The Earrings Of Madame X-A Journey Through The Arts-John Singer Sargent’s Portrait Of Madame X (Yes, I Know Everybody Knows Who The Woman Was But Let’s Keep Up Appearances For The Sake Of Grand Art)

By Laura Perkins

One of the positive things about the dramatic change of leadership at this publication in 2017 has been the efforts on the part of new site manager Greg Green to give the audience, on occasion, some background about how decisions are made in this cutthroat no holds barred publishing business. This piece, something of an introductory piece for what is projected to be an on-going series if beautiful gentile if sometimes half-witted Greg doesn’t get sidetracked and demand one and all start writing about bowling or something like he did when he took over the reins and went berserk having every writer, young or old, paying hosannas to Marvel/DC Comic Universe comic book characters come to film nonsense, is one of those times. (By the way although I was not here at the time I am very well aware that “dramatic change of leadership” was nothing less than a purge of previous manager Allan Jackson and has since been recognized as such by all parties concerned except maybe Pollyanna Lance Lawrence. My long-time companion Sam Lowell, now on the skids down the food chain cast the deciding vote against keeping his longtime friend since elementary school Allan on under the theory that the “torch had to be passed”)

My understanding is that a few months ago as Greg Green was looking over the archives, he noted that there were very few pieces, sketches he calls them as did Allan before him, about art, by this he meant high art, cultured museum worthy art, except by way of making some political point. Not much what he called “art for art’s sake” stealing from some old time art theorist who hammered away at the idea that this was the artists highest duty (after getting paid the market rate for his or her work). Apparently, Greg had been getting some flak from the readership which given the demographics now has plenty of time to go to art museums or take that art class they meant to take about forty, fifty years ago (although now with very unsteady hand).

He called Sam Lowell in, now the head of the Editorial Board among his other duties, to see what to do about the deficiency. (One of the fall-outs from that fierce internal free-for-all which rattled the publication for months in 2017 was the institution of an Editorial Board which “theoretically” was to oversee the site manager’s work so that another Allan Jackson calling all the shots on his own hook would not lead to another “youth” uprising. Sam, have thrust the knife in his long-time friend’s back no matter the reason as recognized even by him in his candid moments was “rewarded” with the chair of the Board.) Greg’s idea was that he had heard that Sam had when he was in high school been directed by his art teacher to apply to his alma mater, Massachusetts School of Art in Boston, and he would grease the way for a scholarship or something.

Now Sam, as did some of the other older writers here came from desperate poverty in the working- class section, the Acre they called it, of North Adamsville south of Boston. His mother freaked out, a mother I never met since Sam and I did not take up company before he had gone through three failed marriages and was pretty estranged from his strait-laced Irish Catholic family. Her argument was that no way was a son of hers going to be some bohemian, beatnik is the word I think Sam said she used, starving artist in some cold-water flat garret with the rats and thugs for neighbors. That dampener plus his own inclinations toward cinema and politics pushed him in another direction. Still Sam was the only known candidate to unofficially lead the way to more art pieces and projects.         

Until recently that is when Sam started that slide down the food chain, my expression, after he decided that he had to playing avenging angel against the light-hearted harmless bill of fare that the Hallmark Channel presents at Christmas time. And of which I am a devoted follower of every year. Not the “fanatic” mentioned in one of his so-called reviews but having had a rough and tumble time growing up in upstate New York where my farmer father thought Christmas was an extra occasion to get drunk as a skunk with his farmer buddies I get some relief from the sad feelings I usually get this time of year by watching and “vegging out” while having the shows on in the background. Sam got some much blowback from his comments, including from me that he decided, and Greg approved, to do reviews of films with the idea of whether they would be Hallmark Channel-worthy or not. He is still working through that nonsense and good luck to him, no, bad luck to him on this one for posing the idea to Greg and for following through which has caused many a battle in the Perkins-Lowell household. And rightly so for the not so gentle into that good night bastard. I will, I have gotten even with him on that account.  

That left the art review spot open with no one to replace the self-inflicted wounded warrior. That is until Leslie Dumont, a good friend of mine, mentioned to Greg that I had taken an art class once, and maybe had gone to an art museum as well. With that resume he approached me with kid gloves and tried to coax me into doing the art stuff until he could find somebody else. I told him I had not taken an art class but an art appreciation class you know  a survey of what some art professor though we the great unwashed needed to see when I was at Rochester and had merely done some sketches, really some doodling at meetings when some windbag went on and one, on my own and had gone to an art museum or two in my time. That scant expertise was enough to get me the assignment. With the proviso that I could wander into whatever I liked and not have to make any disclaimer that I was some kind of art curator, had written a monogram or sometime.

Hence as my first subject, as noted in the headline of this piece, I am making commentary on American expatriate John Singer Sargent’s The Portrait Of Madame X another American expatriate which has intrigued ever since I was a young woman wondering about the X part, about why she had, or he, had to use an alias. Wondering too about those rumored affairs, about who she was sleeping with to get herself up the Parisian social ladder which had to say the least be tricky for even up and coming French women never mind an American who married her husband, a wheeler-dealer banker for his dough and his connections.

Of course in the gentile art world, the so-called academy, the tabloid critics and the erstwhile collectors who were clueless about what was good art and what was “going through the paces” centered in that late 19^th century in Paris and nowhere else the whole thing was a scandal, scandalous since our Madame was showing to little strap, or rather too wayward a strap suggesting, well I guess suggesting more problems keeping her clothes on as the wine and night wore on, that exquisite dress and maybe too much bosom as well in that well-padded upper dress section. (Believe me as a small-breasted woman fitted that way by nature and genetics when I was younger, I was looking for every advance short of surgical breast enlargement to enhance my figure in that area so I know padding when I see it. Recently in preparing this sketch I had a close look at the dresses some of Sargent’s Mayfair swell sitters wore at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston so yes Madame was well padded-and painted on those bare shoulders with some kind of exotic powders to get so her complexion so white. By the way observing the structure of the dresses no way was that whalebone going to “slip” except in the imagination of those three name men who were thinking such things, or maybe all men regardless of number of names in their monikers.)         

  

Scandal aside, which from what I gathered from one of her lovers who wrote one of those “tell-all” books after she passed away she saw as a selling point on her way up the social ladder, it is very interesting that she did not show her front face and left the profile in one direction and her posed body in another. Vanity thy name is Madame X. The real reason beyond the allure of the profile in contrast to her full-figured black gown was that she had and ever so slight wrinkle under her left eye and refused to let Sargent who was no gentleman in this matter paint a frontal face position with that hideous deformity. (I will for now not speak of an even more obvious reason for no frontal pose-that beak of a nose she was trying to downplay but will stick with the wrinkle which more women of a certain age these days can relate to-despite the beauties of plastic surgery and the like) This information on Madame’s distress over that sign of aging wrinkle from the guy who provided Sargent with his paint mixtures (and who also for a short time on the sly when Madame was in one of her “plebian” lover moods was her lover). Confirmed by the house maid who for a few francs (now Euros) would let the guy, name unmentionable because the family subsequently became very famous, into the back door to Madame’s boudoir.     

Frankly Madame looked like an “ice queen,” a kind that Sam jokingly mentioned to me one time before we were intimate that he sensed I was (wrongly as he will now freely admit). This Madame X ice queen is nothing but drop dead beautiful who holds that beauty like a sword which even now in the modern age among a certain set, actresses come to mind, is a very effective way to get up that ladder, she was always seeking. That “mystery” and our lady reeks of it no question got her as far as the finance minister in the Thier’s government which meant she was on her way. (Apparently her banker husband was happy since it solved a little solvency problem he was having which got smoothed over I assume during Madame’s calculated bed talk with that smitten finance minister). Some say, and I believe Sargent did too, think this work was his greatest portrait. Maybe even his best work. I will not argue with that estimation but to this day I still wonder how those women got those tiny waists without suffocating in those horrible corsets.  

Blessed Are The Whistle-Blowers The Saviors Of The Republic-Maybe-Tom Hanks And Meryl Streep’s “The Post” (2018)-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

The Post, starring Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and cameo appearances by Richard Milhous Nixon, H. R. Halderman, Little Johnny Erlichman, Big John Mitchell, and a cohort of cozy criminals and fixer men around them, 2018  

Sometimes in this age of fake news, alternate facts, and basic bullshit and craziness a story from the past can come smack dab at you and speak to our times (“our times” for me being the time in question, the early 1970s when one Richard Milhous Nixon was roiling the country and the age of Trump when he is roiling the country to is own tune maybe one of the real disadvantages of age, my age if you think about it but I digress). Many times in the past I have been as likely along with guys like Sam Eaton, Sam Lowell, and Ralph Morris of this publication all of us Vietnam War era veterans of one kind or another and so still pissed off at what our government did to us and to peoples across the China Seas with whom we had no quarrel, not guns in hand quarrel,  at least metaphorically bring down whatever government was fouling the air. These days I am, we are, worried, extremely worried about the fate of the Republic.

Let’s put it this way it has been a very long time, since the draconian Nixon times since I have had that fear crawling up my spine. I do not, once again and do not call it paranoia because the record is clear on this from every aspect of the crumb-bum Nixon-era police blotter, to have to look over my shoulder every time I write an “unkind” word about the government or step out in the public square and blast away at the perfidious bastards. (I will take a funny lesson from fellow writer here, young fellow writer by the way Sarah Lemoyne and NOT beg pardon for my language for I am as riled as I have ever been, or at least a long time, about our collective fates). With that in mind I review this film The Post about another time when the government did not “want to hear it, want to see it in the public prints,” was ready to go to the mat to suppress information we needed to know about. Needed as backup if any was really needed by the time the material came to our doorsteps, literally with the morning newspaper oy delivered newspaper. Namely about the long line of post-World War II decisions that got us, got my generation who had to fight the damn thing, into the lawnmower of Vietnam. Hell, and get this, we almost came to hot civil war like these times are portending, for just releasing information about what had happened in the past. Jesus they were tight-assed about even that information.

Hey, over the long course of the war, and a decade of serious escalations and refusal to withdraw, to draw down enough even, many people went from unwavering, unquestioning acceptance of whatever crap the government (and here I mean the long trial of POTUS from Harry Truman who dragged the Republic into the quagmire) to undying opposition. And were willing to pay the price. In my own small case which need not detain us long for this is about another type of opposition I had gone into the military in that same unknowing, uncomprehending way and wound up as a resister for refusing orders to Vietnam (and of course right on course wound up in the stockade for a over a year altogether). There were other types of opposition and that was the case with ex-Marine turned news reporter and then being in the thick of the bullshit coming down from guys like cowboy  Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of those deadbeat POSTUS guys, and the high sheriff whiz kid Robert McNamara who went to his un-mourned grave saying he was duped, nonsense like that, opponent Daniel Ellsberg who was thus in a position to “grab” the files. That aspect very important because in reality few insiders were ready to go down in the mud for their new-found convictions. This is Ellsberg’s story as much as anybody at the Post (or Times) although the great thrust of this film deals with the decisions made at the top, at the executive level both whether to print the material or when the government pulled the hammer down whether to fight the bastards.

Fight the bastards in court which would have seemed like the beginning of wisdom and a “slam dunk” if the various federal courts had had judges and justices who had not skipped law school classes the days they were discussing First Amendment legal issues under some freedom of the press and expression theory up against the government’s desire to suppress everything the have deemed classified information,

Still it takes a whistle-blower, a person with enough insider information to make it worthwhile to make it public. Back then the honorable role of whistle-blower was kind of unheard of as we generally went around assuming that every classified document needed to placed in that category and whoever made that decision was within his or her rights to the designation. That working under a general theory on their part just short of the divine right of kings that the government knows best and that was that. Although whistle-blowing has been more common it is still rare that somebody with important documentation will spill the beans. While there is legislation “protecting” whistle-blowers at the federal level that in honored more in the breach than in the observance as about a dozen recent cases especially the Chelsea Manning and now Reality Leigh Winner had made perfectly plain. The government it turns out is as interested in chilling this aspect of free speech as any other limitation they want to put on free expression in other contexts.  

That is the whistle-blower part, the part hat gets the ball rolling. Then the questions move onto who will publish the documents, who will risk that cozy relationship with the guys and gals at the top of government when the deal goes down. Obviously for documents the newspaper and now social media are the vehicle. And by a circuitous way the Times and Post got into the buzz-saw when the Nixon government went berserk that one of its own “in-house” evaluations of the Vietnam mud hit the front pages with a vengeance. (That “its own” generic since it was actually down under the high sheriff with blindfolds on McNamara the lying bastard who went to his grave, his un-mourned grave, claiming ignorance. And don’t make too much of that Nixon point although it was probable until recently the most paranoid government around but not so strangely the liberal constitutionalist Obama government prosecuted more whistle-blowers than any previous administration highlighted by that Manning case. (In the interest of transparency despite my riled-up feelings Obama did at the last minute before leaving office commute her sentence, for which we are thankful.)       

The bulk of the film though deals with the responsibility of newspapers to fight the good fight when the government gets overweening. Thus the film highlights the internal processes at The Post mainly at the top with increasingly feisty and assertive publisher Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep’s role) and today strangely heavy-smoker Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks’ role) about how to respond to the very real full court press the Nixon administration went to in order to suppress what would become The Pentagon Papers. This struggle, this rare Fourth Estate struggle is one which the average citizen today a couple of generations removed from the showdown may not know about. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS in tweet speak) got it right but this film shows how close a call things could have gone the other way as we are more aware of these days when they routinely have and how hard it was to get the material to the public. Not everybody has the resources or the connections to go the distance. We should all be glad they did although it was a close thing. And we should hope that in these trying times for the Republic such forces will come to the fore again when the next governmental hammer comes down.   

    

Yet Again Into The Lion’s Den- Not Fit For Hallmark Channel Prime-time, Maybe -Cary Grant And Irene Dunne’s “The Awful Truth (1937)- A Short Film Review-Of Sorts   

[In a recent introduction to this new series, a series based on short film reviews for films that deserve short reviews if not just a thumb’s up or down I noted that Allan Jackson, the deposed previous site manager, required his film reviewers to write endlessly about the film giving the material an almost cinema studies academic journal take on it. That caused a serious decline in the number of reviews over the years which I hope to make up with a flurry of snap reviews for busy people. To see in full why check the archives for November 28, 2018- Not Ready For Prime Time But Ready For Some Freaking Kind Of Review Film Reviews To Keep The Writers Busy And Not Plotting Cabals Against The Site Manager-Introduction To The New Series. Greg Green]

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Awful Truth, starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, 1937

I am inured to the trolls who have been haunting and harassing me ever since I casually mentioned that a couple of films dealing with romance and thwarted romance especially would find no airspace on the vanilla-flavored one plot fits all Hallmark Channel that during the Christmas  has distracted a good portion of the population from anything more controversial than what to wear to the festivities in small town home town America where almost all the action takes place. One reader of those reviews in a deliberate slap in the face called me either asexual or a hermaphrodite, heartless, lacking in manly virility even in comparison to the guys the lead female character had dumped, lacking human warmth or even a pulse, and needing a brain transplant. That series of bromides from my long-time companion Laura Perkins, a devoted, should I say fanatical adherent to the Hallmark Channel at Christmastime. So you can imagine what the unformed, ill-advised trolls who apparently between 24/7/365 devotion to the channel have plenty of time to commit to no holds barred defenses of this mush.

Like I said I have become inured, had in any case expected some blow back from my comments since Laura was first on the warpath and she is generally a very civilized person, except on the question of the fake love and romance stories churned out on that network. Subsequently I have been called queer, not queer in the LGBTQ sense but as some kind of withered human being. Been called various reptilian names and been charged with crimes ranging from causing the fall of Eden way back when to aggravated assault on the senses for making unkind remarks about the silliness that dare not speak its name-although I will. And have.   

I have been doing film reviews of one kind or another for many publications of one kind or another, some with generous payment and some for a penny a word or so it seemed with the time spent and I would be hard-pressed to see plots, and I have seen some horrible ones, so mundane as those on Hallmark. Therefore I have begun a little campaign, probably hopeless and thankless, of reviewing films with a slant toward whether they would make the networks’ programming format. Or that they were too real for the mud thrown at the audience on Hallmark.    

My latest  presentation, a 1930s film to boot which given the Hollywood codes of the day should easily allow it to qualify  for Hallmark consideration, is a Cary Grant-Irene Dunne vehicle entitled The Awful Truth which is a pretty good if not great romantic comedy which nevertheless deals with the question of trust between married people, or any couple whatever their marital status or these days gender. The plotline is not spectacular but the play by play of a marriage gone down the tubes, and then resurrected, is worth a peek.

Cary, playing the gallant don’t take living on the high side of life too seriously that he made into an art form when he did comedic Mayfair swell characters, American version, is miffed at his ever-loving wife, Irene, because she seemingly has been having a flirtation, an affair although do look for that word in the script, with a French guy who she claims is her music teacher. Cary, manly, virile Cary does not believe the innocent story she had to tell about why they, she and that French guy, had been out all night. So to the courts, the chancery courts in those days for the decree nisi, including giving custody of the inevitable cute family dog to Irene. A decree which will become final in ninety days unless something happens.    

During that crucial ninety days she, Irene, gets herself engaged, reluctantly engaged, to some cowboy angel drifter from Oklahoma and he, Cary, cavorts, nice word, with some society dame with plenty of dough and status. But rather than go their separate ways this pair find about sixteen ways to cross each other’s path and either make trouble or surprise for the other. Of course, we are going for the big ending, an ending Hallmark would appreciate-the kiss and make-up at the end. And as if on cue just minutes short of the ninety- day cutoff they walk into that good night-together. But Hallmark in 2018 might object that Cary was down on his knees playing with the dog, might object that they shared an open door between bedrooms, that Irene was drunk as a skunk in one scene, that some of the songs as performed were too suggestive and showy. The list goes on. No, once again this is not fare for Hallmark eyes and ears. Let’s see what remarks Laura will make, all others I am inured to so fire away.       

While You Were Sleeping-Not-Jeff Goldblum And Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Into The Night” (1985) A Film Review  

DVD Review

Into The Night, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer,  

Having just finished my 27^th mid-life crisis gag I can relate to Jeff Goldblum’s angst and aggravation and alienation from his wife, his wife’s so-called clandestine affair with some workmate, from his own work as a worker bee in some aerospace operation, and from his drumbeat existence. Although I can’t get my head around what our boy did to resolve his crisis as detailed in the film under review Into The Night. Can’t figure to go to the mat with scads of bad guys, a few shots fired in anger, murder and mayhem no matter how foxy the damsel in distress to work out that mid-life dilemma.

Angst and alienation driven Jeff who can’t seem to sleep during his crisis, not a good thing for the fast judgements he will face, decided that he will take that trip out of town to work on his issues as suggested by a friend and does it on the fly. He gets to the airport but then gets cold feet and is ready to head home. But in a split second his fate gets whacked around by a decision he makes to help Michelle Pfeiffer out of what appears to be a serious jam of unknown original but of pressing concern since the bad guys who will help drive the film-and Jeff’s decisions are on the march. Of course, along the way it does not hurt that the gal Jeff is helping out of whatever jam she is in is drop-dead beautiful but that will keep for another time since the forces of evil are coming down on her head. 

What is driving Michelle to desperate acts and Jeff to decisions which put him in deeper and deeper into her life is that she had been the “mule” smuggler of a precious jewelry theft where the delivery got botched, get banged around and she was left with the goods running for her life after the guy she was to transfer the goods too was wasted by competitors also interested in the goods. We are off and running to beat the band. It appears that the final destination for the jewels was to be an Iranian agent, female, who had her henchmen running ragged over the damn thing. Like I said I would have thought twice about getting knee-deep into this one just to be able to sleep at night without sedatives no matter how foxy the damsel in distress was. But maybe that is because I resolved my own mid-life crisis, resolved it in a very different way.      

Once Again Ain’t Got Not Time For Corner Boys-With Clint Eastwood And Jeff Bridges’ Thunderbolt And Lightfoot (1974) In Mind-Yet Again A Film Review Of Sorts

DVD Review

By Zack James
     
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, 1974

Yeah, I know it has been a while since you have seen my by-line running in this publication but let me explain. Or try to since our site manager Greg Green has asked me to ask for your indulgences. This whole mess really goes back to 2017, the year of the 50^th anniversary of the Summer of Love which if you do not know by now let me tell you got practically 24/7/365 coverage in American Left History. The saturation coverage ordered by previous site manager Allan Jackson (and one of those “present as the creation” as they like to say when this publication started out in hard copy form back in 1974, I think) for young and old writers alike. This ordered madness started a rebellion among the younger writers, which included me, who did not give a rat’s ass about the Summer of Love or had to ask the older writers or their parents what it was all about.

What is not well known is that my oldest brother, Alex, just Alex not Alexander, was the catalyst for that wall to wall coverage after he went out to San Francisco that year and was inundated with stuff commemorating the event including a multimedia exhibition at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park the site of much of the music madness. Once Alex talked to Allan the gold rush was on. See Alex, Allan and the key person driving the action that year the late Pete Markin had been, at Markin’s urging knee- deep in the Summer of Love craziness that stalked the land then. Moreover, as a result of all that nostalgia. Alex, Allan and whoever was left standing from the old Acre neighborhood of North Adamsville located south of Boston, the Tonio’s Pizza Parlor (which is still there just with long gone Tonio) “corner boys” got together to contribute to a memorial book of their experiences, including 1967 in honor of their fallen comrade Markin. Markin, the “idea” guy for a million legal and illegal things they did back in the day, their expression not mine. (Being a decade younger than Alex I did not know or remember much about Markin, except the stories, although he and Alex were best friends and he had come over to our house many times).

Guess who they wanted to iron out the contributions, the personal remembrances, edit and see that the thing was produced. Yes, yours truly. Which leads us to the reason for my prolonged absence from my by-line. Another Acre corner boy, Jimmy Higgins, the “muscle” of the group, of the corner boys, passed away in 2018 and Alex, Allan and the others tagged me with doing the same things for a memorial book in Jimmy’s honor (a guy I did not know at all and who as far as I know never came to the house).

This work on the combination of books and the extraordinary, hell, maybe weird is better exploits of this generation of corner boys is what I immediately started thinking about when Greg assigned me my first film review back Clint Eastwood (Thunderbolt) and Jeff Bridges’ (Lightfoot) Thunderbolt and Lightfoot from 1974. Not that either of them were corner boys, or at least I don’t think so since Clint’s character was several years older than the brash Bridges’ but that throughout the film the bonds of buddy-hood grew until the tragic end of Lightfoot succumbing to the vicious injuries sustained when one of their comrades in crime Red, played by George Kennedy, went crazy after the heist they pulled off. Those bonds and that age difference, experience difference is what is driving this final part of the review.

The contribution from several corner boys that overlapped both memorial books was the role that one “Trigger” Burke played as a model for the Acre corner boys. Burke was about ten years older than my brother and his crowd but as they came to high school age they would see Trigger around, would see him coming out of the Dublin Grille (no longer there), mostly, which was a few doors down from Tonio’s and he would stop and talk to them. Burke was something of a local legend among corner boys from all the corners, a guy who had done a few bank robberies, done a little time and had plenty of money (and girls, women not all of them his age either usually younger and according to Alex foxy) and respect among the eager corner boys.

Markin, and Jimmy Higgins who lived across the street from the rooming house where Burke lived, were the real devotees of what he had to say. As it turned out half of Markin’s ideas, his plans for grabbing dough, fast and smooth, had been hatched by one Trigger Burke. As Alex kept painfully reminding me the ideas might have been Markin’s via Burke but the operation chief was always after a first close call with the coppers when Markin led the operation had been one Frankie Riley, the acknowledged leader of the Tonio’s corner boys.

Given the plotline of this film, basically after various crazed and random wild boy escapades in the hills of Montana Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, now bonded for life, a heist film it was no wonder why I thought about those Burke stories. In the end although the second heist was botched by Red’s crazed response to Lightfoot and the pair found the original heist money, they got away clean. Well as I telegraphed above not real clean since Lightfoot passed away from his injuries from that bastard Red. A cause for thought. I was glad in a way as much as I admired my distance oldest brother Alex that I was ten years younger than him and never had to go the midnight creep route by the time I got to highs school.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, that Trigger Burke who lived across the street from the late Jimmy Higgins when he was growing up was none other than one of the famous Brink’s armored truck robbery guys in the early 1950s. No wonder the Acre corner boys worshiped at his shrine.
                                       

***Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘60s Song Night- Betty Everett’s “It’s In His Kiss”-The Hallmark Channel Should Have Hired Her As Technical Adviser  

A link to a YouTube film clip of Betty Everett performing her classic, It's In His Kiss.

By Sam Lowell

[For those not in the know of late I have been in a so-called running battle with devotees of the Hallmark Channel especially of late with their never-ending 24/7 Christmas programs which started back around Halloween, I think. I have attempted, humorously attempted I thought before the daggers came out, to give some “guidance” the scriptwriters, if there are scriptwriters and the whole thing is not done on autopilot as I will describe below, about taking some cues from Hollywood about the pacing and “sexing up” of romance-etched films.

Those tongue in cheek efforts have resulted in a firestorm of indignant responses (I am being kind here) from the demographic that lives and dies by these annual feel good tear-in-the-eyes productions from the channel. Productions which are only outdone by some of the greeting cards they have put out for the last million years. I won’t bore the reader with what most of the irate devotees had to say but go to the “source.” The source being one Laura Perkins, my long-time companion and fellow writer at this publication these days, who lives and dies by these shows seemingly like I said before from about Halloween. She has cut me to the quick with remarks starting from mild “heartless” to “lacking in manly virility and understanding (ouch!)” to the sullen maybe I should go into “Babylonian captivity” meaning exile, or worse, for the duration at least.                

Yet if anything this onslaught has resolved me to fight the good fight for social reality and more compelling fare on television and the movies. A fight I have been fighting for the last forty some years as a film critic/editor at a million publications, including various free-lance stints. Let me run down the gist of these Christmas-etched productions since I have accumulated a wealth of experience by osmosis having to work from home occasionally with one of these episodes as background. Generally, the lead female actor, and it is always centered on the anguished fate of some young twenty something white professional female, is heading to her snow-flake filled suburban, small town growing up hometown (No Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans locales need apply although the young woman may have fled the big city). That anguished part mentioned above is that she has either dumped or been dumped, or is ready for either, with some wrong gee guy as the foil (no young women need apply at least not for the lead).

At home she inevitably warms to the hometown Christmas spirt she loved as a child before going out into the big wide indifferent world. And, a big “and,” she runs into, or is run into, by hometown Mr. Right whom she dumped in high school or ignored. That becomes the central play as they draw closer, close enough to attempt to grab an errant kiss, or kisses before the finale. The finale is always that consummated kiss (and nothing else). No silky sheets, lust or cheap motels. Nada.           

And you wonder why I mentioned that Betty Everett could have been a technical advisor here, spiced things up. Yes, indeed. Even Laura might grant that I am onto something here. S.L.]

It’s In His Kiss- Betty Everett

Does he love me?
I wanna know!
How can I tell if he loves me so?
(Is it in his eyes?)
Oh no! You need to see!
(Is it in his size?)
Oh no! You make believe!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It’s in his kiss!

(That's where it is!)
(Oh yeah! Or is it in his face?)
no girls! It's just his charms!
(In his warm embrace?)
no girls! That's just his arms!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
yeah!! It’s in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, honey !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
It's there in his kiss!

(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah! It’s in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, oh, oh, hold him !
Squeeze him tight!
Find out what you wanna know!
promise love, and if it really is,
well It's there in his kiss!
(How 'bout the way he acts?)
no no no! That's not the way!
You're not listenin' to all I'm sayin'!
If you wanna know
If he loves you so
It's in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
Oh, yeah ! It’s in his kiss!
(That's where it is!)
mmmm ! It’s in his kiss!
(that's where it is)
mmmm is in his kiss

Well everyone knows by now that Jenny Dolan and John, John O’Connor, the running back gridiron hero of the North Adamsville football team, the one who almost single-handedly won them their state class championship are postponing their plans to be married now that John has been given a football scholarship to Boston College. See the love-bugs want to wait to see how that pans out, and besides they have each other through thick and thin so to wait is no big deal. But just in case that is not in the cards they are together more these days and so John is not to be seen around Salducci’s Pizza Parlor as much as in his old single days, or even as much as in his “married” days, the days since he and Jennie became an item a couple of years back.

For that matter Frankie Riley, the leader of the pack, hasn’t been seen lately either, ever since his 247th “break-up" with flame, Joanne, Joanne Doyle. That can only mean one thing; old Frankie is out catting around before Joanne reins him in again. And Chrissie knows, Chrissie McNamara knows damn well that Frankie is on the prowl because about twenty minutes after he got his “walking papers” from Joanne this time he was on the phone to Chrissie seeing if she was ‘available.’ “No dice,” said Chrissie and not because she wasn’t interested in Frankie. A lot of girls were, a little. Except “ball and chain” Joanne history meant that this was just Frankie lark time. Besides Chrissie and Joanne had been friends longer than Joanne had known Frankie and Chrissie liked Joanne, which is not what you could say about most girls who knew Joanne. But this is not about Joanne and so it need not be gotten into here.

What needs to be gotten into though is why Chrissie is ambling into Salducci’s Pizza Parlor at ten o’clock at night, a Thursday school night ten o’clock all by herself. Well, it ain’t for the pizza, although the way Tonio, the zen master pizza maker and owner of the parlor, makes those pizzas slather and slither is worth coming in for almost any time. And it ain’t for Peter Paul Markin’s company, no way, not for a long time. Peter Paul is “holding down the fort” just now while his “boss” Frankie is, as is already known, out catting around. He probably already has made a note, a mental note, that Frankie for the 27th time has “struck out” with Chrissie and so maybe she wants his company. No way, no way that way, anyway. Peter Paul and Chrissie have gotten friendlier, or Chrissie has, ever since Peter Paul started getting into the be-bop folk music scene now growing by leaps and bounds in Boston. They actually went to some coffeehouse over on Joy Street in Boston one night with Frankie and Joanne. The latter pair couldn’t wait to leave (probably because Frankie’s calling card, flannel shirt, jeans, work boots, and yah, midnight sunglasses didn’t raise an eyebrow. Half the guys in the place looked just like him, except maybe the sunglasses). But Chrissie and Peter Paul thought it was fantastic. Just no romance, no way, got it.

What does have Chrissie’s attention is one James Joseph Kelly, Fingers Kelly, who is sitting right next to Peter Paul at the moment. Now Fingers Kelly used to have the moniker of "Five Fingers" Kelly and for the squares out there that meant he was a clip artist and for the real squarey squares that meant he took things from stores…without paying. In other words he swiped things. But a couple of juvenile court appearances and some manhandling by James Joseph Kelly, Sr. shorten his moniker to Fingers, fast. Now what Chrissie wants to talk to Fingers about is why, why just a couple of hours ago, did Fingers state to the best of his recollection that he did not want to see one Christine Anne McNamara on Saturday night. And on that night take her to the annual North Adamsville High School “Hi-Jinx” dance.

Now Fingers, Fingers Kelly, is wise enough to the ways of the world, to know that if he doesn’t grab Christine Anne McNamara with both arms when she is “after” him then some other guy (or guys) will be more than happy to do so. See Chrissie, besides being the head cheerleader at North is nothing but a fox. And Frankie, Fingers, hell even Peter Paul know this fact. Tall, brownish blonde hair, a few freckles, nice legs, and a very nice personality (has to be if Peter Paul thinks so) to go with that physical description. And she is interested in lots of things besides corn-ball cheer leading like that folk music stuff that was just mentioned. But Fingers has the freeze on for her.

Fingers is not bad looking, kind of tall, somewhat athletic (you had to be in his former career), not bad to talk to, but is nothing if not just an okay guy. So the number one question, well, really the number two question after how many days will it be before Joanne reins her lover boy, Frankie, in, is why Chrissie is after Fingers so bad. And why Fingers, knowing what he knows about North Adamsville high school guys, is not waiting with bells on to take Chrissie to the dance. Well, you have not been paying attention on that Finger’s part (Chrissie we will get to in a minute). Finger, when he was Five Fingers, always had kale (cash, money, dollars, okay) and was not afraid to spend it. But in his new life as just Fingers he is broke more often than not. And see, he cannot go back to the five fingers way of life because one Senior Kelly will bop him good. And old Senior, while we are at it, is not lending sonny boy any dough (kale, okay) after forking out a ton of money to keep one James Joseph Kelly, Junior out of reform school. So that is the skinny, pure and simple. So if you have any loose change hanging around ship it over Finger’s way, and thanks.

Now Chrissie is another matter. As already mentioned Fingers is okay but just okay so it has to be something else. And it ain’t dough (although she does not know that Fingers is broke, totally broke). And it ain’t the no car for a Saturday night date. She said that she would borrow her father’s car. Even Peter Paul is puzzled by this situation and usually he is clueless about such “high” romance. The only thing anybody has come up with is something that people noticed after Chrissie first’s heavy “parking” date (you know what that is right, nobody is that square) with Fingers (a double date because of Finger’s car-deprivation so it’s not what you think, not back seat all hands and twists sex stuff ). For a couple of days after that she was all dreamy-faced, all glowy and stuff. Humm.

Hint: For the serious squares, the clueless, and any parents, any generation think about the title here.  

The Legend-Slayer Cometh-In Defense Of A Theory Of Real Legends And Dismissal Of “Fake News” Heroes-The Case Of The Red Sparrow-A Film Review-Of Sorts

By Will Bradley

The Red Sparrow, starring Jennifer Lawrence, 2018  

      

I “knew” that I would  get some serious blow-back when I decided to defend the real legend of our times the Green Lantern, both the legendary fighter pilot Hal Jordan and the universal Green Lantern Corp of which he is a member and which as I write is protecting us against all kinds of dangers especially the dreaded” fear” which has man sources and none of them good many. I did not expect the blow-back to come from so many different “legend” factions, including those who are being protected as we write by the Green Lantern Corp.  

Let’s start with those growing numbers who have been starting to believe that the whole legend game for the most part is the stuff of press agents, highly paid press agents at that who will write anything, think up any outlandish lie or fake news about their client to keep public interest up, and the paychecks coming in. They took me to task for defending heroic Hal and the brethren, especially Hal because they believed, fervently believed in some cases, that he had joined just to impress his girlfriend, that foxy frill as one reader called her Carol Ferris (and admitting he might have joined up too if he had a foxy frill like that to impress. 

Others have had the audacity to tell me that I have “sold out” the legend-slaying struggle by going down in the mud for these “frogs” as one reader called them. A reader who had sworn off believing in legends once Joseph Campbell gave her the scoop on the meaning of legends and myths in social life so far (she also mentioned that my destruction of Larry Lawrence (aka Sherlock Holmes put the frosting on the cake for her) That  was the general tenor of the comments from my advocates making me wonder if I have friends like this who needs enemies. I will try to staunch the bleeding a little, explain the difference between over-blown, undeserved and frankly fake legends and those which advance humankind below when I finally get a chance to explain my theory of legends in the review of The Red Sparrow, Dominika the world-historic post-Soviet sexpionage agent who has saved our bacon from those boorish Russians in the process, maybe more than Robert Mueller.  

As usual there are those who apparently have taken their cue from some of the writers in this publication and had cast a jaundiced eye at my attempts to bring a little rational discussion into the burgeoning legend marketplace with a little real time debunking of the bum-of-the-month legends. There will always be skeptics about any forward endeavor, any push forward for humankind always has blowback, and I have made my peace with myself on that score. I would also note that some of those same in-house skeptics have backed off a bit since that important UCal survey (supported by the prestigious Harrison Foundation) had shown a dip in belief in some of the legends I have been battering away at. That has led to an important vote of confidence in me by site manager Greg Green and a leg up on the food chain which is all important in this no holds barred, take no prisoners cutthroat business.

The most venom, and I mean that almost literally, have been displayed by what I call the “trolls” who have harassed me ever since I started debunking the American aviator pioneer Johnny Cielo legend, the undeserved legend of a guy who claimed many things, including being present at the creation of human flight with the Wright Brothers. That despite the fact that he was not born until 1910. The gist of their rude remarks had centered on making sport of the fact that Hal Jordan, once he signed on to the Green Lantern Corps could fly without an aircraft, could fly into space on his own green propulsion. Have contemptuously called him Icarus and other nasty names implying he had taken on more than he could handle. The only positive thing they have said already mentioned in another context is that Hal had a foxy looking girlfriend.      

I thought I would not go into the fake Johnny Cielo legend yet again but a few points should be made beyond that obviously fake present at the creation stuff. Especially in light of the fact that his UCal survey ratings have spiked probably because of the increased scrutiny by me and which has put his previously not well reputation in the spotlight. I would point out his claims to have been Howard Hughes right-hand man way back when TWA was getting off the ground were made of pure cloth. That he had squired drop-dead beautiful movie icon Rita Hayworth down to Barranca with him when he was running the air post service down there after having fled the states with people looking for him, looking for their dough was a case of mistaken identity fraud of the highest order since he was passing off some street-walker met in Hoboken as the real deal. And that he was entitled to some kind of left-wing hall of fame admiration for flying in guns and supplies to Fidel and the guys down in Cuba when it counted. Not one Fidelista had ever heard of him, and certainly not for bringing in guns and supplies when they desperately needed in that last push against Batista. All bullshit.

That press agent fakery by John Kerr formerly of the New York Times before he became nothing but a flak against the very real contribution Hal (and the brethren) have made in holding the line against the machinations of the universal fear machine that has gotten most of universe-kind down in the mouth for a long time. I have given up on trying to have reasonable conversations with the Johnny Cielo trolls based mainly in Florida, Key West but seem to be expanding their base since I got a comment, nasty of course, from Ohio in this latest slugfest. For others I will try to show, once again that I am not anti-legend just anti-bogus ones when I deal with another positive one in the Red Sparrow.

Okay, this Dominika previously mentioned was a ballerina moving up the Bolshoi food chain until she fell down, had been purposefully allowed to fall. The worse part beyond ending her career was that she could no longer care for her desperately ill mother (already you see a golden child ready to what was necessary before you). Through her lustful incestuous uncle, a guy named Ivan, like half the Russians guys are especially the bureaucrats, she got led down the garden path to become part of the state espionage apparatus via her training as a sexpionage agent. Some seriously weird stuff by run some ex-S&M madame from what I know of the operation. The idea by Ivan and those up the intelligence chain was that this semi-pro whore could find out who the “mole” was who was feeding Western intelligence, feeding the CIA tons of Russian state secrets. This remember is post-Soviet stuff although whoever dreamed up the idea claimed that Nikita Khrushchev, back in the 1960s, that dirty old man and previously Stalinist sycophant dreamed it up in the hot Cold War days. I would check that if I were you.

Dominika struts her stuff, made some contact with an on the shelf semi-disgraces CIA field agent who ran the Russian mole operation on the ground. By and by they fall in love and she decides to not only play footsie with that field agent but to play ball with the CIA to get that incestuous uncle off her back. She went through hell beforehand though taking merciless beatings to get her to spill whatever she knew. When the Russian agents grabbed Mr. CIA she had to make a decision-in or out. In the meantime, the freaking mole came in from the cold to her, told her to drop the dime on him as the mole. Instead she set up that pesky uncle and took the place of that disgruntled mole in the international intelligence games. That is the stuff of dreams and the stuff of real legends. I have heard from some reliable sources that she has given Western intelligence, NATO, a ton of good stuff about Putin’s moves, and about the relationship between him and his “poodle,” a guy named Donald Trump, POSTUS. Nice going little Red Sparrow, nice going.