With all the brouhaha over the recent New York times expose of Republick Presidential candidate John McCain’s hpocritical personal brand of “lobby reform”, I have only one question, which I feel requires an immediate answer.
The question is:
WHAT PLANET IS CINDY McCAIN FROM?
I’d just like to know. You know?
So Hillary Clinton is not going to go quietly into that good night, it would seem.
Should she fail to succeed in the Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas Primaries/caucases with at least 70 percent (so say the pundits) victories in each, she’s pretty much toast. In that likening instance, I believe that she will not give in. She will fail to see the vast Obama movement. She will fail to see the facts of the situation, partially because of her own blind ambition, and partly because of her handlers and yes-pigs keeping her from really seeing it. Her campaign will stoop to the lowest, most petty character assasination of Obama possible (or impossible) and succeed thoroughly in dividing … no .. smashing the Democratic party, and thus giving the planet a batshit, crazy old loon repubulic bastard for 4 more years.
That’s my opinion. I hope to god I’m wrong. I hope that she will see the truth beyond what her yes men are filling her with. She has a great capacity for detail and analysis. Can she be objective about her own ambitions? Can she put her own analytical abilities to work in her own case and see the truth? Can she put what’s good for the country above what’s good for her? You see, I’m contradicted to all hell, I’m gonna do a 180,because in my heart, to be honest, I think that she IS the best hope for getting us out of this shithole that president Asshat has driven us into. She has the best grasp of policy, the best ideas to move us forward, and the tough hide, combined with an ability to see the other side and compromise that a great President needs.
BUT…
Dammit to hell, the country just won’t elect her. Sorry. The Obama crowd will NEVER come out for her, No republic puke will cross the line for her.The religious troglodytes will come out, if not en masse, but they’ll come out to vote against her. Enough to give grampa Munster a slim victory.
Categories: In the News · RANTS · cognitive dissonance
So comes another Valentines day. Tomorrow it will be over once more.
Valentines day is the celebration of the 1925 machine gun massacre in Chicago of Rudolph Valentino by crazed female flapper fans. Or something.
Rudolph Valentino is rumored to have had the largest penis in Hollywood. Clara Bow said it reached her elbow. When it was hard, it reached heaven.
This is my 44th celebration of the blessed day. 44 times I’ve celebrated it single. I’ve never experienced love, or mutual infatuation, or the companionship of another half. I never will. There are some who are meant to go through life alone. Believe me…loners don’t like to be alone. We just don’t know how to be anything else. I can’t say that I miss love or being loved. I can’t miss what I do not really know first hand. I can imagine it. I’ll die never knowing it. Not in the cards.
The office looks like a freaking mausoleum today. everyone recieving huge flower displays. I never really liked flowers anyway. And I can’t eat chocolate, as I’m diabetic.
Today is my Parents 900th wedding anniversary. Or something. They were married in 1953. What does that make it?
Maybe I’ll send myself some flowers and sign it from George Glass.
too bad I’m too broke to do it.
Happy Valentines Day.
Categories: RANTS
REPORTER:
“Given the fact that it is mathematically impossible for you to surpass Senator McCain in the delegate count, Dont you think that it’s a waste of resources and money to continue?”
MIKE HUCKABEE:
“Well I don’t believe in math, I believe in miracles.”
Ok, folks, this wingnut bastard is totally rewriting the book on batshit crazy delusional. And there are republicans out there right now operating heavy equipment who are actually voting for this brain dead troglodyte. Not many, I’ll grant you, but some. As far as I’m concerned, a vote for this idiot is a confirmation of imbecility. I mean, what does this moron expect to happen? Jeebus is gonna waggle his finger and *poof* – a new state is magically created, called Jesusvania, right off the Carolina coast, with 300 freshly minted delegates for Huckabee? Yeah. Right.
Huckabee is a candidate, alright. A candidate for residency in a home for the mentally retarded.
God almighty, these republicans just can’t be stopped in their descent to the bottom of the barrel. I am aware that some of the votes that he’s garnering are protest votes against McCain. So many republicans desperately hate McCain so much that they’ll vote for a subhuman christianist flat earther rather that vote their party’s candidate.
We may be seeing the collapse of the Republican party as we’ve known it. Unlike the Democrats, who are fighting over two candidates that, by and large, most agree are both excellent, the republicans feeling for McCain seems to run the gamut from mild distaste to full on hatred. So who is voting for him? And Why? Certainly not the wingnut neo-cons. They hate him. He was booed last week at their annual circle jerk in Washington, D.C. No, my guess is it’s a split between the moderate republicans and the loony christianists who just couldn’t bring themeselves to vote for a heathen mormon.
So yes, we may be seeing the diminishing of influence of the republicans for many years to come, due in large part to President Bush’s riding roughshod over the country these last seven 1/2 awful years. We can only hope the worst for them. And good riddance to those deranged morons if it comes to pass.
Categories: In the News · RANTS · cognitive dissonance · freaks · general delusion · religious delusion
I was just chatting with the rep for the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and She was showing me the grand suites. She related a very interesting fact. In the Waldorf towers, which are comprised mostly of grand suites, there are, at the present time, 24 full time guests.
They live there.
So, knowing how expen$ive Manhattan suites can go,I looked up their rate, to confirm my suspicions.
Guess how much these …. people … spend a night for their digs?
If you guessed in the rarefied neighborhood of $2,500 per night, you’d be right.
With taxes, that adds up to about 3 grand a night.
Three thousand dollars a night.
Three thousand.
My word!
Categories: me
You know, you’ve really gotta hand it to those Repubblkins. They sure know how to pick ‘em.
Yes they do.
Categories: freaks · general delusion
At 8:25am, I voted. My polling place is a resident’s carport. there were three volunteers, and 5 voting booths. none of them electronic. Excellent.
Look, I’ll vote for Hillary with no reservations, proudly and enthusiastically if she takes the nomination, but my conscience is with Obama. I’d love to see him win.I believe him when he says he’ll change the status quo.
UPDATE: Uh..I guess I need to clarify my vote. In the primary, I voted for Obama. If, however, Sen. Clinton wins the nomination, I’ll gladly vote for her in November. Both are excellent candidates, and I’m happy with both.
Categories: me
So tonight, I’m having a screening of “Rebecca”. I’ve brought the projector to work, and we’re all 40 of us going to project it on the HUGE office wall. I should be able to get about a 40 foot picture. So, I thought that this would be a great time to post a review of one of my top 10 favorite movies ever.
REBECCA’ (1940)
D- Alfred Hitchcock W- Joan Harrison, Robert E. Sherwood~ from a novel by Daphne DuMaurier
DP- George Barnes, A.S.C.
Rebecca was producer David O. Selznick’s big prestige follow up to his then-current certain-to-be success Gone with the Wind.
Producer David O. Selznick
Selznick brought Alfred Hitchcock over from England and secured him to a multi picture contract, and the first film to be produced was Rebecca. Consequently, it was also Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film. While Wind was in post production, Selznick and Hitchcock fought furiously over how the film was to be scripted and shot. Hitch wanted to use the novel as a mere springboard for his own story ideas, much like, 22 years later, he would use another DuMaurier story, The Birds as a mere outline for the actual scripted film. Selznick was having none of it. In telephone tirades and memos to Hitchcock, he was absolutely adamant that Rebecca receive the same fanatical devotion to source as Gone with the Wind had. “We bought (the novel) Rebecca and we intend to make Rebecca!“ He furiously wrote in one of his 10, 000 memos to Hitchcock.
Larry Olivier and Joan Fontaine ~lovers with a dark secret between them
The story concerns a young, common English wallflower ( a PERFECT Joan Fontaine)who is employed as a traveling companion to a fat old Rich American gasbag in Monte Carlo. She meets, by chance, Maxim DeWinter (Laurence Olivier), the wealthy Heir to, and owner of, one of Cornwalls biggest country estates, Manderly. He is recently, within the last year, widowed and appears quite devastated by his loss. His dearly dead was the beautiful, witty, gorgeous, talented, super socialite, extremely well bred Rebecca. Maxim and the girl (who is only known in the book as “I”) are attracted to each other at once. He because she is the refreshing opposite of all the rich, vain, awful women he has known, and she because he’s …. well… Rich and hot.
Maxim DeWinter~tortured by memories
In fairly short order he wooes her, proposes to her, and packs off the old gasbag back to America, thus freeing her. After a quick French marriage and honeymoon, he takes her back home to Manderly. And that is when the honeymoon ends. The girl finds out in short order that although Rebecca is dead, her spirit lives on in every room, couch, table tchotcke, bed, bathroom, fireplace, mysteriously blowing curtain, and probably clothes hamper in Manderly. The servant staff is subtly contemptuous of her and her assumed station, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, is A) obviously evil, B) obviously obsessed with the memory of her former mistress, and C) obviously totally crackers . Mrs Danvers is played to A B S O L T E delicious, evil perfection by Judith Anderson.
Judith Anderson (L) as evil cuckoo nutjob Mrs.Danvers
(semi spoiler alert!)
Events occur which reveal that Rebecca was really a hateful, awful, sexually deviant megabitch, and that Maxim really hated her because she shammed him into marrying her and blackmailed him into keeping her on as his wife, all the while she was cheating on him. She reveals to him that she is pregnant with another man’s baby, and in a fit of passion, he….. well…see it for yourself. I’ll say no more!
Manderley, secretive and silent
Rebecca is a masterpiece on many levels. Black and white Cinematography by second choice George Barnes is simply stunning. I think that it rivals his protege, Gregg Toland’s best work in it’s sophisticated, luminous black and white. In many instances, it achieves a dreamlike, trancelike beauty unmatched in current or future film photography. The score, by Franz Waxman is beautiful and engaging, and I feel is an immense addition to the overall spell the film casts. I’m sure many, though, cite this score as the perfect example of an overly intrusive score which constantly informs the viewer how to feel. Almost every moment is punctuated by the score. In my opinion, I think that for this film, since it’s done with such grace, wit and beauty, it adds so much more. The only imperfections in the film, which distract not a whit, are some poor foley work, poor dubbing in a couple of places, and some of the best bad process shots ever. At one point, as Maxim and the girl are strolling through the garden, the background is moving at about 35mph. In another process scene when Maxim stops the car by visibly pulling the brake, and the soundtrack has the motor clearly quitting, the background continues to move for a second longer. Oh well.
Joan Fontaine, who at that time was a relative unknown, positively shines in every scene she’s in (which is about 90% of the picture). She absolutely nails the part to perfection. Her frailty, awkwardness and shyness which gives way, later in the film, to a growing strength of both character and will, is amazing to watch. It absolutely kills me that the Oscar that year (1940) went to the far inferior Ginger Rodgers for (gah!) Kitty Foyle. It was a great upset, and many people believe that Joan Fontaine’s 1941 Best actress oscar for Suspicion was really as recompense for the egregious error of her loss in 1940. Larry Olivier was obsessed with having his wife, Vivien Leigh, play the part. She screen tested, twice, and was simply awful. She basically played Scarlett O’hara in both tests. Can you imagine the ball crusher Scarlett O’hara as a shy, awkward wallflower? Well, thank God, Neither could Selznick or Hitchcock. Olivier was angry and took his anger out on Joan Fontaine, whom he despised. “It won’t work, old boy, Fontaine’s awful. She must be replaced.” He’d say over and over to Hitch. His (Olivier’s) performance is great, of course, but I really wonder what first choice Ronald Coleman would have done with it.
Judith Anderson lost as best supporting actress to Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath. In any other year, with any other actress, I’d say it was an outrageous mistake, but I can’t take away from Darwell’s stunningly awesome performance in Wrath, which is the best motion picture that this country (or any other) has ever produced. Anderson playes Mrs Danvers like she’s chisled out of pure black obsidian. She positively drips with menace, all the while simmering insanity on the back burner. Ravishing. Mrs. Danvers is one of my favorite characters in film of all time. She’s shoulder to shoulder with the Wicked Witch of the West. Love her.
In all, Rebecca benefitted enormously from the ill fitting match of both Hitchocks and Selznicks different, opposing geniuses. It produced a hybrid work that was at the top of the roster of both men’s greatest work.
Categories: cinema
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