But the golden nugget embedded in the article was this:
How long will Alphabet Inc. leave it up?
You have the title.
The Wayback Machine has no working records of the YouTube video.
I would archive it, but I’m sick of fucking signing up for shit and being tracked.
So fuck it.
You can track it down.
And we’re gonna do a little oral transmission here.
Spoiler alert:
this film review will be strictly spoilers and nothing but.
Not my usual m.o..
I’m not selling anything.
I don’t generate income by you clicking on this story.
I have no link to any content creator above.
I write very strange film reviews.
It’s called free fucking speech.
I also write music.
All my music is free to stream and download.
And I’m not gonna post a link.
Go find it.
The purpose of this article is strictly to get information out.
I am a conservative.
The same kind of conservative Donald Trump is.
Like it, or leave it.
I belive in Jesus.
I love God.
If you don’t like my foul mouth, then you can leave now.
I curse because I’m angry.
And I curse because I will not be told what I can and cannot say.
This is my website.
I’m using my free speech.
I’m gonna walk until they make me run.
So I’m here today to tell you about what I think is going on.
I scour the internet every day (especially these past 22 days) in an effort to avail myself of actionable intelligence.
I have a thirst for knowledge.
But more than that, I have a thirst for truth.
I support QAnon.
I support Trump.
I love my country: the United States of America.
I support our military.
I support our law enforcement officers.
And now I’m going to get around to the fucking point.
I watched this entire one hour, eight minute, and 44 second video – – – – – – so that you don’t have to.
But I still recommend you watch it.
And archive it (if at all possible).
Wayback Machine is my jam.
I’ve never been asked to “log in” until today.
Whatever…
Fuck it.
You can work a little too.
Here’s the beef.
This whole video is good.
All of the guests are good.
But there is one particular guest (the first one) who drops what I find to be some new and illuminating information.
The guest is Major Jeffrey Prather.
It should be noted that several of the six guests (including Maj. Prather) appear to be forthcoming content creators for this new outlet: American Media Periscope.
I’ve never heard of this outlet.
I get the impression that they have only been around a couple of weeks.
AND ALREADY TWEETED OUT BY THE PRESIDENT!
Which brings me back to my point.
Something in here MUST be salient.
And my guess is that it is the first guest: Major Prather.
If you haven’t heard of Sidney Powell by now, you have been living under a rock.
While most of America is being blasted with “Sidney Powell is even too crazy for Trump” blah blah bullshit, those who know (Trump voters) are well aware that Ms. Powell is an accomplished lawyer.
Her most recent claim to notoriety is successfully defending General Michael Flynn from the petty bitterness of sore losers.
Update: if you’re just waking up, the Flynn case has been dismissed (within the past 24 hours). This according to a tweet by one of Flynn’s brothers. Go find it yourself. I.e., Flynn’s not gonna need a pardon.
We’ve known this for awhile.
The government has no case when the government has no prosecutor.
Judge Emmet Sullivan is a really atrocious example of a judicial activist.
An activist.
Not a judge.
Sullivan dragged out the case another three months…after the Department of Justice withdrew its case.
But I digress…
It does not take a fucking genius to imagine that the exceedingly-persecuted Michael Flynn might be very grateful indeed for the legal services of Sidney Powell.
Flynn fought hard for Trump in 2016.
Flynn was unfairly targeted by Obama’s illegal Crossfire Hurricane program (run by the FBI).
Flynn’s life has been ruined (in a worldly sense).
But he has survived.
I believe the man had to sell his home to pay his legal fees.
Thirty years in the U.S. Army and that’s the treatment he got from Obama, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Lisa Page, Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Bruce Ohr, Rod Rosenstein, John Brennan, James Clapper, and (last but not least) Joe Biden.
So Michael Flynn has some scores to settle.
Because of his ongoing case, he was essentially precluded by the judge from publicly speaking for the past four years.
What a illegal travesty!
So now we come to what should be obvious to any thinking individual as the massively-fraudulent election of 2020.
We have been waiting three years for any of those aforementioned people to get in trouble…FOR ANYTHING!
We would have been happy if Hillary Clinton had gotten a fucking parking ticket, but she didn’t.
We have waited through:
-Jeff Sessions
-John Huber
-John Bash?
-Bill Barr
and
-John Durham.
We have been built up by a bunch of tick-tock bullshit.
Maybe it had a purpose.
Surely it did.
But what I am about to report casts it in a slightly different light.
You can decide for yourself whether what I convey seems plausible.
I belive Q is legit.
But it is a HIGHLY, HIGHLY complex and nuanced PSYOP.
I do not believe it is a fucking LARP.
And if it’s a LARP, then so what?
It has been effective.
WILDLY-effective.
It is a part of world history.
It has gotten people DIGGING like never before.
Me and a few other people tried to expose 9/11 as an inside job/false-flag stand down/what have you.
We didn’t really prevail.
We were ignored.
Maybe we were completely wrong to doubt the official story of 9/11.
But I don’t think so.
I researched that event like my life depended on it.
BECAUSE IT CHANGED THE WORLD…FOR THE WORSE.
We didn’t need to go to war in Afghanistan.
And we didn’t need to stay there 20 years.
We didn’t need to go to Iraq.
Again.
Correct me if I’m wrong (and I’m sure you will), but I think we could have arrested Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and a few others and called it a day.
Which brings us to the current times.
There wasn’t enough of a GREAT AWAKENING to reach critical mass.
But that was 19 years ago.
I can’t really recall Q ever having talked about 9/11.
That’s alright.
Maybe Q will tell us that 9/11 was actually the work of 19 beardy guys with boxcutters working out of a cave in Afghanistan.
And maybe that’s the whole story.
But I don’t buy it.
I believe the CIA was involved.
So does Dr. Steve Pieczenik.
Do yourself a favor and buy his eBook American Warrior in Crises.
I get nothing for plugging that.
He’s not a friend of mine.
I’ve never spoken to or exchanged correspondence with him.
I just respect his work.
Immensely!
Is he always right?
Probably not.
But for my money, he’s as close as we get to truth in this day and age.
So here’s the rub.
Flynn has some scores to settle.
The other military people who saw Flynn become a political prisoner also have some scores to settle…ON HIS BEHALF.
You cannot fail to serve your country (like Obama) and then turn around and ruin a guy’s life who did (for 30 years!).
You shouldn’t prosecute a guy for a process crime and, in so doing, make him lose his house.
I think I donated 20 bucks to Flynn.
Damn right I did!
I worked at Starbucks.
And I was proud to give my hard-earned money to a MILITARY spy chief.
And there’s the rub.
I used to want to work in intelligence.
Maybe I still do.
But I’m old.
Washed up.
And, honestly, I’m a fucking musician.
So just call me Sherlock Holmes.
And a shabby one at that (perhaps).
But I take great pride in TRYING to know what’s going on.
Because, again, I LOVE MY COUNTRY!
And who taught me to truly love my country?
Donald Trump.
And who else?
Steve Pieczenik.
And who else?
Michael Flynn.
If you don’t think that Sidney Powell is privy to some very interesting information by way of representing General Flynn, then you are incredibly naive.
Which finally brings us to this YouTube video.
Major Prather.
Major Prather (according to his LinkedIn) worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency for 17 years…and in a very high position at that!
General Flynn headed the DIA.
It might be said that the DIA is the military rival in the U.S. to the civilian CIA.
That’s right: the CIA is a civilian intelligence organization.
A weird thing.
Created in 1947.
The CIA’s predecessor was the OSS: a military intelligence unit.
Although the OSS were a bit kooky (thanks to their head William J. Donovan), at least they were putting themselves in harm’s way.
But again I digress.
The CIA has lost a little more than 100 officers/operatives in the past 73 years.
That’s the official number.
And it sounds about right.
The DIA has officially lost 21.
That number makes less sense.
But it makes sense in that the DIA is sort of the cream of the crop for military intelligence in the United States.
The NSA may be thought of as being even more elite (and powerful as a unit) because of the unique types of intelligence gathering they do.
The NSA supplies intel to the CIA, FBI, DIA, etc.
The NSA is a military intelligence organization.
Back to these casualty numbers.
The CIA has officially lost 133 of its employees on the job…in 73 years.
The DIA has officially lost 21 of its employees on the job…in 59 years.
But that doesn’t really tell the true story.
Sure, the CIA has its paramilitary strike teams.
They used to be called SAD/SOG (Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group).
These officers were largely recruited from the military special operations units: Army Delta Force, Navy SEALs, MARSOC, etc.
Other than these agents, the CIA is more pencil-pusher, wear a tie, James Bond shit.
And I do mean shit.
Once upon a time, the CIA used to help overthrow communist governments.
This might seem inhumane.
Until you live under communism.
In which case, you see just how humane it really is.
But the CIA has gotten away from that mission.
So much so that they ended up with a Director who had once voted for a communist for U.S. President.
That’s right: John Brennan voted for Gus Hall.
It should have been a disqualifying factor by some estimations.
The CIA and FBI apparently share the same requirement upon beginning official employment: you must pass a lie detector test…and one of the questions is something to the effect of “have you ever supported a group that has sought the overthrow of the U.S. government.”
John Brennan admittedly had a tough time answering that question.
But he might as well have answered:
“Not yet.”
To my eyes, John Brennan is clearly a traitor to the U.S.
Following closely behind him is Michael Hayden (who led both the CIA and NSA respectively).
But Michael Flynn is cut from a different cloth.
He’s a spymaster.
But he cut his teeth doing the real thing.
Serving in Army intelligence (INSCOM).
Putting himself in harm’s way.
The same cannot be said of John Brennan (and most of the CIA).
[Michael Hayden is a strange case of…well, I don’t know…I just have to assume he is corrupted and coopted to such an extraordinary level that he doesn’t even really love his country any more (if he ever did in the first place)–he loves himself…first and foremost]
So I give Major Jeffrey Prather (formerly of the DIA) a great deal of respect as a foregone conclusion.
[keep in mind…the DIA has had its share of bad eggs…James Clapper chiefly among them]
If you watch no other section of the video I posted above, watch the segment with Prather.
Akamai.
Where do they fit in to this election?
Which brings up 9/11.
And the incredibly strange/significant “death” of Daniel Lewin.
Yes, I know I put death in quotes.
I’m about as sure Daniel Lewin died on 9/11 as I am sure that Adam Lanza was a master with an assault rifle.
Which is to say, not very sure.
But the Electoral College will meet on my birthday: December 14th.
Massachusetts.
Akamai.
Serbia.
Ok, we know about Dominion Voting Systems and all the programmers they have/had in Serbia. A bit of a strange locale. Wonder if the company memos are in Cyrillic?
China.
I don’t now why I wrote that down.
I’m going off notes.
Frankfurt.
Ok, yes.
Obviously.
Something appears to have happened there.
I’m not sure what Prather’s point was on this.
What was seized?
From Scytl?
From the CIA?
And seized by whom?
The U.S. Army?
I should take this opportunity to point out a strange assertion of Prather’s.
I find this one a little hard to believe, but I suppose it’s possible.
Prather asserts that the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and Marines have all had their computer systems compromised.
Might this have something to do with the DoD contract with AWS?
Amazon Web Services.
The CIA uses them too.
Look it up, you lazy fucker!
It’s an article…in The Atlantic.
Dig!
There have been rumors that the votes in (for example) Michigan were sent by Dominion Voting Systems by way of AWS (which is to say, over the internet? cloud???) to Europe in order for the votes to be tallied.
Giuliani has pointed out just how ludicrous this is.
And it is!
But what’s the exact chain?
We know there is a company called Scytl.
They are headquartered in Barcelona.
They are rumored to have a “back up” data site (servers) in Frankfurt.
There is good evidence that internet traffic in Frankfurt, Germany on the night of the U.S. election set records for that city.
Look it up.
Find it.
WikiLeaks exposed the fact that the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a giant CIA hacking base.
This can be found in the Vault 7 materials from WikiLeaks.
So, did the CIA hack our election?
Seems to me like a high probability.
Indeed, Prather outlines this dichotomy: the civil war in the U.S. has already started…and the SO/LIC confrontation can so far best be described as DIA vs. CIA (or, perhaps more accurately, military vs. CIA).
I believe this is probably accurate.
It is borne out by all the intelligence I have personally gathered (OSINT) over the past few years.
The CIA has lost its way.
I once applied there.
Thank God I didn’t get the job.
I also once tried to sell my soul to the Devil (true story), but that tale can wait…
I am saved by the grace of Jesus Christ.
I am the worst among sinners.
Which is why I need the grace of Jesus more than anyone.
I also applied for Air Force Intelligence once.
Didn’t get it.
Maybe because I have a fucking music degree and an MBA.
Not exactly what’s commonly thought needed to assess China’s answer to the F-35.
Which brings us to Prather’s point.
According to Major Prather, only the U.S. Air Force and the newly created Space Force have retained the security of their computer networks.
This is a bold claim.
I don’t have anything to really gauge it on.
Except that I have a soft spot for INSCOM (because of Q and Flynn) and a soft spot for the 4th POG (because they followed me on Twitter for some odd reason [before Jack Dorsey squashed me like a bug]).
Prather then pivots to his concerns.
He talked about possibly-imminent “interdictions” against Iran.
We have heard Q talk about Iran.
I love Iranian psychedelic music from the ’60s.
Before the Islamic revolutionaries fucked everything up.
I have nothing against Muslims.
I love them.
I have nothing against Iranians.
I love them.
I LOVE Kiarostami [RIP].
But let’s take stock for a moment here.
Joe Biden “won”.
Netanyahu pretty fucking quickly called to congratulate Joe.
And THEN…YESTERDAY Netanyahu calls to congratulate Jonathan Pollard on his release.
What in the actual fuck?!?
How pro-Israeli does a President [Trump] have to be in order to get a little respect from Israel?
Ok, ok.
I know.
Maybe Netanyahu is working with Trump behind the scenes.
Entirely possible.
Maybe we should have a sort of FVEY agreement with Israel.
But probably not.
Because, you know, remember the U.S.S. Liberty (you fuckers!).
Back to 9/11.
I have no idea if the Israelis were involved.
There was definitely some suspicious shit.
Zim-American Israeli Shipping.
Vacating the WTC right before the attacks.
And the moving truck company [Dominick Suter].
Mossad had some strange presence in and around NYC leading up to 9/11.
I don’t know what they were doing there.
And then there were the Mossad “art students” (which Pieczenik has attested to from personal experience).
All I know is this.
9/11 could not have gone undetected (and undeterred) by our military.
To the list of Rumsfeld and Cheney (Liz’s dad), we should add Ralph Eberhart, Richard Myers, etc. And almost certainly Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Perle, etc.
Keep in mind, nobody ever got in trouble.
The two tallest buildings in America fell down (were blown up) and all we did was waterboard KSM 183 times.
Perhaps Flynn and Anthony Shaffer could set me straight on some stuff.
I get the general gist of Able Danger.
But it still doesn’t explain a lot of things.
I’m gonna have to side with Pieczenik on this one: we’ve seen one long procession of (unpunished) false-flags since 9/11.
Now comes the pain.
Pieczenik seemed really sure about those watermarks on the ballots.
And I believe him.
Shaffer seemed to corroborate their likelihood.
But I was of the understanding that DHS was running this election sting.
After watching this YouTube video, it has dawned on me just how suspicious Chad Wolf has been acting.
See something, say something, right?
Why wouldn’t he fire Chris Krebs?
Even more importantly, what in the actual fuck was CISA doing on the night of the election?
Alexandra Bruce brings up some pretty excellent points in this video.
If I understand her correctly, she seems to be saying that cisa WAS IN ON THE WHOLE THING!
[Which would make sense in the same way that NORAD was doubtless in on 9/11]
But here is perhaps the most intriguing bit of information which Major Prather dropped.
It is his assertion that Ezra Cohen-Watnick is, in fact, Q.
Or rather, he says something to the effect that there is a [and I paraphrase] “very high likelihood” of this.
Call me dumb, but I never even thought of that possibility.
I know who ECW is (not personally, of course).
Thomas Wictor drew attention to this personage years ago.
Said there were no pictures of him because he’s military intelligence.
It’s all starting to click.
I find the ECW theory highly-plausible.
But then Prather throws a massive curveball.
Maj. Prather asserts that Bill Barr is getting ready to indict Ezra Cohen-Watnick (!).
For what?
For being Q??
A final bit of potentially disheartening information from Prather is that “Durham has done nothing” (paraphrase).
I.e., John Durham has not, and will not, bring any of the Crossfire Hurricane [coup #1] traitors to justice.
Sure, we got Clinesmith, but give me a fucking break…
I’d still rather see Hillary get a parking ticket.
So there you have it.
The other guests in the video are all quite good.
They all have some rather harrowing predictions for the coming days/weeks/months.
All seem to agree that Trump will probably prevail and be elected to a 2nd term.
But it could get really ugly.
Ms. Burke brings up the specter of military tribunals.
But this film is very much about the passions of youthful revolution.
Is Trump a revolutionary?
Of course.
Was George Washington a revolutionary?
Of course.
But the strain of revolutionary verve in this film is that of communism.
I don’t hate communism.
I don’t hate anything.
But I think some things are not so good.
With communism, I mainly criticize it on an economic level.
Have I read Marx?
Not very much.
But I’ve read enough Debord to get the late-60s version of Marxism.
I would argue that Debord, one of my three favorite writers, was at his best when he was NOT talking about Marxism.
When he goes off on Marxist tangents, he loses me.
I find it boring.
And, as I’ve said, I object to it on economic grounds.
I have a college degree in music.
[which will be very important in reviewing this film]
But I have an advanced degree (above and beyond that) in business.
Am I a genius of economics? No.
But I questioned. I was skeptical. I studied Marx.
And I found the capitalist system to be the best system.
It is, by no means, perfect.
And so why, then, do I like Guy Debord?
Perhaps no one in history hated capitalism more than Guy Debord 🙂
I respect Debord because he was a brilliant social critic.
I do not agree with his economic assumptions.
I do not agree with his Marxist assumptions.
But when it comes to a critique of capitalism (which is the underpinning of globalism), no one has found the flaws like Debord.
No one has completely dismantled the matrix in which we live (the “spectacle”) quite like Debord.
And so his book The Society of the Spectacle is essential reading in my opinion.
At least the first few chapters.
As I said, Debord gets a bit bogged down in Marxism and loses his poetic divining power concomitantly.
But let’s discuss this film.
This is, by far, the best Turkish film I’ve ever seen.
Granted, I think this is only the fourth I’ve ever watched 🙂
But this is really a special movie!
Wikipedia says that it is set in a small town near Adana.
For that, I will say hi to the American soldiers at Incirlik Air Base 🙂
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for representing the United States. Thank you for your service. We love you and we pray for your safety and happiness!
It is true.
I love our American troops.
Most of my life I did not appreciate these wonderful people.
I took it for granted…
“Somebody will do that job…”
But in my older age, I respect these soldiers very much.
But let us shift back to this film.
First, let us thank the two directors: Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Muharrem Gülmez.
They have made an almost perfect movie.
Really, this film is so, so good!
But you must be warned, my dear friends: it is simple.
It you are looking for a complex, confusing film, then you will be disappointed.
Such that, you must be like a child–like a youth to appreciate the naïveté of this masterwork.
So I would say this: it’s a bit like a Turkish version of Cinema Paradiso.
Do you see what I am getting at?
It is poetic.
The mise-en-scène is a bit like what we might expect from Claude Monet (were he still alive).
It is loving.
Large swaths of color.
And, perhaps most quintessential, it is unassuming.
Down to earth.
There’s no condescension in this film.
Come as you are.
First movie you’ve ever seen?
No problem 🙂
It is that sort of loving masterpiece!
It is set in Turkey in 1982.
Cassettes 🙂
80s-style clothing. The Turkish version 🙂
A junta is in place. A military government. Martial law.
And one band of musicians gets rooked into being a “marching band” (of sorts).
But these are folk musicians 🙂
They don’t play brass instruments. They don’t play the sousaphone.
So it is a very steep learning curve (which sounds a lot like Charles Ives in its beginning stages) 🙂
But let’s get to the most important point.
“I fell in love with the actress/She was playing a part that I could understand”
[Neil Young]
Yes.
Özgü Namal.
Just two years younger than me.
She is the star of this film.
Amazing facility as an actress.
But really just a glow–a vibrance in her every gesture.
Here is someone who is glad to be alive 🙂
And it made me glad to be alive!!!
But let me tell you the other star: Cezmi Baskın!
This man!
He has no Wikipedia page in English, but he is a wiseman.
A humanist.
A saint of an actor.
A craftsman.
He plays the bandleader.
And his daughter in the film is Özgü Namal.
Umut Kurt does a very good job as the young communist.
And, hence, the title of the film: The International.
“L’Internationale” 🙂
The most famous of communist anthems.
Yes, dear friends, it is that melody written in 1888 by Pierre De Geyter which is the MacGuffin of this film.
The whole plot hinges on it.
Derrida would call it the brisure (if film were a text).
To deconstruct.
The hinge.
I will say this: the struggles in this film are very real to this day for the people of Turkey.
I would say our communist character would probably today be a member of the CHP party in Turkey: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi.
The Republican People’s Party 🙂
Which is funny because in the U.S., the Republicans (whom I support…more or less) are conservative or “right wing”.
So, yes: the CHP is “left wing”.
But as I say, this is a very fine film.
It shows very much the love which a father can have for his daughter.
It shows the sacrifices which parents make for their children.
Parents will even die to save their children.
This is a funny movie, but it has this tone of seriousness as well.
Actually, the whole film is like a brilliant joke 🙂
It starts very serious…
But the it becomes festive and ridiculous!
Most of all, there are so many poetic camera shots of Turkish life.
Little things which we don’t see in America.
So an American can learn some of another culture.
But also, we see that people all around the world have similar worries and dreams as us.
Well, I don’t want to tell you too much.
I will just say that this is well-worth watching.
It is a bit long, but I watched it in two installments.
And the subtitles are good 🙂
Anyway, it is on Netflix streaming in the U.S. currently as Beynelmilel.
But it’s one of the few times where I can say, “I worked with that person.”
Clem Burke.
Probably wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.
Now.
Because I’m a Trump supporter.
But he was the best drummer I was ever in the same room with.
And drumming was the longest “career” I ever had.
I’ve played drums since I was a kid.
All of them.
The set.
“Traps” 🙂
Orchestral snare drum.
Marimba.
The whole 4-mallet thing.
Jazz vibraphone.
But when I worked with Clem, I was a bass player.
That day.
That year.
For awhile.
It was the bass that took me to England.
To Scotland.
And to Spain.
And it was the bass that first took me to Los Angeles.
But this is about Blondie.
The band.
And what a band!
Based on my own experiences just mentioned, I can attest to the extremely high musicianship of Clem Burke.
And watching this relatively-short documentary (an hour) convinces me of just how special each of the band members were/are.
But perhaps my favorite part is seeing Mike Chapman work.
The record producer.
What a talent!
It was my dream to be a record producer.
Didn’t really work out 🙂
Tough business.
Maybe you fuck up.
Or maybe no one helps you.
Or maybe you get one chance. And only one chance.
But that’s ok.
Because life goes on.
Marilyn Monroe aged.
Lou Reed sang about it on the Velvets’ “New Age”.
And Godard wrote about it.
The aging of Marilyn Monroe must have been a traumatic phenomenon for the first generation of movie goers.
The first generation with that color reality.
And with the television buttress.
And Marilyn…
Even Elton John, a homosexual man, was in love with Marilyn…in a sort of way.
“Candle in the Wind”
Which brings us to Debbie Harry.
The former cocktail waitress from Max’s Kansas City.
Chickpeas and lobster.
Park Avenue South.
And brings us to the album Parallel Lines.
This documentary is almost strictly about that album.
About Blondie’s breakthrough into the mainstream.
Yeah, they were punk…
Had the street cred.
But they transcended.
Mostly due to musicianship.
A bit like the Talking Heads.
The other bands were hopelessly arty.
Of this scene.
My favorite, Suicide.
[R.I.P. Alan Vega]
I met Alan once.
Changed my life.
But Suicide never really had a hit.
[Nooo…you don’t say?!?]
Yeah.
The name.
Whoa mama!
But that was punk.
And my whole mission is a bit of a punk mission.
Pauly Deathwish.
Uh huh.
Not a name I came up with.
But given to me.
I remember that day.
And the personages.
But my mission is also a bit like the mission of Greil Marcus.
And Lipstick Traces.
Now I’d just prefer to read Debord.
Or read Len Bracken on the Situationists.
But Greil tries (valiantly!) to pull it all together.
And I’m a bit like that kind of wanker.
Just hoping to SOUND like I know it all.
And someday have Harvard written on my spine.
But we’ve hardly discussed Blondie.
Or this excellent little film.
Which is currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S.
Again Kino Lorber’s marketing team (?) seems to be absent behind this release.
There’s no Wikipedia page.
And the iMDB page lists the title of this made-for-TV-affair as Blondie’s New York and the Making of Parallel Lines.
Ok, so it’s not Citizen Kane.
But it’s well worth watching!
Directed by Alan Ravenscroft.
He does a fine job here.
It really is a magical story.
Punk.
New York City.
CBGB-OMFUG.
The Fugs! 🙂
New York, a magical place.
Hell, even mayor Ed Koch is in this.
And he’s much easier to stomach than Bill Clinton.
I don’t care…liberal, conservative…whatever.
Just don’t be a dick!
And if you’re a dick, have the schtick down!!
Like Trump.
He has the schtick down.
He’s learned to lie.
In his many years.
“The babies, the beautiful babies…the innocent babies”…
There were no babies, my friends.
There was no chemical attack.
That footage was in the can for some time.
But it’s a white lie in the world of geopolitics.
It’s like telling your kids that Santa Claus delivered the presents.
There’s no way to explain, “I’ve gotta bomb Syria to make an impression on China. And the bombing has to happen almost simultaneously with dinner…at Mar-a-Lago.”
And McMaster must be lying too.
That’s ok.
Just don’t make a habit of it.
Because then you’re CIA.
And that’s a dark road.
To get wrapped up in lies.
But the white lies are synthetic terror where nobody dies.
Even the Russian/Syrian body count.
Likely false.
Especially the “four kids” detail.
Pithy.
Icy.
The Democrats are really (I mean it, unfortunately) exceptionally dumb.
They only sense the general outline of the conspiracy.
Russia’s faux indignation.
But they don’t understand that their infantile foreign policy made such machinations necessary.
Blondie 🙂
And Quintilian.
See the documentary.
Forget about North Korea for a moment.
By all means, don’t watch inferior propaganda.
The Propaganda Game?
Great film.
Songs from the North?
Cinematic equivalent of toilet paper.
The Cinémathèque Française knew the value of propaganda films.
Henri Langlois.
Back when they were educating “the five” (Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rivette, and Rohmer).
And Godard understood the importance of “good”, well-crafted, persuasive propaganda.
As Jacques Ellul wrote in 1962, “Ineffective propaganda is no propaganda.”
In other words, it has no business calling itself propaganda.
It’s less-than-worthless.
But kick back with some Machiavelli.
And The Art of the Deal.
And remember the unholy marriage of art and commerce that is and was Blondie.
And I have been immersed in a strange dual-study regimen focused on the LSAT and the GRE.
For my international readers, the LSAT is the Law School Admission Test and the GRE is the Graduate Record Examination.
The second test would be required should I choose (or be so lucky as) to go on to PhD studies.
Quite frankly, my MBA has not been sufficient to wow the employers out to which I have reached.
And so life presents us with little conundrums.
I have a bachelor’s degree in music theory/composition and a master’s degree in business.
Long ago, my bachelor’s degree wasn’t enough to gain me employment at places like 7-Eleven and Wendy’s. That’s right. Five years of higher education and a diploma above and beyond the high school level was not enough to overcome the nepotistic morass which dominates the distribution of unskilled labor jobs in the U.S.
I’m guessing this situation might (for obvious reasons) be particularly mark-ed in the American Southwest (where I am located).
So I thought a master’s degree in business would really distinguish me.
I worked myself sick.
Almost to death.
Maintained a 4.00 GPA.
Not only have I had zero unsolicited interest in my skills, but I have received nothing save rejections.
Which is to say, I have not even been graced with an interview.
And so it was some days ago (about two weeks) that I decided I should have a contingency plan in place in case such conditions persist.
So perhaps I will find myself in law school in a few years.
Perhaps in a PhD program.
But I have been trying to better myself every day.
My focus, academically, has been on two areas: logic and mathematics.
I have never been very keen on (or good at) math.
And logic is something in which I have had zero formal training.
The logic emphasis is, of course, pursuant to the law school possibility.
The math studies (currently algebra, but geometry and statistics to come) are in support of the PhD path.
In addition, I am happy to report that I am exercising (walking) every day.
And I have also added weight training in the most recent nights.
But today I took a day (and night) off from the rigors of autodidactic asceticism.
Yes, today only involved my ongoing survey of Ezra Pound’s Cantos.
Indeed, I suppose I really don’t know how to relax anymore 🙂
But I was very interested to hear Donald Trump’s “Address to Congress”.
This is, mind you, a once-a-year phenomenon in the U.S.
In his next three years (assuming no untimely cessation of his Presidency), these speeches will each be called (respectively) a “State of the Union” address.
Well, I won’t keep you in too much suspense.
If you have read me at all in the past year, you will know that I have become an ardent Trump supporter.
And I continue to be such.
So it is not without immense bias that I posit his speech tonight to have been rather excellent.
But Mr. Trump’s speech comes at a very important time.
And I have purposely raised my visibility as a Trump supporter because of this crucial time.
To wit, many forces have sought and are seeking to undermine the President (at the very least).
The proliferation of protests would truly be remarkable (if we didn’t know the general source and support network for these faux-demonstrations).
And so I haven’t written about a movie in some days, but there is no better viewing than our current President.
The Left tunes in to vomit, and the Right tunes in to cheer.
I am, and have been for only a short time, on the Right.
Conservative.
I will make no apologies about this.
In this past week I have had multiple people who call themselves my friends attack me as a “bigot” and worse.
That’s fine.
My response is no response.
It is beneath me to respond to such.
I have had people question my artfulness.
I, who gave my blood-sweat-and-tears for 15 years as an artist.
It is beneath me to qualify such attacks on my character with a response.
And finally, I have been the subject of surreptitious attacks which attempt to equate me with “misguided” artists of the past.
If Trump can be “packaged” (in marketing terms) by hacks like Mika Brzezinski as “Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin”, then I suppose the lesser Leftists are taking this cue to equate me with Nietzsche, Wagner, and certain American artists which shall remain nameless.
But again, my response is no response.
And it’s not because I can’t respond.
But I tire of these games…
I can destroy my enemies.
In some cases, quite easily.
In other cases, with immense effort.
But my friends have proven (over years…the ingrates…abandonment) to now be my enemies in deed.
And yet I consider them friends.
And I will consider them friends.
Until such time as this becomes impossible for my physical safety.
But all of this because I support Trump.
Shame on you, friends.
[N.B. I doubt any of them are reading this. These are “real world” friends. And real pains in the ass(es).]
Indeed, I need more than one ass to put up with the crappy “friends” I have.
To a one, they are all liberal…every one of them.
And if they are conservative, they have not come to my aid in any significant way.
Except for one dear pen-pal.
And it was she who delineated the brilliance in Donald Trump’s message to me in the first place.
She knows who she is 🙂
MAGA!
But that one beautiful soul notwithstanding, “the world” has failed me.
And yet, the President of the United States has made me very proud indeed.
Verily, never before have I felt such immense pride in my country.
Pride in the men and women of our armed forces.
Pride in the men and women of law enforcement.
And so I could dissect what Donald Trump said tonight, but it is more important to analyze the gist.
I could fixate on the pathetic Democrats who applauded nothing…in their Kim Jong-Hillary white pantsuits.
Slobs like Al Franken.
His posture has its own closet…
Witches like Nancy Pelosi.
“Should I clap here? Will it look good or bad if I clap? Why does every mirror I look into shatter upon gaze?”
It’s really too easy.
But it does very little good.
Bernie…what could have been.
Except for that whole socialism thing…which is a crock of shit.
And so it didn’t matter that the Democrats were puerile, impotent faux-testers tonight.
Because Donald Trump has guts.
Yeah, his wife is hot as shit!
And so is his daughter.
That’s because they were MODELS.
But, even more so, because they have SCRUPLES.
They are good human beings.
They stand for something.
THAT’S why they’re really attractive.
To me.
But I know when I’ve met my better.
Ted Cruz? Fuck you.
Paul Ryan? I don’t fucking think so.
Mike Pence? Meh.
But Donald Trump? Yeah. Big league!
I may have more formal education than the President of the United States (‘deed I do), but the current POTUS is the real deal.
He knows who is better than him.
Our soldiers.
He knows.
And he says it.
And he never presumes that his job is any harder than those who carry out their orders in godforsaken deserts and jungles.
Yes, Virginia, many of those orders have been COMPLETE BOLLOCKS.
But that’s not their job.
In general.
It’s the job of policymakers to get the policies right.
For a long, long (LONG) time, the policies have sucked.
And so maybe, MAYBE (maybe) we now have a President who is competent.
I know when I’ve met my better.
There are many skills in this world.
And Donald Trump has a priceless skill set.
He’s not a saint.
He’s not a god.
But compared to those who have preceded him over the past few decades in the job of POTUS, he sure seems like one or the other.
So thank you, Mr. Trump!
Your understanding of the USA is really remarkable.
We have been taught to hate our own country for so long.
Enough of that.
Fuck that!
We will love what is good about our past.
And not wallow in our transgressions.
And to the detractors around the globe, you can fuck right the fuck off.
Most of all, to the domestic detractors…especially my “friends”…
Thanks a fucking lot…for proving exactly why Donald Trump is right.
You’re all a bunch of liberal frauds…spewing platitudes while being horrible people.
If you don’t believe John Hughes was a genius, see this film.
Seriously.
Because I didn’t believe.
Though Hughes made one of my favorite 1980s comedies (Planes, Trains and Automobiles), I didn’t really get it.
It being the John Hughes phenomenon.
While the cool kids had it figured out long ago, I was too contrarian to listen.
Now I get it.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is truly a special film, but Sixteen Candles is transcendent art.
Don’t laugh.
What would André Bazin make of this film? Or Gilles Deleuze? Or Christian Metz?
Who cares???
Well, I care…
But what’s important is what YOU make of it.
And in this case, what I make of it.
But let’s get one thing straight: Molly Ringwald invented the archetype which Thora Birch and Kat Dennings would later appropriate in doubtless homage.
Which is to say, Molly Ringwald is otherworldly as an actress in this film.
It’s no wonder Jean-Luc Godard cast her in his wonderful, underrated, masterful version of King Lear (1987).
Quentin Tarantino famously claimed (à la Bob Dylan’s conflated biography circa-1962) that he was in King Lear, but Molly Ringwald was ACTUALLY in it.
But enough about QT and nix on the digressions.
So no, I am no Henri Langlois to claim that Sixteen Candles should be in MoMA’s permanent collection, but there is good reason to compare this film favorably to Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings of 1939.
But none of this shit really matters.
What matters is the part in Gedde Watanabe’s hair at the dinner table.
And even more so (big time)–> is the indescribable Anthony Michael Hall.
AT&T gets it. Which means the seemingly wonderful Milana Vayntrub ostensibly gets it.
But I’m not sure the understanding flows both ways.
Because America has changed.
We are much closer to the year 1984 (as opposed to Orwell’s 1984) here in late-2016 than to any other period of American experience.
Yeah, Michael Schoeffling could only come from the Reagan era.
But he’s a great guy. And a fine actor.
And Sixteen Candles teaches us a lot of stuff.
John Hughes, as a film philosopher, is precocious in his grasp of American society in the 1980s.
The outcast wins.
But the conservative wins too.
Really, everybody wins.
That’s what value-creation will do.
But let’s back to A.M. Hall. This bloke…
What a performance!
And the real chemistry in this film is between Ringwald and Hall.
In the auto body shop.
And so what do we get?
Romance. Misery. And tons of fucking jokes.
We must congratulate John Hughes as much for his writing as his direction.
The previous year he had written National Lampoon’s Vacation starring Chevy Chase.
Years later he’d write a stellar reboot for the series in Christmas Vacation (also starring Chase).
You want more movies Hughes wrote but didn’t direct? How about Home Alone? [check] Or Pretty in Pink (starring Ringwald)? [check]
But let’s get another thing straight: this was John Hughes’ fucking DIRECTORIAL DEBUT!!!
But none of this shit matters.
What matters is Molly Ringwald crying in the hallway.
What matters is Molly practicing her potential lines before reentering the dance.
Molly talking on the phone with the Squeeze poster on the wall.
Molly freaking out and taking flight over fight.
And immediate regret.
What films do this?
Perhaps in 1955 we would have looked at Rebel Without a Cause in a similar way.
And rightly so.
Sixteen Candles is its progeny of uncertain admixture.
Looking through the yearbook.
And seeing the one.
The one who burns in your heart.
In America, this is realism (couched in slapstick and screwball).
Molly Ringwald is the loser who wins.
And Anthony Michael Hall is the hopeless dweeb who also wins…by sheer force of will.
There are genuine moments of panic in this film (as soft as they might be) regarding missed communication. Telephone calls. House calls.
And it adds just the right touch of anxiety to keep this film catalyzed and moving along.
But what makes all this believable? The supporting cast.
John and Joan Cusack (especially Joan, whose life make’s Ringwald’s look like a bed of roses). And John’s future MIT roommate (it would seem) Darren Harris.
But there’s one of the crew which deserves a little extra credit…and that is music supervisor Jimmy Iovine.
The tunes are right. The attention to detail is solid.
Sound and image merge (as Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller had impressed upon Godard that they should) into sonimage (a word Godard would use for his production company Sonimage).
Even the cassette spitting unspooling tape onto the pizza turntable is perfect.
The cassette? Fear of Music by Talking Heads.
Yes, Brian Eno.
And yes, “Young Americans” as they leave the driveway on the way to the wedding before the famous “au-to-mo-bile” scene.
David Bowie.
Even The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra doing Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor…briefly. [which lets our minds drift to Chaplin’s The Great Dictator]
Everything is right sonically.
The band instruments on the school bus.
The Dragnet quotes.
The gongs for Long Duk Dong.
“Lenny” by SRV in the car. Half a car.
It’s so very sweet. And sotto voce. And real.
It’s a mix. It doesn’t intrude. You gotta unlock the passenger door to your heart to let this film in.
And a little Billy Idol as Anthony Michael Hall negotiates a Rolls Royce and a prom queen.
So rest in peace, John Hughes. And thank you for this film.
Et je vous salue, Molly! Merci for the film.
And thank you Anthony Michael Hall for capturing my youth and bottling it up.
Thank you Molly for capturing the one I loved and bottling up all the quirky, quixotic things which I cannot see anymore.
But the overwhelming characteristic of it is the disturbing nature of what is represented on film.
Indeed, American Psycho suspends disbelief (the jokes not withstanding) to inflict psychological terror on those who see this film.
Some viewers may not seem to be bothered.
They are either masochists.
Or they lack imagination.
But let me tell you my own frame of reference: pizzagate.
Go ahead. Look it up.
It is going viral on several media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube.
And it is just what I was talking about prior to the U.S. election.
Pizzagate is the theory that John and Tony Podesta, along with James Alefantis and his Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., are involved in a kidnapping and child trafficking ring for pedophiles who rape and then murder their young victims.
Another pizzeria ostensibly used for ritualistic sex murders might be the neighboring Besta Pizza (besta, as in beast).
There is an overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence which points to the above being true.
But I cannot outline the entire conspiracy here.
Suffice it to say that dead babies, dead children, dead teenagers were potentially the fruits of these incredibly strange and evil proceedings.
As I have mentioned in the past, the organization through which this pedo ring is likely being run is the Clinton Foundation.
There are further revelations which seem to tie Department of Justice employees Andrew Kline and Arun Rao to this Satanic pedo ring.
Mr. Kline owns Besta Pizza.
[Update 12/16/16: The ownership of Besta Pizza is in question. There seems to be two Andrew Klines at issue. Further, it appears that other persons may share ownership in this establishment.]
Mr. Alefantis was lovers with David Brock of Correct the Record and Media Matters.
And that’s where George Soros comes in.
Soros has given five-figure donations to Comet Ping Pong on multiple occasions.
And we can’t forget Jeffrey Epstein who used his plane (the Lolita Express) to make jaunts to his own private sex slave island in the Caribbean (I belive it’s in the Virgin Islands).
Bill and Hillary Clinton took multiple trips on Mr. Epstein’s Lolita Express.
Mr. Epstein is a registered sex offender.
Then there’s the Haitian angle. When Laura Silsby was charged and jailed in Haiti for child trafficking. Ms. Clinton was very interested in this case.
Put most simply, the information leaked by WikiLeaks has given researchers a cache of U.S. government documents written in a very strange code.
Pizza means girl. Hotdog means boy. Cheese means little girl. Pasta means little boy.
Walnut means person of color or girl with undeveloped genitalia (uncertain).
Map means semen. Sauce means orgy.
There are other codes involving handkerchiefs. Indeed, there appears to be a long-standing code called “the handkerchief code”.
What I’ve written doesn’t even begin to describe the more lurid (and convincing) aspects of this citizen investigation.
But it did put me in the mindset to watch American Psycho.
I must say, this is a truly demented film.
I must have had two panic attacks watching this thing.
Because my mind keeps moving.
I certainly don’t want pizzagate to be true.
I hope it’s not true.
Because the carnage and evil wrapped up in it is almost unimaginable.
It’s sickening. Disgusting. Terrifying. Revolting. Terribly sad.
And those same words describe American Psycho pretty well.
In a technical sense, Mary Harron made a very fine film.
But I question her motives for doing so.
The sheer level of violence in this film is shocking.
In fact, it appears that the Hollywood mechanism is to make young people think killing is cool and normal (even gory ax murders) and make them think this by lacing the drama with humor and laughs.
It is a bizarre, insidious concoction.
I’m failing to see the connection to the art horror films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Something more sinister is going on here.
Set in 1987, Christian Bale is the psycho.
But he also (no doubt) represents white people in general.
He represents the conservative element in America.
The propaganda, then, is that conservatives are really (deep down inside) psychopathic, cold-hearted serial murderers.
What is REALLY ironic is that the Clinton pizzagate is (so far) populated solely by liberals.
And Hollywood is thoroughly liberal.
And so there’s a strange message being set up here.
We question the inspiration for this film.
And the characters who came to give the story life.
The acting is fantastic. Christian Bale is great.
But I don’t see the point in making this film.
What could an actor possibly get out of playing such a role?
What could a director get out of directing such a film?
Is it really just for money?
Perhaps Hollywood knows that the American viewing audience is very desensitized as a result of decades of ultra-violent movies.
And so this one had to ratchet it up a notch.
The story is fundamentally sound. [barring a few truly questionable scenes]
Hitchcock would have made a masterpiece from such a story.
But American Psycho just leaves me sick.
It’s a sick sense of humor which Hollywood seems to share.
That death is fun. That killing is liberating. It’s truly a psychotic ethos.
And so I leave my readers with a warning (for the first time ever).
See this film only in the practice of opposition research.
Furthermore, exercise extreme caution in watching this film.
It is engineered to make you psychologically and physically ill.
I’m glad to be more informed, but I never want to see this gratuitous filth again.
This is not a popular time to have sympathy for cops. That’s too bad.
This is not a popular time to have sympathy for the FBI. That’s unfortunate.
Not a popular time to champion the CIA. Pity that.
No love for the NSA. Shame…
We get one version of events. So much so that we chase after an alternative version. Which is credible?
Police have a very sacred trust. Once upon a time it was phrased as “to protect and serve.”
Abuse of power disgusts us. The pendulum swings to the other end.
Jingoism breeds contempt.
détournement
There are several wars on in the world. The U.S. is involved widely.
It’s not a popular time to say something kind about the military. Bummer.
What is at issue in all of these parallel phrases? Justice and compassion.
Efficacy. Human rights.
Right and left. Conservative and liberal. Even the widely disparaged neoconservative movement.
I have been quick to find fault with the so-called neocons. But there is an interesting fundamental point about them that perhaps few know: they used to be liberals.
I am reminded of Realpolitik. Kissinger.
The tendency creeps in to apologize for the shameless.
An apologist, after all, works in myriad ways.
It is good that all of these thoughts come to the surface upon viewing what many “serious” film critics would consider to be sub-par pulp.
Let me start (continue) by saying that Sudden Impact is a brilliant film.
There are moments when the balance between directing and starring (acting) seem to be too much for Eastwood, but those few moments are mostly on the front end of this picture.
Though it be, perhaps, sacrilege to suggest such, this is probably the best Dirty Harry movie.
The reason is directly attributable to Eastwood’s auteurish guidance.
Though the setting of San Paulo somewhat mirrors Bodega Bay from Hitchcock’s The Birds, it is mostly the same director’s Vertigo which provides a wellspring from which Eastwood draws liberally for the symbol-laden mood of this affair.
Sondra Locke is formidable as the Kim Novak character. Though Callahan himself never succumbs to catatonia, Locke’s sister in the film does. It reminds us of Jimmy Stewart’s incapacitation after seeing Madeleine “die” the first time (again with the Vertigo references). Of particular note is the camera work which follows Locke’s first killing in Sudden Impact. The circular, woozy pattern makes us think of Novak’s plunge into San Francisco Bay.
And that’s just it: Eastwood had the balls and brains to drag Hitchcock into the Dirty Harry series (itself set in San Francisco).
What this film achieves is imparting humility to armchair DCIs (like myself) who think we have it all figured out. Sometimes distance is good…for planning. Sometimes you need to hear a few bullets buzz past your ears to realize that a hot war is on. It’s not always easy to know who’s shooting…and from where.
There are multiple fronts. I often ponder my own mental weakness. Ultimately, no one has died in vain. The challenge is for us as a nation and a world to get better…quickly. It ends up sounding meaningless, but it’s about all one can say about this spinning globe of chaos on which we live.
paulydeathwish 