To Build A Fire by Jack London

Read this story tonight on the Jack London Website. Most have heard of London's books Call of the Wild and White Fang and such but he was a prolific author who wrote a great deal of short stories. This is one I have often heard mention of.

It is a simple story, ten minutes of your life. You will be rewarded. In the story London introduces us to a man traveling deep into the Artic. He estimates the temperature at 50 below but he is making good time and looks forward to arriving to his camp and having an entertaining night with his friends. He even takes a moment to chide in his mind an old timer who told him to never travel alone when it is this cold.

More than two thirds of the way to his campsite he goes thru the ice where an underground stream had weakened it. Knowing he must dry his feet he builds a fire. The last half of the story surrounds the building of that fire and what happens if when you are in the Deep Artic and struggle to build that fire. The story reads like a suspense novel, it is hard to believe that the only thing we are waiting on is will he be able to build a fire before he freezes to death.

This is a great story.

Horrible Bosses

As the second feature in our comedy festival last evening we watched this movie after Bridesmaids. Interestingly the two movies seem to be a bit of bookends with the female and male perspectives.

In this movie Charlie Day, Jason Sudeilis, and Jason Bateman play three men who work for what could be deemed Horrible Bosses, hence the title.

Those bosses played by Jennifer Aniston ( a play against type as a sexual harassor, Colin Farrell as Bobby Pelitt, and Kevin Spacey as the dastardly as Dave Harken.

Also in the movie is Jill Clayburgh, her last role before dying of luekemia, and Jamie Foxx as Motherf---er Jones who might have the funniest part in the movie.

Called a dark comedy this too was a funny movie. I would call it not as even as Bridesmaids but still there were several laugh out loud movies. Jason Sudeikis is a very funny actor...one wonders if he could not be funny.

A good movie with very funny moments.

Bridesmaids

This movie with a stellar cast was a big hit last winter. Written by and starring Kristen Whig the movie centers on Annie. Annie is single. She recently saw her small business called Cake Lady go out of business.

In the movie Annie is asked to be the maid of honor for her best friend Lillian. Lillian, played by Maya Rudolph also has as bridesmaids Helen, the wealthy wife of her fiance's boss played by Rose Byrne. Another is Megan, played by the hilarious Megan McCarthy.

The movie is loud and lewd. For a movie about bridesmaids there is much bodily function humor. Whig and her brand of physical comedy from SNL translates well to the big screen and it seems likely that she will have a good run of success on the big screen.

We laughed out loud. This movie works on all levels. McCarthy is also one to watch. A great Saturday night movie.

The Muppets

The whole family went to see The Muppet Movie Wednesday night. All the kids, even the teenagers and Nana too. It has been quite sometime since The Muppets made a movie.

In this movie which was written as a labor of love by Jason Segal we meet two brothers. Gary, played by Segal and his brother Walter who is, although not noticed by them a Muppet. Walter is also the worlds greatest fan of all things Muppet.

Gary is to visit Hollywood with his long time girlfriend Mary, played by Amy Adams. A short aside here, is there anyone in the movies today who at least appears cuter and sweeter than Amy Adams. She might be on her way to being this generations Domma Reed. Then I remember that she played the mouthy girlfriend in The Fighter and realize that she has little to worry about as far as being typecast.

Gary and Mary decide to take Walter so they can visit The Muppet Theatre and are shocked to find that it is falling apart with only a dusty tour to prove it was ever a building that housed The Muppets.

Walter after having snuck into Kermit's office while the tour goes on overhears Tex Richman talking about his plan to buy the theatre when The Muppets lease runs out and then drill for the oil discovered under the theatre.

What follows is a montage of gathering up the old gang including a going gray Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy in France. Watch the Muppets travel by map and you will wish that you could.

This movie is sweet. It also feels like it is true to it's origins. Guest Stars abound including Neil Patrick Harris, Dave Grohl, and many others.

My son told his friends he went and told them it was a cute little movie. For a 16 year old to admit this means it must have been.

Wilford Brimley on Craig Ferguson

I think I have a thing for old men. I like them. I never had a grandfather so perhaps that is it. Or maybe I feel like I am an old man already, opinionated ( obviously and attached to the past). I am not sure why but whatever the reason I am always interested in old men and their opinions.

So while my children and I might joke about Wilford Brimley and his Diabetes adds and my pal and I might joke about Wilford has the sugar the fact is that for me Wilford on Craig Ferguson is must see television.

When introduced he came out with is cowboy hat in hand. With his classic droopy mustache Brimley looks like he lives in the Westerns that he has starred in. Talking with Ferguson Brimley is wry and understated. Talking about his horses Ferguson asks him what type he has...Brimley says he has a brown one.

So in other words, nothing happened. Still when I shut off the televsion I considered it time well spent. Somethings are greater than the sum of their parts. For me Wilford is. Perhaps it is because he reminds me of my brother in law Martin. I really like and respect him so that too...is a good thing.

At the end of his interview Ferguson asked if he wanted to play a harmonica with him. Brimley did, started slow, and then took off and impressed the host. The host presented him with a gold harmonica. A gift that is given only to those who can truly play the harmonica.

Brimley took it all in stride, something it seems to me he has most likely done his whole life.

Some people like the Kardashians some people like Brimley, I guess it is all a matter of taste. Brimley is in my taste and I respect him.

Regis Philbin Retires

I love Regis. I have written about this before but with his " retirement " it is a subject to visit on again. The question is what is it about Regis that we love for certainly I am not the only person to regret his leaving his show.

He is cranky. It seems everyone has a Regis impression and most of them include him being grumpy. So why do we love him.

I think I like him because he is who I could see myself being. In another life that is. Out to dinner everynight, name dropping on his show but truly one of the more positive people you will meet.

Moreover there is something about the chemistry he had with Kelly Ripa. I saw both shows and perhaps it is my increased age but I found the show to be much better with Kelly than Kathy Lee Gifford. Perhaps because with Kelly it is clearly Regis that is in control of the show.

Regis lives his fans. Regis is a great guest. David Letterman loves to have him on his shown.

Regis is just someone that you would like to talk to. To have dinner with. Can you say a much better thing about an entertainer.

Head and Heart: American Christianties by Gary Wills

Gary Wills is one of my favorite authors. His writings on history and religion are among the best I have written. Wills has an interesting perspective, he is a devout Catholic but he leans more to the left than right in his writings and beliefs.

This is a 600 page plus book that tracks American religion from the Salem plantation to the 2006 elections. Tracking the two paths of Enlightenment and Evangelical religion Wills gives us much to consider.

An interesting section is about the American forefathers, most of whom were Deists. They still understood the need for religion to center American life but for they themselves the miracles of Jesus were not to be beleived. In essence they felt that Jesus was a remarkable, wonderful, thoughtful, mortal human being.

We see the affect religion had on the issue of slavery. We see the major religions split into two with both sides grasping at their interpretation of the Bible.

The modern Evangelical movement gets quite a bracing review from Wills. Arguing that abortion has become more of a political issue than a religeous one Wills offers an intellectual argument that I have not heard before.

A book this large offers more than can be reviewed. Safe to say for me Wills is my daily spiritual review. Reading a small section each day so I can mull it Wills books last me a bit. This is a great writer.

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

In this book Millard who is not a well known biographer tackles the subject of the assassination of James Garfield. Millard who earlier wrote about Teddy Roosevelt tells us of the events leading up to the election of Garfield and then his shooting by a derganged office seeker named Charles Guiteau. The story does not end with the shooting, Garfield lived over two months with the wound until he died of infection.

The book also introduces us to Alexander Graham Bell. In 1876 Bell introduces the World to the telephone but he was a constant inventor. When Garfield was shot, what we know now, was that it was his medical treatment was the cause of his death. Guiteau in his trial claimed that while he shot Garfield it was his medical treatment that killed him. He was correct. The jury did not buy this, nor did they buy the insanity defense.

By all accounts Garfield was a good man of strong character who never really got a chance go govern. His shooting united the country both North and South for perhaps the first time since the end of the war. His major accomplishment was dispensing with Roscoe Conkling, the Senator from New York, the king of patronage. Interestingly with his death Conkling's protege the Vice President Chester Arthur, placed on the ticket only to placate the Stalwart wing of the party, became a man beyond what was expected of him. He pushed Conkling away and became his own man and tried to fulfill Garfield's policies.

The medical treatment of Garfield was not only bad, it was bad ignoring the methods of Joseph Lister a doctor who was attempting to teach antiseptic methods and surgery, methods that if followed would have inevitably led to Garfield's surviving.

Through it all Garfield was stoic and thoughtful. The second President killed in a fifteen year span and yet the country survived and soon prospered.

It's Been a Long Time Coming by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

Southside Johnny has been making music for as long as Bruce Springsteen. Never making the dent commercially that he might have liked he has always been a fine musician.

This song with an assist from both Springsteen and Little Steven is as good a song as you would find on a Springsteen album.

The connection between the singers, the lyrics tell a tale of loss and celebration of surviving. Certainly one we all could imagine being on in the background as we gather with old friends and remember lost friends this Holiday season.

It has indeed been a long time coming.

Suicide of a Superpower by Pat Buchanan

I like Pat Buchanan. I am sure I am not supposed to. Yet I do. He is clearly a Conservative and I am not. Yet when reviewing his positions they are in some cases very similar to mine. I do not go party line on issues and find that in issues I feel conservative on Buchanan mirrors me.

I did not read all of this book. The first 75 pages were enough to make clear what Buchanan was selling. Culture divergence, wars, entitlement spending is killing us. I think anyone looking at Washington would have to agree.

For me the most important chapter was the solutions section. First we must find that while Obama is certainly not a racist he is, besides being ill prepared to b

e President, not one who understands middle America. He could not stand up for Unions yet he does not understand the frustrations of the average frustrates white man or black man,

The national debt is fueled by welfare and warfare. We will always argue about what we should do with those who need help. Easier however is to realize our military is a giant boondoggle. We borrow money from Japan to protect Japan. We do the same for Europe. We borrow money from China to send foreign aid to countries that then vote with China against us at the U N. We have 700 to 1000 bases in 130 countries. How is this justifiable. It is a colossal waste.

The troops we have in Europe serve what purpose exactly? Do we really think the Russians are invading?

Most important to me, and to people who would like me to stop harping on it is Economic nationalism. Buchanan lays out the simple reason that a tariff is needed. It has to be set up in such a way to force companies to make things here. This is still the biggest market in the world. Germany, China, and everyone else might make noise but no one will leave this market. And should they start a trade war they will miss our imports much more than we will miss our exports. We can make what we buy but as my friend Brad says who would China sell all fheir crappy Walmart merchandise to?

For some reason being seen as Pro American is seen as being lowbrow and simplistic. I do not think so. Only a person who hates himself can not love his country. I surely do not believe in.my country right or wrong but there is a reason we are hurting in this country. It all starts with the cultural divide. Pat is right about that too.

This is all unlikely to gain any traction. Both the right and left worship at the alter of free trade. It is however, nice to see someone articulating an idea that puts America first. Even if it is old crazy Pat Buchanan

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson the author who had previously won The National Book Award for His Vietnam novel Tree of Smoke recently published a short novella called Train Dreams.

The story which I read last night in an hour or so tells the tale of Robert Grainer a turn of the century day laborer in the Northern Rockies. Living his life in area from Idaho, Montana into the Pacific Northwest.

We learn much in one hundred pages,we see Grainer adopted but he knows not from where. He does not remember. We see him marry and then face tragedy. We see him grow old. Throughout the story their are trains. Trains he rides in, trains that paa through the valley. Trains that being him to his new home when a child. It is a story told in evocative prose. It is pretty. For me who yearns, or thinks he yearns, for a simpler time this is a wonderful story.

I enjoyed it very much and when I laid down at 2 am after reading it I felt peaceful. A great story

Jimmy Fallon As Jim Morrison

Adding to his canon of amazing impressions last Friday night Jimmy Fallon sang The Reading Rainbow song as Jim Morrison. Costumes, the video, and the Morrison theatrics were spot on.

Fallon can play anybody. We have seen him do Neil Young many times, recently we saw him do Bob Dylan singing the Charles in Charge theme song. Quite a few people do impressions, what Fallon does is even more special as he picks songs which were never done. Singing theme songs as famous figures does not seem to be something I have seen anyone do.

Each time Fallon does this it becomes viral. He is incredibly talented. All of these are immedieatly must see television.

The Real Rocky

Espn Films as part of their fall schedule aired an episode entitled The Real Rocky. Telling the story of Chuck Wepner a seventies era fighter known as a bleeder. Wepner was never a great fighter. What he was was an average fighter with a huge heart and the ability to take a great deal of punishment without quitting.

Wepner is remembered for a fight with Mohammad Ali in 1975 ? in which he went 14 rounds. Ali seemed to toy with Wepner early in the fight until in the mid rounds Wepner knocked him down. Later video seems to show that perhaps it was more of a slip than a knockdown, perhaps Chuck stepped on his foot, but it was ruled a knockdown. It woke Ali up and he for the next few rounds viciously beat the hell out of Wepner. Still Wepner would not go down. Finally Wepner was knocked out at the beginning of the 15th but not without earning a measure of respect from Ali and a huge level of respect from the boxing faithful anxious to cheer an everyman.

A couple of years later the movie Rocky appeared. Several times in print Sylvester Stallone made reference to being inspired by Chuck Wepner. Later in his career Wepner fought Andre the Giant. Later in the Rocky series Balboa fights an ex wrestler played by Hulk Hogan.

Certainly based on Stallone's statements and on the scripts of his movies it would seem that some sort of a debt was due to Wepner. When Stallone would not honor this and stated that he took no inspiration or thought from Wepner's career or actions Wepner sued. Eventually the two settled out of court for what inevitably was a sizable amount.

This was a well written informative and I enjoyed it. In the end Stallone paying out some form of settlement to Wepner was only right.

All American Muslim

This show debuted on TLC last Sunday night. Right after Sister Wives though for some reason I cannot get my wife to watch that show.

This show centers on five Muslim families in the very heavily Arabic Muslim city of Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn, we are told in the beginning of the show, is the most heavily Arabic city in the world that is outside of the Middle East.

I think any show that can show the Muslim community in a positive light is only a good thing as we all, myself included, have heard and seen all the stereotypes.

Dearborn, Michigan has high schools that are 97 percent Muslim. In the first episode we meet all the families but the first episode centers on the Amen family. One of their daughters is getting married. She is marrying however an Irish Catholic. In the Muslim faith men can marry outside the faith but women may not. I am not sure of the reasoning of this other than perhaps it is considered important to protect women from the infidel. At least in ancient times.

We see Jeff McDermott accept the Islamic faith, a very easy process, and marry into the family. We see the stress this puts on his mother. At the wedding the cultures meld quite well and we see both belly dancers and Irish step dancing. Perhaps to help us all get along better we need more not less interfaith marriages.

My wife liked the show quite a bit, I found it interesting. I think we will watch some more episodes though I am not sure of the shelf life of this show.

The Lions Roar by First Aid Kit

Featured in Entertainment Weekly's must list last week this Swedish group has released a song that is a mix of a Dixie Chicks Landlide Harmony and a rock dirge from Ireland. This song and the accompanying video is entrancing.

Looking them up on Spotify I was surprised to see that these sisters are not newbies. They have made several albums of music but clearly this would be the first real break into the American scene.

The video is haunting and the song is as well. I am also sure this is not a song all would like. For my sensibilities however it is strong. Great melodies, a great undercurrent of layeredness. Truly calling it a rock dirge is the best way to describe it.

Listen to it. Call me a fan.

Light in August by William Faulkner

Finishing Oprah's series of three Faulkner's books that were packaged as a Summer of Faulkner I have just finished Light in August.

After reading As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury this book was much easier. Still told with flashbacks and wraparounds it could never be called an easy read.

After reading three books and his short stories I have to advise that I have an affection for his writing. Because it is much centered on a Southern life and portrays race relations as they existed at that time Faulkner's work is disapparing as expected reading. This is a shame.

Light in August centers on Joe Christmas. A young man of mixed race adopted by a pious couple we learn in the course of the book Joe's story both back in time and to its conclusion. Reading an article about the book after the fact I was surprised to see all the Christian imagary in both this character and in the book itself. Especially comparing some details of the chapters of John and this book. Sometimes I wonder if the correlation is on purpose by Faulkner or if someone just had too much time on their hands to see it. Sort of like the whole Pink Floyd/ Wizard of Oz. Still it seem that Faulkner must have known what he was doing.

We also meet Lena a young unmarried pregnant woman from Alabama who is chasing down the man who impregnated her with both baby and promises. She is like a tortoise steadily moving, depending on the kindness of strangers to get where and what she wants.

66 characters in all float through the book, equal to the number of books in the Bible for those who believe Faulkner mapped the whole book out with that sort of imagary. The book is a marvel. Certainly more accessilbe than some others but nothing you can breeze through in an afternoon.

I am glad I read the others first. This book is like dessert after a tough but filling steak.

Means of Ascent by Robert Caro

This is the second book in the Caro life project of telling the tale of LBJ. My wife the other night when I told her Caro had finished the fourth ( but not final ) book in his series asked me " Was LBJ that important? "

The answer is a resounding yes though one has to dig such as Caro does to understand why. So much of what is politics today is a result of LBJ and his efforts.

For example in 1948 LBJ brought about the modern political campaign with his helicopter and media buys. Coke Stevenson ran an old style campaign. That Johnson stole the election is a pretty well known fact. That there was thievery on both sides is not as well documented. Still in Caro's telling Coke Stevenson comes across as a pretty remarkable character. One we could use today.

Johnson was under the thumb financially to Brown and Root a large contractor in Texas. The book does not advise this but it is a fact known to anyone who looks deep enough that as Brown and Root grew and bought other companies it became Haliburton. Knowing what we know of Johnson if that does not make sense you are not paying attention.

Johnson and his life were life changing for all of us. In his foreword to Book Two Caro talks about how Johnson's life had threads of good and bad that concurrently ran. Johnson and the War in Vietnam was perhaps the first and biggest straw that broke the prestige of the Presidency. The fact that a majority of Americans hold the office in less respect runs back in a straight line to Johnson.

In Book Two Caro tells us their is only one thread. The seven years between 1941 and 1948 were Johnson's time in the wilderness. He hated being in the House but had lost his chance at a Senate seat in the War. He did not see the future he wanted. This was when he almost got out of politics and indeed his media empire grew exponentially at this time.

The election of 1948 was everything. Caro in detail tells us about this election. Johnson collapsed with kidney stones still trying to campaign. Perhaps the biggest correlation to our modern elections would be to Bush/Gore in 2000. Johnson with his late ballots from Box 13. Stevenson seeking relief from the courts. Johnson's folks appealing the decision to review the ballots and while waiting for a ruling that would stop the process and stop Johnson's win doing everything they could to delay the hearing they were in to open the ballots. Finally a higher court intercedes. Who helped Johnson primarily in this endeavor. Abe Fortas. Who did Johnson put on the Supreme Court later. Abe Fortas. In Texas it works like that.

One should remember Johnson and I paraphrase had said that he would always turn in his votes last after the 1942 debacle in which he lost a Senate race by thinking he had it won and not even cheating could take it. With that in mind perhaps one can understand that Johnson is only the most famous of mid twentieth century vote stealer's in Texas.

Johnson did some great things and from his heart. He is not a black hearted figure. He is a man raised in poverty determined to help those who were poor. He also however wanted power and held on to it at all costs.

Johnson was like the proverbial man with the angel and the devil on his shoulder. A great book.

Bill Keane of The Family Circus Dies

Bill Keane who wrote The Family Circus comic strip for decades died last week. I love and collect the Charles Schulz collections of Peanuts but Keane was also a wonderful cartoonist. Certainly his strips were more sacharine and sweet than the Peanuts strips and with no sharp edges as almost all of the strips today.

Told in one board with a caption rather than the traditional panel strip Keane showed us life as many of us in suburbia knew it. Billy, Jeffy, Dolly and PJ were children that never grew up in the land of comic strips. I read a great deal of them in the papers and always found a smile.

Many stick with me but one story I remember is this. My son in his early little league days had not got a call advising his game was cancelled. It was raining so hard that the water was rushing down the street, a downpour for hours. It made me remember a strip seen years ago of Billy with his uniform on, bat over his shoulder, asking his Mom " How she knew the game was cancelled" as through the window we saw the rain pouring down.

Certainly Keane's strip came from a different time and generation. His son however has been doing the strip for the last few years and it will continue. Not edgy but still as long as people have adorable young children who say cute things it will be relevant. That is something to be thankful for.

Dexter

Some of my good friends have watched this show for years. I thought for quite sometime that the show was too dark for me and we do have many choices to watch. This weekend with some free time my wife had the first season on DVD so we decided to watch a few episodes.

The show is dark. Dexter played by Micheal C Hall is a blood splatter forensic specialist with the Miami police department. He also is a serial killer. When the show beings we see him taking his next victim. Dexter kills and then slices and dices.

The twist is that Dexter is not evil Persay. Dexter kills those that need to be killed. Those that have been not caught or convicted by our justice system. Those that get off. Those that are however guilty.

Hall does a great job with the role. In the first four episodes he has taken out a few bad guys while playing cat and mouse with a serial killer. He has a girlfriend and as much as he likes her he is not comfortable with sexuality and considers it a blessing she does not want sex either due to her past with an abusive husband. This changes in episode four when she kneels for a moment and surprises him.

In flashback we see Dexter as a young man with his adopted father, a police officer and his adoptive father's understanding of Dexter's unique habit leads to some of Dexter's methods.

I do not know what this show says about us, if it is supposed to mean anything. I know that we all like the idea of justice being served without the hinderences which sometimes seem to get in the way. Still one hopes that no one out there thinks that this is a viable way to deal with people they feel our guilty.

For guilty pleasure however one could do worse than this show.

J Edgar

This weekend my wife and I faced a strange occurence. We found ourselves childless as our kids were all off at various places. Faced with this we chose to go to a late movie. Being a history buff and faced with my wife's refusal to go see any Harold and Kumar movie we chose to go see this movie.

Having read biographies of the Presidents from FDR to Nixon I have a good deal of knowledge about Hoover. His classic battles with the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King are well documented.

Still Clint Eastwood has produced a strong and overall balanced movie here. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, with makeup playing the whole lifespan with Naomi Watt playing his loyal secretary Helen Gandy. Playing Hoover's longtime assistant and friend Clyde Tolson is Armie Hammer in a very strong performance.

The movie centers much of it's time on Hoover's struggles to use modern methods of police work to help root out Communists and later the Gangsters such as John Dillinger. The event which allowed for the changes Hoover wanted was the kidnapping of the Lindburgh baby. The movie shows how Hoover used fingerprints, wood research and many other new methods. Despite recent curiousness about the true guilt Hoover's methods proved resourceful.

The dark side of Hoover was he grew to love his creation too much. As new administrations came into office to protect himself he had created files on many people. With FDR he had information on Eleanoar, with JFK he had his womanizing and on and on. Eventually keeping his own power and his creation safe became as important as the safety of the nation the FBI originally was sworn to protect.

The movie does a good job telling the story. Over the last decade or so a few of the sensationalized stories of Hoover, his wearing dresses, his relationship with Clyde Tolson, his overbearing mother, his obsessivness about hand washing and such much has been lost of the true history. Some of these subjects are touched on briefly here but no so much as to dominate the movie.

A good film. Dicaprio is stellar in his performance.

Dial M For Murder

Alfred Hitchcock. Movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest are some of the greatest movies you will ever see. I had never seen Dial M for Murder. Starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, and Robert Cummings as a triangle gone wrong.

Milland plays Tony Wendice a tennis player who has met with moderate success but perhaps not enough to placate his rich wife played by Grace Kelly. She would like him to stay home and have a real job. The movie is told backwards at times. We learn that Margot Wendice has been having an affair with mystery writer Mark Halliday who is played by Robert Cummings.

Being a Hitchcock movie we expect lots of twists. The difference in this is that we know the twist. Tony wants to kill his wife. He sets this up. When this fails he makes adjustments on the fly. The pieces fit together, until they don't.

I watched this movie with my son. He appreciated the movie as well. The twists and turns of a good mystery was a new experience for him. No one will ever convince me that a Hitchcock movie without gore, language and other modern movie magic is not better than alnything you would see today.

After watching this with my son I hope he agrees.

Hell on Wheels

AMC began it's most recent series last Sunday night debuting Hell on Wheels after The Walking Dead. The title comes from the town of Hell on Wheels in Nebraska, the name of the movable town made up of workers on the TransContinental Railroad.

The series begins in a jarring way as our we see a soldier making a confession is asked by the priest to tell him what happened in Meridian. The soldier who was trying to absolve himself of these unnamed sins is surprised to hear the question and then even more surprised when the priest opens the shield and shoots him dead.

We learn then that the priest is no priest but a Confederate soldier who though the war is over, is looking for revenge to what happened to his wife. The soldier is Cullen Bohannan played by Anson Mount. Soon he is on his way to work at Hell on Wheels and while he needs the work he is also on the lookout for men who took part in the death of his wife.

After having watched the first episode I am looking forward to seeing what happens but am not sure the series has given itself enough room for characters we care about. It still is worth watching to see just where it goes.

Lost in Translation

We visited my wife's Mom tonight. She is surely not your stereotypical mother-in-law. She is a wonderful lady who I love dearly. She showed us a movie she had got from Netflix by accident. Of course I am not sure how it got into her list by accident but she is technologically challenged like me only amplified by twenty years.

So now that we had the movie she asked us to watch it with her and I was fine with that. I had heard much of the movie which was up for multiple awards in 2003. Bill Murray, as funny as he is, is also just absurd enough to pull off this role. Scarlet Johannsen, 18 at the time, is a picture of attractiveness and vulnerability. Sofia Coppola directed this movie and won the Oscar for screnplay.

The story explores issues of loneliness and alienation. Murray an aging actor has agreed to do a Japanese liquor commercial for two million dollars. Scarlet plays a young woman, married to a celebrity photographer who is questioning who she is and essentially what she wants to be.

Through a chance meeting the two become odd acquantences and exerience a week of ever growing closeness but never pull the trigger on sex.

The folks I watched the move with did not like it. It was slow moving and not quite Oscar worthy by my standards either. Still Murray is a great actor, his character was deep and his attempts to treat this attractive girl with respect while keeping his own mid life crisis at bay.

An interesting movie.

Fiddler on the Roof

Another one of those movies that I have heard about forever but never watched. My wife loves musicals of all types and remembered singing the songs in her Show Choir days in high school.

The movie, like the Broadway hit tells of a Jewish village in the Ukraine in Tsarist Russia in 1905. Songs from the play and then the movie are some of the most known from any movie. When my 16 year old son, who watched the movie with me, is singing " If I Were a Rich Man and Tradition, as he zips around the house, you know you have songs that will last forever.

Based on the book Tevye and His Daughters Fiddler introduces us to Tevya a Jewish milkman, a poor man, blessed with five daughters as he acknowledges with a shrug. His three oldest daughters anxious to be married are complicating his life. When the Matchmaker ( Matchmaker, Matchmaker is another stellar song ) makes a match for his oldest with the widowed butcher his daughter rebels. She wishes to marry a childhood friend who is a tailor. A young politically minded man ( a young Paul Micheal Glaser) visits the town, tutors Tevya's daughters and falls in love with another daughter. The father allows her to choose her husband too.

The hardest daughter is one who marries outside the faith and this brings one of the most emotonal scenes in the movie's climax.

Told against the backdrop of pogrom's and forced evacuations this is a movie for the whole family, a movie that makes me want to see the play. Simply wonderful.

The Apartment

This movie was a huge success winning Best Picture in 1960. A strong cast in this movie from Billy Wilder. I must admit that I found the cast to be strong, especially Fred MacMurray playing against type as a womanizing executive.

However I also found the movie to be unsettling and depressing. Jack Lemmon plays CC Baxter a young executive who has somehow allowed senior executives to use his apartment as a den of adulterous behavior.

Rising steadily through the company due to his flexibility with the executives Baxter is infatuated with an elevator attendant in the company played by a young and to me surprisingly attractive Shirley Maclaine. She however is currently the most recent girl on a string of the filandering HR Director played by MacMurray. Growing up watching him playing the Dad on My Three Sons made this a shock to the system.

A well done movie. An interesting story with some humor. Still as I find this shocking and unsettling, I can only imagine how this movie played in Middle America in 1960. Jack Lemmon is a wonderful actor but this movie was no hit for me.

The Best American Sportswriting 206 Edited by Michael Lewis

Enjoying strong magazine pieces I picked this up on the bargain bin at Amazon. Of the collections I have read the totality of the pieces was not as good as some the anthologies before or after but there were still some incredibly powerful stories.

One was a story about Jermaine Ewell who was strong high school football player on his way to the NCAA and perhaps the professional leagues. Involved in an argument at a party, he was beaten with a bat to the point where he could or should have died. After years of recovery he was attempting to play Arena Football. He did not succeed but he succeeded by even attempting it. An inspiring story.

Dirty Moves was a story from a writer who takes his sons to wrestling meets. His sons, taught the right way, lose in a match due to a dirty move made by his opponent. A story about a bond between fathers and sons.

The article Driving Lessons by Steve Friedman was perhaps my favorite. Telling how the author connected with his father as he tried to teach him golf. Another father to son story. Wonderful.

Fallen Angel tells the story of Bo Belinsky, one of the first wunderkind bonus babies in baseball. Pitching a no hitter his rookie year, he went on to win a total of 28 games. As he said however he took those 28 wins further than anyone else. It was quite a journey and interesting to read.

The saddest story was the tale of Mike Webster in Tormented Soul. Webster the long time All Pro Center of the Steelers died of multiple health problems. He also suffered from dementia type issues, losing his whole life and being in pain a great deal. The backstory is Webster's families attempt to get more out of the NFL Retired players disability program. While it was clear that the program did not do enough for Webster until forced too the claim that he was disabled right after leaving the league seems a stretch.

Some very interesting stories.

The Drive By Truckers

I like to think that I keep up with music. I am sure I do. I have heard about The Drive By Truckers for years. Still, there is only so much music to hear, if radio does not play them. Even WKIT, Stephen King's station ( he is a big fan of theirs ) does not play them.

Another great reason to endorse Spotify is that it is a new version of radio. Now on Facebook your friends can tell you what they listen to and you can try it out. I do not Facebook and have no plans too. I do endorse Spotify however.

The Drive By Truckers are a great band. Much has been made about them being a party band. They are. They are also much more than that. Some of their songs are as affecting as anything I have heard.

Immersed in their Southern culture they do not hide their roots, they stand in them with firmly planted feet. Yet this is not just redneck music. They can do that bit, but much of their music is deeper than this, though the references to Mustangs do seem to add up.

I am in no way an expert, having just found them, I am listening to songs here and there. Thus far songs such as Self Destructive Zones, Everyone Needs Love, Outfit and Three Alabama Icons serve as a pretty strong indication of how good their music is. It is literate and well bred.

Perhaps Three Alabama Icons best tells the story of the bipolar nature of Southern culture. Perhaps it tells the nature of not only the South but all of us.

It's a Fine, Fine Day by Tony Carey

Listening to WBLM the other night I heard this song about two in the morning. It was familiar, I heard it many times back in the day. Still it was a song remembered better than it was enjoyed at the time.

Perhaps it is one of those songs that ages well. Perhaps there is a memory hidden somewhere in my brain associated with that song that I cannot even recall. It could be that the material, being based on reunions, finds the measure of a spot in my soul.

In any case this is a fine song. The deejay told me at two in the morning that Tony Carey was a member of a band called Rainbow before he became a solo singer.

There is so much incredible music, much that we have never heard. More that we have heard and forgotten. It is such an arbitrary process to be successful in the music business.

I do not know much about all of that. I know I like this song.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

I read and loved the book Cold Mountain. It was a book that felt like it was written a century ago. Not just for the subject material, being about the Civil War, but in the style of it's writing as well.

For whatever reason Frazier has not been able to follow up his first novel successfully. Perhaps it is true that there are just so many ideas for so many books but Frazier writes this book like a Lifetime movie. Perhaps the best way to describe it is if I had not read who wrote this I would never have taken this to be a book written by a man. Now Frazier is in good company. I was convinced for a long time that Stephen King has Tabitha writing a few of his books years ago, the Dolores Claiborne, Rose Madder phase. Still while it might well be a quirk of mine I do not want to read a book touted as having a bit of a bend toward being literary if not literature and read a woman in danger book.

The characters are broad and not that well written. Just a bad vook. 150 pages in and I had to remind myelf I was under no ovligation to finish. That qas my best choice all day. A bad book .

The Beatles....then, still, and always

I have a CD of Beatles music in the car. It is homemade with some of my favorite selections. I am a music fan. I love Dylan, Springsteen, Zeppelin, U2 and can find plenty of new music to rave about such as The Avett Brothers.

Still, over and over, nothing compares to the Beatles. When one thinks about all the music they made in such a short time. The songs that were leftovers and throwaway cuts to fill their albums were better than anything else you will hear. The Beatles may be the only band that it is impossible to say what your favorite album is.

Yesterday on a drive with to the wife to Panara Bread, love that Cuban Chicken Panini, I heard songs like Dear Prudence, Rocky Raccoon, I'm Only Sleeping, Girl, I've Just Seen a Face and She's Leaving Home. These songs were not hits. They are album cuts. Still they are better than anything you will hear anywhere else. Perhaps it is because we have heard these songs so much but there is nothing better.

We have Beatles books, Beatles Rock Star, Beatles music after the breakup. They are the greatest. They always will be.

Andy Rooney

I love Andy Rooney. Reading several obituaries in the last 24 hours what is noted over and over is that the art of being a curmudgeon is one that has left American entertainment. Through the fifties and sixties they were everywhere on television, in the newspaper but now it is a failing art.

They have been replaced, one could say, with the did you ever notice type of comedian such as Jerry Seinfeld, or the many blue comedians such as Lewis Black.

However we all know a curmudgeon. We all have an uncle who complains about young people. Heck in our house I guess I could easily be called a curmudgeon. One who regrets the loss of the America of his youth or least the America of his imaginative youth.

Rooney was a patriot. This young man flew with pilots in World War Two while reporting for Stars and Stripes. He went to work as a writer on television in the early days and had a long standing working relationship with the late Harry Reasoner. For all that however, Rooney, will always be known and remembered for his work on Sixty Minutes.

He could talk about the most trivial of things and have you agreeing with him. I remember his talk about a car being the one place where an individual could control everything in his atmosphere. The seat, the temperature, the speed of travel, the air flow, the entertainment or lack thereof. Rooney got in trouble sometimes, talking about Kurt Cobain or homosexuality. Still we need not embrace all of a mans ideas to respect the man.

Rooney was a man due much respect. He believed in his country. He believed in his generation and like all of us was a little fearful for our future based on the comparison of what he had known and what he was seeing. Do we not all feel that way a bit now and then.

I think what we need our less angry comedians and more thoughtful curmudgeons. We all will miss Uncle Andy. I know I will.

Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

One of the first books I ever read myself. I might have been eight or so. When I say the first book I ever read, I mean real book. This was a real book, with no pictures etc. So I found this on IBooks free.

Reading it I enjoyed the first few chapters. The story of young Nat's arrival to the Plumfield home for boys. The story is sweet all the way through. The refurbishment of Dan, the rough boy that Nat brings to the home is one that we can learn from.

That said about about two thirds through I could not go any further. The book is not a book for an adult. It is drivel. However it is a good book with good morals. I am just not sure that it transfers to this time and place.

Beavis and Butthead

Just the mention of this show gets my wife shaking her head. She insists it is not funny, it is just stupid, it reminds her of her youth ( and her first husband.) I get it. This is not a show to tell the Neilsen folks you are watching when they call with a Survey.

However one thing should be made clear. In it's own way the show is funny. The humor is biting, it is sarcastic and it does make me laugh.

It is hard to use big words to describe what the show is. Laughing at videos and making points in a sarcastic way Beavis and Butthead say many things that we think. They do have a point to make about pop culture. Mix that in with their warped ideas of what is cool and how they can " score" and you get a fairly significant look at our pop culture.

More importantly this is one of the few shows that I always laugh at. A generation ago people laughed at The Three Stooges. Their was nothing edifying about them either.

Rock Center With Brian Williams

In earlier posts it has become quite sure that I like Brian Williams. So I was quite certain that I was interested in this new Newsmagazine. What I am not interested in is one of these week by week murder mysteries that shows like Dateline and 48 hours became.

In this first episode we see Richard Engel sneak into Syria to tell us not so much about the protests, but jow a few brave souls are sneaking out video footage of what is going on behind the wall placed on Western journalist. Williams had a ardonic look at airline boarding and a small chat with Jon Stewart which bordered perhaps on too familiar.

The highlight of the night was Harry Smith's story on Williston, North Dakota. An oil boomtown the story was told as Harry Smith said in a Steinbeckian way . It was fascinating to see these lost souls rolling the dice at a chance for success, living in tents, washing up at Walmart, and hoping that this time life works it out.

I think this show will get better, be more crisp and make great use of the great cast of reporters. That said, even as it is, I will always give Brian Williams my attention.

Boomerang by Micheal Lewis

This book, a follow up to Lewis's book The Big Short has Lewis traveling the globe to visit countries deeply affected by the financial crisis of 2008. Starting in Iceland, it being the first country to go broke, he investigates how this country convinced itself it was full of financial masterminds as its three major banks grew at astronomical rates in the last decade. Next we visit Ireland and see how Ireland became one big housi ng bubble. At one point during the bubble Ireland's financial numbers indicated it was the wealthiest country in the world. Lewis investigates this and finds it was all housing. People selling houss for more and more money to each orher and calling themselves rich as they walk in spikes on top of the bubble.

Lewis talks about how in Ireland and other Western countries protecting individual depositors makes sense but that protecting bondholders is ludicrous. He mentions one bondholder as the collapse starting trying to sell at fifty cents on the dollar only to find no market. The next morni g he woke to find that the Irishgovernment had decided to cover all the bondholdes losses as well.

We see Geeece a country that made up fake months to pay their employees for to increase their benefits. Ecen today we see the news and know they are n the frontlines of the default crisis. They as a country and culture do not seem to understand the realities they are facing.

Perhaps most worriisome is when Lewis turns to America. When he examines the amunts owed and unfunded to pensioners in this countey it is easy to see what is coming. Looking at California as the canary in the coal mine we examine the administration of Arnold Schwarzeneger. He took office on a recall and yet thinking he could vridge the gap between the extermists on both sides found himself sponsering reasonable referendum measures. All went down t defeat.

The problems in California are manifest. Legislative districts drawn to protect liberals or conservatives. Thus there is no gain in compromise, in fact those that do will be punished. In California and presumaby elsewhere Americans want all the services they have always had but do not want to pay for them. So we borrow and borrow. It is a terrifying assesment. I truly do not know if we in this country have the mettle to withstand rhe economic crisis that are on the way.


This is not a Stephen King book. It is scarier.