Mad Men's Trippy Episode Last Week

We just watched last Sunday's episode of Mad Men. Certainly a little different. Roger and Don are having trouble maintaining their younger wives although the end result of the episodes dramas for the couples turns out to be quite different.

In this episode Peggy also struggles with a presentation for Heinz. What they are doing with Peggy's looks is to make her look harder. She smokes, drinks and is developing wrinkles. In this episode she tries a Don method of being forceful with the client, It does not work.

Roger goes to a party with his young wife and st her request takes LSD. It becomes quite comical, Roger is convinced he feels no effects, he does however feel plenty of effects.

This episode takes us down a detour. What would have been called a change of pace episode years ago. This show continues to be one of the best. Even when they take a detour.

New Multitudes by Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker and Yim Yames

This album is a collaborative effort to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie. A band led my musicians that musicians all know but for the average lay person the names that ring the loudest are Jay Farrar who has been in two bands loved by critics, Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo, bands that have included members of The Jayhawks and Wilco at one time or another. So the pedigree is there and then when you add Yim Yamss, A K A Jim James of My Morning Jacket and you know this group is strong.

Norah, Woody's Granddaughter who instigated this project must have been happy. Taking old unpublished lyrics of Guthrie's the band members wrote new songs. Recorded for the most part live with one mike, old style, there is much to like.

I have not listened to the whole set as of yet, it is a double album and includes many different types of music. The first single which has received significant radio airplay is My Revolutionary Mind and features Yames on vocals. A slow mantra in which James tells us that he needs a Liberally Minded Woman to ease his Revolutionary Mind the song could fit anywhere from the sixties to Woody's era himself.

Contributions by Farrar have that almost patented sound he is well known for, sort of Byrds meets the Midwest. I am a huge fan of James and plan to listen to the whole album. Woody Guthrie in so many ways is the forefather of much of the music we venerate on a daily basis.

Barack Obama on Jimmy Fallon

Barack Obama appeared on Jimmy Fallon the other night at a special show broadcast from the University of North Carolina. From an entertainment point of view the show was a huge success. Fallon at his best, played a solid monologue, then did one of his songs he is known for, one of his creation called Walk of Shame, a song well placed at a college campus.

Dave Matthews joined in and then of course played later in the show. The heart of the show however was the appearance of The President. Fallon in his normal role of cheerleader was visibly excited. Obama took part in the regular feature " Slow Jamming the News." It was funny and The President used the opportunity to skewer Republicans over their stance on his student loan bill.

Playing to the choir at a college campus Obama was clearly trying to raise interest and excitement in the youth vote. It works. Still some would wonder, myself included, if it is correct for a President to appear in a comedy skit so irrelevant and then to use it for political purposes. This was a far cry from Richard Nixon saying " Sock it to Me" and Bill Clinton was not The President when he appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show.

Funny Yes. Worth Watching Yes. Questionable as to if this is something a sitting President should be doing? Yes.

Ray

I had watched this movie a few years ago and enjoyed it. Seeing it on AMC a week or so ago I watched it again. It is a very good movie, and to some extent might have been the fuse that lit the fire of the recent spate of biopics that have been released. It and Walk the Line, another very strong movie.

And just as Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress Jamie Foxx showed great range and won the Oscar himself for Best Actor. Foxx in this role was great. He sang, had the mannerisms, and look of Charles down very well.

Ray Charles was an incredibly gifted man. From the movie and from Charles own autobiography it seems clear that the most scarring event of his life was seeing his little brother drown in a bucket of water when he was seven years old. He soon thereafter became blind and it would not be inconsistent to think that the two events together scarred him in a way that he never fully recovered from.

In the movie we see Charles from his beginning up through his second heroin arrest in 1965. Charles had a long running affair with a singer in his band, fathered a child with her, and yet loved his own family a great deal. His wife Della Bee Robinson played wonderfully by Kerry Washington is shown as a woman devoted to family who deals with Ray's infidelities and frailties. Eventually however she cannot put up with the drug use, and the drug arrest. She gives Ray an ultimatum.

We see Charles going through detox, the hard way, not accepting any drugs to mitigate the withdrawal effects. It is brutal to see and for those who have never gone through anything like that hard to understand how brutal it is. Charles did come out the other side. As the credits roll we are advised that Charles went on to great further success and never touched heroin again.

One scene in the movie left me feeling like it was unresolved. Charles hires a new announcer who soon slithers his way into his confidence. The movie wants you to think he was a user, who manipulates Ray from his large office right next to Ray. Clearly putting himself at the arm of power. In the end we see Charles fire his longtime assistant Jeff who he is told has been stealing from him. My sense of the scene was that Jeff had been set up and that perhaps later we would see a reversal of these decisions. In the movie at least it is left unresolved.

Still the movie is very good, the music is wonderful and Foxx deserved every accolade he got for this performance.

Florence + the Machine Unplugged

If you are not one of those folks who have discovered the band Florence + the Machine this is time to do so. This lady can sing. Not just sing, but sing, wail, any adjective of your choice for a big voice.

After having two successful albums they have been given the Unplugged treatment on MTV. The performance is the perfect vehicle for a singer like Florence. Hit songs like What the Water Gave Me, Shake it Out, and Dog Days Are Over lose nothing and gain intensity in this setting.

The songs that you have to hear however are the two covers she digs out for this performance. First we hear the Otis Redding classic Try a Little Tenderness. With one of those voices that the proverbial phone book would sound melodious this might be the best version of the song that I have heard, other than the original of course.

As strong as this entry is, once joined by the lead singer of a band I had never heard of called Queens of the Stone Age, a man named Josh Homme, a version of the Johnny and June Carter Cash classic Jackson is rolled out. It too is a song that gets in your head. I have added it to my prime playlist and think it will be there for quite some time. A classic song sung by current artists and sung well gives one hope in this day of predominantly awful music.

Listen to these songs, then listen to the rest. Florence Welch is a singer we will be hearing for many years to come.

Politico Books: The Right Fights Back and Inside The Circus

I am a big fan of the Politico website. Each morning I read the Politico Playbook and consider a must read site daily. Between that and the Daily Notes entries on The New Yorker website, as well as the previously discussed Real Clear Politics I get my morning fixes early in the day.

Politico has launched a projected series of four instant books. Rather than wait until the year after an election to publish a book with the inside details on an election they plan to issue every couple of months a book outlining the election and the players involved.

The Right Fights Back told of the beginning stages of the campaign while Inside the Circus took us right up through the Wisconsin primary. So these books are current.

For me, however, they were not worth a great deal. Now I realize that most people do not follow politics that closely and certainly do not read the sites I read daily. That said these books are for political junkies. The target audience for these books would be people who do keep up with news, and therefore most of the information in these books is repetitious.

Now they only cost $2.99 each so if any information is gleamed at all it is worthwhile. The formatting however is poor, there are no chapters. It is really just a series of notes and paragraphs.

Politico has really done nothing with these books to expand their audience.

Love the site, but i will have no plans to read the next two books in the series.

Lillehammer Concludes

We watched the finale of Lillehammer last weekend. As discussed earlier this is an original series released by Netflix. Starring Little Steven as a mobster put in Witness Protection and chooses to move to Norway. Why, he was a huge fan of the Olympics.

Just eight episodes long the series covers lots of ground. With any show such as this before you invest you want to make sure that the show is going to make it. In today's world you can after the fact watch a season or two and get caught up.

Netflix has said that they would like to make another season of the show. Of course Little Steven is a pretty busy fellow, as his commitments with Bruce Springsteen and the current tour are significant.

Still the show and these eight episodes are stand alone strong. I highly reccomend you to watch it. It is worth your time and second season or not there is resolution enough the story arcs to satisfy.

I do not want to give away too much of the show, but the series is strong and very enjoyable. Van Zandt is underrated, he can pull off a line in a wry way that makes you not appreciate him enough.

The only thing I would change. The subtitles, for the Norwegian speak, often appear over the current scene and if the colors blend are hard to read. It could do with a black background for the subtitles.

Still a very good show. Watch it.

Gullivers Travels

Jack Black starred in this adaption of the classic Swift tale. For those of who read Gulliver's Travels in school the movie is recognizable. In the movie Jack Black plays Gulliver a ten year worker in the mail room of a travel magazine.

He is sweet and nice and not very successful. He has a crush on an editor at the magazine played by Amanda Peet. Peet is one of the most likable of actresses. Be it on a late night show or in a movie she has something that I find appealing. She is attractive but of course all actresses are attractive, she has some kind of zest for life that makes her attractive.

Gulliver in an attempt to impress her takes an assignment to do some travel writing about a remote island. After a storm crashes his boat he awakes to find himself restrained. Tied up by ropes and hundreds of little people--Lilliputians he breaks free but eventually through much effort is confined again.

This is where the movie departs significantly from the book. He helps a young man, played by Jason Segal, woo the princess. The princess has a beau who she does not love, and he is suspicious of Gulliver. Eventually Gulliver becomes the leader of the army and navy.

Battles ensue, his editor follows him and in the end many good things happen.

This is a cute movie. Nothing great, not worth writing home about, but a movie you can watch with the kids and at least have them have some exposure to a classic book.

A cute movie.

Levon Helm Dies

Last week we heard that Levon Helm was close to death from throat cancer. One of the cool men of rock and roll Helm had a very colorful history in rock and roll. As the news was confirmed two days later that Helm had died the tributes started flowing in and have not stopped.

Helm, born in Arkansas, joined up with Ronnie Hawkins in the early sixties and traveled to Canada and joined the backup band known as The Hawks. Soon enough this band included all the members of what would come to be known as The Band. Danko, Manuel and of course Robbie Robertson.

Joining Bob Dylan on tour in 1965, the tour where things " might get weird" as Dylan told the boys Helm quit. At the height of the controversy over Bob going electric Helm said he " did not want to play to get booed."

Eventually however the members of the band joined Dylan in upstate New York as he recovered from his motorcycle accident. After helping Dylan with The Basement Tapes The Band released two seminal albums Music From the Big Pink and the self titled The Band. While the singing duties were often split between the members it was Helms and his hard to describe howl that made songs like Ophelia, Up on Cripple Creek and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down that became standards.

As great at the music was however the influence The Band, and Helm had on other musicians sent and sends waves and ripples out still. I remember seeing a picture of Helm in the late sixties era, leaning against the back of a sports car. Helm was a very cool dude. Still the music was first. When Robbie Robertson broke up the Band after The Last Waltz in 1976 Helms was livid and this colored their relationship for the rest of their lives. When The Band was inducted in The Hall of Fame he chose not to attend, seeing this as the best way to avoid being roped in to playing with Robertson.

Over the last ten years of his life however Helm hosted monthly concerts in his barn at his home in Woodstock. Originally begun to help defray the cost of his medical care for the cancer that eventually he succumbed to the Concerts became the hip place to be. Tickets were hard to get and many musicians considered it a highlight to join Helm at his shows. I remember just last summer hearing that My Morning Jacket had made an appearance as they went through New York on tour,

There are many great singers. Their are however, not many great and completely distinct voices. Helm had a voice that you would never forget. We are glad of that as he has left us much too soon.

Let us pray they have room for his voice in the choir where he is.

The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

Richard Ford has written three books that tell the tale of Frank Bascombe. The first of these books is The Sportswriter. Written in 1986 the book was hailed as one of the best books of the year and still often appears in many top lists. Later books in the series, including the nineties entry Independence Day were also very well reviewed. In fact Independence Day won both the Penn-Faulkner award and The Pulitzer.

Therefore going in one has to know they are getting into some books that are certainly supposed to be strong. With the first in the series The Sportswriter the case is well proven.


Easy comparisons to Updike's once a decade look at Rabbit Angstrom soon fall flat however. Having not yet read the second and third books in the Bascombe trilogy it might well be true that the action picks up a bit. However in The Sportswriter we meet a man who is surely suffering with a crisis of life, a crisis of faith, or at least a turning point in his life. Unlike Rabbit Angstrom for whom introspection is a word not understood the character of Frank Bascombe knows full well what is going on in his internal person.

At 39, recently divorced with two young children and a son who died a couple of years earlier, of Reye Syndrome no less, Frank is a man who could easily be at war with the world. The fact is, introspection or not, he is not. He likes his life, he does not like to think too deeply. He has discovered some things along the way. He wishes people did not share so much, he feels quite comfortable with that manly quality of swallowing your disapointments in life and painting on contentment.

Frank would like it if people did not need to have a pained explanation for each mistake. In short if you love someone give them some room, forgive mistakes without a hearing and move on. His infidelity period after the death of his son is something he feels bad about, but only in that it hurts his wife. When called for an explanation he has none, cannot bring himself to offer one, and accepts the divorce that follows with equal amounts of calm and wishing for an explanation that could reverse it.

This book takes place over three days, Easter weekend. Frank takes his new girlfriend on a work trip to Detroit, meets her family on Easter and tries in his own, don't show me too much of your inner self way, to help an acquaintance in his Divorced Men's Club through his weekend. All through the weekend we see what Frank sees and see him retreating from feeling too much. It is as if he has been given the gift of seperation from his own experiences and can see them all with a wryness from the outside.

It is not really a gift to do so, we all think about being a fly on the wall at our own funeral but no one should really live their life as an observer of his own experiences. Frank seems to do this and to be watching a split screen at these times.

In the end the book serves as a good vehicle for examination of your own life, failures and misgivings included, unless of course you are like Frank and prefer to not read the chapters but just look at the titles and make assumptions.

Frank observes in the end that life is like a film that sticks to you. Your experiences good and bad over the course of time stick to you. This is like a protective coating, it also however means that nothing is new and shiny. Nothing can through to give great joy or great sadness. It is as sadness accumulates over life, with failed relationships, career trouble, health issues, that we have this protective coating. The coating also however stops the joy and sensation of wonder from slipping into your life as well. He tells that occasionally the sheen slips off and you find yourself filled with wonder.

I am familiar with the feeling. For me, sad as it is to say, it often seems to come from being outdoors and seeing and feeling the sun or the wind on my face. Feeling what I must have felt forty years ago in my childhood before my film had been applied. Frank Bascombe tells us each time we have that feeling of not having been here before, of something new, to embrace it because soon we will be protected again from the new and dangerous expression of feelings and we might never be this alive again.

It is a feeling one can relate too. As your children go older, mine now being teenagers and certainly in that stage of life where sincere, heartfelt emotion seems to be something that is to be avoided it is easy to see that the film of life is already building on them.

It is sad, Ford's Bascombe however, knows he does not allow those feelings in, does not want to let them in. Unlike for mamy of us though he knows it is a choice that he is making. He is a very self aware fellow.

The book is well worth your time. Be prepared to have to think over your own middle aged life.

An interesting side note. Ford, writing in 1986, has his sportswriter say that at times you have to the ability in sports to go with your guts. That it cannot all be numbers. When that happens says Bascombe Sports will become just another place where the numbers geeks rule. Little does he know that now, here, twenty five years later we are well in that time. I look forward to seeing what other changes in life after this book was written Frank Bascombe and Richard Ford address in the next two books.

You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe is considered one of the great American authors of the twentieth century. As I continue to find my way through this canon of literature I find that there are many more hits than misses. I also am sure that some of the books that I have passed over and not considered good were simply books that I took up at the wrong time.

Still when I ventured into Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again I expected it to be what it has been told to be. It was very disappointing, it was just not a story that compelled me to invest. If I had more knowledge of comparative literature I might be able to know before reading that perhaps Wolfe was not in my genre, such as Hemingway, Mailer, etc are.

In any event this book was a strong disappointment. Thomas Wolfe is not an avenue I plan to go down again.

The good news is that one will never catch up with all they want to read. I am sure these are great books. Just not for me.

The Death of Dick Clark

It is kind of too bad that the teenagers of today have no idea of how important a figure Dick Clark was. For many of them he is only that older man who speaks as a stroke victim on New Year's Eve. And as he recovered somewhat and fought against the results of his stroke he was admirable and a role model for those dealing with adversity.

Still this is not Dick Clark. Dick Clark was, perhaps along with Elvis, the most important figure in the launch of Rock and Roll. The truth is that even for someone of my generation Dick Clark's greatest moments of influence were well before my time. The history of his influence in bringing rock and roll to the mainstream, first in Philadelphia, and then as his show became nationally syndicated was one that brought rock and roll legends in the making into the homes each afternoon.

Tell your children to go on Google, find some of the early clips from the fifties and sixties. Explain to them that this was the first time anyone ever did what he did. Explain to them how " it's got a good beat and you can dance to it " became a part of the American lexicon.

Dick Clark was a legend. He will be missed.

American Idol----The Save Was Used

Last Wednesday night my wife and I did our normal Wednesday night routine and watched American Idol. As has been discussed before on this site my wife loves these shows.

Now I will be the first to admit that, watch the show as much as I do, I do not know the singers names. At this point I know them as Country Girl, Blonde British Petite Girl, Dave Matthews wannabe, Christian Rocker dude, Jersey Girl with the big face, Incredible Black Guy and Petite Hispanic Girl.

They are all very good singers. I think that it could be the best seven singers that they have ever had on the show. They all have appeal. Of the seven the only one who at this point might be suspect is The Jersey Girl and still when she rocks out like she did doing a Zeppelin cover a couple of weeks ago she was great.

So as we are watching the show last week and I am watching the singers and then the judges reviews something struck me. I have noticed each week that the judges just are in love with the Incredible Black Guy and the Petite Hispanic Girl. They are good. I think the girl is a little cold and I always think it is a mistake to take a song that a good portion of the audience is not going to be familiar with. This is what she did. Now the fellow was amazing. I think he is an incredible talent and he might well win the contest. I do not think it is a given however. The fact is that at this point all of the singers have their own niche, I am not sure how many people are changing their votes each week. The loser each week might be the one who gains the least of the votes from the singer departed the week before.

The judges however, to me, have gone over the top. I think that all the singers are good and to go after Blond British and DMB Wannabe last week as hard as they did while praising Hispanic Girl for doing a song no one knows is silly. I told my wife on Wednesday that I wondered if there was some level of conspiracy on the show to make the winner be the most talented technically and more diverse. The Voice is providing some competition, perhaps they are trying to be more serious. My wife said I was being silly and moreover she wanted to enjoy her favorite shows without conspiracy theories thank you very much.

Still watching the judges have a hissy fit over the girl getting eliminate and scolding America to vote for the best one was ridiculous.

Lets be clear about a few things. The show has always been a popularity contest, the contestants that have the widest niche that they fill get to the end, and the judges feedback borders on the nonsensical each week. Telling contestants to be more diverse in their choices and when they do criticizing them for trying to be what they are not is just one example.

The judges on this show need a total revamping. What they really need is Simon.

Scolding your audience and telling them to vote for the judges favorites is perhaps not the best way to treat your audience.

I was put off by it. I myself think that Dave Matthews wannabe and Country Girl could easily win. They could be on the radio tomorrow. I think having the ability to have a commercial success right away is a good trait.

So judges say what you think, but don't say something for the sake of saying something. And don't scold me. I do not respect you enough to put up with it.

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues by Bob Dylan

I suppose I am like most fans of music. We grow familiar with certain artists and music types as we grow older and that is what we listen to the most. I think, however, that I do a better job than most in at least trying to be open to new music. Of course some of the new music I discover is very old, still it qualifies as new to me. My recent discovery of John Prine certainly falls into that area.

For me something became apparent the other day as I was listening to my always on the Satellite Radio Outlaw Country. Bob Dylan is amazing. Bob Dylan was amazing. There is no comparison to this incredibly gifted songwriter. I will admit that the voice perhaps has to be considered an acquired test. The voice however, certainly in the sixties, was not bad and there are lists of singers that were not great technical singers.

This song, it is not the best song Dylan did. What makes it so great however is that it is still great. Dylan wrote so many great songs in that era between 62 and 66 that it is hard to keep track of them all. This song from Highway 61, just one of many great songs on that album and certainly overshadowed by Highway 61 and Like a Rolling Stone is underrated. I might not have not heard it for years and yet when out of the blue I heard it in the truck I just said to myself Wow.

We cannot try so hard to embrace the new that we forget what is amazing in our roots. Bob Dylan was and is the greatest songwriter in the rock era. If you are a Dylan fan then you can come up with scores of characters in his songs that you remember. I had a friend in college who had a party where everyone was supposed to come as a Dylan character. Of course many people were lazy and came with tambourines but how many singers could you have a party and attempt that with their songs.

God is God and no one should compare a mortal with God. But perhaps someday in the future we can say of a singer that we think is amazing and say they are Dylan like. That will be the ultimate compliment.

Huck Finn by Mark Twain

This book is called The Great American Novel by many literary critics. It is a very good book. Still in reading this book, as good as it was, there is no way it can be called a great novel. Twain to me was as much as a satirist as a literary writer.

Huck Finn is often at the top of the list of books banned by libraries and schools across the country. Why? Well like Faulkner in the early twentieth century Twain in the nineteenth used some very racially colorful language. Other concerns were about references to Huck and the Slave Jim going naked on the raft.

These complaints are silly to us in the modern world. The story of Huck Finn is very strong. Still this material is dated. Dated in a way that does not mean it should be controversial but that simply the story is a bit contrived. To me, when Tom appears and he and Huck are making efforts to free Jim the repeated efforts to make the plot more complicated and dangerous do not age well. It is understood that Tom was raised on adventure stories and wants to live out his imagination but the plot and things they have Jim do seem a bit silly and unrealistic.

Of course Twain was writing about a time when Black people were kept in bondage and slavery so perhaps this was just one more layer of ridiculousness he was trying to exhibit to prove the point of how a society could claim to be all beneovelent and gracious as the Southern culture claimed and yet keep slaves. Huck struggles with this too. When he comments on how he thinks less of Tom for Tom saying he would help him free a slave and when he admits he will be going straight to Hell if helps Jim escapes he shows the conflict of the South.

This is a good book. I am glad I read it. Perhaps like much literature it is a matter of style, taste, and personal preference but to me putting Twain in the echelon of writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner and Steinbeck is something that requires a stretch of the nature of the whoppers told by Tom Sawyer.

Read it. Enjoy it. It is, however, overrated.

We Are Young by Fun

Remember when it was considered selling out to put your music in a commercial. As the bands of the sixties finally broke down in the face of the monies that were offered for commercial endorsement it has gone from being considered selling out after you have success to a method of gaining success.

We have seen several bands place their music on commercials and then go from that to mainstream success. I guess one could say that it is not much different from having your music featured in a movie or a television show and gaining popularity from that. Certainly Grey's Anatomy all by itself has made popular a whole group of bands and artists with music featured on it's episodes.

I believe that this song was featured during an add during the Super Bowl. It might have been the one where the car was parachuted to Earth.

In anycase sometime in February this song became heavily featured on what we call " The Upstairs Playlist" which are songs that my son plays and plays. We were all sixteen once. We remember when songs were the most important soundtrack to our lives.

This is a very good song. Good beat, fun to play. It is everywhere currently. I listened to the whole album and certainly some of the comparisons I have heard to Queen in the operatic and at times over the top nature of their songs are apt.

There are good songs out there. One just has to listen and look.

Someone That I Used To Know by Gotye

About six weeks ago my son insisted that I listen to a song on Spotify by a group called Fun. In doing so I noticed that the number one track on Spotify overall was this song by a band called Gotye.

I think this song wins. I do not know anything about this band, I think I may have heard Australia as a home country but I have not confirmed.

This song is haunting. The singer on the high notes has a definite Sting quality to his voice. This is never a bad thing. Music is so fragmented these days, any song that is not rap that makes it into the consciousness of teenagers is rare and must have a broad based appeal.

This song is catchy and well done. Surely one of the best new songs I have heard recently.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

As my son continues to read the horror stories in his English Monsters class he has moved on to Frankenstein. Thus so have I. Looking at the history of this book I always thought it was written at the end of the eighteen hundreds but I have found that it was written in 1818, it's second edition released in 1823.

The first thing that comes to light when reading this book is that everything we have seen and known of the Frankenstein story from modern television and movies is far from the book.

The story is told with a few different perspectives. We first meet Ship's Captain Walton, guiding a ship through the Arctic as he searches for a passage to the Pacific. Locked in by ice and facing a possible mutiny the Captain has much on his mind. Soon he has more. His sailors see a vision of a large man with a sled being pulled by dogs. He seems to be an apparition this far north and soon disappears. However soon he finds a man on an iceflow, half frozen, delirious and pulls him on board.

As the man thaws out and recovers his senses over a couple of days he begins to tell his story to the Captain. His name is Frankenstein. He tells Walton of his life story. His going to college and becoming entranced with Chemistry. Working to the point of exhaustion he discovers a method of reanimation that will allow him to bring the dead to life. Specifically he creates from parts of deceased beings a man. He makes him big and soon has created an eight foot tall man. As this being comes to life the Scientist becomes disgusted with the being, he regrets his decision. The Monster leaves the labratory, and in the part of the story one finds odd the Doctor just forgets him, glad to be rid of him.

Over time however the Doctor learns that he is not rid of the Monster. As losses begin to occur in his life starting with the loss of his youngest brother to a murder we begin to see that the Doctor will have to come to a resolution with his creation.

The Monster has learned much. Upon his revisiting with his creator he tells him of his life since leaving the laboratory. The Monster's treatment at the hand of society and his then anger with and violence toward society is laid at the feat of his creator.

The story goes on from there, we meet Frankenstein again. We see the Doctor, we see the Ship's Captain and we see the end of the story. The losses suffered by the Doctor are never made wholly right.

The story is very well told. It is like a new story as certainly the Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein version never comes to pass.

Interesting to me the story of the anger of the monster felt at his being rejected by society is telling. He loves people, he loves nature, his is a heart capable of love and filled with a desire to be part of the world. As his features and appearance bring nothing but fear and revulsion from those who meet him he is filled with sadness, followed by anger and hate. It does not take a huge stretch of the mind to compare Frankenstein's story with that of a child bullied at school who turns violent on his oppressors, or any of the thousands in jail for violent offenses who have earlier been rejected from society and struck back.


Human nature cannot be changed but certainly the realization that any harm or insult inflicted on a person can cut to the core, can affect their self worth and more. The truth is we never know what is the straw that breaks the camel's back that turns a person's future to one filled with violence. Usually it is not so easily traceable as the straight line one sees with the Monster in Shelly's book. The line however is there, it can be seen, and we should do our best in how we treat others to keep that line from ever having a point of no return.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

I have said in this space before that I am a big fan of Shakespeare. That continues to be the case. Being that I am a huge fan of Roman history a rendition of the history of Caesar told by Shakespeare is a must read.

Shakespeare's version like so many of his other writings have phrases that have become a pert of our language such as Marc Antony's " Friends, Romans, Countrymen." The story is told with much more emphasis on Brutus and the conspirators on the famous March day than on Caesar himself.

Cassius and the other conspirators have decided as the play starts that Caesar must be stopped. It is feared that despite him refusing a crown from the multitudes that the next day, the Ides of March, he does expect to be named King. The recruit Brutus to do the deed. Brutus considers long and is not sure. He knows that no man can put himself above Rome. He fears that soon Caesar will be unstoppable and will cause an end to the Republic.

Caesar has had a soothsayer tell him to beware the Ides of March, his wife Calpurnia begs him to stay home from the Senate for her sake. He considers and almost decides to honor her request. In the end however he goes to the Senate and the rest is, literally, history.

Caesar is killed in the beginning of the end of Act III but the play goes on considerably from there. It is here that Shakespeare has the most telling comments on both the citizens and plebe's of society as well as the ruling class.

Once rid of Caesar the conspirators wonder what the reaction of Marc Antony will be. Antony a confidante of Caesar chooses his reaction carefully. Brutus explains his love of his victim but his love of Rome more forced him to do the deed.

Brutus speaks to the crowds that have gathered and gives a very persuasive speech saying much of the same. His love of Caesar but his need to end the ambition. The people are moved to agree and we see many of the citizens speaking in agreement of the need for Brutus's act. Allowed to speak Antony then speaks of his friend. In a brilliant speech Antony speaks as if in agreement with the murderers but actually in words of agreement is praising Caesar and criticizing the reasoning of the conspirators. In a telling mark against the citizens and how easily they are swayed we see the same people who earlier agreed with Brutus now agreeing with Antony and ready to riot in the streets.

As Antony spake last his side wins and the conspirators must flee. We see Antony and Octavian on the field of battle. In the end, his side defeated and his capture assured Brutus has his servant hold his sword while he runs himself through against it. Antony coming upon the fallen Brutus praises him stating " There was a Man." Antony in a period of 48 hours has seen the death of both Caesar and Brutus. He speaks well of Brutus because he believes that, he alone of the conspirators, acted with noble causes and thoughts, that is to save the Republic.

Shakespeare's language and the turn of a phrase is far and beyond his contemporaries and ours. This is a wonderful play and another example of the great gift of Shakespeare.

Charlie Wilson's War

Directed by Mike Nichols, written by Aaron Sorkin, this 2007 movie had a pedigree that made it stand out. With a cast of Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Amy Adams the movie was not lacking for top notch acting.

As a commercial release however the movie did not do that well. Hoffman was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor but did not win.

The movie tells the story of Texas Demcocratic Congressman Charlie Wilson and his efforts to help the rebels in Afghanistan fighting the Russians who have invaded their country. Wilson portrayed accurately as a hard drinking, fun loving Texas Congressman is convinced by a wealthy Texas socialite Joanne Herring (portrayed by Roberts ) to look into doing more to help the Afghan people and in particular the refugees that are streaming into Pakistan.

Tom Hanks gives a strong performance as Wilson. Realistically does Hanks ever give a bad performance. I, myself, would like to see him play against character once, play a true bad guy but at this juncture it might not work, he is too ingrained in our minds. Wilson visits Pakistan and is moved by the refugees and their plight. He is shocked that the weapons we are supplying are as good as useless against the gunships that the Russians are using.

When he returns home he uses his position on the Armed Services Committee to raise the allotment to help the Afgan people from five to ten million dollars. When he asks for a CIA agent to brief him on the situation on the ground he is presented with Gust Avratokos, a CIA Agent of huge passion who, because he really does not have anything else to do, becomes Wilson's main accomplice.

Over the course of a couple of years Wilson keeps pushing on the committee for more money for weapons and training until we see him at an appropriation's meeting asking for the budget for the rebels to be raised to 500 million. A colleague asks him where this appropriation started and he says with a sheepish grin, five million. So Wilson gets the job done.

It is a very good story, for me the movie works on all levels. The scenes of negotiations with the Israeli's and Egyptians to gain the Russian made weapons that must be gained for the rebels are very strong and gives one a peek at what the Covert ops world might be like. Why Russian made weapons? So that there can be plausible deniabiltiy on the America's behalf.

The end is telling as well. Of course the movie being written in 2007 gave the makers a clear chance to add a prologue with the benefit of time that hints at what becomes of Afghanistan. When the Russian army leaves America celebrates, Charlie Wilson celebrates and all feel good. We see Charlie winning an award, the first civilian given an award from the Covert Services. However at the end of the movie we see Charlie fighting still for monies to help the Afghans. Schools, hospitals and other non military help. He fails and fails miserably. With the war over, the Russian army gone America's interest has gone elsewhere.

Philip Seymour- Hoffman is fantastic in his role. If it is possible for an actor that wins as many awards as he does to be underrated he is.


Wilson never one to mince words said that " we fucked up the end game" Those soldiers fighting in Afghanistan for the last ten years would be sure to agree with him.