After City Council business I met Officer J. Tannock and Bohdan. She says his or her name means “given by God” and the dog arrived from Czech Republic where we apparently get all our dogs here. Thanks in advance for your service!
Tannock and Bohdan will be appearing Tuesday at National Night Out.
Personally, I’m looking forward to SF Mime Troupe “Treasure Island” at Cubberley Center outdoors, the amphitheatre. But if I happen on one of our eight block parties, I’ll try to sniff a few butts and get some paw.
The A’s beat Chicago 3-2 last week but Ryan Cordell’s peg of Matt Chapman trying to score from third had me sussing out the clip of Blue Moon Odom, a pitcher, pinch-running and trying to score on a short foul pop out in Game 5 of the World Series; Joe Morgan, who the announcer said was hitless that far in the series, threw to Johnny Bench for the game-ending out. The A’s of course won the 1972 classic, likely the first competition that I watched pitch by pitch. The other standout plays are striking out Bench on a fake intentional walk and Joe Rudi catch against the wall.
The catcher for the Sox here, the one imitating Johnny Bench is James McCann, who was a first time all star this year. He is from Santa Barbara area, played at Arkansas, drafted by Tigers then moved to Chi-town. He has a beautiful Christian wife, and twins named Christian and Kane — amazing what the internet tells us these days. When baseball cards came out around 1951, with Topps and Bowman, the cards were the primary source of info for fans about the athletes, augmenting what they could hear on radio.
To reiterate: the A’s won that world series and 3-2 on July 14 despite the fine play by Ryan Cordell and James McCann.
Laird Cregar in “Hangover Square” as a troubled pianist. He also appears in “Heaven Can Wait”. Cregar died at age 31 after a weightloss regimen but had made 16 fiilms, and has a star on the Walk of Fame.
Tonite: ***** (Five stars)
This Happy Breed**
Meet Me in St. Louis ***
Convenient and cheap, but I’d rather take the wife to see Tarantino “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” and I’ve seen it twice already. Certain I’ve seen MMIS a couple times, as well, here.
But I should say seeing a movie again at Stanford Theatre is still a splendor based on numerous factors such as: price, the crowd or co-responders; cheap popcorn and Coke; big screen, memories of seeing such with my father; or with The Cohens, who sometimes make a beeline to the threatre before dropping their bags off.
(edit to add, the next day: Terry, Phyllis and I saw Tarantino instead, me for the third time)
Wednesday:**** (Four stars, with a bullet or bang –!!)
Lust for Life **
Cabin in the Sky **
Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh and not, as far as I know, an influence on Iggy Pop. Is there a source of that phrase that pre-dates 1956?
blacked with: I don’t think I’ve heard of this, 1943 musical with: Eddie Rochester Anderson, Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, “Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe”, “Li’l Black Sheep”, “Ain’t It De Truth”(sic), “Dat Old Debbil Consequence” — which reminds me, I used to think there should be a reality quiz show called “Toot or Consequences” in which if people get answers wrong, maybe questions on the arts, Jack Walrath will let them have it; “Honey in the Honeycomb” “Taking a Chance on Love”, “In My Old Virginia Home”; “Going Up” — I am breaking here, to add this to my electronic calendar — there are six chances, a 5:40 and a 9:45 three days running — and maybe that can be a folo in itself: what happened to these songs? Things ain’t what they used to be, indeedy.
Halliwell, 5th, has him as “John W. Bublett” yet wikipedia has him as “John William Sublett” pka “John Bubbles”, a vaudeville star
Saturday, 8/10:******(six stars, likely the pride of the pack)
Sunset Boulevard ***
Picnic ***
(not to be a spoiler but there is a dead body floating in the pool of the new Tarantino “….Hollywood” film, and a voice over I think by the Brad Pitt character)
and1: this is a William Holden gig; see also by William Inge, “Dark at The Top of the Stairs” a Jewish teen version of which I made a hash of back in summer of ’82; I memorized enough of the kid’s “hard-boiled” speech to be admitted to Rod Alexander’s acting workshop, wherein a highlight was doing Neil Simon’s “Odd Couple” one scene with a guy named John Glenn who claimed he was related to the Rockefellers but not the astronauts. I still somehow recall pacing in the shadows of Rollins Chapel as I worked on my lines, for the audition, Inge.
Wednesday, 8/14:***** (Five stars)
Cluny Brown **
Heaven Can Wait ***
There’s a metaphysical moral theme continued from the previous bill…which somehow makes me want to call Brown Clunsey as in Broonzy.
Saturday, 8/17- Tuesday, 8/20 ***
although I am producing or seeing 3 concerts that weekend — and I just noticed that from now to September 17 there are screening every night at Stanford Theatre ie 63 days or 9 straight weeks
So I’ll likely be attending the M or the T.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
that runs nearly three hours, matinee only on the weekend
And: I am producing a Dayna Stephens concert on Sunday at The Mitch.
Quirkily more than curmudgeon-like, I pretend there are no classic movies since 1987
I’m not a Packard, and drive a Chevy but I would do “Picnic” b/w “Dark at the Top of the Stairs” or “Dark…” with “The Graduate”
Wednesday, 8/21:***** (Five stars)
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn ****
Curse of the Cat People *
James Dunn VS James Dean? He won the AA.
Not sure I get the implied connection here: childhood? Halliwell lets drop that there is a Cat People from 1942 — ** — by the same producer. I’d almost want to see “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” with “Can’t Stop The Music” the Greenwich Village vehicle Village People (1980). That also leads nicely, as a music theme, to…
(And while I am at it, I’d back “Cabin In the Sky” with Dan Pritzker’s new biopic about Buddy Bolden, which is being poorly received but has great music and beautiful Jim Crow era comfort workers).
andand: also, I would go “Pygmalion” 1940 GB with “My Fair Lady” — which they may already have done — and also all four (!!!!) versions of “A Star is Born”, 1937, 1954, 1976, 2018 — by the fourth version it seems Brad Cooper’s motivation is “Fredric March did it”, if you excuse the digression.
Saturday, 8/24:
Sun Valley Serenade *
Orchestra Wives **
Almost worth seeing — see above about Jack Walrath – – or Marquis Hill — about “Toots and Consequences” — just for the Nichlolas Brothers — and “I’ve Got a Girl In Kalamazoo” which as a kid I always thought was “I’ve Got a Girl who Swallowed a Kazoo”. Glenn Miller is in both flicks and his orchestra, but also Jackie Gleason and Cesar Romero, the Joker, which to me means Steve Miller.
interlude: equivalency of 2,000 words summarizing Cesar Romero:
Wednesday, 8/28: **** (4 stars — and in Halliwell system one star means reason enough to see it, four stars quadruply so)
The Heiress **
The Dark Mirror **
(Whereas I would do “Heiress” with “The Wolf Man” (Lon Chaney, Jr; 1940) just for the bad pun, even dropping a point)
Saturday, 8/31: **** (four stars)
The Mark of Zorro (1940) ***
Hangover Square *
Kind of makes me wonder what the very conservative David Packard thinks of DT.
Leadership, not delerium tremens. H notes that the lead of “Hangover Square”, Laird Cregar, “died after slimming for this role”. Morbid reason to see the film.
I also want a night or bill devoted to that guy from SF who plays the patsy gangster in two Bogart films, and David Thomson has an essay on him.
Wednesday, 9/4: ****** (six stars)
Now, Voyager ***
The Letter ***
Saturday, 9/7: *** (three stars)
The Ladykillers *
Importance of Being Earnest **
Halliwell gives The Ladykillers only one star (*) but I remember liking it, with Alec Guiness an Ealing Studio British film.
Wednesday, 9/11: ****** (six stars)
Stage Door ***
Bachelor Mother ***
Note: I am producing a John Santos concert at Mitchell Park on the Friday, 9/13.
Saturday, 9/14 thru Tuesday, 9/17: ***** (5 stars)
Double Indemnity ****
True Confession *
Raymond Chandler co-wrote with Billy Wilder the script based on a novel by James M. Cain:
kind of an awkward and lopsided bill, though both feature Fred MacMurray — is the connection that the famous prologue to DI is a “confession”?? Yet: I’ll be there, likely.
Ideally I’d like to go eight times to see these, between now and mid-September — a huge fan could literally go every night, for about $300, the cost of a good shrink! Tonite, I am more into binge-watching “Succession” of HBO — the faux Rupert Murdoch biopic series.
Hats off to David Packard, again, for making this fly. But I would like to see something with currently living people.
And I recommend Tarantino over this, in most cases.
Franklin Bruno formerly of nothing planted blue now has a band called the human hearts and a song about cheap sunglasses; which speaks to me as a post baby boomer Gen X indie guy who likes math, more than the long-haired bearded Texas true Boomer dudes does.
( but what got me here was wearing that this Bruno fellow was Litigious enough to go after my friend Rupa Marya who made a video “growing Upward” while painted blue.
But I’m kidding you this is my protest I’m defending Katy Perry not that you need my help against the idiot Taliban judges who think she stole too much from some random Christian black dude. He also called her “a witch”. Jokes on him when he gets to Heaven and everyone is painted blue and making Egyptian hand jesters. And yes I stole dat from no exit.
and: “pgmeneria” is an exclusive Plastic Alto coinage that means “the pain or pang in your belly when you are at a matinee when you should be working, 25 years ago, and you ate something dubious and may have to run — like a hot dog revolving for days or nachos with too-yellow or Yellow #2 cheese — to the “men’s” + “erea” and or a Greek word for eye disease you are too lazy to look up actual spelling.
Andand: It’s suddenly occurred to me last night that when I was 30 there was no one over 50 he was funny so therefore now that I am 50 there is no one under 30 who thinks I am funny. Sad. Blue.
presbyobia or photokeratitis — Somewhere over the rainbow birds painted that color sing And more of my half imagined half invented half remembered puns come true
And he’s playing The Mitch in Palo Alto on Friday September 27, 2019, Sun Kil Moon. For whatever reason, the first person to purchase a ticket, for 20$ was a guy named Mitchell Park
B/w
who knew that there was a version of “Wichita Lineman” solo piano by Keith Jarrett? It would be good if Mark Kozelek wrote contradict lyrics for this.
The Oakland Raiders team is fine
The catcher for the Sox here, the one imitating Johnny Bench is James McCann, who was a first time all star this year. He is from Santa Barbara area, played at Arkansas, drafted by Tigers then moved to Chi-town. He has a beautiful Christian wife, and twins named Christian and Kane — amazing what the internet tells us these days. When baseball cards came out around 1951, with Topps and Bowman, the cards were the primary source of info for fans about the athletes, augmenting what they could hear on radio.
To reiterate: the A’s won that world series and 3-2 on July 14 despite the fine play by Ryan Cordell and James McCann.
Katy Perry, 2014
B/w
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 