WRIGHT’S 1940 NOVEL TOO IMPORTANT

 Richard Wright’s 1940 provocative novel, “Native Son,” could be the narrative for current events as racial strife continues unabated.  Here are the thoughts of the central character, pursued by the law, in Wright’s novel:

“Why should not this cold white world rise up as a beautiful dream in which he could walk and be at home, in which it would be easy to tell what to do and what not to do?  If only someone had gone before and lived or suffered or died—made it so that it could be understood!

(Thank you Janet in the UM OLLI class on civil rights where you provided a bibliography that led to the Wright novel. dz)          

RACIAL DIVESITY CHALLENGES HERE

BLOOMINGTON — Racial diversity is coming to this 150 year old suburb and the city is attempting to update it’s 20-year plan to integrate non-white residents into the community.  Presently almost half of local kindergarten students are non-whites.

At a meeting Wednesday night in the cafeteria of Kennedy High School, city staffers attempted to get feedback from a few residents in a room with tiny backless stools (hard on the back), no air conditioning and no microphone.  Only one person of color attended this meeting.  (I left after 45 back wrenching minutes, straining to hear the presentation.)

From what I gathered they were looking for suggestions that might promote integration.  I suggested the annual Labor Day carnival and classic car show at Bonaventure Catholic Church as the kind of event that would attract a diverse audience.  (I go every year.)

Besides racial diversity assimilation, the outlook is poor for infrastructure with 74 percent of the sewer pipes and almost as many water mains at least 45 years old.  More than half the park buildings need repairs or replacements.

The city sends out a newsletter periodically that non-English readers would find useless.  The city’s cable TV channel might be of interest.  

“THE MASTER” RESONATES WITH TODAY’S NEWS

The main character in the 2012 film “The Master” is reminiscent of today’s headlines where a mentally disturbed man is released from the military and can’t or won’t fit into mainstream society.  It’s about a man lost, lonely and looking for a family, any family.

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Joaquin Phoenix plays the obsessed sailor post World War II who drifts into a religious cult where its messiah is portrayed by Philip Seymour Kaufman.  The cult leader is amused by the deranged man whom he calls an animal but other cult members, including his wife played by Amy Adams, see the man as “insane” and a danger.  

The sailor is a poor candidate for cult membership because he refuses to follow the messiah and in the end is rejected.  The story is thin but the character development and acting are great.  If the movie had been made 40 years ago Orson Welles would be the messiah and Richard Widmark would be the crazy guy.

“BLACK CALHOUNS” POST CIVIL WAR SUCCESS STORY

Parts of this book are interesting, but author Gail Lumet Buckley lacks focus and it’s not an easy read.  Buckley is the daughter of African American singer Lena Horne.  The book traces the history of a successful African American family post-slavery with emphasis on Horne’s story and civil rights.  Less would have been more.

ALL’S NOT WELL IN LAKE WOEBEGONE

After the latest in a series of cop vs. African American shooting this past week, it’s apparent that status quo politics won’t reform police departments or get guns off the street.  While people demonstrated in frustration in front of the Governor’s Mansion, they were preaching to the choir since Gov. Dayton has identified the shooting as being related to racial profiling.  

The demonstrators need to take their act to Isanti County and plea at the home of Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt to pass police reform legislation.  We need to elect people to the Legislature and Congress who support gun control and police reform.

Meanwhile, county and city governments are silent.  The county attorney probably will call a grand jury which never indicts police in these Twin Cities police shootings.  More anger will ensue.

(From Pioneer Press:)  DFL Party African American Caucus board secretary Kelis Houston said “she wants to see a stop to the endless circle of protection for police…The mayor has the power to address the union contract which protects them, and if the mayor doesn’t have the power, the governor does.”  (But the governor needs enabling legislation.)

Although the governor got some money from the legislature this session to address African American poverty issues, more needs to be done to level the playing field.

It’s been almost 50 years since the 1967 violent Plymouth Avenue riot in North Minneapolis, and the road ahead does not look promising unless we get some new voices in positions of power here. 

REQUIRED SUMMER VIEWING

Stupid whites can be presidential advisors or anything they want to be, an African American woman observes in the 1979 black comedy “Being There” wherein a witless gardener becomes either the new Messiah or the next president.  The mindless utterings of Chauncey Gardiner will resonate with some who are following the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Besides this Hal Ashby masterpiece, have a look at Tim Robbins mockumentary on U.S. politics, “Bob Roberts.”

It’s a long hot summer so have a few yuks.

MEET THE 16MM GUY

OLLI member Don Wilkie, a 16mm movie collector, is showing part of his collection of westerns this summer at a local senior apartment complex.  Wilkie has been active in the western movie collectors’ association and is conversant on the history of poverty row studios.  His summer showings are from the LIppert Studio and included “Marshal of Heldorado” (1950) with the handsome James Ellison who was the romantic lead in the 40s Fox musical “The Gang’s All Here.”  

Wilkie has been featured in the Austin and suburban Sun newspapers here.  I thought I was quaint collecting VHS movies, but Wilkie reaches back to a time when you could get 16mm movies from local rental libraries, much like the Blockbusters that went bust.

Eyes Shut Movie Is A Mess

A bored doctor freaks out at a kinky Halloween party and it’s not even Halloween while his wife has a nightmare in "Eyes Wide Shut" 1999.  Almost three hours are consumed until we reach this happy conclusion.  Kubrick should have quit while he was ahead with “Clockwork Orange.”  Thumbs down on this Cruise-Kidman mess.  Britain's Pinewood Studio is where it was filmed, not Manhattan.  Kubrick quit making films in the USA many years ago.

OLLI Tours Streetcar Museum 2016

MINNEAPOLIS — Some of the OLLI seniors actually rode on one of these street cars when they were kids, from Lake Harriet to Como Park before street cars gave way to busesin 1954.  Motor men from the Streetcar Museum have fond street car memories.

MINNEAPOLIS — U of M OLLI scholars gathered at Lake Harriet’s restaurant on the beach for lunch after the Street Car event, now an annual OLLI summer get together.  One of the students was born in The Hague and lived with her parents in South Africa during apartheid and free times.

"South Pacific" --Memorable Summer 2016 event

BROADWAY AT THE GUTHRIE

Sending shivers up my spine with his wonderful baritone rendering of “Some Enchanted Evening” was Broadway actor Edward Staudenmayer as Emile de Becque in the 1940s musical “South Pacific.”

Another show stopper was the ensemble’s gusto performance of “There is Nothin’ Like a Dame,” so well done with the vocals and choreography and making it most memorable for the final preview performance at Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater.  Kudos to director Joseph Haj, but the Guthrie’s steep stairway is much too challenging for seniors and parking/driving in downtown is more nerve racking then ever.

“South Pacific” was the season’s big money maker and next summer “Sunday in the Park with George” is being offered which I saw in Houston.  George is not my cup of tea.  www.guthrietheater.org

CAMP RIPLEY JUNE 2016

 

VIETNAM REMEMBERED

CAMP RIPLEY — Over a thousand Minnesotans died in Vietnam while 68,000 Gopher State residents served in that war.  Here I am in my “Navy Whites” in front of a Huey helicopter, the kind used in Vietnam.  The Military Museum is at this Minnesota National Guard training center, not far from St. Cloud.

GOVERNOR’S RETREAT

CAMP RIPLEY — This cabin may have been imported from Norway and is infrequently used by the governor, although I doubt that Mark Dayton has retreated here although the horse fancier Al Quie favored this “Valhalla.” 

MILITARY MUSEUM

CAMP RIPLEY — A very cramped little museum on the base tries to pay honor to those who served in several wars.  The Viking Battalion’s story lends itself to a movie with soldiers on skis sabotaging a Nazi German facility in Norway experimenting with nuclear warfare. We toured this military base as part of a U of M OLLI class.  Ain’t education great?

TRUMP vs SCOTLAND’S PRISTINE SEASCAPE

“The worst environmental crime in the United Kingdom’s history,” is how filmmaker Anthony Baxter described Donald Trump’s golf course development on Scotland’s pristine coastline, leveling 4,000 year old sand dunes and endangering wildlife and habitat. 

Trump’s Scottish campaign is detailed in Baxter’s award-winning documentary, “You’ve Been Trumped,” available on DVD.

Even American golfers, who are the target market for this venture, reacted negatively to the golf course which they said is “gaudy” and not in Scotland’s tradition where golfing started.

The farm of longtime Aberdeen, Scotland, resident Michael Forbes, who Trump said “lives like a pig,” was targeted by the billionaire for removal because, along with windmills, it “ruined the view from the golf course.”  

When Scotland’s Parliament refused to order the removal of the eco-friendly windmills, Trump scrubbed plans to build a hotel on the site.  Also, Trump canceled plans to seek compulsory orders to remove local residents from their properties.  Residents prevailed over Trump even though the golf course was built, but it was difficult because the ruling elites sided with Trump while local property owners suffered the turmoil caused by Trump’s ill conceived scheme. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431694/donald-trump-global-bully

Historic St. Paul Tour 2016

HISTORIC SCHOOL

During a stop at St. Joseph School on Summit Hill, St. Paul, I met several fellow students in the U of M OLLI program who hail from Bloomington.  One lady was raised on the east side and moved to prestigious West Bloomington — the American dream fulfilled.  Another, like myself, was on staff at Normandale Community College for a short time and knew Dave Doctor of the music department (his son Pete is a famous Pixar film producer.)

ST. PAUL’S FAMOUS SWEENEY’S BAR

We stopped for cheese and crackers at this Victorian like setting.  Last time I was here in the 1980s this Selby Dale neighborhood was treacherous at night but now it is a magnet for young professionals.  TOP PHOTO

NOT OVERLOOKED AT THE PARK

In  the background at Overlook Park is the University Club in the 1920s which was a magnet for Scott and Zelda Fitzgrald. (Fitzgerald lived in house on left.)  It is at the top of a steep hill that hindered city development in the early days.  A streetcar tunnel solved the problem.  The tour on Friday was through the U of M OLLI program and the Minnesota History Center with an informative tour guide.

BLOOMINGTON CIVIC THEATER EXPERIENCE

IMMIGRANT’S STORY — “sun crying”

Bloomington civic theater cast member discussed Jewish culture, immigrants, oppression and hope during the audience talk back session after today’s performance of “Fiddler on the Roof.”  Few musicals stir up such emotion as this venerable classic and one audience member bore witness that this production was equal to the Broadway debut that he saw 51 years ago.

Director/choreographer Michael Gruber provided the cast with background on the pograms in Eastern Europe in the early 1900s and this was helpful.

“Fiddler” remains relevant in light of today’s report from the New York Times that Pope Francis received drawings from Syrian children in a refugee camp — one showing children drowning in the sea and another depicting the sun crying.

(John Paul Gamoke makes you believe that he is Tevye.)

MUSIC THEATER TRADITION, MINNESOTA STYLE

With acclaimed programs in music theater at Mankato State University and U of M Duluth it’s a small wonder why we have a wealth of talented young performers in the Twin Cities and beyond.  Mentorship of young performers learning from professionals is one of the byproducts of Bloomington Artistry’s civic theater efforts, we learned Tuesday  at the U of M OLLI class at Bloomington Arts Center. 

It’s a two-way street, explained Equity actor John Gamoke, with the professional actor learning from the newbies.  Anita Ruth for the past several years has conducted these informative classes on music theater and it’s time well spent in the lifetime learning program.

PAY INEQUALITY FOR MEXICANS PROPOSED

BLOOMINGTON — A Minnesota Republican legislator has introduced a bill that would discriminate against migrant farm laborers based on their country of origin, said Ken Peterson, Minnesota's Commissioner of Labor and Industry, Tuesday night at the Progressive Isssues meeting at Davannis Restaurant.  

Farm workers now earn $12 per hour for working up to 48 hours per week, but overtime pay is time and a half or $18 an hour.  Under the Republican measure Mexican workers would not be eligible for over time pay, Peterson said. This is a “bad step” and “let’s give these people a break,” Peterson added.  The labor commissioner said he believes that Gov. Mark Dayton would veto the bill if it ever reaches his desk.

Boise’s Oldies FM Station 99.5 reported that Idaho Democrats held the largest ever caucus in the United States and Bernie got 80 percent of the vote in Ada County and 78 percent in the state. 

Junk Dealers, RKO and Movie Sale

GOING APE OVER RKO

Thank you Rick Notch for giving me this wonderful encyclopedia, “The RKO Story” by Jewell and Harbin, of all you need to know about American movies.  The back stories on “Hunchback” and “King Kong” were entertaining as I watched these two movies last night.  We should have been at the Orpheum or Fox in Spokane to see both of these on the big screen.

PEDDLERS TO PROCESSORS

The family business is being honored now at the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest with the display “Jewish Scrap Stories”.  I am interested since my father and two uncles were in the scrap business in Eastern Washington.  (Uncle Dave was quite prominent with B. Barer and Sons, Walla Walla.)  Families fled from persecution in Europe and emigrated to American in search of a better life, the narrative reads.  Most everyone my age knows of scrap metal dealers, the first recyclers, in their communities.  See the exhibit at the Jewish Community Center, St. Louis Park.

MOUSE IN THE REFRIGERATOR

Imagine a movie junkie like me being in a room with nothing but old VHS tapes and DVDs.  That’s the scene at the Southdale Library which is selling ($2 and 25 cents) the massive collection of movies and TV shows that the Star Tribune TV critic received over the years from networks and studios.  It boggles the mind. 

Lash Larue Ruled in PRC Cowboy Movies

I vote for PRC cowboy Lash Larue, if you are reading this Mr. Freeman, who taught the class on Silver Screen Cowboys.

SATURDAY MATINEE REVISITED

Grab your popcorn and get there early because it’s SRO for Len Freeman’s Silver Screen Cowboys class at the U of M McNamara Center.  He was a slob on the screen, but Gabby Hayes was conversant on fine wine and great art.  Can we assume that he chose the chablis served with the stew at the chuckwagon campfire?

SUNSET FOR SUNSET — His incredible good looks couldn’t save Sunset Carson’s job as a Republic cowboy star when he showed up at a studio party drunk and with a 15 year old girl.

DEMON RUM — Several early Hollywood stars were drunks, including Gene Autry and William Hopalong Cassidy, but the later reformed when he married the lovely Grace Bradley.

The class features a chapter from a western serial typically shown during Saturday Kiddee Matinees so we are biting our nails as the plane carrying Gene Autry and Frankie Darro is spinning toward the ground.  Stay tuned till next week when we conclude “The Phantom Empire.”

SCREAMING KIDS IN THE THEATER

Who can remember a theater full of kids screaming when the cartoons started?  One of my classmates in Silver Screen Cowboys (U of M OLLI, McNamara Center) vividly recalls watching the weekly serials and westerns at the Park Theater in St. Paul on Saturday afternoon kids’ Matinee for ten cents.  (The theater at Selby and Snelling was torn down for an office building.)

We then tripped down memory lane about all the lost neighborhood movie houses in the cities.

As a kid growing up in Spokane, Saturdays before television would find us at the Manitou Presbyterian Church on 29th Street where they would roll 16mm excerpts from Abbott & Costello comedies.  The kids were off-the-wall crazy.  Also, the Orpheum and Fox theaters showed Saturday Matinees.  All that died with television which is a shame.

Our instructor Lens Freeman reminded us of the “cowboy code” which appeared in comic books:  “Avoid drinking, smoking and gambling.”  No mention of swearing.

February 2016 Fishing Tournament at Bush Lake

SATURDAY’S BEACH PARTY

With the temperature in the high 50s, I headed to Bush Lake for the Fishing Tournament where thin ice warnings didn’t keep spectators and SUVS off the lake.  Later in the week it will be back in the ‘30s.  (2/27/16)

WINTER SCENES, NORMANDALE & BUSH LAKES

Big Eyes, Trumbo

BIG EYES, BIG LIES, I MARRIED A MONSTER

I was in Frisco in June 1962 visiting Jan and Alan in Oakland when the Walter Keane big eyes “art” was the buzz up and down Market Street.

“Big Eyes” is a gaze at ‘60s sexism, co-dependent relationships and old fashioned American hucksterism.  Amy Adams is quite convincing as the Stepford wife Margaret married to Walter Keane who is a clownish charlatan as played by Chris Waltz.

In the interviews on the DVD, director Tim Burton discusses good vs bad art and compares the Keanes to goofy movie director Ed Wood who is immortalized in an earlier Burton film that I adore.  In a revealing aside, Burton reveals that he cast Kristen Ritter in a supporting role because she looks like Barbara Steele, who was the “queen of gothic horror” in Mario Bava and Roger Corman ‘60s AIP movies.  Burton can’t help himself.  He must have been influenced by the horror kings on late night TV as a kid like we all were.

“TRUMBO” JAILED FOR POLITICAL BELIEFS

Like a Frank Capra story, the little guy stands up to the power elite and reclaims his good name before the curtain drops.  And the crowd at Minneapolis’ Riverview Theater applauded last night as the credits rolled.  The movie was appropriate for today’s events that feature billionaires, big banks and a seriously diminished middle class.

The hero is Dalton Trumbo who was uncooperative with the House Unamerican Activities Committee in the late 1940s so he was put behind bars.  The villains include the venomous Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper brilliantly portrayed by Helen Mirren as an anti semitic snake out to destroy the pinko/red script writers.  

Other heroes include actor Kirk Douglas, director Otto Preminger and B movie producer Franklin King played by John Goodman who threatens a Congressional investigator with a baseball bat.  The movie short changes the accolades that should be showered on Trumbo’s script for the King Brothers’ Monogram film noir “Gun Crazy” and the Kings’ “The Brave One” that earned Trumbo an Oscar under a pseudonym.

These melodramas where we can cheer for the downtrodden and boo the villains are best seen communally by the like-minded in a mid century modern setting like the historic Riverview.  I am glad I could have been there for the fun. http://www.dailynews.com/arts-and-entertainment/20160217/bryan-cranston-delivers-winning-performance-in-trumbo

Girl Most Likely and Best Little Whore House

58 YEAR WAIT FOR “GIRL”

When I first saw “The Girl Most Likely” in 1957 at Spokane’s State Theater, who knew it would take 58 years before I would own a copy.  The DVD arrived this past week and it was worth the wait for Gower Champion’s choreography and Jane Powell vocals in RKO’s last movie at 790 Gower St.  

When I sat at the same picnic table with Jane and Louis Nye at NBC in 1963 I wisely didn’t butt in to compliment her on “Girl” but the water ballet, “Balboa,” is super.  (Jane must have been rehearsing a Vegas act.)

Now I am starting a campaign to get Universal to release on DVD “The Second Greatest Sex,” a western musical with George Nader, Jeanne Craine and Mamie VanDoren. I saw that at the Riverside in Spokane.  It has a good cast.

Elsewhere … the campy Mexican horror movies, “Brainiac” and “The Vampire’s Coffin” on Netflix are worth a few laughs, particularly the monster with the paper mache mask in “Brainiac.”

PERFECT PRE SUPERBOWL SHOW

BLOOMINGTON —  “Too much cussin’,” opined the matron next to me Sunday at Artistry’s “Best Little Whore House in Texas” staging with a spirited group of “college football players” doing a Texas line dance that looked like clogging or tap dance.  Kudos to Tyrone Russell the lead college boy and director Joe Chvala for this memorable moment in an otherwise forgettable 1978 Tommy Tune Broadway musical.

Remiscent of Ted Cruz as a Texas windbag politician was Hazen Markoe as the mayor and Senator Wingwoah, also inspired by the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn.

The Texas line dance was such a smash that it was reprised during the curtain call by much of the ensemble.  Those who left during the curtain call missed a lot of fun.

Kudos to Jim Pounds as Sheriff Ed Earl, a good ole boy no doubt inspired by Dukes of Hazard.  Anita Ruth on the honky tonk piano provided the right notes to make us believe we were at the notorious Chicken Ranch where Texans played when they weren’t at the local Baptist church.

2016 Caribbean Cruise and Tampa Bay

 Band Wagon at Ringling Museum, Sarasota

CONFERRING WITH CAYMAN BANKERS

GRAND CAYMAN — Here’s where Mitt banks so it must be good.  But I got splinters from shaking hands with these bankers.  It was 84 and humid when we landed in Georgetown.

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO CARIBBEAN

In Willemstad, Curacao there are about 115 Jewish households.  Mikve Israel-Emmanuel, now a Reconstrucionist congregation, is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Americas.  Another synagogue on this island, Shaarei Tsedek, a modern orthodox congregation, shown here.  www.snoa.com

“SAWDUST IN YOUR VEINS”

SARASOTA, FLA. —Childhood memories were brought back for me at the Ringling Circus Museum which features a billboard from the Cole Bros. Circus which the Zarkin Family attended in Spokane in the 1940s under the big top.

Prominent at the museum is the poster for the Demille epic “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) that glorifies the golden age of circuses, but is a schmaltzy mess with Charlton Heston chewing up the scenery with Betty Hutton.  Jimmy Stewart as a criminal clown saves the life of Heston’s character and no doubt they chatted about far right politics between takes.

WASTING AWAY IN MARGARETAVILLE

KEY WEST — One of our mates from the ship, William, might be here in the Green Parrot Bar, and was a running joke because he never returned to the ship.  The cruises dump about 20,000 gawkers on this tropical island party town which clogs up the historic area.  

ENTERTAINMENT AT SEA

(We rubber necked our way through the galley where they feature a walk in oven which is a great idea.) A highlight was the jazz band concert where  trumpet player Yuri from the Ukraine did a boffo rendition of the cha cha hit “Cherry Pink”.  At another show, former Letterman Mark Preston, did some old hits from the ‘50s, but was beyond his prime.  The Boogey Nights dancers and singers did a great show with just the right pacing, costumes and scenery.

Schooner Bar had the Viking-Seattle game on and we saw the very sad end.  This bar featured an annoying loud trivia game.

BAD BOY WITH BENTLEY GRILL

Alamo surprised us with an upgrade with this new Chrysler 300C which had every gizmo imaginable including a moon roof and leather interior.  We rode in style for a week in Tampa Bay.

Highsmith Portrayed as Angry, Prejudice in Book

READ LAST CHAPTER FIRST

Before you see “Carol” read Marijane Meaker’s memoir “Highsmith” about her two year affair with Patricia Highsmith, author of “The Price of Salt” and “Strangers on a Train.”  Meaker gets it wrong about the movie made from the later title.  Farley Granger played the tennis player, not Robert Walker.  The last chapter sums up the real Highsmith, brandishing a switch blade and spewing anti-Semitic and racists nonsense.  “Highsmith” is an interesting look at the artists’ lives in Greenwich Village in the 1950s.

I read this on a Caribbean cruise Jan. 2016.

SINATRA, LATHAM AND SIMMS AT CEMETARY

 Driving into Desert Memorial Park FM Mod 107.3 was playing Frank’s “Fly Me to The Moon” so we knew this was the right moment to honor him on the 100th year of his birth.

So modest a gravestone for such an important talent, I thought.  “The Best is Yet to Come” implies some notions about the hereafter.

What song would you pick for Frank's grave?  His gravestone is easy to find since it is decorated with flags.  Other celebrities are lost amongst the flat grave markers.

JACK LATHAM, MY FRIEND AT KNBC NEWS

CATHEDRAL CITY — KNBC news anchor Jack Latham is the one good thing I remember from working at KNBC/4 news in LA in 1963-64.  Latham took an interest in me, a flunky editorial assistant.  His career started at KHQ in Spokane and he appeared as a news anchor in the cult classic film “Wild in the Streets.”  He also had an uncredited part in the ‘30s classic movie “Showboat.”  

Three of us searched Desert Memorial Park last Friday for his grave marker. 

GINNY SIMMS, MINNESOTA MOVIE, RECORDING STAR

CATHEDRAL CITY —  Singer Ginny Simms, a Minnesota native, was well known for her movie and radio appearances.  She also owned Breezy Point Resort near Brainerd.  She appeared in the RKO ‘40s musical comedy “You’ll Find Out” with band leader Kay Kaiser with whom she was involved.  

Her grave stone was difficult to find. Loved ones spend thousands for burial here and it’s almost impossible to find the graves.