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USA out of NATO/No More NATO [2022)

Google.

When did Soviet Union collapse?

December 26, 1991.

Wikipedia.

Vladimir Putin.

Retired as a KGB Lieutenant Colonel on the second day of the 1991 Soviet coup attempt against Gorbachev.

August 20, 1991.

“As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on.”

One can assume that Putin was against the pro-communist coup.

As for Gorbachev.

Gorbachev the reformer.

Putin was on the same side as Yeltsin.

Which explains what happened next.

But we need to back up.

May 1990.

Putin starts working for the mayor of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) as an advisor on international affairs.

So Putin was working for both the KGB and the mayor (Anatoly Sobchak).

Approximately one year later, he became head of the Committee for External Relations for the mayor of Leningrad.

June 28, 1991.

He was still in the KGB.

Putin held this job until 1996.

Remember when Putin retired from the KGB.

August 1991.

Concurrently, Putin was first deputy chairman for the Government of Saint Petersburg.

He assumed this role in March 1994.

About one year later, he organized the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia: a pro-government political party.

May 1995.

It was a liberal party.

It was founded by Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Pro-government. And liberal.

Remember, Russia had just gotten finished with being a communist country.

So the previous form of government was radically (totalitarian) liberal.

Putin was a legislative election campaign manager that same year.

For the next two years, he was leader of the Saint Petersburg chapter of Our Home – Russia.

1995-1997.

Sobchak, the Saint Petersburg mayor for whom Putin had begun working in 1990, lost his reelection bid.

Putin had been in charge of the reelection campaign.

At this point, Putin resigned his positions within the Saint Petersburg government.

He moved to Moscow.

He began working for Pavel Borodin as deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department.

June 1996.

Putin remained in this position for approximately a year.

March 1997.

Yeltsin, with whom Putin had sided in the failed August coup of 1991, hired Putin to become his deputy chief of staff.

March 26, 1997.

Putin held this position for about a year.

May 1998.

He also was the chief of the Main Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Management Department.

His tenure there lasted slightly longer.

June 1998.

This position was an important one.

Both his predecessor (Alexei Kudrin), and his successor (Nikolai Patrushev), wound up in positions of prominence and also worked with Putin later in their careers.

Putin successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in economics at the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute.

June 27, 1997.

His thesis advisor was Vladimir Litvinenko.

Putin then succeeded Viktoriya Mitina as First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff “for regions”.

May 25, 1998.

Two months later, he succeeded Sergey Shakhray as head of the commission for “delimitation of power” agreements “of the regions” and head of the President’s federal center.

July 15, 1998.

Putin soon-afterwards, by appointment of Yeltsin, became head of the FSB: the successor to the KGB.

July 25, 1998.

Here’s where our story gets interesting.

And here’s where the current Ukraine war started.

The Czech Republic (AKA Czechia) [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] joined NATO.

Hungary [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Poland [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

March 12, 1999.

Approximately five months later, Putin became acting Prime Minister of Russia.

August 9, 1999.

The Warsaw Pact was a mutual defense organization like NATO.

The Warsaw Pact ceased to exist on July 1, 1991.

When did the Warsaw Pact begin?

May 14, 1955.

When did NATO begin?

April 4, 1949.

The Soviets created the Warsaw Pact (CoMEcon) IN RESPONSE to the actions of NATO and the West.

So surely NATO dissolved after July 1, 1991, when the threat of the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist, right?

Oh, they didn’t.

Well, then surely NATO ceased operations at least when the USSR ceased to exist on December 26, 1991, right?

Oh, they didn’t take that opportunity for peace either, eh?

Are you fucking telling me that NATO, instead of disbanding and toning it down, INCORPORATED COUNTRIES FROM THEIR FORMER ADVERSARY (CoMEcon AKA the “Warsaw Pact” countries) INTO THEIR FUCKING “MUTUAL-DEFENSE ALLIANCE”?!?

Yes.

That’s exactly what NATO did.

Just five months before Putin first rose to the Prime Minister position in Russia.

1999.

22 years ago.

22 years ago NATO first began to BORDER RUSSIA, right?

[because Poland borders Russia]

No, actually.

NATO began to border Russia in 1949 (!) with the joining of founding member Norway.

Russia was patient.

It was only six years later (1955) that Russia (the Soviet Union) decided to make a proportionate riposte and create the Warsaw Pact zone IN RESPONSE to NATO.

So when Poland joined NATO in 1999, it became the second country bordering Russia to do so.

NATO has been on Russia’s doorstep since 1949.

And NATO set up a fucking tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999.

Fifty years later.

NATO, if they were really about “defense” and peace, would not have taken this provocative action.

Yeltsin wanted Putin to be his successor.

And so Putin ran for President.

Putin had become Russia’s fifth Prime Minister in 18 months.

The State Duma overwhelmingly-approved this: 233 in favor, 84 against, and 17 abstained.

August 16, 1999.

Putin was an unknown outside of Russia.

He had only briefly been the head of the FSB.

Most intelligence analysts expected him to go the way of the four Prime Ministers who came before him (in a mere 18 months).

Yeltsin was sick.

He unexpectedly resigned.

And Putin became Acting President.

December 31, 1999.

Putin won an early Presidential election.

March 26, 2000.

He was inaugurated.

May 7, 2000.

Life came at him fast.

The Kursk submarine sunk.

August 12, 2000.

Another crisis arose two years later with the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

October 23, 2002.

Putin was elected to a second term.

March 14, 2004.

Here’s where “peace-loving” NATO stepped in again.

Bulgaria [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Estonia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Latvia [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Lithuania [a former Soviet Republic bordering Russia] joined NATO.

Romania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Slovakia [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact countries] joined NATO.

Slovenia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] joined NATO.

March 29, 2004.

Wow.

So NATO, instead of being satisfied with expanding NATO by two countries in 1999 (and bordering Russia with two members), decided to expand by a further SEVEN (!) countries (giving them FIVE members that border Russia).

The provocativeness of this cannot be understated.

Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Canada.

Because Canada is in NATO.

And Russia does not have a mutual defense treaty with Mexico.

Indeed, Russia no longer has nukes in Cuba.

It is approximately 230 miles from Havana, Cuba to Miami, Florida.

The world almost ended in October 1962 because of this kind of proximity.

230 miles.

And how far is Tallinn, Estonia (a part of NATO since 2004) from Saint Petersburg, Russia?

Approximately 230 miles.

Look it up.

Don’t take my word for it.

Google.

Havana to Miami.

And.

Tallinn to St. Petersburg (in miles).

Are there nukes in Tallinn?

Probably not.

But there are NATO forces in Tallinn.

And in Estonia.

NATO was on Russia’s doorstep for six years (since 1949) before the Warsaw Pact even existed .

NATO pitched a tent on Russia’s doorstep in 1999 with the accession of Poland.

And then NATO effectively started brandishing weapons on Russia’s doorstep with the accession of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 2004.

What would you do if someone was on your doorstep?

You ask questions.

You find out their name is Norway and they’re in a gang called NATO.

They say, “if you mess with me, then my gang will declare war on you”.

Pretty unsettling.

But you let them hang out and loiter on your doorstep for fifty years.

After fifty years, they bring a friend named Poland and set up a tent on your doorstep.

They are there, every day and every night, sleeping in their tent and cooking on their camping stove.

They leave their trash everywhere.

They act like they own your doorstep.

You cannot leave your house by your front door.

You have to go out of your garage.

Or through your backyard and out the side gate.

Five years later, Norway and Poland (NATO gang members), bring their gang buddies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to live in the tent on your doorstep.

It’s getting crowded in that tent!

But this time there’s something even more unsettling.

These gang members are brandishing automatic weapons.

They have hand guns.

Every time you look out your peephole, you see the five people on your porch.

And they are heavily armed!

That is where Putin was at in 2004 when he began his second Presidential term.

Since then, NATO has added:

-Albania [a former signatory of the Warsaw Pact] in 2009

-Croatia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2009

-Montenegro [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2017

-North Macedonia [a former part of communist Yugoslavia] in 2020

East, east, east.

Always east.

Ever eastwards!

NATO is the gang on Russia’s porch.

It started with Norway loitering and saying, “mess with me and you mess with my gang”.

For fifty years Russia let punk Norway hang out and brag about their gang.

After fifty years, Norway and their buddy Poland (another NATO gang member), set up a tent on Russia’s porch.

Day and night.

Norway and Poland talking shit about how their gang would fuck Russia up.

Russia used to be in a gang.

Two, actually.

Russia was the kingpin of both of them.

The capo.

NATO are crips.

CoMEcon (Warsaw Pact)/USSR were bloods.

The bloods have ceased to exist.

Their gang has been broken up.

The bloods (Russia) even made their colors red, white, and blue: same as USA and France (two of NATO’s founding members).

The bloods have taken on the ways of the crips.

The bloods are a defeated gang.

But that’s not good enough for the crips.

The crips want to push their face into the pavement and grind it.

In 2014, with five armed gang members living in a tent on their porch, Russia decided to start going in and out of its own front door again.

They invented a curse word.

Russia invented a curse word.

The word is/was, “Crimea!”

At first, the gang members were shocked that the homeowner (Russia) had grown a pair of balls.

And then every day it happened.

Russia would emerge from its front door.

The gang members would brandish their weapons and say, “why don’t you try something?”

The gang members would say, “this is our porch now, motherfucker!”

And Russia would just say, “Crimea river!”

Russia would go out to the mailbox.

Russia would enter and leave through its own front door.

For eight years Russia has been doing this.

Refusing to be prisoners in their own home.

But last year a new little shit named Ukraine started hanging out in the tent on the porch.

And Ukraine said, “We’re gonna prevent you from saying, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia said, “How are you going to do that?”

Ukraine said, “I’m gonna fuck you up if you say, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia asked, “Are you in this NATO gang?”

Ukraine replied, “Well, not yet. But I want to be. And I’m gonna join as soon as possible.”

This last reply was in the fall of 2021.

There was a new shit on the block: Ukraine.

And Ukraine wanted to be the badass.

Ukraine wanted to make sure that Russia could no longer enter and leave through its own front door.

But Ukraine made a threat.

Ukraine said, “As soon as I get into NATO, I’m gonna fuck you up the first time I hear the words, ‘Crimea river!'”

Russia finally decided to do something.

Russia thought, “Ok, I can’t fight these five gang members living with automatic weapons in a tent on my porch. There’s too many of them. But I cannot go back to being unable to enter and leave through my own front door. So there is only one solution. I must fight the one who is threatening my freedom. I should be able to enter and leave through my own front door. And these gang members let me do that. I can even tell them to go fuck themselves and get away with it. Because I’m polite. I just say, ‘Crimea river!’ But now the time has come. I cannot tolerate little shit Ukraine telling me that he is gonna restrict my movement and my speech ON MY OWN FRONT PORCH! This little comedian shit has made his intentions known: as soon as he joins the NATO gang, he is gonna have them fuck me up in colossal manner anytime I exert my ownership of my own house. As soon as I go out to check the mail and they heckle me. As soon as I respond with a relatively-tame, ‘Crimea river!’, Ukraine is gonna sic the entire fucking gang on my ass. So that is the final straw. I can’t fight the whole bullshit gang of thugs, but I can fight the little shit. And I must fight him before he gets into the gang. Now is the time. Do or die.”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7uPO4cFjoSPnnQozEoZKfx?si=e8b7838d8f924d2e

-PD

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Executive Action [1973)

LBJ was not innocent.

But the story goes far deeper than that.

And it depends on who you ask.

As Oliver Stone told it, Johnson was integral to the plot against Kennedy.

Here, Johnson is largely a footnote.

Here we enter the politics of history.

The politics of film.

The politics of telling a story.

To decipher, we must know Dalton Trumbo.

Relative to Oliver Stone.

What is most remarkable is that there was a film made which not only rivals the quality and conviction of Stone’s JFK, but perhaps exceeds it.

This is that film.

David Miller, its director, barely has a stub of biography to supplement his rather large filmic oeuvre.

Which is intriguing.

Let’s investigate further.

Miller started out as an editor for an RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) film directed by a Halliburton.

That was 1933.

By 1937, he was directing.

Miller seems to have strictly directed short films for the next four years.

His first feature-length film of note was Billy the Kid in 1941.

By the next year he was directing John Wayne in Flying Tigers.

The war years were lean.

A short propaganda film here and there.

Seven years elapsed.

But Miller was back in the game by 1949…directing Bing Crosby in Top o’ the Morning.

That same year, Miller directed the Marx Brothers in their final feature film: Love Happy.

Future highlights for Miller included the noir film Sudden Fear in 1952 starring Joan Crawford and Jack Palance.

He directed Ginger Rogers in 1954’s Twist of Fate (aka Beautiful Stranger).

By 1956, he was directing Lana Turner and Roger Moore in Diane.

Joan Crawford teamed up with Miller again in 1957 for The Story of Esther Costello.

By 1960, Miller was teaming up with screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

They had at their disposal Kirk Douglas.

The film was Lonely Are the Brave.

Miller was making a spy thriller by 1968:

the little-known Hammerhead.

The year I was born, 1976, Miller was making his last film (again with Lana Turner): Bittersweet Love.

His penultimate film, Executive Action, is a masterpiece.

Again teamed with Dalton Trumbo.

There is plenty of bitterness to go around for the conspirators of JFK’s murder.

Which brings us to the current state of American politics.

Who is really in control?

Is it Joe Biden?

I don’t not think that anyone would assume Biden is even controlling his own bowels at this point.

Which is sad.

Because he has only been in office a mere 30-some-odd days.

Is the business world running the U.S. government?

It’s possible, but I don’t think so.

As much as they would like to use Biden as their puppet, I do not think we are completely being ruled by corporations at the moment (though their power is considerable).

What about the Democrat Party?

Is it running America?

Nancy Pelosi seems powerful.

But also inept.

Ineffectual.

Impotent.

She and Biden make the perfect pair.

Slurring and stuttering.

Schumer is just a yutz.

But the Biden/Pelosi combo is one for the ages.

My fellow San Antonian, the late Jacques Barzun, might have something to say here re: decadence.

Decay.

Like rotting teeth.

You can give Biden dental implants.

And Hunter too.

You can give Pelosi dentures.

But Joe and Nancy will continue to be an overwhelming embarrassment.

Which brings up Biden’s “80 million votes”.

And Pelosi’s unpopularity within her own party.

AOC’s star will fade, but for now, Sandy Cortez wields far more political capital than the haggard Pelosi.

And it is not hard to see why.

Cortez is an attractive (albeit moronic), young star of American communism.

She promises everything.

She will (of course) deliver nothing.

But hey: that’s the essence of communism.

Pelosi’s day has come and gone.

And it was a LOOOOOONG day.

Pelosi has overstayed her welcome.

Even in the minds of her fellow socialists.

But this is all just theater.

Because Biden, nor Pelosi, nor AOC are in control.

What about Kamala?

Nope.

I don’t think so.

So we must keep searching.

And here we hit gold.

Either the military, the CIA, or the NSA (which is to say, the military) are now in control of the country.

In the case of the CIA, we must remind some readers that this organization started off with military roots.

The OSS.

And for many years, the CIA overthrew communist governments.

That is, until Barack Obama appointed a communist (John Brennan) to head the Agency.

It is not a matter of debate that Brennan voted for Gus Hall in 1976.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/politics/john-brennan-cia-communist-vote/index.html

“John Brennan on Thursday recalled being asked a standard question for a top security clearance at his early CIA lie detector test: Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the US?”

Brennan said, “I froze”.

Which brings us to JFK.

And communism.

And Vietnam.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/1992/10/06/jfks-addisons-disease/aceb473c-a5dc-4199-9453-d3fcd3b18312/

JFK had Addison’s disease.

And treatment for Addison’s disease can cause mood swings.

Maybe not the best trait for a President of the United States (especially at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis).

Not only this, but JFK and RFK lied about Kennedy’s condition.

Indeed, mood changes characterize Addison’s disease itself (and are not simply a side effect of treatment):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addison%27s_disease

At his autopsy, JFK was found to have virtually no adrenal glands whatsoever.

To say this is an advanced stage of Addison’s would be an understatement.

This would have predisposed JFK to:

-anxiety

-depression

-irritability 

-poor concentration.

Again, not the traits you want in a President.

And not the sort of thing a Presidential candidate and his brother (Attorney General) should have lied about.

But they did.

None of which is to say that Kennedy deserved to die like a dog.

He didn’t.

But we now come into a realm of questioning and philosophy which involves the existential survival of America.

For the first time in my life, I today regarded Lyman L. Lemnitzer as a potentially-reasonable person.

He of Operation Northwoods infamy.

Why?

Because of the care taken in that document with regard to contrived obituaries, etc.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, under Kennedy, did indeed present the option of (plot) terror attacks on the American people.

Some of the attacks (options) would have been real.

That is the Lemnitzer I have always detested.

But some of the attacks (options) would have been simulated.

In other words, these men of war would have taken great care in concocting fake deaths…TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

From what?

From Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba.

So I ask you today:  is it possible that this same panel (the JCS) is now in control of the USA?

What about Lloyd Austin?

Are the JCS really reporting to him?

Maybe so.

Maybe not.

And what of the CIA?

Why was Mike Pompeo (West Point) put in charge of the CIA before becoming Secretary of State?

Why did Trump go to CIA headquarters so early in his Presidency?

Was it not reminiscent of his visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Vatican (respectively)?

If one was to really “drain the swamp”, where would this swamp-drainer start?

And if the CIA can infiltrate the Pentagon (the veracity of which, just prior to 9/11, Dr. Pieczenik has attested to), then can the Pentagon not (silently) reclaim the CIA?

What changes did Pompeo make while he was there?

Is it possible that the CIA is currently in control of the U.S. government?

And that the CIA has been gutted by Trump and Pompeo?

Is it possible that the U.S. military is operating out of Langley (in a script-flip of Langley infiltrating the Pentagon)?

Which then brings us to the NSA and CYBERCOM (which are, for the time being, virtually the same thing).

If any agency could run the country, it would be the NSA.

Why?

Because they would be able to undo corruption.

Piece by piece.

They would know which blackmailed leaders to remove (legally…over time…even if by martial law).

And they would know how to LEVERAGE information for command and control purposes.

For instance.

If Mark Milley (CJCS) was being a cunt (not that he ever would be), the NSA could neutralize him with information.

Perhaps Milley has some unsavory secrets he doesn’t want coming out.

The NSA would have that.

Which is to say, Paul Nakasone could literally be running the entire country all by himself at this point.

Perhaps with help from Keith Alexander.

And Jerry Boykin.

No need for kinetic warfare if the #InvisibleCoup / #SecretCoup / #SilentCoup is run with devastating efficiency and efficacy by Fort Meade.

But just in case, SOCOM/USSOCOM are ready to knock on some doors (if needed).

Joe Biden is being allowed to pretend he is President.

That is my theory.

I very much owe my realization to the writing of Martin Geddes.

What we are seeing is the United States being given a free sample of Chinese communism.

The military is running the country.

We can attack Iran.

And Biden will be blamed.

The military can mess up.

And Biden will be blamed.

And Biden will run the country into the ground on his own.

Yet the military will act as training wheels for this bicycle.

This is where SOCOM/USSOCOM comes in.

This is where Fort Bragg reigns supreme.

PSYOPS.

The American populace must be woken up.

It cannot be done all at once.

The American populace must experience first-hand the failure of socialism.

Which is why Donald Trump’s second term features Joe Biden as President.

Which brings us back to QAnon.

We know that Q was more that one writer.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210117-swiss-text-sleuths-unpick-mystery-of-qanon-origins

But anyone could be framed for writing it.

Even myself.

But I did not write it.

And I very much believe that those now in control of our government DID write it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

The CIA pulled off 9/11.

But they were not alone.

There were traitorous elements within our military.

I can only now hope that those elements have left.

But, again:  the NSA/CYBERCOM would have all the goods needed to remove corruption from even the top ranks of the military.

All other unified combatant commands would need to rely on kinetic means.

Which brings up a possible coconspirator in preserving and defending the Constitution:

INSCOM.

As we have said, SOCOM would be a muscle held in reserve.

A further buttress may be SPACECOM.

Indeed, it is possible that STRATCOM is not a part of this “invisible coup”.

STRATCOM’s capabilities may be constrained by those of SPACECOM.

Nevertheless, CYBERCOM (again) can control all other human elements.

It would be a sort of blackmail to save America.

If globalists can have a Great Reset, what’s to say the U.S. military couldn’t manufacture a national reset?

I would bet on the U.S. military before I would bet on the World Economic Forum.

And I also bet that the U.S. military now knows that the WEF have committed an act of war in inflicting COVID-19 upon the United States.

WEF, acting as a sort of nationstate, would fall under the category of terrorist organization (biological terror).

Bill Gates has given aid and comfort to this enemy.

Anthony Fauci has given aid and comfort to this enemy.

And all three have worked in concert with a foreign adversary to wreck the economy and morale of the United States.

That foreign adversary is China.

To win this war, it was necessary for Joe Biden to playact.

Except he doesn’t know he’s playacting.

Nor does Nancy Pelosi.

The U.S. military will act at its own pace.

The number one imperative is the good of the country.

Biden cheated and got caught.

The best path forward was to continue to find and weed out corruption.

The U.S. does not want a world war.

China will be dealt with in due time.

But first, the American house must be cleaned.

It is back to a one-room schoolhouse.

We are in session.

The class is political economy.

Joe Biden is teaching us.

What not to do.

The country is experiencing his leadership.

Right after having experienced the free market policies of a truly competent President:

Donald Trump.

The spell must be broken.

The mass media must be exposed.

They lied about Trump for four years.

They lie about everything.

Now they have what they wanted.

Trump’s great defeat.

And a senile incompetent in power.

But they have no plan to help people.

They merely wanted power for the sake of power.

Now that they have it, they don’t know what to do with it.

There is no tit to suck.

This is a crucible for policy.

Free markets work.

Watch the price of eggs.

Socialism/communism does not work.

And to the extent that it does work, it relies on authoritarianism to FORCE people to sacrifice for the greater good.

That is not what America is about.

America is about freedom.

Our dalliance with communism is about to be short-lived.

The U.S. military will dismantle propaganda.

Each domino will fall.

Andrew Cuomo.

Gavin Newsom.

This is a controlled demolition of a condemned building.

The corruption must come down.

But it must come STRAIGHT down.

So as to not harm the people to an undue extent.

Communism lies.

For the greater good.

Capitalism advertises.

It is a subtle differentiation.

Laissez-faire.

Capitalism will win.

Goods must flow freely.

And you know what else must flow freely?

Ideas, motherfucker!

Dalton Trumbo was a communist propagandist.

A good story teller.

But a liar in some key details.

In reality, those who want depopulation (Bill Gates) are communists.

Bill Gates has hitched his wagon to Chinese communism.

America must go a different course.

Freedom.

Liberty.

You CAN take the vaccine (if you want to).

Listen to Donald Trump.

Therapeutics are better.

But he gave you your damn vaccine.

In record time.

Take at your own risk.

It’s experimental.

Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten.

Perhaps soon we will be able to list the Pedowood Ten (as Los Angeles has devolved in depravity).

History forgets some of these former (Hollywood Ten) communists.

But some we remember.

Dmytryk.

Ring Lardner Jr.

And Trumbo.

Ayn Rand was an anticommunist.

Good for her.

Not one of the Ten.

Other significant Hollywood personages blacklisted:

-Lillian Hellman

-Paul Robeson

-Richard Wright

Look them up.  This wasn’t racial.

Wright was literally a member of the American Communist Party.

Further communist elements:

-Leonard Bernstein

-Aaron Copland

-Dashiell Hammett

-Lena Horne

-Langston Hughes

-Burl Ives

-Alan Lomax

-Joseph Losey

-Burgess Meredith

-Arthur Miller

-Zero Mostel

-Dorothy Parker

-Edward G. Robinson

-Pete Seeger

-Artie Shaw

-Orson Welles

And more communist elements:

-Richard Attenborough

-Harry Belafonte

-Luis Buñuel

-Charlie Chaplin

-Jules Dassin

The lesson?

Being a communist when America is at war (Cold War) with a communist nation is not a good idea.

And guess what?

America is again at war with a communist nation (this time it’s China).

Getting out of stupid wars is a good idea.

Afghanistan and Iraq were/are stupid wars.

Trump did his best to remove troops.

There is no longer any urgent need to have troops in Europe as part of NATO.

The Soviet Union no longer exists.

Russia does not present the same threat to the United States as does China.

Which is to also say:  Vietnam was not a stupid war.

It was botched.

It was handled in a daft manner.

The draft gave birth to resentment.

But the threat was real.

And the war had merit.

Whether it retained that merit throughout is a matter of discussion.

Which is to say, JFK was not perfect.

He was made a martyr.

Which tends to overshadow aspects of his makeup which disqualified him for the Presidency (such as Addison’s disease…and lying about having Addison’s disease).

Biden and Pelosi are not focused on the believability of their “victory” and “power”.

By the time they realize what is going in, it will be too late for them.

They are no real threat to the republic.

JFK should not have been gunned down like a dog.

War is hell.

-PD

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The Filth and the Fury [2000)

Here we go again.

Twenty years later.

Four years later.

The polls.

The first film.

Are they skewed?

This is a really fine film.

It starts off approaching the genius of Histoire(s) du cinéma and F for Fake, but miraculously (?) loses its way around the midpoint (or a little before that).

So it is not an all-time cinematic masterpiece.

So what?

It is still important.

And germane to today because one Pistol has had the bollocks to stand up for Donald Trump (the underdog [just look at those fucking polls]):

namely, Johnny Rotten.

What will today hold?

Johnny Rotten has said that he would vote for Trump.

So, I suppose, we can assume he did.

It wasn’t a joke.

I voted for Trump.

Again.

And proud of it.

Most celebrities have spent the past four years agreeing with one another that Trump is literally Adolph Hitler.

Good for them.

Whatever.

And from the throng of brainless celebrities emerged Johnny Rotten.

He made me feel more comfortable out here in the cold.

Am I a typical Trump voter?

I don’t know.

I have a degree in music theory.

I wrote a string quartet.

I toured England, Scotland, and Spain as the bassist in a hard rock band.

I am from Texas.

I played on Steve Jones’ radio show in Los Angeles.

I toured the world (U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark) as the drummer in a French-language Cajun punk rock band.

[at least they were punk when I was in the band]

I have an MBA.

I could quite easily vote for Trump just based on my knowledge of economics.

Free-market capitalism works.

No, it’s not perfect.

Communism/socialism does not (in the long term) work.

It is an economic death wish.

It produces so little value * relative to capitalism.

But, you know, fuck it.

I also like Trump!

And so does Johnny Rotten.

Me, Pauly Deathwish…

I like Trump.

Trump has gotten me to see the light.

Trump has taught me to respect our great U.S. military.

Trump has taught me to respect our wonderful American law enforcement officers.

And Trump does not take any shit FROM ANYONE.

Particularly the press.

I always knew the press was full of shit since 9/11/01.

And I found out that the Democratic Party was just as full of shit after I voted for Obama in 2008.

I thought Obama would hold the neocons responsible for the 9/11 false-flag/stand down.

I was wrong.

Obama was/is a fake.

In every sense of the word.

Trump has fought tooth and nail for four years AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT.

And he is still going.

This motherfucker is TOUGH!

And the more I learn about Joe Biden, I realize he’s just another corrupt career politician scumbag.

So what’ll it be, America?

You have the opportunity to throw off the mind control which has blanketed you since birth.

Throw off 99% of news coverage.

All of it says that Trump sucks.

Every day.

In every way.

That’s all they say.

Is it because he’s mean to them and their feelings are hurt?

Not exactly.

It’s more sinister than that.

It’s more un-American than that.

You have been brainwashed by Jeff Zucker and others of his ilk.

But go ahead, swallow the blue pill.

Zucker’s CNN told you in 2016 that Hillary would win.

They (and every other American news outlet) proffered that Trump had almost no chance of winning in 2016.

Why does that sound familiar?

Oh, that’s right.

BECAUSE IT’S THE VERY SAME FUCKING THING THEY ARE SAYING THIS TIME.

But this time they are saying that Trump has LESS THAN a slim chance of winning.

The hyperbole is staggering.

So, you know what?

Might as well not even vote, right?

How many CNN viewers will get lazy?

How many MSNBC viewers will get lazy?

They say (“the polls”) that Joe has had a massive lead for months.

And his lead hasn’t changed at all.

Do you believe that?

Do Democrats believe that?

Then why even vote?

Is there a possible boomerang effect from such an audacious PSYOP???

Trump voters know that the polls can be wrong.

Biden voters SHOULD know that.

Trump voters will vote either way.

Sure, there might be some “casual Trump voters” (though the type seems pretty improbable) who get discouraged by Joe’s seeming victory before the match has even been played.

Brexit voters would remember.

“Leave” had no chance, right?

“Remain” would take the day.

All the polls said so.

But what happened?

That’s right:

“leave” won.

And Johnny Rotten stood with those people.

When the people had decided, he stood with the people.

Brexit was fine with him.

And Trump is fine with him too.

I support Britain’s exit from the EU.

The EU is a nightmare of well-meaning mismanagement.

Can “control freaks” be poor managers?

Apparently so.

Just look at the EU.

I’m not gonna make a prediction here.

I don’t know who’s going to win today (or next week [or two months from now]).

But I am dedicated to the idea of America.

I’m not gonna freak out like a child and go out looting and committing arson.

I’m not going to make life miserable for “Biden supporters” (if they even truly exist).

Biden is a joke.

And not a very funny one.

There is no true enthusiasm for him…not anymore…not within his own party.

He’s a “safe pick” (like Mitt Romney was for the Republicans).

I didn’t vote in 2012.

Obama had disappointed me.

No neocons were brought to justice re: 9/11 false-flag terror attacks.

And I had no desire to vote for Mitt Romney.

So I just dropped out of politics.

I didn’t care.

Until Trump came along.

At first, I too thought he was a racist, etc.

Then I came to the realization that those thoughts had been planted in my head by way of misleading “journalism” (propaganda) which assailed me at every turn.

I broke out of the matrix.

I came to see that it was all bullshit.

Calling Trump a racist was the kryptonite that the Dems thought would keep Donald out of the White House.

It didn’t work.

And the world has never been the same since.

-PD

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The Opposite of Sex [1998)

It was a very good year…

1998.

Unlike the year experienced in this film by Martin Donovan’s character.

And, perhaps, unlike the year 2020 which we are all currently living through.

Spoiler:  Christina Ricci does not get nude in this film.

Carry on!

We start in Louisiana and come to Indiana, Los Angeles, Canada, and back to Indiana again.

This film deals with a lot of things.

Being a widow(er), for one.

Being gay.

Particularly, being gay in a conservative locale.

But at the heart of this film is a very strange series of lies and poor decisions.

But there are also some good decisions interspersed.

Mainly, there is a shitload of chaos.

And most of it is caused by Christina Ricci’s character Dedee Truitt.

Or sex.

Sex is a unifying principle here.

The stupidity of sex.

How sex can lead to a whole concatenation of events which were unintended.

In a strange way, this film is a cautionary tale.

But our narrator (Ricci) couldn’t give two fucks about ethics for most of this movie.

The whole tone of this film is sarcastic.

Sardonic.

If you like your comedy dark, you might like this.

But it’s not a particularly funny movie.

It’s watchable.

And, one might say, good.

Not great.

Lyle Lovett plays on an archetype perhaps established by Sheriff Harry Truman in Twin Peaks.

The resemblance of gesture and demeanor are remarkable.

Lisa Kudrow does a nice job here.

Her character is annoying as fuck.

And she pulls off that personality deftly.

But the real star is Martin Donovan as Bill.

His acting exceeds that of all the other players.

Really, to my eyes, this film revolves more around him than it does around Ricci’s hellbent character.

And so this film is not bad.

It is a little disappointing.

It is a little half-baked.

Half-assed.

Boring.

Even amidst all the chaos, it feels hackneyed here and there.

In the end, it was worth watching.

But just barely.

 

-PD

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Lost River [2014)

There’s something very weird going on in Hollywood.

And it has been going on for a long time.

You can look for yourself in Kenneth Anger’s books.

Strange stories about Clara Bow.

The first “It” girl.

From the film of the same name.

And how she kept her skin so soft (ostensibly).

But the range of weirdness in Hollywood seems to move along a continuum.

There are levels.

Not unlike Freemasonry.

Or Scientology.

The hedonism of Henry Miller would be a very low level.

But what we are dealing with here, in this film, is an allusion to a higher level.

Really, the highest level.

There really isn’t a more mot juste for this phenomenon than Satanism.

And, perhaps, even that word does not fully describe what is at issue.

If one was hard-pressed to boil it down–to refine it further, perhaps “evil” would be the essential element.

Recently, the internet collective known only as QAnon “dropped” a crumb of information regarding an establishment in Los Angeles known as the Cannibal Club.

You can find all Q drops here.

The drop in question is #3917 from April 8th of this month.

Here is the website to which Q linked.

It indeed follows the train of thought I delineated above.

You will see the Henry Miller quote (an author I deeply admire).

But then you will see a perversion far beyond (to my knowledge) anything Henry Miller ever wrote about.

What you see on the Cannibal Club website appears to be a restaurant which serves human flesh.

However, with a bit of research, I came to the conclusion that this particular institution (as it is presented) is likely fake.

Why?

The names of the principals all come back empty.  None of them have a digital footprint that I can find.  Sophie Lafitte.  Elspeth Blake.  Hero Conners.  Raven Chan.

The photo of Cannibal Club’s proprietress, Elspeth Blake, was first cached as a stock photo in 2012.

The photo of Raven Chan also was first cached (before it was used on the Cannibal Club website) as a stock photo.  Both photos appear to have originated on the website istockphoto.com .  They are generic pictures.

The Cannibal Club website went live with content in 2009.  Neither the menu, nor the “events” have changed.

My conclusion was that this was a joke made by demented, artsy liberals in order to seed panic in America’s conservative population.

That was my hypothesis:  it is almost certainly a sick joke.

But here’s the rub…

Things like this very well may exist.

Indeed, they probably do.

And thereby we come to the film Lost River.

It came out a mere two years before Trump was elected.

Before Harvey Weinstein was convicted of sex crimes and sent to prison (where, last I heard, he had coronavirus).

Before jet-setter Jeffrey Epstein “hung himself” in a Manhattan jail cell.

You know, Epstein…the guy who flew Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey to Africa.

All this was before Kevin Spacey had numerous sex crime charges brought against him.

And two of his accusers recently dropped dead (over the past year) bringing both cases to a halt.

Lost River.

I appreciate the style.

Very heavy on the David Lynch (with a modicum of Harmony Korine thrown in).

The focus on “place” is very similar to the technique David Lynch and Mark Frost used to ground the town of Twin Peaks in the TV series of the same name.

Evil.

In the woods.

Underwater.

Underground.

And in secret clubs.

Director Ryan Gosling did a pretty good job with this film.

We will forgive him for lifting the ambiance of that Orbison scene from Mulholland Dr. to repurpose it in his Lost River blood-and-guts cabaret.

Because the reason I watched this film at all was for Christina Hendricks.

She has the potential to join a modern pantheon which, at this time, includes only Thora Birch and Kat Dennings.

Though we are never told this in the film, it is set in Detroit.

And that makes sense.

Deserted neighborhoods with crumbling houses.

But it could be anywhere in America if China’s economic warfare (COVID-19) is not soon countered.

Matt Smith does a good job as Bully:  the embodiment of serial-killer animalism.

The thug.

The gangster.

The cartel head.

Extreme cruelty.

Sadistic.

Gosling did a great job location scouting for the zoo scene.

The abandoned zoo.

Very much like the film Hanna and its scenes in the abandoned Spreepark of East Berlin.

Ben Mendelsohn is a fucker.

Such a prick.

But smart.

He’s not an animal like Bully, though he has rage inside him.

He is more of a predator.

And he is much more powerful.

His character, Dave, is a banker.

And Dave tells us, during the course of the film, that he sets up a little “club” in each of the towns he goes to.

Seems Dave gets moved around a lot.

Comes in.

Fires people.

Gets the books on a firmer footing.

And moves on to the next town where he can oblige the poor and demented with a bit of blood lust with his clubs.

Lots of blood.

Lots of lust.

Dave overlaps nicely onto the persona of Harvey Weinstein.

Christina Hendricks is immediately propositioned by the bank manager.

Dave is a thoroughly-unscrupulous scumbag.

Hendricks just wants to hang on to her home…dilapidated though it may be.

Saoirse Ronan does a nice job in a relatively-minor role here.

She glitters occasionally…as she plays her Casio on her bed with sparkly finger polish.

Whispering out a little song.

Or as she tucks in her pet rat for the night.

But it is not the ginger Ronan we are used to.

Her hair is black.

To fit with the landscape.

And to let Hendricks (also a redhead) stand out as the star.

Saoirse is the “girl next door”…literally.

In the tradition of American Beauty.

By this method we can trace Gosling’s influences.

The overarching one is David Lynch.

This film is creepy.

Plenty creepy.

Much of the creepiness comes from the casting.

It really is an amalgam of Lynch’s freaks with Harmony Korine’s amateurs.

There is the grief of the mute grandmother.

Caught in a loop of family films.

Mourning her late-husband who died tragically.

It is sad.

It happens.

The inability to talk for some time after a shock.

Extreme PTSD.

The family films are sad.

Watching how they used to be.

The way they were.

And the grandmother still a widow…with a fishnet veil for mourning.

There is some rubbish in this movie.

Kind of how the second season of Twin Peaks went off the rails.

Eva Mendes is good here.

And scary.

In the basement is something very Ex Machina (also 2014).

And even more so John Cale’s Vintage Violence.

Shells.

Mortal coils.

Simulation.

Apparently, customers can come down and “murder” real people in these shells.

The shells are of a hard, clear plastic.

And formfitting.

The shells supposedly prevent any real bodily harm.

But we never really see them in action.

Iain De Caestecker is pretty good here.

There is a realness in the urgency of his running.

Gosling’s editing crystalizes this.

Running for love.

Panic.

Running to save.

To set off running.

Unprepared for how long the journey really is.

Something special here.

Good vs. evil.

To give.

Charity.

To be selfish.

To ignore the needs of others.

To follow the voice of God.

To follow the instruction of the Holy Spirit.

To be humble before God.

To fear God.

To feel evil all around.

When it comes, and when it goes.

But the most quizzical scene is when Christina Hendricks cuts her own face off (in simulation, of course) in exactly the way we have heard about in the infamous, rumored Frazzledrip video.

In 2014.

Two years before such a thing came to light.

What a strange coincidence.

Let us synthesize more.

Could there be clubs (in L.A., for instance) where children have their faces cut off (for real) in front of an audience of sickos?

Further question, how does Hollywood (in L.A.) have the “imagination” to write these sorts of scenes?

Sure, there’s the old French film Eyes Without a Face.

But that was cosmetic.

It wasn’t for the thrill of spectators.

It was a medical procedure gone wrong.

Gory as it was, it was to SAVE the face of his daughter that the misguided doctor went on a hunt for faces.

Here, the faces are potlatched (apparently).

Or eaten.

But again, this is just a “cabaret”, we are told.

We see behind the scenes.

“Fake blood”.

So where is the truth in these “jokes”?

What kinds of personalities find humor in this?

John Podesta famously jokes about cannibalism in Time magazine and elsewhere.

He jokes about the cannibalistic Donner party.

He had cannibal art hanging on his office wall (a loan from his art-collector-brother Tony Podesta).

Strange fixation, that.

Very creepy.

Verging on Silence of the Lambs.

Ed Gein.

Dahmer.

Really vile stuff.

This is an interesting movie.

Gosling has talent as a director.

He should make more films.

This was his debut.

He has directed nothing sense.

My only quibble is this:  Christina Hendricks was so misused here.

Saoirse Ronan was almost equally misused.

Gosling needs to watch more Godard.

More Hitchcock.

You don’t cast Grace Kelly only to have her wear the same sweater for the whole film.

But it’s also Hendricks’ fault.

She has talent.

But she must embrace who she is.

She is not a good enough actor to be a puritan.

 

-PD

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Blondie’s New York [2014)

Man…

So much I could say about this one.

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.

-PD

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Mateo [2014)

Here is a perfect film.

After awhile, you wonder whether such will ever appear again.

To call Mattew (Mateo) Stoneman a white “mariachi” singer is somewhat misleading.

But that’s the gist of it.

The premise.

Of this documentary.

No, this isn’t the Columbian drama Mateo from about the same year.

This is Mateo, the priceless documentary directed by Aaron Naar.

Why perfect?

Why priceless?

Because it is true.

I can attest.

To the life of the musician.

Somewhere…I must have been dreaming…while watching.

But the life of a musician is really not even worth two dollars.

I know.

I know the life of a rubbish-filled room.

Sleeping on some pillows.

Or a mattress on the floor.

Bedbug man comes to spray.

Doesn’t know where to start.

I know the life of playing crap gigs.

All for the big payoff.

To leave a legacy.

I know.

Mr. Stoneman (Mateo) references Scorsese.

That’s rich.  And right.

Talking to the filmmaker.

Do we ever see him?

The man with the movie camera?

I don’t know.

But he more-or-less makes himself invisible in this pungent story.

We get Los Angeles.

Where I should be.

But I chose another path.

And yet, Mateo chose the right one.

For him.

Follow the music.

Not the money.

Follow your heart.

Play and write and sing until your heart gives out.

Until the apple juice and Subway sandwiches finally kill you.

Bukowski described it as dog food.

The life of a writer.

Or musician.

Alpo.

Post office.

But what Mateo does is scrimp and save.

Because he’s addicted to recording.

Or rather, he’s making his masterpiece.

A $350,000 album.

Self-funded.

No record label.

Fuck ’em.

This guy, Mateo, has cojones.

A white man in a brown man’s genre.

But he’s all love.

Love for the music.

And the kicker is Cuba.

Yes, dear friends…

Much of our action happens in Havana.

Over and over and over again…Mateo travels to Cuba.

To record.

It’s real.

Quantegy GP9 tape.

2″

I may be useless to most of the world, but I get this.

Reel after reel after reel.

And so it is mambo.

But so soft and subtle.

Like the bossa nova of 60s Brazil.

But Mateo succeeds in his aspiration.

And so his voice is feathery-light…like Billie Holiday on Lady in Satin.

Because Mateo Stoneman had to pay his dues.

Prison.

A thief.

Almost like François Villon.

Stealing to make music.

To afford to record.

I’ve been there.

Pawned all my best shit.

To make a record.

Nobody heard.

Or cared about.

But finally for me it came down to family.

And we get some of that too.

Matthew (Mateo) Stoneman.

From New Hampshire.

We wonder about Ernest Stoneman.

Virginia.

And we get Ernest Hemingway.

20 years in Cuba.

“Who was he?,” asks the novia.

Dead guy.

Shot himself.

Up in Ketchum.

Next to where Ezra Pound, his champion, was from.

Hailey.

These are the savant details which Stoneman, Mateo can rattle off concerning music.

And I can do the same.

But I had to diversify.

So from cornering the market in shit, I spread my tentacles into manure.

A bit too pithy a metaphor.

But just so you know.

The life of a musician.

One minute up.

Touring Japan.  Or Sweden.

Signing autographs.

Wads of money in your pocket.

Next minute down.

Catching hell from the two-bit valets.

Having to pull out the LA Times.

Look.

This is me, motherfucker.

…it ain’t easy.

Sticking to your guns.

Your dreams.

Through extreme poverty.

Duress.

But Mateo shows you what it takes.

Dream big.

You might be autistic.

You might have crippling anxiety.

You might have existential episodes…depression…woozy disorientation.

“What the fuck am I doing?!?”

So do the best of them/us.

And so if I am counted “in that number”…of saints…like Mateo…then I am happy that I have lived my life bravely and to the last drop of blood and courage.

Ars gratia artis.

But for real!

-PD

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Night on Earth [1991)

I’ve run out of witticisms.

Snappy beginnings.

Which is a shame.  Because I really want you to know about this film.

If you don’t already.

This is called quantum writing.

It is the sentence fragment equivalent of liberal ellipses.

So tired.

The cities.

Los Angeles.

It is the first episode.  Vignettes.

Seemed like a throwaway scene years ago.

Now.  So prescient.  Then.

So pertinent.  Germane.

She’s not really interested in becoming a movie star.

People selling kidneys to get a real casting agent and she’s not interested…

Beautiful.

New York.

Lost in the world.

Pulling immigrants with the magnetism of illustrious decades.

East Germany.  Dresden.  Near Czechoslovakia.  1991.

My neighborhood.  When I can pause for a moment and appreciate the diversity.

America.  Amer-ica.

Paris.

Francophone magnet.

Another scene which ages well.

When I saw this I hadn’t been to France.

Hadn’t been to New York or L.A.

And you appreciate more.  When you’ve been.

The loving portrayal.  The in-between shots.

Maybe it’s the garbage can at Pink’s Hot Dogs.

A green trash bag.  Liner.  Someone sweeping up.

We’re blind to so many details.

And so Jim Jarmusch went and put ’em in a film.

They’re there.

The details.

Tom Waits soundtracking like Charles Ives with an accordion.

Why?

Why is it sad?

It should be funny.  And sad.

It depends.

It depends on your life.

If you’ve ever had a brush with the entertainment industry, then that first scene might get you.

Might punch you right in the gut.

Not interested.

And the point is that as one girl throws it all away (from a perspective) a bloke on the east coast is just trying to get a cab.

Look.

I’ve got money.

It’s winter.

And home is Brooklyn.

It’s painful cold.

And as one family is dysfunctional in its uniquely Tolstoyvian way, another has no family at all.

None.

None left.

It was too cold to shave today.

Save the money.

Money is not important to me.  I’m a clown.  I just need the money.  But it’s not important to me.

And there’s your artist.

A mechanic works the art of grease.

A clown suffers in the tumult.

Please.  Come in.  Welcome to my taxi.  It is very important to me.

Long night.  On Earth.

You hear about Africa every year.  Annually.  On average.

A famine.  A plague.  An outstanding war.  Out standing in the rain.

We never know just how it feels to live in Nigeria.

It is furthest from our thoughts.

And then we are reminded.  That Africa exists.

The continent.  Does not exert itself.

Comes down to capital.  LLC.  Land labor capital.

To LKM.  labor Kapital material.

A lot has changed since Adam Smith.

Land disappeared.

And what makes the U.S. unique compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo?  Land.

Room to sprawl.  Endlessly.

But I digress.  As a matter of course.

In the course of one speck of matter (Earth) running rings around the Sun.

Our sun.  Not up yet.

The hour of the wolf.

Brings us to Rome.  Ingmar not Ingrid.

It is comic blast #2.

We survived the sadness with laughter.  In New York.

And now we book a room at the Hotel Genius.  [Hotel Imbecile was full-up.]

Thank God for Charlie Parker!

I confess.

I was looking forward to this humor for days.  I knew the ending.

But I didn’t know my own age.  In the mirror of cinema.

But, dear friends, all good things must end (and bad things must start).

“They say the darkest hour/Is right before the dawn.”

That’s the hour of the wolf.

And instead of Max von Sydow we get Matti Pellonpää.

With his Grinderman mustache.

Walrus.  Circles the statue.  In front of parliament?

Helsinki.  Like a sinkhole.  Cold.  Hell sinky.

It is the end of the earth.  And I only have my memories of being drunk in Kiruna.  Sweden.  Never made it further east.

And for a moment he just sits behind the wheel and stares off into space.

After it’s all over.  As if he can see the ice-trails of orbits.

We travel the spaceways.

Every humble step of our lives.

From bakery to grain field.

But mostly streets.

Taxis.  The poetry of snaking asphalt.

Sing the songs of the pavement.

Every passenger a sad story.

Every driver a priest.

-PD

13 Comments

Mulholland Dr. [2001)

How not to start a symphony.  With a rest.  #5 (7)j j-j o ^ (7)j j-j o

Beethoven started with a pause.  A pause, in this case, is unheard.  Felt.

No hay banda.

Il y a n’est pas d’orchestre.

I wish I was more confident in my French memory.

The Spanish is simpler.

[silencio]

It could be Roberto Benigni in La vita è bella reeling off a priceless punchline.

[silencio]

It could be John Cage forcing us to listen in 4’33”.

Painfully good.  A perfect film.  Mulholland Drive.  Dr. Mulholland.

I’ve either gained you or lost you by this point.

Dr. Benway.

You will excuse the word virus at work.

Perhaps the word bacteria predates Burroughs.

Always a cut-up in class.

And those classy suits.

It’s a talent to be weird, though Charles Mingus would argue otherwise.

A talent to be simple.

You have to stay with me like Lord Buckley or Lester Bangs.

I got yer Oxford comma right here.

, and don’t I know it!

She takes Hayworth’s name from Gilda.

Rita.

Laura Elena Harring.  Laura Harring if you’re into the whole brevity thing.  Concision of expression.  Bthvn.

If you really wanna impress the familia, it’s Laura Elena Martínez Herring.  Miss USA 1985.  Just missed 1984.

Or well, Wilbur…

Mr. Ed.  Paging Mr….

Herring.  Pink.  She is a living Modigliani onscreen for a brief moment on a couch.  A stippled nipple in deep focus.

But this is not her film.  She is a MacGuffin in heels.

No.  This is Naomi Watts’ film.  Boy is it ever!

But let us pop this balloon before it goes all Vivre sa vie on us.

Is this the best Amer-ican film ever made?  Probably.

Dog Star Man has a steep mountain to climb without a soundtrack to blow Sisyphus to his zenith.

F for Fake is to American cinema what Histoire(s) du cinema is to the French pantheon.

The only real challenger, then, might be Gummo.

But let us return to Maestro Lynch.  David Lynch.  Montana Dave.  The Cowboy…

This is, to reiterate, a perfect film.  Such creations do not come along often.

As such, we should savor each morsel of finesse embodied in this feast for eyes and mind.

And don’t forget the ears.  Badalamenti.  Badda bing, badda boom.

What would Chico Marx have made of this film???

Who cares…  It’s Chico stuffed into a dough ball suitcase with $50k and Groucho and Harpo mashed up

with even a good portion of Zeppo as Little Mr. Sunshine in Naomi Watts’ first character Betty Elms.

Nightmare on Elms’ street.

Mulholland Dr.

Great minds think alike.  Cannes premier of this film May 16, 2001.  Radiohead’s Amnesiac album?  June 5, 2001.

Rita.  Camille.  Diane Selwyn.

Kryptos.  Jim Sanborn.  Mengenlehreuhr.

Set theory.

(0,2,3,5)  Le Sacre du printemps.

Spitting espresso into a napkin, strikes fear in the hearts of the most hardened capitalists.

Fear.

The Flower That Drank the Moon.  Not a real film.

The Big Sleep.  She.  H. Rider Haggard.  Angel-A.

Finnegans, upon waking, diapasoned Wachet auf.

Just call me Death.  Everyone else does.

We don’t stop here.

We push on.  Like Gene Wilder on a magical fucking river of chocolate.

You can’t split the existential atom any further.  Kubrick tried in 2001.  And now Lynch had arrived at the same year.

If you open a MacGuffin, you will find nothing.

I have a bag full of money and I can’t remember my name.  That is Hollywood.

This is the girl.

And the gun.

24x per second.

Truth before the big lie even sprouted wings.  L’Effroyable imposture.  Vérités et Mensonges.

It’s like the old Edison tone tests.  Hit the lights.  Who’s playing?  The phonograph or the violinist?

Like looking at L.A. through Roy Orbison’s glasses.  A blur…a haze.

No one has split the literary atom any further than Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

[…]

Those three little dots.

The rhythm of speech.  From Modest Mussorgsky to Harry Partch.

Boris Godunov was lousy so we had to shave his armpits.

We would have never gotten to know each other so well, Boris and I.  Henry.  Mr. Bones.

Yeah, I keep on sloggin’ and get diminishing marginal returns.

Just a fancy way of saying less and less.  Nothing (more or less).

And then nothing turns itself inside out.

Naomi Watts goes from gee swell to Valerie Solanas.

The key.  CERN.  When they rev it up.

What does it open?

Möbius (stripped bare by his bachelorettes), even

[The Large Hadron Collider]

Mimesis.  Die a Jesus.

Greatest goal in life?

To achieve immortality and then die.

J. Hoberman.  J. Mascis.  J. Spaceman.

Putrefaction is merely Der Untergang des Abendlandes.  The decline of the evening lands.

Rises east, sets The West.

Civility.

L’Usine de rêves.

That killer blonde that we all want.  From Kim Novak to Daniel Craig.

Monty Montgomery.  Hope you only see him once more.

Good v. Bad, 410 U.S. 113 (2001)

The abortion of Newtonian physics.

Twice.

Thrice.

Michael J. Anderson as Larry Silverstein.

We don’t stop here.

This is the girl.

Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.

And we watched the building collapse.

That would be the shadow government.

An accident is a terrible event—notice the location of the accident.

Who gives a key, and why?

-PD

5 Comments

Suburban Gothic [2014)

Dear devoted fans [chuckles heard offstage],

I am still alive.  Battling a serious case of MBA.  And, as such, I was duped into watching what turned out to be one of the finest films I have seen in awhile.

But how did I stumble across this little gem in the first place?  For that I must thank the inimitable Kat Dennings.  [More about her as we go on.]

Let us first, however, start with Matthew Gray Gubler.  As someone who watches very little TV, I was unaware of this rising star in the acting world.  Gubler plays Raymond:  a newly-minted MBA who can’t even lock down an entry-level job.  His character grew on me…from, at first, an American Apparel model come to life…to a lovable outcast with impeccable comic timing.

Circling back, I was curious how Gubler’s 21st-century archetype (the unemployable MBA) would fare in this comedy.  As I found out, Suburban Gothic is actually a film of great depth masquerading as a campy horror send-up.

It’s really remarkable, but this film actually does speak for me in some strange way.  Perhaps it was because I was listening to The Dead Milkmen this morning. [Watch the film and you’ll understand why.]

Yes, Raymond’s town is a “depressing shithole” to borrow Enid Coleslaw’s pithy diction from Zwigoff’s Ghost World.  And the ghosts here are real–literal.  But what most impresses me about Richard Bates Jr. (who needs a Wikipedia page) as a director is that he manages to evoke the crappiest reaches of America…from the bombed-out city center of Albany, New York to the harrowing motel highwayside of Roanoke, Virginia…from the strip malls of San Antonio to…well, you get the picture.

It’s one of those films…like Ghost World.  It’s Anywhere, U.S.A.  [Well, almost anywhere.]  It’s the fake vomit-inducing magic of Orlando.  It’s the sprawl of Los Angeles.  It’s that suicidal ennui which Arcade Fire so deftly encapsulated on their album The Suburbs.

Pariahs of the American south will especially appreciate the wonderful redneck evocation of Raymond’s high-school-football-coaching father (played magnificently by Ray Wise).  Yeah…

This film hits a lot of themes.  People change.  Fat kids get thin.  Sensitive souls can’t shake the wimp label.  Some places are especially difficult for creative types to endure.

And so if your life consists of frequenting your local Starbucks on the edge of a super-freeway (I certainly don’t know anyone like that…wait?  Nope, no one like that around here.  This very minute.  Right here.), then you just might find Kat Dennings to be especially on-point as the salty crowbar-toting Becca.  This film is more about Gubler’s character, but Dennings is indispensable to this moral play.

And what’s the moral?  The moral is this:  no matter how much you know about demand and supply curves (supply and demand to us lowly folk) there is always a more important line to shift outwards.  It’s more micro than microeconomics.  It is, in a word, empathy.  Respect for the dead.  Paranormal.  And, most of all, conscience.  It is that latter word which sticks in my head…falling from the lips of Godard (forever in my mind) in his whispered Swiss French.

Conscience.

Sure, this film makes Poltergeist look like Citizen Kane, but one senses from the opening credits that such is largely intentional.  No big budget here, and yet…this film is frightening and laugh-out-loud.  And like a good Simpsons episode, it is more touching than anything Hallmark rolls out of their platitude factory.

John Waters makes quite a fine cameo, but the lion’s share of credit goes to Gubler and Dennings and their auteur-in-the-making Richard Bates Jr.  Really a worthwhile flick!  Thank you.

-PD

9 Comments