Tag Archives: pop culture

Sneakers [1992)

Dennis Montgomery.

Mena, Arkansas.

Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Cocaine trafficking.

AIG.

CIA

Maurice “Hank” Greenberg.

Money laundering.

1980s.

Carlos Lehder.

Medellin Cartel.

Wife.

AIG.

AIG/CIA heroin [WWII forward].

Private fleet of airliners.

Cargo planes.

Catherine Austin Fitts.

SOCOM.

USSOCOM.

Tyndall AFB.

MacDill AFB.

Florida.

Fort Bragg.

https://theamericanreport.org/2019/11/10/the-hammer-is-the-key-to-the-coup/

https://theamericanreport.org/2021/01/03/proof-positive-coordinated-cyberwarfare-attack-against-us-by-china-russia-iran-iraq-pakistan-to-steal-election-from-trump/

Bill Hamilton.

PROMIS.

Inslaw Corporation.

Database integration.

Universal translator.

Black box.

Again with the money laundering.

Ed Meese.

DoJ.

HAMR.

Trap door.

PROMIS.

Robert Maxwell [Mossad].

Ghislaine Maxwell.

Jeffrey Epstein.

Ted Gunderson.

All very much involving Canada.

Ethnospecific biowarfare compounds.

China.

Fauci.

Gates.

Microsoft.

PROMIS.

Total compromise of any Windows-based product.

SolarWinds.

Hart InterCivic.

BCCI.

Bush.

Halper.

Burst transmission.

Thomas Wictor.

Frankfurt Raid.

Coronariots.

RCMP.

CSIS.

NSA.

Getting closer.

What if Q was entity pretending to be NSA?

No.

General Wesley Clark.

Little Rock.

Walmart.

Interface between CIA and organized crime.

TOO MANY SECRETS.

Immediately Assange.

Australia.

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

Pen testing.

Real-time monitoring of stock transactions.

RCMP <– PROMIS<–Robert Maxwell (Ghislaine Maxwell [Jeffrey Epstein]).

Biowarfare and vaccines.

Software.

Microchip.

Supercomputer.

Application.

Jackson Stephens.

Webster Hubbell.

Vince Foster.

Which brings us to our movie.

Yerself Is Steam.

SUNY-Buffalo.

Fridmann.

Always out getting food.

Redford.

Like Condor.

Dial tone.

2600 Hz.

4th E above middle C.

Bell Telephone Company.

AT&T.

Apple.

Abbie Hoffman.

Getting to black box.

Hippie anarchists.

Communists.

Mitnick whistling nuclear codes.

Matryoshka.

CIA within CIA.

NSA within NSA.

Verging on James Bond cliches.

But that is inevitable.

This is a great movie.

Hear as well as a blind person.

Attentively.

Connaisseur.

Great plans.

Upon great plans.

Like the A-team.

Still requires improvisation.

How big is a supercomputer now?

What constitutes “super”?

Operations per second?

Flops?

How small is Fort Washington?

Did Brennan use “fusion center” excuse?

FULL-Transcript-of-Whistleblower-Interview

What is deadlier than an iPhone in the right/wrong hands?

How to defend oneself from unrestricted (and undeclared) warfare of China?

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

Miniaturization.

The Left no longer controls culture.

The Left no longer protects free speech.

The Left squashes free speech.

The Left is no longer the party of the underdog.

But they still want to redistribute the wealth of their enemies.

We are the movies now.

-PD

 

Leave a comment

UHF [1989)

Here’s a masterpiece of a movie.

I didn’t think so the first time I watched it.

I was a little preoccupied.

But this time I had a reason to be more emotionally invested.

Mops!

That’s right, mops.

Mops play a big role in this movie.

Spatulas also make a sort of cameo.

But mops predominate.

In particular, there is a special mop which is almost like a character in this film.

It doesn’t talk.

It doesn’t have a name.

But it is more than a MacGuffin.

Stanley Spadowski (the true star of this movie) received the mop in question for his 8th birthday.

And, apparently, he used that mop well into adulthood.

He decorated it with various bits of colored electrical tape.

And it was with this mop that he dutifully fulfilled his role as janitor at a major local TV news station:  Channel 8.

But one day, Spadowski (played brilliantly by Michael Richards) found himself to be, in the tradition of Hitchcock, “the wrong man”.

Spadowski did nothing wrong.

He was not careless.

Even though he didn’t possess a notable intellect per se, he gave his all to his janitorial profession.

…and he actually enjoyed it.

Mopping.

Scrubbing.

Stanley Spadowski took pride in his work at Channel 8.

But, as “the wrong man”, he suddenly found himself blamed and scapegoated.

Though his unscrupulous employer made no effort to prove Spadowski’s guilt, Spadowski could not PROVE his innocence.

It was a quick exchange…

Q:  Did you do this?

A:  No.

Q:  I don’t believe you.  You’re fired.

Something like that.

Very capricious.

And, thus, Spadowski was crushed.

But the most crushing blow for Stanley was when the station owner’s son (also an employee [l’il bit ‘o nepotism]) confiscated Stanley’s mop as “station property”.

It was not.

But Stanley was helpless.

Thunderstruck.

Aghast.

Stanley had no one to stand up for him.

Yet, though he didn’t get what the wanted (to retain his job at Channel 8), he got what he needed:  a new job as janitor of the UHF station 62.

And all of this because one man observed the pitiable scene of Stanley being deprived of his tool of the trade (which he had used since childhood).

That man was “Weird Al” Yankovic.

As in the movie (where “Weird Al” is the station manager of “U62”), Yankovic was also the brains behind this movie itself.

He wrote it.

With someone named Jay Levey.

Mr. Levey directed this “cult classic”.

If it tells you anything, Levey still does not have a Wikipedia page in English…41 years after this movie came out.

So I am going to assume that Levey did not go on to bigger and brighter things in the film industry.

That being said, it appears this film actually realized a 20% profit (box office – budget = x [x/budget = profit as a %]).

But let’s get back into Stanley Spadowski (a character “Weird Al” or Levey must have invented).

I’d bet money that Yankovic came up with this character.

But this character could not have come to life without the talents of Michael Richards.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, could have pulled it off.

Michael Richards is a very underrated actor.

If you look on iTunes, you are apt to see a mere two films in which Richards plays anything approximating a significant role.

One is this:  UHF.

The other is another sort of “diamond in the rough”:  Transylvania 6-5000.

The latter would be a mostly-unwatchable, tedious comedy were it not for Richards’ breakout performance.

Richards distinguished himself as Fejos in that film four years prior to UHF.

Indeed, just a fortnight before UHF was released in 1989, Seinfeld premiered as The Seinfeld Chronicles.

Richards played the role of Kessler.

As The Seinfeld Chronicles became Seinfeld, Kessler became Kramer.

The world, in general, knows Michael Richards as [Cosmo] Kramer.

The show ran for nine years.

But let’s adjust our tack a bit here.

Who is Stanley Spadowski?

I would argue that he is the “cousin” (so to speak) of Carl Spackler:  the groundskeeper in 1980’s Caddyshack.

Where Spackler is laconic, Spadowski is prone to frenzy.

And yet, these two characters are cut from a similar cloth.

Spackler (Bill Murray) always has his impermeable camouflage bucket hat.

And usually a dirt-and-sweat-stained T-shirt.

Baggy cargo shorts.

And combat boots.

Appearing in 1980, Carl Spackler would have probably been seen as a nutty Vietnam vet.

Indeed, Spackler is tasked by his boss (the HEAD groundskeeper) to take care of the golf course’s gopher problem.

In hilarious fashion, Spackler goes after the gophers…even employing plastic explosives.

Spadowski is also a T-shirt guy.

With suspenders.

Always suspenders.

And whether they are real or fake (I think fake), Spadowski has noticeable (and endearing) bucked teeth.

He can hardly keep them in his mouth.

He is awkward.

He usually speaks slowly.

But when he gets excited, he is like a fire hydrant that’s just been opened.

What’s important about Spadowski and Spackler is that they are everymen.

They are most certainly underdogs.

And UHF, at its heart, is an underdog story.

U62, the channel, is an underdog.

It is not a network affiliate.

UHF (as opposed to VHF) was the television equivalent of AM radio (as opposed to FM).

Local stations.

Questionable programming.

Shoestring budgets.

You could find ANYTHING on UHF television or AM radio.

Anything was possible.

There was less control.

Today, in my town, my favorite radio station is run by a Methodist church.

Their format (vaguely) is “oldies”.

But their programming swings a bit wildly…and usually I love them for it.

They play songs I’ve never heard.

Occasionally a similar station will pop up in the same range of the dial using this “none of the hits–all of the time” approach (only to disappear back into the ocean of static which separates one clear-signal island from another).

U61 is this sort of beast.

Which makes sense.

Because it is run by a dreamer:  George Newman (“Weird Al”).

George starts off this film flipping burgers.

This may be a reference to the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

“Weird Al” gets fired.

The tone of the scene is very similar to Fast Times…

Which brings up an important point.

UHF is a pastiche.

It is stream-of-consciousness.

The narrative shifts wildly with non sequitur episodes interpolated here and there.

UHF makes continuous reference to the pop culture of its day:  the 1980s.

And this makes sense because the creator of this film was “Weird Al”:  best known as a musician specializing in parodies (usually of contemporary hits).

I hate to get all artsy-fartsy here, but I would dare say there is a modicum of post-modernism in “Weird Al”‘s filmic approach.

And, perhaps more importantly, a noticeable measure of Thelonious Monk (autism?) in Stanley Spadowski.

Idiot-savant.

And so UHF is a work of art which captures awkwardness in some of the same ways that Napoleon Dynamite and Poto and Cabengo do (respectively).

The message is:  be yourself.

You have value.

There is a person out there for you.

There is a job that is right for you.

There are no guarantees.

But you won’t be happy anyway if you’re not being yourself.

 

-PD

1 Comment

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

3 Comments

Kingpin [1996)

The concept of the “family” movie has changed since The Sound of Music in 1965.

Wikipedia, that grand arbiter of officiality, does not primarily recognize “family” as a genre.

They opt for “children’s film”.

Nonetheless, the Wiki article lists “family film” as an alternative name for this nebulous genre.

In 1965, The Beatles were still releasing albums like Rubber Soul.

1966 saw these same alchemists get a bit edgier with Revolver.

By 1967, the whole world was tripping balls to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

It’s important to document this sea change in pop culture by way of the personages pictured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s:

-Aleister Crowley

-Lenny Bruce

-William S. Burroughs

-Karl Marx

-and many others.

Just these four personalities alone made for a shocking collection on the cover of what was sonically a hippy-dippy platter.

But maketh thou no mistake:  The Beatles were self-consciously out to SHOCK!

1971.

By then, The Beatles were no more.

1968 had come and gone (violently).  And The Beatles had reached their zenith (or nadir) of angst with songs like “Helter Skelter” (from “The White Album“).

There were no new Beatles albums in 1971.

Indeed, there was never again a “new” Beatles album

But 1971 gave us Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

And so, about four years late, Hollywood managed to weave the psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s into a bona fide family classic.

It took a while longer before Hollywood had another idea with legs (other than just borrowing from the great minds in rock music).

Aliens!

It is worth noting that the three original Star Wars films (1977, 1980, and 1983) were interpolated in 1982 by a cute alien named E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Sure, there were classic superheroes (like Superman in 1978), but the next real wave was another coup of futuristic thinking.

Time machines.

The Back to the Future franchise raked in whopping revenue of nearly a billion dollars at the box office over the release years of 1985, 1989, and 1990.

But still, no major taboos had been broken in this fragile genre.

There was no auteur conversant in James Monaco’s theories on “exploding genres”.

Yet, two films from this same period stick out as family-proto (not proto-family).

–1988:  Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  [ooh la la…stretching the genre like Jessica Rabbit stretched her red sequin gown]

-1989:  National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [a real benchmark or signpost…perhaps not as racy a National Lampoon’s Vacation, but still edgy enough to elicit laughter during “the decline of the West” (as Oswald Spengler put it)]

Which almost brings us to the unlikely masterpiece that is Kingpin.

Randy Quaid had been counted on by the National Lampoon franchise for his peerless role of Cousin Eddie.

By 1996, he would become a priceless asset for the makers of Kingpin.

It is hard to chart how we went from The Sound of Music to Kingpin…even with the help of the inestimable Beatles.

If we are to really reach our goal (an explanation), we must follow the followers–the children of The Beatles.

-1970:  Syd Barrett was still bloody mad (and brilliant) on The Madcap Laughs [especially the song “No Good Trying”]

-The Mothers of Invention released albums titled Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh [pretty odd, edgy stuff]

-and international artists like Amon Düül II (from Germany) gave the world a whole new organic, electro-bombastic sound to attempt to decode

-1971:  The Krautrock invasion continued with CAN’s Tago Mago

-Tribal hippies Comus found the perfect sound with First Utterance

-1972:  Hawkwind released their cosmic, perpetual-motion masterpiece Doremi Fasol Latido

-1973:  Pink Floyd changed the cultural landscape with Dark Side of the Moon (perhaps presaging the space/aliens films which would preoccupy family film makers in the coming years)

-Brian Eno melted many minds with his masterpiece Here Come the Warm Jets (complete with the balding artist on the cover in drag)

But we missed something significant:

Led Zeppelin.

If the 1970s belonged to any one band, it was this one.

-their first two albums were released in 1969

-by the time of Led Zeppelin III (1970), they were competing against overt (though clownish) occultists like Black Sabbath [Jimmy Page of Zeppelin being a more covert, zealous admirer of Aleister Crowley]

–Led Zeppelin IV was released in 1971

–Houses of the Holy saw the light of day in 1973

–Physical Graffiti dropped in 1975

But as Led Zeppelin began to peter out, another group picked up the slack and streamlined the music.  Their message was as tough as their humor was bawdy.

AC/DC slapped the world with High Voltage (1976), Let There Be Rock (1977), and other masterpieces which made for a loud world.

But music was just getting started in asserting its agenda for Hollywood.

Iggy Pop dropped two masterpieces in 1977.  One light and tough (Lust for Life), and the other a much darker affair (The Idiot).

But the real earthquake…the real force which rent the curtain in the temple was Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.

From this album in 1977, nothing was ever the same again.

And so the film under consideration, Kingpin, was born from many decades of broken taboos.

Some would call this “progressive” (and then proceed to solicit a donation).

Oswald Spengler might rightly have called it The Decline of the West.

But in the case of Kingpin, I can only call it funny.

I can’t pass judgement on film since 1965.

As to whether it is fit for families to view together.

But I can pass judgement on this film insofar as its most important merit.

It’s damned funny!

I was Munsoned by Cinema Paradiso.  Long ago.

I thought I had a chance.  But I was Amish.  I just didn’t know it yet.

But let’s first start by talking about the dirtbags who frame this film.

#1 is Woody Harrelson (though he starts as just a protégé).

Woody has had an interesting life.

When I was growing up in San Antonio, one of our family shows to watch after the 10 p.m. news was Cheers.  This gave us great comfort.  Great laughs.  And Woody played the character Woody Boyd.  One of the bright spots of a great television cast.

But Woody Harrelson’s dad was a hitman (in real life).  And he killed (in 1979) U.S. federal judge John H. Wood Jr. right here in my hometown:  San Antonio.

It was a drug hit.  Harrelson’s father hired for $250,000 to shoot and kill this judge outside of his home.  The drug dealer who hired Harrelson got 30 years.  Harrelson got life in jail.

Harrelson denied in court that he killed Judge Wood.  He claimed he just took credit for it so he could collect the money.

Well, all of this backstory fits quite nicely into the dirtbag saint Woody Harrelson plays in Kingpin.

#2 is Bill Murray.  Bill is an old hand (no pun intended).  Bill’s character teaches Woody a lot, but Bill’s a real bastard in this film.  Of course, this is a comedy.  So his ostentatious cruelty is worth a few snickers here and there.

At this point it is worth mentioning the twisted (gifted) minds which brought us this film: the Farrelly brothers.

Peter Farrelly (whose birthday is two day away) and his slightly-younger brother Bobby Farrelly.

You might know them from their work such as Dumb and Dumber and the Jonathan-Richman-chalked There’s Something About Mary.

[N.B.  Richman makes a great cameo in Kingpin.  We may not have Lou Reed anymore, but thank God for Jonathan!]

The action of our film shifts from Ocelot, Iowa (“Instead of a dentured ocelot on a leash…”) to hard-scrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania.

[home of “Creepy” Joe Biden]

Randy Quaid (#MAGA) is fantastic as an Amish rube with a promising set of bowling skills.

Somewhere along the way, the opportunistic Harrelson becomes Quaid’s manager.

I got great joy out of seeing this.

Because there are few more difficult things than managing “personalities”.

I’ve done it.

Now I have an advanced degree in management.

And still, I know…it’s hard!

But back to family films.

This IS a family film.

But it is also an example of what the family film has become.

In general, this picture would not be suitable for young children to view.

That’s just my opinion.

But perhaps it’s a subgenre of family film.

It’s something which parents with high-school-aged kids MIGHT be able to enjoy with their children.

But I leave that discretion up to the parents.

Because the Farrelly brothers like to SHOCK!

It’s funny.  They’re good at it.  It has a point.  But it might be too lewd for some families.

Speaking of which, it is a quite interesting device with which the Farrellys chose to frame their film:  the Amish.

It borders on surreal, but this bawdy comedy always has the temperate presence of the Amish throughout.

In a certain way, I think it does great honor to the Amish.

From an entertainment perspective, it’s genius.

But this is also a road movie.

And we know strange things happen on the road.

I was just so impressed by Woody Harrelson’s acting.  It’s effortless.  Flawless.

And I was equally impressed by Randy Quaid’s naïveté.  Truly an acting coup!

But the film gets REALLY interesting when Vanessa Angel hops on the bandwagon!!

Remember her from Spies Like Us, emerging from that snow-covered tent in her underwear?

Yeah, that’s her.

And it turns out that she’s a very good actress!

Ah, but thank God for condoms!!!

At the end, you will feel proud of your efforts.

To walk out the door everyday into a corrupt world.

We are all sinners.

But music saves us.

“Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston is a revelation.

And makes me wistfully recall my last days as a professional musician.

“I Want Candy” is such a tough beat!  The Strangeloves!!!

“I Saw the Light” by Todd Rundgren is magical music at a magical moment in this film.

“Showdown” by Electric Light Orchestra is the perfect tune to pit Murray against Harrelson.

But the real eyeopener was hearing “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman.

Such a magical song!

Great movie.  Great acting.  Comes from a place of reality.

-PD

3 Comments

Superman [1978)

First, I owe a deep apology to my fellow bloggers who have continued to follow and support me.  I have been swamped with work and embroiled in the current US election.  Thank you so much for your kindness!  I look forward to graduating with a master’s degree in about a month and hope to “get back on the wagon” of following each and every one of your amazing blogs.

Second, my conscience requires that I addend my previous takes on two very controversial figures:  Marina Abramović and Edward Snowden.

As I have continued my research on Ms. Abramović, I am more and more convinced that her dabblings in the occult are not mere innocent instances of artistic expression.  I still do not know what role she plays in the increasingly lurid child sex ring which is leaking from NYPD and FBI sources, but her buddies the Podestas (John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign chairman, and his brother Tony) seem more and more solidly “in the tank” as regards genuine sexual abuse of minors, child trafficking, and (even more shocking) ritualistic murder of these same kidnapped children.

I am not saying that the Podestas are guilty of these crimes.  I am, however, pointing out that mounting evidence suggests they are part of something which bears this general outline.  Also involved is the (likely) Saudi spy Huma Abedin.  But the kingpins seem to be the Clintons themselves.

I was a bit dismissive of hysteria when I defended Marina Abramović’s artistic merits.  I do still think she is an incredibly gifted artist.  But no amount of genius excuses child rape and ritualistic murder of young people.  [We shall be discussing here a similarly “brilliant” psychopath:  Lex Luthor.]

Quite frankly, Hillary Clinton seems to be a witch in the most literal sense.

Lexi Luthor?

Lexus Luthor?

It was my imperfect knowledge which caused my failure to grasp the bigger picture in the Abramović case (“spirit cooking”, in which the Podesta brothers and John’s wife Mary engaged in presumably a dinner with artist Marina Abramović which likely involved ingesting breast milk, semen, urine, and blood).

But there is more to “spirit cooking”…and more to Marina Abramović.

First, it has been suggested that the TRUEST (most genuine) “spirit cooking” would be, essentially, cannibalism:  eating the flesh or organs of spirits (dead children) who are cooked.

Second, Abramović’s references are not anodyne.  I cannot get into the details of “spirit cooking’s” connections to Aleister Crowley and Thelema because I am not conversant in such esoteric knowledge.  But I can confirm that child sacrifice is an obsession of the ruling elites in at least the US and UK (as evidenced by the opening ceremonies of Bohemian Club meetings near San Francisco which are documented to include a “mock” child sacrifice called “the cremation of care”).

My conclusion that Hillary Clinton truly practices illegal manifestations of magic is partly due to the words of former Clinton family employee Larry Nichols who is on record as saying that Bill Clinton told him that Hillary Clinton would make monthly (at least) treks to California to participate in a witches’ coven.  You can bet she wasn’t playing second fiddle at these shindigs!

And so what my readers must understand is that, for these perverse elites, black magic is very real.  At the very least, it appears that they are engaged in illegal activities pursuant to these ritualistic leanings.  And thus, as stated, my take on Marina Abramović was both uninformed and naïve insofar as occult context goes.

Hillary Luthor.

vs. Superman.

I must make a further confession.  I may have done injustice to Edward Snowden to be so skeptical of his aims.  The same goes for my suspicion of Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras.

And I’ll tell you why.

The majority of real news we are getting in the USA is thanks to WikiLeaks.

Edward Snowden has certainly been lumped in with Julian Assange.

To my satisfaction, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have proven themselves to be a credible (and priceless) asset for world freedom.

And so perhaps I was too harsh on Snowden.

One thing is certain:  we must remember that the eyes are the most easily-fooled of our senses.

So for me to proclaim, as an amateur film critic, that I know the score of Snowden’s veracity should not be taken as gospel truth.

Superman.

Is Edward Snowden the Superman in this whole thing?

Is Assange?

Actually, I would make the case that it is (rather) Donald Trump who is the true Superman on the world stage at the moment.

And it is indeed germane that he be facing off against Hillary Luthor.

And so we have a brilliant movie.

From director Richard Donner.

This is what superhero movies should be like.

Back when CGI didn’t suck (and the Clinton Global Initiative was yet to exist).

Superman brings hope.

To the deepest, darkest, most depressed and forgotten corners of America.

Not insignificant, Superman is a journalist by day.

The names here are blockbuster.

Marlon Brando as Superman’s biological father.

Perhaps James Comey is like Brando’s character Jor-El (who pronounces judgment against insurrectionists but then must acquiesce to the fate of death for he and his wife).

Which is to say, maybe James Comey of the US FBI is an honorable man.

Sure doesn’t seem like it.

But from surrender, a child is borne upon the seas of outer space.

Glenn Ford is excellent as Superman’s adoptive father.

Phyllis Thaxter is wonderful as Superman’s adoptive mother.

Jeff East is very good as the teenage Clark Kent.

Superman is all about the outcast getting his revenge on society…BY DOING GOOD!

Are you an outcast?

Yes.

Me too.

And we all know pain.

The pain of discrimination.  Not fitting in.  Being the odd man out.  The ugly duckling.

We can feel that the world (our little world) doesn’t want us.

And it is tremendously traumatic.

But Superman is a bit like Saint Jude the Apostle:  patron saint of lost causes.

Superman speaks to the most lowly among us.

Schizophrenics.  Shut-ins.  Impoverished.  Living in squalor.

Superman lets us dream.

We may have nothing but a VCR.  We have never gone on a date, much less had a girlfriend.

The world has forgotten about us.

But Superman gives us hope.

That someone or some thing is going to come along and lift us out of our misery.

The Trump connection is strong.

Doesn’t drink.  Doesn’t smoke.

Superman.

The World Trade Center (still standing) in the background (1978).

As Christopher Reeve zips through the New York City sky.

Mr. Reeve is astonishingly good as an actor in this film.

Enter Lois Lane.

Margot Kidder is so charming in this film 🙂

Her skinny little frame never stops moving as she tries to get the latest scoop in her job as a reporter.

But what else does Superman represent?

He represents the good cops who dive into the abyss each night to patrol the unpredictability of our streets.

He represents the good FBI who “damn the torpedoes” and go after the bad guys (and gals) [whomever they turn out to be].

Superman fights crime.

He never lies.

Superman is a protector.

Like the brave Secret Service agents who did a wonderful job shielding Mr. Trump two days ago in Reno from what could have been imminent gunfire.

Supermen are willing human shields.

Defenders.

Like our military.

And Superman does not suffer the deviance of pencil pushers who would try and leverage their brilliance to harm people.

If I was a Hillary supporter, I would compare Trump to Lex Luthor (realtors both).

But sometimes history offers us a counterintuitive option.

Donald Trump, while a realtor, is not out to screw the American public.

He has enough money.

He’s not a sycophant like Hillary.

The famous red “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat does not feature Trump’s name on it.

It’s not about him.

It’s about America.

Hillary’s campaign always comes back to her…in a self-serving way.

The ubiquitous H signs and the trite “I’m with her” détournement of a decades-old pop culture phrase.

Neither of Hillary’s taglines (including “Stronger Together”) ring true.

Mostly because SHE doesn’t ring true.  In anything.  At all.  Ever.

But Superman is for real teamwork.

Superman has humility.

But he also has immense confidence.  Pride, not arrogance.

And not least, Superman has a wry sense of humor.

With Luthor’s “staffer” Otis (Ned Beatty), there are a plethora of possible parallels to the iniquitous (and, frankly, incompetent) team of ass-kissers with whom Hillary has surrounded herself.

While John Podesta may very well be categorically evil, he’s no evil genius.

What kind of idiot forgoes the advice to encrypt?

But Hillary is really her own Otis.

Only Otis would be so dumb as to use a personal email server and (among other things) let her Filipino maid print out classified documents while Hillary was at Foggy Bottom.

Which makes Hillary the foggy bottom-feeder.  Always.  Forever.

Good attracts evil.

Good can change evil (and vice versa).

But be good…and you will reap the rewards of goodness.

Perhaps Valerie Perrine will rescue you from a swimming pool 🙂

We must save our mothers in Hackensack.

If you’re on the side of evil, it’s time to switch teams.

Good is merciful.

Do not wait until it’s too late.

Hillary has poisoned her own well just like Lex Luthor.

She is coming down.

It’s not a question of if, but rather of when.

However, those who have the opportunity to expose her misdeeds and yet stay silent must bear upon their consciences their accessory roles as silent partners to the evil destruction of America.

There may not be another chance.

So many people are tied to Hillary’s ring of corruption.

If they retain power, they will use all means necessary to purge the country of dissenters.

Don’t believe the “stronger together” hogwash.

Time to deliver Luthor and Otis to prison.

Are you the Superman we seek?

 

-PD

 

 

6 Comments