Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s Testimony Before Congress Sets Off Toyota Tempest
Commentary on Ray LaHood’s (Secretary of Transportation) comments to Congress on February 3, 2010.
Read More

“Crazy Heart:” Bridges At His Best and One of the Year’s Best Movies

OSCAR ODDS?

“Crazy Heart” is the film that should win Jeff Bridges his long-overdue Oscar. The veteran Hollywood star has turned in 4 Oscar-nominated performances, stretching back 38 years to his first nomination for 1972’s “The Last Picture Show.” (Others were: 1975: “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”; 1985: “Starman”; 2001: “The Contender”).

Bridges is 60 years old, now and he’s never won that Oscar. This just might be his year. (Especially given his reception at the Golden Globe awards on January 17, 2010).

BAD BLAKE

In “Crazy Heart” Bridges doesn’t so much “play” the alcoholic, broken-down country-and-western singer Bad Blake as he inhabits that character, which is what he has done so well for so many years in so many films. Bad Blake is 57 and he’s broke. He’s reduced to playing bowling alleys like the Spare Room, where the owner refuses to run a bar tab for the hard-drinking singer (who is partial to McClure’s), but tells him, “Mr. Blake, let me personally offer you all the free bowling you want.”

Bad Blake is the kind of musician with true talent that carried him far, but talent he abused and wasted by drinking too much, smoking too much, and screwing too much. Now, says Bad, “I’m 57 years old and I’m broke…My career’s goin’ nowhere.” Some have remarked on parallels to Mickey Rourke’s character in “The Wrestler.” That’s understandable, but the films take very different plot paths. “The Wrestler” may be a more dramatic examination of an old dog who’s having trouble learning new tricks, but there are echoes of the theme of the family that has been sacrificed at the altar of career.

A doctor tells Bad (after a minor car accident in his ’78 Suburban van) that Bad has a broken ankle, a concussion, emphysema, and is a good candidate for heart problems and a stroke. He cautions Bad that he must stop smoking and drinking and lose 25 pounds. He adds, ”You’re an alcoholic.” Bad doesn’t say this line to the doctor, but to the woman he is wooing (Maggie Gylenhaal) when she cautions him about his drinking and smoking. It sums up his self-destructive behavior through the first two-thirds of the film: “I don’t want to hear it, darlin.’”

Bad writes songs with lyrics like, “I used to be somebody, now I am somebody else. Who walks in tomorrow is anybody’s guess.” He’s also the kind of troubadour of the road who says of his nomadic lifestyle, “I’ve played sick, broke, divorced and on the run. Bad Blake hasn’t missed a show in his entire life, even if it’s in a bowling alley backed by a bunch of hippies.”

STEPHEN BRUTON

The bunch of hippies referenced above is Bad’s on-the-road pick-up band, “Tony and the Renegades”. Playing the character Tony is Ryan Bingham, one-half of the team that composed the Golden Globe-winning song “Weary Heart,” the theme song from the movie. The wonderful songs (especially good lyrically) were written by T Bone Burnett, who paired with Bingham and the man to whom the movie is dedicated, Stephen Bruton (also credited on guitar and mandolin). Bruton died on May 9, 2009, of throat cancer at age sixty.

When your eye looks over the song credits at the end, notice how many of them Stephen Bruton is responsible for. He wrote most of the good ones. When he died, T Bone Burnett—who was instrumental in getting Jeff Bridges to play the lead character—said, “Stephen Bruton was the soul of Texas music.” Bruton had written music for Kris Kristofferson as far back as 1972; for Carly Simon in 1976; and for Bonnie Raitt’s best-selling “Luck of the Draw;” Willie Nelson; Jimmy Buffett; Johnny Cash; Waylon Jennings; and Patty Loveless. Bruton had also released five solo albums of his own, including 2005’s “From the Five” and was working as music producer and composer for “Crazy Heart” and on Kris Kristofferson’s “Starlight and the Stone” album when he died of throat cancer in Los Angeles. (Wikipedia).

THE REAL C&W ROAD

The musical knowledge of the road and how it really works shows through in this carefully crafted film. For example, there’s a scene where Bad and his current back-up group (“The Bum Steers”) are practicing. They are to open for the young man (nicely underplayed by Colin Farrell), Tommy Sweet, whom Bad Blake launched and taught everything he knows.

While practicing for a gig in Phoenix where Bad will open for Tommy (Bad is billed as “guest artist” in very small letters on the marquee) Bad tells the sound man to stop amplifying the instruments so that they drown out his voice. He is insistent and explains to the pick-up band, “It’s the sound man’s job to make the opening act look worse than the main act by amplifying the instruments over the singer’s voice.”

At another point, Bad is asked about his back-up band. When he says it’s a band he is assigned at each gig, the seasoned musician he is conversing with says, “Pick up band? That’s a ballbuster.” This is the kind of attention to the true realities of the road that the movie gets right. Jeff Bridges’ singing is a revelation. I knew he was a skillful photographer, but he is a very good singer as well (as was Colin Farrell). Their credited vocal coach is Roger Love. (*I’m so glad that Kevin Costner—a would-be country singer— isn’t the one playing the part; I heard Costner sing to a mule in “The Postman” and once was enough!)

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jean asks Bad, during an interview, “Who is real country in today’s world of artificial country.” The question seems to be a comment on the state of today’s C&W chart-toppers. Bad’s musical influences were authentic C&W stars like Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Lulu belle and Scotty, the Georgia Wildcats.

The script tells us the story of Bad Blake’s downward spiral into near-oblivion, some of it a hymn to self-destructive behavior. Maybe he can pull out of his death spiral and find another chance because, as supporting actor Robert Duvall tells him, “It’s never too late.”
TOMMY SWEET/COLIN FARRELL

Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) is the new C&W star, the flavor of the month, while the authentic good ol’ boy who made him what he is, Bad Blake, goes unrecognized by fans. Tommy will eventually ask Bad to write him some songs, and Bad will have to make a decision as to whether playing second fiddle to his former protégé is something he is willing to do.
THE LYRICS

When the newspaper interviewer that Maggie Gyllenhaal plays (Jean Craddock) asks Bad, “Where’d all those songs come from?” he answers, “Life, unfortunately.” He says, “I feel like I should be apologizing for being less than you probably imagined me to be.” Bad’s been on a real run of hell raising. As one song’s lyrics put it, “I been who I shouldn’t be. If there’s such a thing as too much fun, this must be the price you pay. It all happens for a reason, even if it’s wrong. Especially if it’s wrong.’

Continuing that theme are these lyrics, “Doin’ what I shouldn’t do. Lately I just lost the fight. Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’ for a little while.”

The music, well sung and played by all, helps advance the plot in this Scott Cooper-directed and written movie (based on a novel by Thomas Cobb). Here are more lyrics that should give you an idea (from a variety of songs sung in the film):

• “I been blessed and cursed, All my lies have been unrehearsed.”
• “This ain’t no place for the weary kind. This ain’t no place to lose your mind.  This ain’t no place to fall behind. Pick up your crazy heart, give it one more try.”
• “Your heart’s on the loose. This ain’t no place for the weary kind.”
• “I should have known that this would never last.  I should have seen it through the whiskey in my glass.
• “If I needed you, would you come to me and ease my pain?”

GREAT SCRIPT LINES

Quite apart from the song’s lyrics, which are wonderful, there are some great lines in the script (Cooper’s first)  like Bad’s (Bridges’) comment to Tommy Sweet on the ugliness of his boots. “What happened? Did the salesman threaten to shoot your dog?”) When the romance with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character (Jean or Jeannie) heats up, Bad says, “If I can walk, I’ll come to you. I’m not gonna’ forget about you. I’m not gonna’ forget about this day.” (Of course, Bad (real name Otis) has been married 4 or 5 times, so Jeannie is right to be skeptical.) Speaking to Gyllenhaal about his failings as a parent to his only child, a son, Bad says, “I wasn’t there, even when I was.”

C&W MUSIC and ME

Those who know my musical preferences will nod their heads in agreement when I tell you, honestly, that I’ve never been a big fan of Country & Western music. In fact, when Freddy Fender (“the Mexican Elvis”) was scheduled to play a C&W street fair in downtown Silvis, Illinois (where I taught for 17 and ½ years) one of my 7^th grade students eagerly rushed to my desk to ask me if I was going to that night’s show. My response: “Not in this lifetime.” I lost some girlfriends over C&W music. I lost out on some invitations (most notably to Summerfest in Wisconsin) because I didn’t get onboard with Reba and line dancing and all the rest of the enthusiasm for country-and-western music (although I do like the blues).  The Summerfest flap that followed, when I inadvertently learned of a fun “road trip” by my  friends to which I had not been invited (one to celebrate the retirement of 2 women I thought were my very good friends…one my closest)  permanently deep-sixed a 35-year friendship—[a friendship that apparently wasn’t as close as I had thought].  Best description: it was  more my extending true-blue loyal friendship that was not reciprocated unless my husband were involved, apparently. So, I’ve had a country-and-western song lesson in friendship, you might say. Therefore, my inclination to be recommending C&W music to anyone are nil. I have personally hurtful and painful memories of Country and Western music, just like in most of the radio songs in the genre.  I feel I was “wronged.” To borrow from a country song about a failed marriage (“She got the gold mine; I got the shaft”): “They got the tickets; I got the stubs.” (Or is that “snubs”?)

Ironically, my daughter now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, so I’ve mellowed slightly on country-and-western music. But C&W is still not my All-Time Favorite Music, (although I like the blues and rock-and-roll.) If I tell you the music is good, it has to have been very good to have won me over; you can take that to the bank. Of course, with T Bone Burnett helming, that should have been predictable.

T BONE BURNETT

T Bone Burnett’s involvement in the film was why A-lister Jeff Bridges finally agreed to take the role. Bridges said, at the Golden Globes, “It was just a dream come true. We all met thirty years ago on ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ To be able to do this movie thirty year later was really special.  When you have something that you love so much, it’s kind of challenging to pull it off.” Bridges also reminisced that, when he was first nominated for an Oscar way back when, he was “living at the beach with Candy Clark.” T Bone Burnett was born in 1948; Bridges in 1949.

T Bone had been in self-imposed musical exile for the past 14 years. Prior to that, he had won 10 Grammies and given us such movie soundtracks as “The Big Lebowski” for the Coen Brothers (a classic Jeff Bridges role as “the Dude”); B. B. King’s “One Kind Favor”; “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (also the Coen brothers); “Walk the Line”; Tony Bennett/K.D. Lang’s duets album “A Wonderful World” and an Oscar-nominated song for “Cold Mountain” in 2004. (All data from http://www.tboneburnett.com.bio.html).  T Bone has worked with the Counting Crows, The Wallflowers, the Coen Brothers (see above), Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, Gregg Allman, Jakob Dylan and Elton John and Leon Russell. He began his musical career in 1965 and was a member of Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder Review” band, playing guitar.  He has been working on both a TV series (“Tough Trade”) and a play, a collaborative effort with Stephen King and John Mellencamp, entitled “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.” He is also known for collaborating with actor/playwright Sam Shepard. Meryl Streep announced, at the Golden Globe awards this year, that perhaps she should change her name to “T. Bone Streep.” (Burnett’s real first name is Joseph Henry)

ROBERT DUVALL

Veteran character actor Robert Duvall plays a small role as Wayne, a bar owner/bartender. Duvall also sings a song a cappella over the closing credits and in a fishing sequence with Bridges. After many years of great work (his career began in 1956, according to the IMDB website) and six Oscar nominations, the now 79-year-old actor finally won on his fourth try, for “Tender Mercies” in 1984, which is the film that “Crazy Heart” immediately reminds you of. [Duvall was previously nominated for “The Godfather” (1973); “Apocalypse Now” (1980); “The Great Santini” (1981); “The Apostle,” 1998, which he also directed; “A Civil Action,” 1999].

Perhaps “Crazy Heart” will be Jeff Bridges’ “Tender Mercies” and this often under-appreciated actor, a consummate professional, will finally win gold. This was definitely one of the year’s Best Films for me. (Too bad I had to drive 3 and 1/2 hours to Chicago to finally see it.)

SCOTT COOPER

The director of “Crazy Heart” is first-time director Scott Cooper, who has a background as an actor and had acted with Robert Duvall four times (he describes him as a big influence.) In an interview posted on www.Movieretriever.com, the Video Hound Blog, by Turk182 on January 21, Cooper explained, “I set out to tell the life story of Merle Haggard, but I couldn’t obtain the rights, so I turned to this novel instead.” He also confirmed that the film was originally scheduled to open the Sundance Film Festival, but Fox Searchlight bought the film for distribution before that occurred, which was serendipity.

Said Cooper in the Movieretriever.com interview, “Because I knew what I had, I never felt like it wouldn’t find the right home…The quality was something that people would see.  People like modest well-told stories.  It would have been a shame.  Look at ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ That was headed to DVD and then Fox picked it up.” He added, “I think I’m able to tell a story that’s very human and that highlights the human condition and focuses on character and behavior..Telling a story simply and telling one about loss, hope, regret, and redemption—those are things that, as an actor, I have played.  I feel like I could tell that story.”

Jeff Bridges has described his performance as the best of his career. Cooper said, in the interview, that he felt he had the two best actors in America in Bridges and Duvall. (He had originally suggested that Duvall play the role, but then wrote the script with Bridges in mind.)

Scott Cooper’s advice to other would-be directors is succinct:  “Take risks, persevere, and don’t take no for an answer.” (Sounds like good advice for a lot of us.)

This post is in response to the individual who has posted a completely false contention in reaction to the Richard “Dick” Leibovitz FBI probe.  Apparently, this person thinks that “the best defense is a good offense.” Therefore, “Easgle” felt it necessary to accuse me of dishonesty, ludicrous  in light of recent front-page newspaper (and other media) revelations about the County Clerk’s office. (The “Easgle” poster should be railing aginst our papers and Chris Minor of Channel 8 who actually interviewed the County Clerk, who admitted on camera some things his attorney probably wishes he had not admitted.) Riiiiiight. I’m really in a position to be “rigging” anything inside the County Clerk’s office. (Another HA!) I wouldn’t know the first thing about “rigging” an election. I don’t have specially developed software, paid for with federal funds, that I can use to target voters or disenfranchise voters or whatever the software was going to be doing. [If you want to develop better software, go for it...but do it on your own dime, not that of the taxpayers!]

The individual who posted (Easgle?) this slanderous remark (my contentions have names and addresss attached and can be verified; keep that in mind. The Judge saw them all, and they’re still in the files of Nelson, Keys & Keys) is obviously desperate.  To suggest that I was or am the dishonest individual and “Dick” Leibovitz was a knight in shining armor, riding forth to make sure that elections remain honest is contrary to fact and absolutely stunning in the light of recent revelations about his County Clerk office practices.

This person is really reaching! When reality sinks in for him or her, perhaps he (or she) will realize that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating Richard “Dick” Leibovitz, not some ex-English teacher who ran openly and honestly without any ties to the Democratic machine.

I had a children’s campaign of a few high school students. I paid for all campaign expenses myself. I owed no one and ran with no one.  I remember (fondly) that incumbent Alderman Louis Moreno (a former student in Silvis; no relation to Joe Moreno) spent the morning of HIS election making phone calls for me. (Thanks, Louis!) I was, in fact, swept up by a surge of enthusiasm from some young people in the community (many of them former students), who volunteered to help me (“We’ll help you, Mrs. Wilson!”) A young bus-boy at the Village Inn Restaurant whom I didn’t even know (Thanks, Brandon!) volunteered to help distribute flyers. It was wonderful to see young people enthused about electing someone who really wanted to see the city improve and didn’t plan to make a career out of public office (I said I’d run once and once only) simply to collect the stipend. (I was so naive, I didn’t even know there WAS a stipend…lol.) I wouldn’t know how to “fix” an election (OR a car)…but the County Clerk and Democratic County Chairman would know how and might be in a position to abuse the public’s trust, IF they were not honest individuals.

If you read the newspapers and have any reasoning ability, you can make up your own mind as you watch things unfold in Peoria. I had no “insider” status, no “helpers” or acquaintances who would “do dirt” to anyone, (nor would I ever stoop so low.)  And I’m honest (which is, apparently, a huge disadvantage in politics).

In order to secure a recount, names, addresses and instances of abuse were submitted to a (Republican) Judge who ordered the recount of the popular vote which showed that the incumbent did not, in fact, carry the popular vote in the 1st ward.  This is fact. (The absentee vote count is a separate issue, and, as the officials around the state who monitor cheating in elections told me, “You have to look at the absentee ballots. That is where they cheat.” (Historically, it has been ever thus.)

This was where and when the County Clerk did his best to hide the absentee ballots from view, knowing that the count would not be accurate (it wasn’t.) If you care enough to become informed, go find the earlier post about “the Illinois law of proportionate reduction” on this blog. It is an intrinsically unfair law,  designed to keep challengers from overturning elections, because it would be inconvenient for the County Clerk’s offices (who are already preparing their slate of candidates and ballots).

This law basically means (short version) that, for every invalid, fraudulent vote discovered that is thrown out as dirty, one vote is ALSO taken away from the person who is challenging. It makes no sense, I realize. It sounds “wrong” and it sounds “dirty” and it is. However, if you have spent as long on the phone with the state’s leading experts in election law as I did, (and as Nelson, Keys & Keys did), you soon learn that the statute is written to keep the “status quo” in place whenever possible. And, of course, everyone has to hope that the person counting the votes in any election is honest and will count the votes honestly (Remember the movie “Election”? Not good.)

I’m not going to go into the long drawn-out explanation of “the law of proportionate reduction” in Illinois, because it is posted elsewhere on this blog and, really, it is not germane to the poor misguided person who chose to throw stones at me, a citizen of the city and county who is merely watching the corruption be revealed and the story unfold from the sidelines.

I had and have nothing to do with the mess  in Richard Leibovitz’s office.  I didn’t notify anyone of anything, because I am not a politician, and I think I’m too honest to ever become one, after my experiences. [My father, a Democratic County Treasurer of Buchanan County (IA) always warned me, "Politics is a dirty business" and told me to steer clear. I should have listened.]

But I didn’t, swept up in a children’s crusade of enthusiasm for the cause of trying to do some good in our dilapidated, struggling city.

The angry writer of the post should be writing  to the local papers (or television stations) that are covering the story daily, or to the intrepid investigators who have found the many incriminating documents, such as the “none” signature of Richard Leibovitz on documents filed with the state, saying he was not involved in any other businesses that made more than $1200,  when, in reality, he was President of the software firm mentioned in all the newspaper stories (and merely re-mentioned in my article.) I can’t take credit for discovering those documents; I can only relate what happened in one very small and insignificant East Moline Ward election, reporting it as truthfully as possible (not that anyone cares any more).

We are now seeing what went on “behind the scenes” of the elected Rock Island County Clerk’s office. This has been front-page news for days now in both newspapers. The quotes in the blog article, far from being my opinion(s), were taken from the Quad City Times and the Moline Dispatch, with which “easgle” needs to take up his argument. The personal anecdotes I related ,which are completely true,  were submitted to a Republican judge, with documented names and addresses, and this is why the recount was ordered in the first place. One does not simply say, “I’d like a recount.” It has to be DOCUMENTED before a Judge (with names, dates and instances) to justify a recount because there is a preponderance of evidence (not opinion, but evidence) that something “fishy” happened in the election. This has to be proven  to the Judge’s satisfaction before a recount is ordered. It was proven to the satisfaction of the Judge that there were instances of impropriety on the part of the incumbent. End of that particular story. If the Judge had not seen specific instances of abuse, there wouldn’t have BEEN a recount showing Helen Heiland losing the popular vote at the polls in her ward in that long-ago election.

Second, the firm of Nelson, Keys & Keys was one of the few firms courageous enough in the Quad Cities to take on John Gianulis. Incompetent they are not. Most law firms told me, haltingly, that they couldn’t afford to ‘anger’ the then-Democratic County Chairman. The firm did a great job in the short time we had, and I had to go door-to-door (with a lawyer in tow) to secure authorized, notarized affidavits from voters. It was really an experience! Brett Nelson said, “Sometimes, I like to take cases that make a difference.”

I also (now) know that I would have had to have had a team of lawyers standing by at the time of the election to challenge immediately, as was done in Minneapolis in the Al Franken disputed election. If you aren’t prepared ON THE SPOT, the incumbent tank and installed machine rolls over youl.

I haven’t talked to Brett Nelson or Rick Keys lately, but I’d like to hear their comments on the recent newspaper articles.  I have the utmost respect and admiration and gratitude for this firm, which could definitely see the tank rolling on and recognize that  it was a miscarriage of justice, but could not stop it because of the way election law is specifically stacked against challengers….(and, possibly, because of other abuses of the public trust in the County Clerk’s office.)

I challenged not because I wanted the job that badly, but  (hopefully) to reveal the corruption that was endemic in the Rock Island election process. Unfortunately, the reporter assigned to be present during the recount in Rock Island by the “Dispatch” (Jenny Lee), stood in the room and heard that the poll count was wrong, and then went off and did not write one single word about it.

When the Feds get involved, stuff gets written…by both papers (the “Times” did not have a reporter present during the recount.)

I have a longstanding reputation for honesty and integrity. I do not have a reputation for using federal grant money to line my own pocket(s) to develop software that I then profit from, etc. Some have told me that I was merely “collateral damage” in an attempt to unseat Jose “Joe” Moreno, an attempt to ‘teach him a lesson’ by others more highly placed in the party. Since Joe was runing on HIS own, and I was running on MY own, that may or may not be true, but the voters for Joe….(and I think those votes were counted about as well as Gore and Bush in Florida)…were probably voting for me, goes the theory.

When I am subpoenaed to appear before an FBI Grand Jury (they don’t charge you unless they’ve got the goods, Folks), then this individual can question my honesty. Anyone who knows me knows that I was naive and idealistic, yes, but I was and am honest (which is more than can be said for some elected officials.)

I wandered onto a 2005 archived document while googling for some information. There were the names of many prominent men (Gary Andersen of MetroBank, Dr. Craig Whitlock, etc.) who were all part of a Committee to Rejuvenate East Moline in 2005. I remember what a nice and successful Centennial Joe Moreno engineered, with the frogs and the traffic the ceramic sculptures brought to the downtown area, which is sorely in need of traffic and support for the few remaining businesses. I am reminded of the many businesses (Country Manor, etc.) that have shuddered to a halt since 2005, a time when architect’s rendering(s) of a potential Farmer’s Market Forum were shown (one of Mayor Moreno’s ideas) at a meeting I attended. The proposed location would not only sell fresh produce, but also serve as a social gathering point. Mayor Moreno  sincerely wished to serve the community to make it a better place. I think the ideas his people had put forth, if implemented, would have helped the downtown’s sad plight.

However, to “teach Joe Moreno a lesson” (and don’t ask me who was teaching what lesson ,because the lesson learned is that the Mayoral position can be used as a stepping stone to the County Treasurer’s post or some such, and the city can be left “out of the Loop” (see previous article) and struggling) all of Jose “Joe” Moreno’s plans went down the tubes.

In the years since that election none of those good ideas have been championed by the man who unseated Joe. East Moline  also faces the prospect of an unnecessary and expensive ambulance service, spearheaded by the 1st Ward Alderwoman and others,a move  being forced down residents’ throats with or without their/our consent, to the point that former Mayor Dussliere’s son (I believe it was Al Dussliere’s son who came to my door; if not, apologies, but kudos to the individual doing the organizing, which was also not me) went door-to-door to gather signatures for a petition to put this ambulance proposal on a ballot for the people to decide. [Still, there was a certain cadre of aldermen who tried to sneak the ambulance proposal through.]

I don’t mind letting this illiterate person’s post stay up, suggesting (laughably) that I “rigged” the election, because I think it’s pretty clear who has been “rigging” things for years.  If I’m ever subpoenaed to appear before a federal Grand Jury, if the FBI comes after me,  then you can start throwing stones. Until then, learn to spell and read a paper once in a while.

The “irresponsible” are those who trashed our fair city and county for their personal gain and , have accomplished little or nothing noteworthy since 2005 to try to fix what’s broken in the cityof East Moline, specifically. Because of those folks, East Moline is “out of the Loop” (see previous post). Some of those elected officials have now used up their moment in East Moline, merely a stepping-stone for political ambition(s), and they are now moving on down the road….or to jail, in some cases….whichever comes first.

It’s a sad, sad thing, when you look back at the 2005 “Rejuvenate East Moline” committee posting and think, “What if…..”

This is one of the latest version of the new “Hellfire and Damnation” trailer, now up on YouTube, etc. Stay tuned for the dedicated website, www.HellfireandDamnationthebook.com.

Hellfire & Damnation

Just wanted to say that, when one posts at 4:19 a.m., one makes mistakes. I make the comment that “Up in the Air” will be duking it out (for the Oscar for Best Picture) with “Precious” and/or “The Hurt Locker” and name (again) “Up in the Air” when I obviously meant “Up,” the animated film. Mea culpe

I’ve put off writing about the movie “Precious” because, in some ways, I feel as though it has been rammed down our collective throats. First, there was Oprah’s big push for it. It should come as no surprise that Oprah partnered with Tyler Perry (of the “Medea” low-brow black comedy films) to executive produce the movie. I know that it was made into a very “high profile” event at the Chicago Film Festival and the tickets the night I wanted to go were $50, which included the full red carpet treatment, hors d’oeuvres and the works, even though the film wasn’t the “showpiece” of the festival (that was a forgettable Uma Thurman film).

“Precious” has all the themes that are guaranteed to make you feel depressed before you even enter the theater: teen-aged illiterate African American girl pregnant by her step-father for the second time; AIDS; physical and sexual abuse; mean-spirited teen-agers who make fun of the fat girl; a physically and verbally abusive mother. In other words, this was one of those films, like “Angela’s Ashes” or “The Hours” that you just know are not going to leave you humming a happy tune. Yes, Precious manages to maintain a more-or-less even keel with insightful thoughts like, “And in that tunnel, why the light was inside of them.” (Speaking of her teacher, Miss Rain and her life mate).

I had read “Newsweek’s” (Dec. 14, 2009, p. 13)  “My Turn” column (usually written by unknowns), and these words were penned by former First Lady Barbara Bush (or, as I like to call her, “my best friend Babs,” based on the fact that she personally presented me with a Bi-State Literacy Award in 1993):  “Recently George and I hosted a special sneak preview of ‘Precious’ in our hometown, Houston.” Mrs. Bush went on to put in a plug for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and then plugged the movie mercilessly, saying, “If I were to give out a homework assignment, it would be this: go see the movie.”

Gee. I’m glad there wasn’t any overt proselytizing for seeing the film by Famous People with Power, like Oprah and Babs. That would seem kind of unfair to all the other good films out there that don’t have a powerful backer, like, say, “The Athlete,” an Ethiopian film I saw at the Chicago Film Festival that was certainly a tribute to the triumph of the human spirit. But no Oprah for that one.

I idly wondered if the Barbara Bush who wrote the article in “Newsweek” and said, “But go see it—then ask yourself how you can help” was the same Barbara Bush who toured the Superdome during the horrible aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when hordes of (largely black) residents of New Orleans who had been forced from their home by the rising floodwaters were penned up like animals for days while her son, our president, mucked around and let a major American city drown and the people in it fend as best they could with very poor response(s) from the federal or local government(s). At that time, the press reported that Barbara blithely commented that these conditions (in the Superdome) were probably better than many of them had at home, or something along those lines. (Those of you who read the papers will remember the flap Mrs. Bush’s remarks caused, and, no, I’m not making this up.)

But, all super-duper marketing moments and maneuvers aside…and it certainly appears that all stops have been pulled out on this one— this story of a young girl’s struggle to break free of her abusive mother and to step into the sunlight of her life is done well by all the actors and is well directed by Director Lee Daniels. It is, quite simply, heart-wrenching.

It opens with Clarice “Precious” Jones (Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe) saying, “Every day I tell myself I’m gonna’ be normal. I’m gonna’ break through.” And, of course, this young 17-year-old mother of two (by film’s end) does break through…sort of. (I’d like to know where she ends up in 5 years’ time, but maybe 5 years is too long a time to plan if you’re in Precious’ shoes.)

It is 1987. Precious talks about how depressed she gets, to the point of being suicidal, saying, “Sometimes it feels like we’re just ugly black grease to be wiped away. There’s always somethin’ in my way.” But, she remains relatively upbeat. When she gets depressed she remembers, “That’s why God or whoever makes new days.”

It’s not bad enough that Precious has been repeatedly raped by her step-father, the first child she gives birth to as a result suffers from Down’s Syndrome and the child’s oh-so-sensitive and completely selfish grandmother Mary…in an Oscar-worthy turn by Mo’Nique…dubs the child “Mongo.” Constantly abusing her daughter by calling her “stupid’ and “a fat mess,” and following that up with physical abuse as she turns her teen-aged daughter into little more than an indentured servant, the plight of Precious ultimately catches the attention of the authorities.

One of the best things about the film is that all of those who are in positions of authority in the schools (teachers, social workers, etc.) are portrayed as really, sincerely trying to help Precious. That includes her teacher, Miss Rain (Paula Patton); her math teacher, Mr. Taylor, about whom she fantasizes that the two of them will fall in love and live in Westchester; her social worker, Mrs. Weiss, well-played by a very dressed-down Mariah Carey; and the male nurse, Nurse John, who helps Precious deliver Baby Number Two (Lenny Kravitz.) (Certainly an improvement over her delivery of Baby Number One on the kitchen floor with her mother kicking her in the side of the head!)

Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe plays Precious well, but I couldn’t help but feeling that her acting triumph falls more in the category that the double amputee from World War II, (Harold Russell) did in 1946 when he played a double amputee coming home from World War II (Homer Parrish) in “The Best Years of Our Lives.” (It’s worth noting that Harold won the Oscar that year.)  Gabby looks the part; the rest falls into place.
As for Mo’Nique, however, her performance is sheer, unadulterated evil, laced with selfish menace. The screenplay by Geoffrey Hatcher, based on the book “Push” by Sapphire is a sure-fire tearjerker. There are lines like this one, spoken by the young illiterate Precious, who is exposed to her educated teachers in a more intimate environment for the first time and says she doesn’t understand a word they exchange because “They talk like TV channels I don’t watch.”

There is a song entitled “It took a long time”, performed by LaBelle that is very good. Everything works, and it becomes a serious film about the power of literacy (Precious improves from a 2.8 reading level to a 7.8 reading level, and, believe me, as the owner/operator of a Sylvan Learning Center for close to 20 years and a teacher of reading for 42 years, I know about that kind of educational progress.)

The film is almost certainly going to garner acting nominations for its female leads, and the able supporting performances (Carey, Kravitz and Patton) are just as deserving. I just wish that Oprah and Barbara and all the PTB weren’t pushing it quite so hard. It’s good enough, as a film, to stand on its own merits without having a former First Lady give us all our marching papers, telling us to go see it or having the Queen of Daytime TV turn it into the “toast of the town” (the town of Chicago), simply because she’s powerful enough that she can. (What will it be next? Shutting down Michigan Avenue and then leaving town for good?)

See the film if you want to see a well-crafted film…not because my best friend Babs said you should.

A winter storm bore down on 10 states, bringing with it snowdrifts, bitterly cold temperatures and wind gusts, in the Quad Cities, of close to 40 mph. In New Mexico, a 100 mph wind gust tore the roof off the Los Alamos police station, and in Nashville (TN) the Christmas tree in front of the state capitol was broken in half by the wind.

Parts of Interstate 80 were closed near Des Moines (Newton area) and anything west and north of us was getting hammered all day.

I ventured out on Wednesday, December 9th, and took some pictures, but first let me post some from Des Moines, which got more snow than we did:

This photo represents my friend’s car, parked outside their house in Des Moines. To begin with, the car could not be driven to their house and a neighbor had to push it with his four-wheel drive vehicle. Why? Because the snow and wind was so bad in Des Moines that road crews had been pulled and their (relative) side street had not been plowed. Secondly, as luck would have it, their snowblower was broken. They eventually grabbed shovels and, with a neighbor’s help, were able to unearth the car lurking under all the snow in this picture.  And now for a few other snow shots:

This photo happens to have been taken of the fir tree

right next to my garage entryway. Needs Christmas

lights.

For this one, go back to the top of the page and take a look at “Big Blue,” as I call the 300 lb. ceramic frog that sits on the edge of our back yard ravine. Right now, “Big Blue” looks more like “Big White.” The ravine is quite beautiful, with drifts around the wrought iron lawn furniture (right in the photo) and frosted trees, but it’s really too cold to stand outside admiring it for long.

This one is a picture of the Celebration Belle, one of the riverboats (or riverboat replicas) that sit alongside Ben Butterworth Parkway in Moline, Illinois. The boat has a paddlewheel, and the paddlewheel was rotating vigorously in the 37 mph wind(s). I almost got hit by the car behind me as I attempted to pull into the parking lot to take this shot, because the parking lots have not been plowed and it turned out to be a hopeless project to try to get close to the boat on that side of the river. (This is taken from across the street.)

If you look closely at this Moline sign, you can see that    snow was still falling and the wind was in full force. The sign sits near the railroad line that cuts through town, and it establishes that this snow was, indeed, hitting the Quad Cities area of Moline, East Moline, Bettendorf (IA), Davenport (IA), and all the many other smaller cities that make up an area with the misnomer “Quad.” LeClaire (IA), up the river, was without power for several hours (from 9 a.m. on) and over 6,000 homes lost their power in the snow and wind. Jane Addams Elementary School in Moline (IL) lost its power and heat. They sent the students home but required the teachers to come to work.

I saw one woman in a red car crash into a snow plow, and I heard reports of over 260 tickets being issued in Davenport (IA), tickets telling the driver that the car must be moved from the city streets so that snow plows could operate. The tickets are $35 each. Someone calculated that the city was going to reap a windfall of $9,100 from the tickets, alone. Add to that Davenport’s disputed camera system at intersections, which send you tickets by mail if you are photographed going through the yellow portion of a red light, and the winter white becomes green for the cash-strapped city.

In the Quad Cities, the best snow removal trophy always seems to go to Silvis and East Moline. Moline: not so much. Davenport: really horrible. Rock Island: ditto. I don’t know why this is, but c’est la vie. Also, in the Homewood area of Moline…a chi chi area that predated Wildwood as the city’s finest, the streets are narrow and winding. On top of that, telephone lines and power lines were strung through the ravine/woody areas that surround the homes. Jane Addams is near Homewood. I have friends and relatives who live in Homewood. They lose their power all the time because the power lines run through the heavily wooded area and, whenever a tree branch falls on a power line during a storm like this, power goes out. I’ll bet money that this may have been a factor in the loss of Jane Addams’ power. (No other elementary schools were released, I heard on the news.

Another thing that has come to light as a result of this snowfall, which seems new, to me, is Channel 6’s “new policy” of NOT running news of cancellations in a crawl on their screen unless it is a school closing. The announcers on KWQC gave a very long (and involved) explanation and directions to rush to your computer, sign in, kiss your elbow 3 times and a lot of other complicated directions to find out if a meeting is being canceled as a result of the storm. What if, like my 91-year-old mother-in-law, you don’t HAVE a computer? What if, like me, it sounds like waaaay more work than it should be, just to find out whether the bridge game at the local meeting place has been canceled or if the musical performance at the River Music Experience is “on” or “off”? Whatever happened to informing the community? Why is it just schools, now, that are going to be allowed to have a crawl at the bottom of the screen? If I were Channel 6, which has been having some financial problems of late, I hear, I’d rethink this policy. Anyone with a clicker will change to Channels 8 or 4, which seem to still care if their viewers stay tuned in and will provide a crawl with informatino about cancellations other than schools. Think about it.

The Ten Best Movies of 2009

 The Ten Best Movies of the Year 2009…or any year…are always difficult to pick, even if you have been doing your homework and attending film festivals (Chicago, Toronto) in order to be able to see those that are most-lauded. The best of the best always seem to hit the Quad Cities late or not at all. [I remember having to drive to Iowa City to see Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway” in 1994, which limped into town months late.]

The films I’m going to point out have not necessarily played the Quad Cities yet. In some cases, that is because they haven’t been officially released yet.  I hope they will arrive in town soon. Film festivals give you a chance to get an “advance peek” at a few and to hear about them from the actors, directors and producers themselves.

Please note:  These are in no particular order.

“The Hurt Locker” – Director Kathryn Bigelow took newcomer Jeremy Renner, an unknown (surrounded by a cast of unknowns) who plays a hell-bent-for-leather bomb defuser in 2004 Baghdad, and delivers a film that is one of the year’s best. Intense. Riveting.

‘Up in the Air” – Jason Reitman directs George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick in a film about a man who travels the world firing people and collecting frequent flyer miles. As the “New York Times” put it, Clooney and Farmiga are voted “the couple most likely to have an argument and get off on it.” I have a vested interest in seeing the film do well. The music for the film was selected by Rick Clark, my daughter’s mentor in Nashville for three years of her college classes in Music Business at Belmont University and she often assisted him with his selection(s) and with his Sirius radio show. (Clark also advised on the music for “Juno”). A sure-fire Oscar contender.

“The Informant” – Matt Damon played two strong roles this year, and this one, as a midwestern mid-level employee of ADM who turns informant for the F.B.I. was terrific. His turn in “Invictus” (a Clint Eastwood-directed film with Morgan Freeman undoubtedly bound for Oscar nominations) as a soccer player helping Nelson Mandela bring South Africa kicking and screaming into the post-apartheid period will undoubtedly score big in March as well. [Since the latter hasn’t played here yet, just remember, on March 7^th: “I told you so.”]

“Up” – Films with the word “up” in the title did well in 2009. (Next year “down”?) This is the Pixar animated film about the widower who attaches balloons to his house and goes…well…up…with a young stowaway aboard. I saw it in 3D in a theater on Sunset Boulevard with a live Disney show preceding it; the film’s a touching bit of animated magic.

“500 Days of Summer” – I was on my way to a showing of “The Cove” (a likely nominee for Best Documentary Oscar dealing with the trapping and killing of dolphins) and stumbled into the wrong theater. I stayed to see this romantic comedy. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Zooey Deschanel are young lovers, but the film’s ultimate message seems to be that there IS more than one perfect “love” for us if we just keep an open mind and a positive outlook. The “breaking-into-dance” scene, alone, makes it one of the more imaginative film treatments at the movies this year.

“Precious” – Undeniably gut-wrenching. Haven’t seen a film more depressing since “The Hours” or “Angela’s Ashes,” but it is powerful stuff. Oprah is promoting it Big Time, and it’s bound to garner nominations, probably for its unknown star, Gabriel Gabby Sidibe and others. Strong performances from Mo’Nique, Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz contribute and the film has generated major Oscar buzz. [Tickets in Chicago, where it premiered, went for $50, minimum].

Red Cliff – This is a film by the great John Woo. I wandered in not expecting much and found a film that makes “Braveheart,” “Spartacus” and “The Gladiator,” all rolled into one, look like a square dance. Back in top form after years of trying to fit into the Hollywood studio cookie-cooker mold with films like “Mission Impossible II “ and “Face/Off”, Woo returns to his native land and does this ancient Chinese story proud. (see www.weeklywilson.com and/or www.associatedcontent.com for complete review). It’s very long, and, yes, it has sub-titles, but it’s really a breath-taking film achievement.

“An Education” – Peter Svaarsgard’s film about a May-December romance is garnering much buzz for the female lead, Carey Mulligan as Jenny. (For those who care, Ms. Mulligan is supposedly Shia LeBouef’s off-screen girlfriend of the moment).

2012:  Sure, it’s CG generated, but it’s terrific audience fun. The actors are less important than the special effects, but John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Woody Harrelson don’t disappoint in this film about the end of the world in 2012. Woody Harrelson, this year alone, played Charlie Frost in 2012, Tallahassee in the fun flick “Zombieland” (they’re already making “Zombieland 2”, and Captain Tony Stone in “The Messenger.”

Toss-Up: “Brothers” and/or “The Messenger”: These films have similarities. Saw “The Messenger” in Chicago, with Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster. Foster was there, in person, answering questions after the screening. “The Messenger,” like John Irving’s novel “A Prayer for Owen Meany” deals with the soldiers who must give the bad news of the death of a loved one to military families. Co-starring as the woman getting the bad news is the Oscar-nominated Samantha Morton, who was so good in “Minority Report” and as Sarah in the 2002 film “In America.” “Brothers,” starring Jake Gylenhall, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman, explores the damage to the psyche that war creates. Jake and Tobey are brothers, one a screw-up, one a war hero. Fine performances, also, from Sam Shepherd as Hank Cahill, the father who always favored Tobey, and Mare Winningham as Elsie Cahill. The little girls are great. Taylor Geare as Maggie Cahill melts your heart in her scenes, and her little sister Cassie, played by Carrie Mulligan, is good as well. When Tobey returns from having been a POW (briefly) in Afghanistan, he cannot get it out of his head that his brother (Jake Gylenhall) and his wife (Natalie Portman) have been sleeping together. He is also consumed with guilt over his actions while held prisoner and something’s got to give. He comes home a totally different individual than when he left. Problems ensue Tobey McGuire turns in a riveting Ocar-caliber performance, the best of his career. The movie was filmed in New Mexico.

Honorable Mention:  I loved “Jennifer’s Body,” despite the gore, the new film scripted by Diablo Cody (of “Juno”) starring Megan Fox. Haven’t seen “Coraline” but hear it’s a likely nominee come March in some categories. Likewise, haven’t had a child to take with me to “Where the Wild Things Are.” Looking forward to “The Road” (Not yet released) – which looks like it will make a better film vehicle for Viggo Mortenson than the Cormac McCarthy book was a read, as it takes us into post-Apcalyptic America. “Avator’ (James Cameron returns on 12/18). I liked “Public Enemies” with Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale in a Michael Mann-directed crime romance, because Johnny finally looked more like “People” magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” than he has in many of his screen outings. Also good: “Star Trek” with Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine and Eric Bana, “I Love You, Man” with surprisingly fresh performances from Paul Rudd and Jason Segel as buddies who bond, and the year’s most-watched comedy, “The Hangover,” good stupid fun in the “Animal House” tradition. I’m still waiting to see “Shutter Island,” the Martin Scorsese-directed film with Leonardo DeCaprio. (Where did it go?) Likewise, want to see “The Invention of Lying” (Ricky Gervais) and Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go.” (So many movies; so little time.)  

(* This report, written in October of 2004 about the Vote for Change concerts that various artists undertook during the 2004 Presidential campaign in support of John Kerry and John Edwards. The concert was in Ames. I am reprinting it from www.blogforiowa.com, where it is in the archives, because it is pretty funny.)
Connie submits this report from her cross-state Democratic Road Trip with “the daughter.”

The daughter and I returned from our SIX-HOUR concert about 1:30 a.m. last night.  I cannot remember a concert where I drew Snoopy on the left ankle of the young man behind me (in red ink) and then, on his right ankle, played tic-tac-toe with my daughter.  (It was a draw.) Plus, I sprayed BOTH of the young man’s feet with Burberry perfume (from my purse) since they were really smelly feet, which he insisted on parking on the arms of MY chair. At one point, he grabbed my notebook and wrote in it, “I have no idea what you are doing here. I can’t see sh-t, but keep this. Thanks and bye.” Earlier, I heard him and his friends discussing how I had “probably remembered every President back to Lincoln.” The sad thing is, they are right. He kids me about “growing up in the seventies” and wants to know if I ever “smoked reefer.” I feel flattered that he thinks I “grew up in the 70’s.”  That makes me much younger than I am, so I am enjoying that comment. As for the reefer question: allergic, you know. Only contact highs. I respond, “Yes, but I never inhaled,” thinking he will get the joke. He does not.

In the parking lot afterwards, while waiting for the cars to move out to the road, the car ahead of us contains a fake snake. One of the young college men in the party puts the snake between his legs and gyrates (like a Chippendale Dancer).The snake looks very real, so I roll my car windows up. The daughter, who is beginning to sound a little like Typhoid Mary, says, “Why are you rolling up the windows?” I pretend it is for her health. It is really because I fear that the kid with the snake might gyrate over to us and do God-knows-what.

Neil Young (of the old days…Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young) comes onstage at one point with the Dave Matthews Band and plays (a “surprise” performance). My notes, at that point: “They are holding this guitar note for so long that pain will soon ensue. They are all watching Neil, for a ’sign.’ He has, apparently, forgotten the sign. I am beginning to think that the “sign” is that your ears begin to bleed.  Neil looks like Howard Hughes on a bad day. He is engaged in some sort of guitar death throe. Some blonde woman comes onstage with him, but I don’t think anyone has a clue who she is (I know I don’t). I ask, but the boys behind me have passed out, and nobody else can hear me over the guitar punishment. Yikes!

The new camera (Olympus digital), which was fully charged before the concert, only ran for 2 hours. The concert lasted 6. [Thank God for my trusty little Canon]. The daughter got pictures of “My Morning Jacket,” “Jurassic5,” and “Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals,” but where was my digital camera when the Main Act came onstage? Why, dead, of course. As I fear I will be after this six-hour marathon.

At one point, Ben Harper plays a song called “Burn One Down,” which either has to do with forest fires or smoking marijuana. Other lyrics I hear, but don’t know: “Kick your b-tt.” “Plastic.” “F— the pResident.” “I always have to steal my kisses from you.” “This is a song about freedom. There’s some people who smoke a lot of weed, cause some of those [bleep] haven’t gotten off the couch for two years. Then, that [bleep] wanders out in to the street holdin’ his remote and getting his groove on. If you ain’t where you want to be in your life, put the bong down, Homey.” This brings on “Burn One Down,” which seems to involve a haze of illegal smoke. “Your choice is who you choose to be. We are gonna’ burn one down.”

Good to see that our college students are becoming more articulate every day. Gives one hope. I hope they don’t burn anything down while I am inside it.

Back to lyrics: “No lives for bu—sh–.”  “He offered life in sacrifice, so others could go on.” Neil Young sings (if you can call it that), “It was just a legend. War was never known. The people were together, and they lifted many stones.” I’m thinking this might be “Along the Watchtower,” but I really am not “into Neil Young. He looks like the Crypt-Keeper, from television, at this point in his career. None of the young kids there know who he is, or who the old blonde with him is. Then there is something about dancing across the water. Neil seems somewhat uncoordinated, so I don’t think he will be doing any dancing across water or any other surface any time soon. It is as though Bigfoot has been taking guitar lessons and has been unleashed upon us.

I know three songs all night long,  including the Dave Matthews Band encore song “Too Much” from the “Crash” album; “Keep on Rockin’ in the USA” and a version of Buffalo Springfield’s, “There’s somethin’ happenin’ here; Stop, Baby! What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down.” This is repeated about 20 times. I remember it was used in a documentary about the Vietnam War that I used to show my 7th grade students.  At one point, trying to be friendly, I say, to the black guy next to me, “I took her to her first Dave Matthews Band concert when he had “Under the Table and Dreaming” out. She was ten.” The guy says, “Oh. Yeah. I remember that concert. I passed out halfway through it.” O………K.

Now, Neil plays TAPS on his guitar. Why? We don’t know. Dave and the others are sort of glassy-eyed, mesmerized, staring at Neil. This concert has lasted a Looooong time. Someone please make Neil quit!!! The drunk guys from St. Joseph’s, Missouri, or Joplin, Missouri, have all passed out, which is when and why I draw Snoopy on one of their ankles.

The girl ahead of me is wildly flailing her arms like a windmill. Too much caffeine, I’m thinking. This girl is known, henceforth, as “Hyperactive Girl,” or HG. Every time I try to take a shot, she pumps her fist in the air just as I shoot. I have a lot of photos of her fist(s).

As usual, I attempt to pick out “bobbleheads” in the arena, which are people who are making absolute fools of themselves. My God! This must be the Bobblehead Convention. The violin guy onstage is going nuts, and the guy wearing the Number One jersey with the page boy bob haircut is doing something that I can only describe as NOT likely to  impress anyone.

The drunk or stoned guy behind me (“Max”, says his NAME TAG) keeps trying to bump my arm as I take notes, and, at one point, he actually tries to relieve me of my notebook. But I’m too quick for him.

Ms. Hyperactive is now resorting to rabbit-like punching in the air. The guy she is with is very tall and looks like the one who once played Claire’s boyfriend on “Six Feet Under.” He is wearing a shirt that says “America’s Music Festival to End All Festivals” while his girlfriend has on a “Farm Aid, September 18th” shirt. I fear for Ms. Hyperactive’s safety, as she is so out-of-control that I think she is going to fall over the balcony railing any minute.

Neil (Young) is doing some kind of geriatric jig.  Someone make Neil quit. Please.

I don’t normally regale AC with stories of “personalities I have known and loved,” but I can’t help but comment on an obituary that recently appeared in a local paper, (which shall remain nameless.) It provided much food for thought. I mean no disrespect in my comments. I am apologizing in advance, so you know that someone will take me to task but remember: the names here (for the most part) are fictional.

 I was sorry to see that a former student passed away at a relatively young age. (Defining “relatively young” is difficult. For me, it is anything under 100, but the former student was 52.)

What I remember about this student from my very first year of teaching is that, when I…. a brand-new teacher struggling to come up with creative writing assignments…. put 6 possible theme suggestions on the board, taken from a Scholastic Books Teachers’ Guide book I had been given, for the year’s first writing assignment, they all incensed the deceased. The deceased (well, NOW he’s deceased; at the time he was very much alive and kicking) protested that writing on ANY of these topics was “an invasion of my privacy.” Then he marched off to the Principal’s office.

The topics in the Scholastic Teachers’ Guide included a number of situational ethics ideas, which someone other than me who wrote for Scholastic Books had thought up. The topics seemed to make him uncomfortable. Here’s one example: “If you knew that your best friend had cheated on a test you were both taking, what would you do, if anything?”

 There was also the hoary theme assignment (please no “hoary” jokes here), “What did you do over your summer vacation?” (I was really struggling and only 21 years old at the time to come up with interesting writing assignments, so bear with me.)

But nothing suited the young man, who protested the assignment by marching to the Principal’s office to loudly complain about the theme assignment, and I was then, of course, called on the carpet by the administration (although not as quickly as today’s teachers would be. Now, it is instantaneous to side with Junior and teachers are constantly hauled in to defend anything and everything! In my day (1969-1985) the administration was slightly more supportive. I explained why I had made the assignment and showed the Principal the book from Scholastic that he had given his first-year teacher to use.  What he said to the student I do not know. Whether he wrote the paper I do not remember.

My take on this protest, from the vantage point of decades later: said student was trying to get out of writing a paper. Period. He had 6 choices and one of them was as tame as they come, unless he had spent his summer hijacking cars.

 What I DO remember about the family and the children I taught (yes, there were 3 of them) later, his sister was shot in the butt in a “drive-by shooting” (pellet-gun) in a nearby city—okay, it was Rock Island, Illinois— very late on a Friday night. She was 12 at the time. For that matter, the deceased, Guy or “Guido,” if you prefer, was 12 at the time, too, and was with her at the time of the shooting. They claimed they were “caught in the crossfire” of a gang-related shooting.

 Later, in a MacKenzie Phillips moment, the sister accused her father of incest, but then recanted before the in-house authorities would have had to notify the Family Services.   These anecdotes may give you an idea of what I was dealing with in trying to teach English to 7^th and 8^th graders as a first-year teacher. (Five of my former students were on Death Row when former Governor George Ryan abolished it, just before going to jail himself for the drivers’ license scandal in Illinois.)

But what really struck me about this obituary I will reprint pretty much as it appeared, (minus the real surname(s) and some of the first names, of course.) “Guy was a commercial fisherman and worked construction in the Florida area. He never married. Since he loved living in Florida, and all his good friends are here, the family has decided to celebrate his life by riding Harleys to Florida next summer (written in early September) and chartering a boat to spread his ashes at sea.”
Every single member of the immediate family had a nickname, duly noted in the obituary.  Furthermore, the entire family (men, women and children, are going to drive Harley Davidson motorcycles all the way to Florida (from the Midwest) for the funeral? Is this a cost-saving measure? (No casket, ergo, no funeral fees?)

 I think of my 91-year-old mother-in-law on the back of a Harley. It just does not seem like a good plan. She fell down last week while walking across her lawn and got a concussion. Is everyone in the Vandella family young?  I wonder what would happen if my mom or my husband’s mom or…perish the thought, me… were to try to come to a family funeral several states away on the back of a Harley, especially one driven by the individuals mentioned in the rest of the article? Would they risk being shot in the butt by a pellet-gun…or worse? 

Is it even legal to scatter someone’s ashes at sea in this day of “let’s clean up our oceans” and anti-pollution sloganeering? [Don’t know; can’t tell you.]
But let’s read on, (with some of the first names and the last name definitely changed to protect the identity of the family):

Guy “Guido”Vandella, 52, of  (fill in your own Florida city here) passed away at Solaris Innovative Hospice Care on  (Fill in date of your choosing).

Per his request, cremation followed. (This was followed by information about where memorials could be made.)

“Guy was born on (fill in your own date here) in (fill in your own small Illinois city here). He was never married. He was a commercial fisherman, worked construction, and loved living in Florida. Since his friends are there, the family had decided to celebrate his life by riding Harleys to Florida next summer (written in balmy September, mind you) and will charter a boat to scatter his ashes at sea.”

This gave me pause. Especially when the survivors’ names followed:

Amy “Rose” Vandella (sister); Beth “Sissy” Vandella; John “Johnny Boy” Vandella; Kenny “The Hammer” Vandella, Brooklyn “J.K” Vandella, Myrna, “Big Momma” Vandella, and, my own personal favorite, Judy “Butch” Vandella.

Does anyone wonder why I quit teaching in this district? More importantly, does anyone want to be a fly on the wall when this family group gets on their Harleys, en masse, (come spring), and starts the trek to Florida from Illinois?  Does anyone, (besides me) wonder why they don’t ride their motorcycles down there NOW, since it has been unseasonably warm and balmy? Why wait several months? Is the family motto “Better late than never”?

I know one thing: If I were going to this funeral, I would not want to be riding shotgun on Judy “Butch” Vandella’s Harley.