuclear destruction of the world was a very topical situation--actually it still is. I hope O matures into a good president from a Chicago slacker hustler. This is going to be all for right now. You all take care. Di di mau!

After the Election

Obama won the election Tuesday, as if anyone needs to be told that. I have not actually heard any newspeople say what the results by number of the win were. O got over 300 electoral votes, so that put him over the top by 10:30 p.m, and Mc threw in the towel. I was not happy that big John lost, but am accepting the result. O got a briefing today from Intelligence honchos, and supposedly the transition procedures have started smoothly. Maybe O will grow up and grow into a President of the whole country, even though at least half the population seemingly hates him, and the other half think he is God who will give us(or them) Manna and Money. Hopefully he will get away from his stuff about how the Constitution sucks and the course of American history has sucked till the minute he Arrived. It is going to be a time of social turmoil for a while, I am afraid. What else has happened in the last 2 days? Winter is on the way across the midwest, and probably will get to Des Moines soon. Foxnews reported that Putin is trying to get Med out of power, so he can take over the top job again in Russia--no surprise there. Nejad is trying to make nicey to Obama. The stock market is back way Down, after the election. Gas prices today are at $1.80. Probably there will a shootup around Thanksgiving--a holiday gouging. We will see. Apparently Youtube's system crashed tonight--just when I was ready to find some videos of 0ld-time French singers--Frehel, Sablon et al. Katie Couric tonight was in a state of woe over a big dip in retail sales, and the troubles small stores and small businesses are having. And in town this morning a guy came into his living room and found a guy who had been robbing driveup banks all over town asleep on his couch. The robber was an older homeless guy who was always on camera wearing a yellow ball cap. So he has finally been caught. More on this will be on the ten p.m news in a while. One thing I need to get away from is getting up at 2 a.m to watch Red Eye on Fox. Silly but interesting program. Kind of a TV version of Bob and Tom. I like Greg Gutfeld, though. It was 40 Years Ago this week, in Nov. 68, that I began my Army era--leading to the Mekong delta. Was it really that long ago? Yes, it was. This will be all for right now. I have stated my murky views on the political and historical situation with Potuselect Obama. I do hope he works out as a president. Some of the blog coments I have read about him are vicious and hateful and the others are so up in heaven I don't know what the middle ground is among Americans. You all take care. Di di mau!

Hello, We Are Back in Blogland

Goofy title for an entry, but I had to take the laptop to puterworld to get cleaned out, and it took a while for the geeksquad to get to it, but we are back in action for my many devotees. So, this entry will be a summary of a bunch of notes I made over the last week or so. Last Saturday La Palin came to Des Moines and gave her standard speech before 10,000 people who cheered her wildly. A couple days later Fox put one of her speeches on TV and she had husband and the kids with her, and little Trig was wrapped in a baby Republican elephant wrapper. This past Friday BHO came to town for an outdoor rally downtown, which blocked the main streets through town for several hours. Several thou people including went to see him. We heard him because it was difficult to get to the park site where he was at. He needed to have been put on top of a high podium so everyone could look up to see him. The speech was his standard one about changing everything. The speech did not seem to really rouse the crowd, unless you are a devotee and dote on his every word. He has been making some comments I do not really like to hear--about the Republicans being Nazis, and the Constitution being a dog because the Founders did not include anything in it about Redistributing the Wealth. And there is a little too much in his speeches about Him Changing Everything. I hope he does not have or get a Great Leader complex. The polls supposedly have him ahead of McCain. I just do not like Obama. He will probably become President, but I am not one of his fans. The Phillies won the World Series against the Rays, but America did not seem interested this year. I did not watch Obama's half hour show about himself on TV. The strangest show on TV of all time was Dirty Jobs Monday night with Mike Rowe out in Colorado helping some people dock the tails and castrating some sheep. Rowe and the gang biting the balls off the lambs with their teeth was a very strange and memorable TV event. Winter is coming on and this is the season when I watch movie videos, and I have watched a bunch of them over the last week. Do not bother watching Sadler's movie about the Zohan--it stinks really bad. Leatherheads is Clooney's movie about pro football in the 20s, and it is not really good either. I rented The Sting the other day, because I have never seen it, and was not impressed with it. Maybe I should watch it again to see what wowed the audiences in 1974, but maybe I just do not get wild over Paul and Robert as a team. And Sting is very long. And I watched a Japanese movie--An Actor's Revenge, and an old Fassbinder movie--Ali-Fear Eats the Soul, about an old German lady and her Moroccan boyfriend. Interesting movie you want to keep watching to see what happens to them in 70s Munich. And I found a tape of the old 40s movie The Devil and Daniel Webster. Not really very good, or maybe just dated. Or maybe it just brings back bad memories of high school English classes. I am going to get some classic John Wayne movies to watch some time this winter, but more on that next time we blog. Oh, how can I forget to relate that I finally found at a thrift store a VHS of a flick I have been looked for for a long time--Three in the Attic--a minor 1968 cult classic from American International about a college dude who has 3 girls on his string, and they lock him in an attic and take turns screwing him into a vegetable, but the flick actually has a happy ending. And Yvette Mimieux is the main girl, and she was actually quite a looker. Where is she now? Well, this will be all for right now. You take care. Di di mau!