Remembering Steven, A Bright Shining Light That Passed Through My Life

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”  -- from On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

I was reminded of this when someone mentioned Orange Julius:

Steven, who was a very distant cousin and good friend and mentor (in the fields of alcohol and drug intake) along with a friend of his from Finland (Matti) were staying with me for a few weeks in the summer of 1972 at my parent’s place in Berkeley. We were prone to long evenings of debauchery and had just enjoyed one despite the fact that Steven had an early morning class at Cal.

Steven returned from the class noonish and told us the following: “I was sitting in the Orange Julius before class drinking a coffee. I was totally spaced out staring into the void in the throes of a vicious hangover. Someone came up to me and said: ‘it’s far out that you’re tripping, man, but try not to be so obvious about it.’” Steven then fell into paroxysms of laughter as did Matti and I.

I’ve always cherished that story. It’s so very reflective of Steven who was so singular a personality that I made him a character in my latest novel. He had a huge impact on my life starting the day I met him when I was fifteen  (he was just short of twenty, incredibly old to me at the time) he introduced me to alcohol that day. Steven (never, ever Steve) was the first openly gay man that I ever knew. I grew up in a very different time in which homosexuality was not discussed as anything other than a perversion. It wasn’t so much that I and my peers grew up homophobic but more a matter of queerness not even being acknowledged. Learning that Steve was gay — which happened a few years into our friendship — made homosexuality seem not just acceptable but somehow exotic and interesting — though nothing I wanted to experiment with.

To say that Steven had a facility for languages would be a massive understatement. He learned Finnish — starting with zero words — in a few months. And he was soon fluent. Not surprisingly he got an undergraduate degree in linguistics. I don’t know whether he completed a post graduate degree but he easily could have with minimal application.

Toward the end of his life Steven was a homeless advocate. I know little of those years. I lost contact with him when I “settled down” and got sober, married and entrenched in a teaching career. I don’t know whether his drinking continued apace but he was only 43 when he died, perhaps of AIDS.

Back to the day I met him. I was at a large July 4th gathering in Marin County at which there were many Finns including a few of my cousins. I was seated at a large table on a lawn with two of my cousins desperately bored when Steven appeared (the fete was, after all, at his once and future home). It was as if Mick Jagger had entered the room. Though not a conventionally handsome man he had the presence of a rock star. Charisma oozed from his pores. Noting that we were drinking lemonade, Steven produced a bottle of vodka and proceeded to spike our drinks. 

My first experience with intoxication was something of a case of love at first sight — or sip. The experience was enhanced by Steven who possessed a ribald sense of humor. He was instantly impressed by my ready wit and perspicacity. Steven was further impressed that I could sing along to Springtime For Hitler from the film, The Producers.

Over the next ten years I saw Steven sporadically often visiting him in Marin, sometimes bringing along a current girlfriend. The July 4th gatherings continued but moved to Mendocino. There was a small community of Finns dominating a tiny town inland from
Mendocino called Comptche. We regularly visited there and Steven was often there as one of the residents was an aunt. 

The parties in Mendocino were wild, sprawling affairs with oceans of booze and large barbecues. I managed a number of sexual conquests there, except when showing up already with  a girl. When not satisfying my carnal desires I was in revelry with Steven and others.

There have been few things in my life that have indulged my ego more than the fact that Steven liked me so much. In addition to my wild and imaginative sense of humor he appreciated my ability to drink throughout the night and remain ambulatory and with the power of speech (if somewhat slurred). We were peas in a pod — one flooded with liquor.

Steven was a party waiting to happen. So was I. Between us we put Dionysus to shame.

I suppose given that I am a recovering alcoholic one might claim that Steven was a bad influence. Poppycock. First of all I would have embarked on a nearly twenty-year drinking career even if I’d never met the man. Steven provided me with some of my favorite memories of my late teens and early twenties. 

I don’t know what adjective best suits him. Many are required. Unique doesn’t suffice. I’ve used singular and it’s okay. Hilarious. Genius. Brilliant. Loquacious. Charming. Certainly flamboyant. Sometimes prissy and a little prickly. Insightful. Occasionally silly. Well-read. For me he was inspirational. He made me want to be smarter. He made me want to enjoy life to the fullest. He made me want to revel in what was special about me. To be true to my nature. 

I should add that Steven was — like the rest of us — far from perfect. He suffered occasional depression (I don’t know if it was as bad as mine). I know that despite loving, long-term relationships he fought against his own true nature and tried to be “cured” of homosexuality. I’ll never understand this. But he enriched my life and did the same for those around him. He never said anything dull or expected. He was an exploding star.

Anytime I hear a reference to Orange Julius, I think of him. Extraordinary chap. 

Groovy Commuting, Words No Longer Used, The Godfather and College Football All in One Far Out Post

Pacino and Brando in The Godfather

I’m commuting into San Francisco again. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have an early morning class so have to leave the house at seven AM to catch the commuter bus. It’s a mellow ride that beats regular commute hours by half an hour (or so). I get into the City and have a twenty-minute (or so) walk to school. I’m done before noon and home around 12:45 (in the afternoon — of course). Tuesdays and Thursdays I have an afternoon class so don’t leave the house until 11:30 AM (or so). After work comes the tricky part of my commute week as I leave just as the evening commute is heating up: 4:30 (or so). This is only day three so I can’t say too much about the overall commute. There’ll be bad days and a horrific experience or two but for the most part it’ll be fairly groovy.

I like that, “fairly groovy.” The word groovy is of a time more so than most slang. It’s very Sixties. It was pretty much gone by the mid if not the early seventies. “Right on” is very Sixties too but has had a longer shelf life and still pops up now and again. “Far out” was also totally a Sixties saying that was already being mocked by the seventies. Ya know what else was around in the sixties? Referring to your boy/girl friend (usually one you lived with) as your “old man” or “old lady.” Never hear it anymore. I wasn’t crazy about it but think it preferable to today’s “partner” which sounds so antiseptic. Also in the Sixties there were “hassles” or someone was “hassling” you. So it was a verb and a noun. Often it was the police — or pigs — who were doing the hassling. People had roommate “hassles” back then. This could “put you through changes.” No one gets “put through changes” anymore. More’s the pity. It seems like “bummer” has stuck around. People still get “bummed out” but I don’t believe they have “bum trips” anymore. Also people don’t watch either the “boob tube” or “idiot box” anymore. I blame the advent of the computer age.

Here’s a question: how much Sixties slang did I use “back in the day”? Not much. I was, especially growing up in Berkeley, very much attuned to the times. I protested against the war in Vietnam, I listened to rock, I smoked “grass” aka “weed” or “bush” and grew my hair long but I generally eschewed slang. I suppose I’ve always been fairly erudite. 

Speaking of words….People never have quarrels anymore. The British have rows but Americans just have arguments. No one gets cross anymore either. They do get angry or pissed. Some folks get mad though the British generally use mad for crazy. Speaking of piss, in England they take the piss but we don’t do that here in the states. Also in England you can tell someone to piss off but in the states you are pissed off. I don’t remember the last time I heard someone described as bashful, everyone is shy. Is it my imagination or are we cutting down on our vocabulary?

Without segue I’ll mention that last weekend I watched The Godfather (1972) Coppola and The Godfather Part II (1974) Coppola. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve watched these two films but I’d say it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a lot. With each viewing I become increasingly impressed with Al Pacino’s turn as Michael Corleone. The transformation in the first movie from the boyish soldier back from the war bringing his girlfriend home to a wedding to the cold-blooded Mafia Don is one of the great performances in cinema. In the sequel he remains true to the character with only barely controlled rage to indicate that warm blood courses through his veins. The Godfather films are as close to perfectly made as you can get. Tick off the boxes, directing, editing, costumes, set design, acting, the score. I recently saw a discussion in which most participants said they preferred the sequel. Not me. (Although it is really splitting hairs to say you prefer one to the other.) I like the first more because of the aforementioned Michael transition and also for the presence of Vito (Marlon Brando) and Sonny (James Caan). That said the scenes ins Part II with Robert DeNiro as the young Vito in Little Italy are some of the best ever committed to celluloid. 

College football died after Michigan defeated Washington for the national championship on Monday (Go Blue!). Next season will be a travesty of what the sport once was. My own beloved University of California Golden Bears along with their arch rivals, Stanfurd will be in the Atlantic Coast Conference. From Cal’s Memorial Stadium you can look over the west rim of the stadium and see the Pacific Coast. Nonetheless…..Meanwhile the Pacific Coast Conference will be no more. Traditional rivalries have been going by the way side for years now and more will be ended. In lieu of many geographically logical conferences there will be huge mega conferences. All this at the behest of TV networks and in the name of the almighty dollar. Lastly there will now be a 12 team post season tournament to determine the national champions as greed gives way to common sense. Like professional sports, college football will now offer the opportunity to second place finishers to claim titles. To quote a song: don't it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.

Hey Ziggy, We Did All Right; On Changing Language and Culture and Being Cool

Ziggy played guitar.

It’s one of those times in my life where I don’t know if I’m here or there, sad or happy, me or you, making it or faking it. But it doesn’t matter because I’ve got David Bowie playing on, in and around my headphones.

Dig it.

In my youth we said things like, “do your thing,” “it’s your bag” “funky” (I love the word funky — you jive ass turkey). We also said — well not me, but some people — my head’s in a weird place right now (for fuck sakes get it out of there!). We used to “trip” and “go through changes” and we were worried about someone “hassling” us or “messing” with us (the jive ass turkeys). Some of the shit people said was silly like “when is the meeting happening?” But at least no one forgot anything, they merely “spaced on it.”

I was young at some amazing times. It was when we stuck it to the man, took to the streets and grooved and got down and boogied. There was the fucking war in Vietnam and it was just so fucking obvious that that shit was messed up and we protested the hell out of the war. That was a damn good thing and was accompanied by our belief in equality and racial justice.

I’d grown up trying to be keen and boss but then it all became about being cool.

Young, man. That was a trip. Tripping man, they could be trippy. Course we tripped on acid (LSD to y’all). That was heavy. Messing with your own mind. Enlightenment. We were all about that shit. 

We got stoned, loaded, wasted, fucked up, shit faced, bombed out of our minds.

We went through some serious changes — dude.

Dude was a word that looped around in weird ways. Changing a lot and do the young people still use it, my dude? There were no fellas and very few guys. But dudes -- yes.

Females were chicks to some. Gays were queer, and queers were gay. Even the young and the hip were still processing homosexuality. That was new to us but in keeping with new and enlightened times we were accepting — eventually.

There was a time that our Black brothers and sisters were Afro Americans. I liked that term but it went away and was not my call. 

Ziggy played guitar jamming good….

Love and peace were serious themes. Do we talk about them anymore? I mean we were serious about them both. They were what it was all about. Give Peace a Chance and All You Need is Love, said the Beatles. They were the main spokespeople of our generation, hell, they pretty much formed our goddamned generation. 

Course there were others: Hendrix, Joplin, The Doors, The Who, Marvin Gaye, Bowie, Stevie Wonder, the Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Neil Motherfucking Young. Even the Beach Boys — Pet Sounds, y’all. Yeah, we had our voices and they were cool beyond words. Rhythm. We danced like crazy and the dancing was CRAZY. But you knew that.

Woodstock!!Z!!

But some shit was nasty like Charlie Manson and the poor saps he hypnotized. Murdering bastards. Totally uncool.

Vibes were super important. You wanted good ones.

The Black Panthers were at the vanguard. 

But there were serious enemies. The pigs. Hoover and the Fucking FBI. The CIA. The Military. Nixon, Reagan. Mayor Daly. So many. The uncoolest.

We were right, though, ya know. We had it together. We were right and righteous. It was our time. We changed the world. No, not so much the U.S. power structure, it looks like rich, corporate, militaristic bastards will always hold sway. But we created the culture man. We made movies, and music, and TV and literature and art and liberated teens, and sex and language and clothes and hair. Hair, man.

We did a number on that. 

People should totally thanks us.

Ziggy, out.

I'll Be Sporting a New Look if....

 

Here's the thing, I'm building a time machine so that I can return to the 1970s and buy these fabulous clothes at Seventies prices. I'll be sure to Instagram myself in them. Now if I can just find that socket wretch I can get started.

Ten American Films That Capture The Soul of America

Wild Boys of the Road

The premise is simple. I here present ten American films from the last ninety years that in their own way reveal aspects of the American zeitgeist. As both a visual and oral story-telling medium, cinema is uniquely qualified to mirror society and its ever-changing norms and shifting ideals and concerns. Between them the films I've selected do not capture every aspect of this country’s culture, but they do represent different times, different moods and different places reflective of the American experience, spirit and soul. The films I selected are:

Wild Boys of the Road (1933) Wellman

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Ford

On the Waterfront  (1954) Kazan

The Great Escape (1963) J. Sturges

The Last Picture Show (1971) Bogdanovich

Taxi Driver (1976) Scorsese

Do the Right Thing (1989) S. Lee

The Ice Storm  (1997) A. Lee

Mean Girls (2004) Waters

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Tarantino

I don’t pretend that this is a definitive list. One could easily include another dozen or more films (I’ve got examples at the end of the post) and other people would have selected some very different movies for the same task. But I believe these films, from nine different decades and ten different directors, provide an introduction into an exploration of the American soul through film.

The first two films on this list are both set during the Great Depression which effected nearly every American — most adversely. The Depression wasn’t just a devastating economic event that dominated political discourse, it insinuated itself into the culture. Early on movies did two things with the Depression: try to make sense of it and try to distract people from it. These two films stared the Depression in the eye.

Wild Boys of the Road follows a group of teenagers who’ve left home to take their chances on the road. The main protagonist Eddie (Frankie Darro) has done so to ease the financial burden on his parents. It is an unflinching look at the hardships everyday Americans faced, particularly those who “rode the rails.” We see the brutality of those enforcing the law, whether city police or railroad bulls. There is a rape, a boy is maimed and children are arrested. Despite this, Wild Boys of the Road is not a pessimistic film. It is imbued with the spirit of can-do American youth and the belief that everyone is entitled to an even break. Wild Boys is also not sentimental. The ending is hopeful, not sappy. The kids are plucky and determined, unwilling to bow to the enormous obstacles that have been put in front of their pursuit of the American dream. It is a classic of the pre-code era directed by William Wellman,  arguably the greatest director of the pre-code era. In addition to Wild Boys he directed Heroes For Sale (1933) which is another hard look at the Depression, The Public Enemy (1931) and Midnight Mary (1933).

My favorite of John Ford’s films is Grapes of Wrath which explores a different aspect of the Depression, the Dust Bowl and the migration west from it by the people who came to be known as Okies. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Steinbeck, the film follows the fortunes of the Joad family, specifically Tom Joad who we meet after he’s released from prison after serving time for manslaughter. Tom is a sort of everyman, despite his time behind bars (after all it was self-defense). Through him we discover the devastation that has been visited upon the Great Plains by the combined might of Mother Nature and banks. Farms have been lost, families displaced and some people have given up or gone mad. The Joad family embodies the spirit of a people who push on, dreaming of greener grass on the other side — in this case California, where there are supposedly jobs aplenty. Upon arriving in the promised land they are confronted by the hard truth that this is no eden after all and the competition for menial jobs is stiff and the bosses are greedy and uncaring. To organize is to court trouble. Strike breakers are a vicious enemy as are — sadly — the police. Grapes of Wrath is a beautifully filmed and filled with brilliant performances (Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine to name a few) and in my mind one of the best films in the American canon. Part of its brilliance stems from — like Wild Boys, only more poetically — it’s realism. Again this is a film without sentimentally but one with a sense of hope. A cynical movie about the Depression would be cruel. Grapes of Wrath is no joyous romp but it does reflect the power of the American spirit.

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront is a compelling film on a lot of levels. It is about working men, it is about corruption, it is about organized crime, it is about unions, it is about the often very fine line between truth-telling and betrayal, it is about the power of the group and the power of the individual. Set in the docks of  New Jersey in the 1950s, Waterfront was a star vehicle for Marlon Brando who portrayed the conflicted longshoreman, Terry Malloy. Malloy is a simple working class stiff who coulda been a contender as a boxer but has had to settle for the dreary nine-to-five routine. He is protected by a strong union (albeit a corrupt one) but is also at its mercy. A crime commission is investigating the union and others like it and stool pigeons are being dealt harsh mob justice. It is a classic story of how far loyalty goes and the heavy price of being honest. It was also a story ripped from the day’s headlines and thus resonated with audiences. Waterfront looked at American brotherhood and its corruption by evil forces. Another dichotomy of the American Dream. Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint also feature as part of one of the best casts ever assembled. 

The Great Escape was a phenomenon in the early and mid 1960s. It had an all-star cast led by Mr. Cool himself, Steve McQueen. It was set during the “Good War” when Americans were unquestionably the good guys. It was a true story. It had action. It was smart. It was beautifully shot. Americans have always loved war pictures of all kinds and have made scads of them, from the jingoistic and racist to gritty dramas with strong character development to the fantastical explosion-laden adventure story, to the faithfully told true story. Stars ranging from John Wayne, to Humphrey Bogart, to Brad Pitt to Clint Eastwood to Lee Marvin, to Cary Grant to Henry Fonda to Ben Affleck to George C. Scott to William Holden have featured. Casablanca (1942) Curtiz, can be safely considered the most popular of WWII films, as well as one of the most critically esteemed. But the Great Escape — the true story of a mass escape from a German POW camp during World War II — symbolized American derring do in the form of McQueen’s character Virgil Hilts. He was an individualist, thumbing his nose at the hated Nazis and he did it with verve, as encapsulated by his vain attempt to escape through the Alps on a motorcycle. The British were our allies, they were good, disciplined, smart people, but to American audiences they lacked the panache of Yankees like Hilts. Hilts was a one-man case of American exceptionalism.

The Last Picture Show shone a very bright light on small town America, Texas style. It’s cast of characters included lonely housewives, carousing youngsters, grizzled and wise elders, dashing playboys and the mentally challenged. It is at heart a sad story of emptiness and loss and the great efforts people make to escape their doldrums, without physically leaving. Sex is an escape. Drinking is an escape. The movies are an escape. Sports are an escape. But only a character who joins the army really gets away (and that to the confines of military life). This is an America rarely depicted in films but one that tens if not hundreds of millions have lived in. Life offers small rewards, sparingly doled out. Despair lurks around the corner for most, yet hope is a constant — whether justified or not. The Last Picture Show avoids being depressing; it has compelling characters whose stories are relatable and engaging. When a teenage boy psychologically wounds the middle aged women with whom he’s had an affair, we feel her rage just as we sympathize with the young man. They are all victims. America would not have been ready for The Last Picture Show anytime before it’s premier, but it came at a time when — with an unpopular war raging in Vietnam and cultural values shifting -- introspection and self-critique came into vogue.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver takes us into the heart of the big city — indeed America’s biggest — and it is not a journey for the meek of heart. Our guide is one Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) a disaffected taxi driver, war veteran and loner who — when he can’t find love — looks for meaning. But his is a damaged mind and his quest ends in bloody massacre and this after he nearly assassinates a presidential candidate. Taxi Driver explores the underbelly of the American urban experience and the deranged individuals there formed. Yet is it a poetic film and like all great cinema is never depressing -- in large part because it is so honest. It is also about the loneliness of the big city and how easy it is to get lost deep in the recesses of your own mind. Bickle is hardly an American everyman, but he is a product of a culture that over values individualism. Bickle is, in his own way, also a crusader whose ultimate goal is to do the right thing.

American cinema has largely shied away from issues of race but a major exception can be found in Spike Lee’s seminal 1989 film Do the Right Thing. The tension is palpable, the violence as if from a documentary, the issues are timeless. It’s set in New York but could just as easily be in any other large American city. There are types of people but no stereotypes of people. These are strong, well-crafted characters who as an ensemble reflect much of the joy and pain of being an other in white America. Do the Right Thing climaxes in a confrontation between the white owners of a pizzeria and its black customers. Into this scene comes a character who is restrained by police officers  — as if the story was ripped from headlines from the future —and is  killed in the process. A riot ensues. No one wins. There’s a harsh message right there. No one wins. Like many great films, DTRT asks questions rather than feeding audiences easy answers. It thus allows — nay, insists — that viewers do their own thinking, examining both the state of American race relations and their own feelings on the topic. Lee has made much of the fact that many viewers are more concerned with the destruction of the pizzeria than they are with the death of a character. DTRT can thus be seen as a kind of American racial litmus test.

Ice Storm is simply the best representation of suburbia ever committed to film and not incidentally a clever look at the 1970s and the upper middle class. The wise ones here are the teenagers who variously pursue love or find meaning in comic books our follow the latest news on Watergate. The adults go to key parties for a sad, perverted form of the sexual revolution and incidentally cheat on each other in less open, totally dishonest ways. Truth is spoken by the teenaged girl whose offering of grace at Thanksgiving is an attack on American consumerism and the theft of the lands from Native Americans. This is a decadent America that has lost its values. It is a prettified suburban version of The Last Picture Show. Ice Storm is an exposure of desolation of hearts in a soulless land of cocktail parties and banality. Remarkably we don't come to hate nor necessarily dislike any of the characters, that would be too easy.

Mean Girls

I’ve long championed Mean Girls as not only a cultural phenomenon but, a great film. On the surface it’s a light teen comedy that satirizes the high school experience, but it’s — perhaps despite its own intentions — far more than that. It is wise and witty and revealing of the cliques, social hierarchies and peer pressure that make the high school experience a fraught one for many. High school can be a walk in the park for some students while a race through a land mine ridden field for others. Other teen films — including those set in high schools — tend to focus on boys and how they will be boys. As the title suggest Mean Girls has a primarily female cast and given the struggles and triumphs and dramatic ups and downs of its main character, Cady (Lindsay Lohan) it can be seen as post feminist. Hierarchies and status are based less on merit and more on wealth. Beauty is extolled over intelligence. Social standing trumps academic standing. There are a lot of aspects to the high school experience that are universal, but still others that are unique to the United States and Mean Girls is adept at portraying them. The films journey to a happy ending is a fraught one with obstacles aplenty. Along the way viewers are guided through socialization American high school style.

I don’t know that any other film has captured the time period it depicts better than Quentin Tarantino’s OUTH. The sights, the sounds and even the colors of late Sixties California are so vivid as to be transformative. It is also a film rich in themes and ideas and history. It is about celebrity, about the film and television industry, about an era, about cults and about the struggle to stay relevant and popular in a competitive world. As he did in another of his great films, Inglorious Basterds (2009), Tarantino re-writes history and again it feels like the right thing to do for the story. In addition to reflecting a time, place and a mood, movies are good for occasionally taking us away from reality and if creating a new one is necessary, so be it. But the broader point about OUTH is its exploration of a given time in which the U.S. underwent the mad melding of the hip new counter culture with the tradition bound. Some people fully embraced the hippie movement, others adapted aspects of it such as longer hair or experimenting with drugs or listening to rock music. The late Sixties were a time when squares like Dean Martin and cool cats like The Beatles were competing in music’s top forty. The establishment’s Bob Hope and the counter culture’s George Carlin were both making American’s laugh. The establishment was providing jobs and financial security at the same time it was benefitting from institutionalized racism and sending young men to die in Vietnam. Meanwhile the counter culture was offering exciting alternatives in everything from music to fashion to gaining awareness at the same time it was producing the Manson Family and drug overdoses and runaways. OUTH gets it all and through the mores it explores provides a uniquely American kaleidoscope.

Other films I considered for this article were: Heroes For Sale (1933) Wellman, My Man Godfrey (1936) LaCava, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) Wyler, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) Ray, Midnight Cowboy (1969) Schlesinger, Shampoo (1975), Network (1976) Lumet,  Ashby, Platoon (1986) Stone, Boyz N the Hood (1991) Singleton, The Truman Show (1998) Weir, Milk (2008) Van Sant, and Get Out (2017) Peele. I highly recommend them all.

Once Again I Comment on Headlines, But This Time They're From 50 Years ago

A regular and much beloved feature of this blog has been my occasional looks at the day's headlines. Once or twice a month I print a dozen or so headlines from various news outlets and follow each with comments about them that are either pithy, snarky, wise or brilliantly on point (or a combination thereof). The response has been overwhelming (thank you Bob Cratchit of Londonderry, NH). As a change of pace and a bit of a history lesson, I'm changing things a bit for todays' edition as all headlines will be from 50 years ago today -- December 23, 1970. In doing so I have the advantage of actually remember those times.  I was then a senior in high school. I hope you enjoy this, a history edition of headlines.

From the San Francisco Examiner:

Tough Nixon Pollute Order

Richard Nixon was one of the most disreputable presidents in our nation's history. His role in Watergate was alone enough to place him in infamy, but there was much more notably his role in continuing the war in Vietnam and thereby costing tens of thousands of people their lives. Yet he can look like a flaming liberal compared to today's Republicans. This story is a case in point. It's about Nixon clamping down on industries trying to dump their wastes into the nation's rivers and lakes. The Republican of today doesn't give a good goddamn how badly industries were polluting. This really says more about modern Republicans than about Nixon

Christmas Vigil for Angela

That day Angela Davis had been arraigned on trumped up charges related to an attempted kidnapping and escape from a federal courthouse in Marin the previous Summer. Davis had purchased several of the firearms purchased in the escape attempt which resulted in the death of three prisoners and a federal judge. This was at a time when Black activists were regularly being targeted by the police and FBI. Ultimately Angela was found not guilty.

Satellites for Cable TV

I would have looked at this story 50 years ago and thought, "what the hell do satellites have to do with television and what's a cable TV"? Times, folks, have changed.

U.S. Ready For Mideast Peace Role

I don't recall this specifically but I'm sure everything worked out and peace in the Middle East was attained and aside from a misunderstanding or two everything has been peachy there to this day.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Nixons Are Reported Shocked at Frost's White House Show

The foul-mouthed bigoted Richard Nixon was sensitive to humor with an edge, especially when it edged towards him, his policies or his administration. Frosts's jokes were pretty mild and if you know anything about Frost that shouldn't be a surprise. The barbs' were delivered during a theatrical evening in the East Room for Nixon friends, and supporters. One of the jokes was that a little girl in a nativity scene complained that it was easy to be a shepherd but hard to be a virgin. Frost and Nixon famously met after the president had resigned in disgrace during a series of interviews conducted by the Brit. Those interviews were immortalized in both a play and film called Frost/Nixon.

Fugitive Weatherman Seized Sought Here Seized in Pittsburgh

This was a story about Caroline Tanner a member of the weatherman, a faction of the SDS, a radical splinter group often responsible for bombing federal facilities.The charges against her stemmed from an incident in which four policeman were attacked by a "mob of about twenty persons" at a Chicago federal building.  I was curious about Ms. Tanner and after research later discovered she was sentenced to six months for jumping bail. She is currently alive and practicing neurology at UCSF she specializes in Parkinson's disease and works with the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Two More GIs One a Chicagoan, Face Trial in My Lai Killings

On March 15, 1968 U.S. soldiers killed between 347 and 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians including women, children and infants. Some of the women were gang raped by soldiers first. While this was the worst massacre perpetrated by American soldiers in Vietnam, it was -- unfortunately -- not an anomaly as many believed at the time. While the incident sparked international outrage -- in part because of the efforts to cover it up -- those few found guilty were given light or no sentences. The fall guy for the massacre, Lt. William Calley, served three years of house arrest for his leading role in the killings. The My Lai Massacre remains one of the blackest stains in U.S. military history.

From the Atlanta Constitution:

Hanoi Lists POWs But U.S. is Wary

It was around this time of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that the naming and eventual release of American prisoners of war became a hot topic particularly for propaganda purposes and as a negotiating tool for both sides. POWs became a noble symbol of U.S. efforts and their return was the cause célèbre for the Nixon administration.. Returning POWs were given hero's welcomes and many were feted at the White House. Among those POWs was John McCain.

Nixon Prods Senate on Social Security

Was Nixon trying to cut our reduce social security? Au contraire. He was insisting they be increased. The point again is that while Nixon was an awful man, the Republican Party of fifty years ago was not completely unreasonable or totally Scrooge-like. What changed? It all started with Reagan. But that's a story for another time.

1970 Has Been a Bad Year for Republicans

Which is to say that it was a pretty good year for the country. As I've noted here twice Republicans weren't quite the ogres then that they are today and Democrats were not exactly angels either. Also the war in Vietnam was still needlessly raging with Americans one of the chief villains. But my recollection -- and this is not strictly anecdotal -- is of a time with far greater optimism, less division and a sense of shared responsibility. Social progress -- while it had massive roadblocks -- seemed more doable.

From the Boston Globe:

Nazi Commandant Gets Life Sentence

The man in question was the commandant of the Nazi death camp at Treblinka who, 25 years after World War Two's end, was finally being brought to justice. We still occasionally hear of an accused Nazi war criminal being found but at this point they can't be much younger than 95 or so. Indeed, we may no longer read of anymore Nazis being unmasked. Back then it was not exactly common but did happen from time to time. Franz Stangl, the arrestee in this case, was still only 62.

Mayor Fights Move to Reinstate Teacher

The teacher in question had been dismissed "in connection with the use of a four-letter word in a high school class." Let's be clear, as someone who has taught for over 34 years, approximately 25 of which were in public schools, I am one hundred per cent against teachers using profanity while in the presence of students. But dismissing a teacher? Maybe if it was habitual and there had been many warnings....Times have changed. Foul language by teachers is not tolerated but it does occasionally happen and I don't know of it ever leading to a dismissal.

Three Tate Co-Defendants Removed

The infamous Charles Manson trial was underway at this time (the Tate-LaBianca murders having been committed the previous August). The trial was a spectacle in itself and this story is about three of Manson's followers -- all women -- having to be dragged out of court, kicking and screaming after constantly interrupting closing arguments. The story of the Manson family is one of the most compelling reads you'll likely come across and a fascinating look into that era.

Also....

That night there was a Johnny Cash Christmas special on TV at 9:00. Comedian Bill Cosby was performing live at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe. In movie theaters you could see Love Story, Five Easy Pieces, Brewster McCloud and the Aristocats. AM/FM pocket radios were selling for $12.88, 30 cup coffeemaker were going for $9.88, a Lady Shick razor was $11.88 and a Fondue set was $3.99. 

All newspapers were completely Trump-free!

Almost 40 Years of Three Days of the Condor Still a Great Film that Still Stirs Memories

On a Saturday night in the Fall of 1975 Becky and I went to see a new film called Three Days of the Condor (1975). Becky and I were living together at the time. She was quite functional as a lover and friend but was devoid of intellectual curiosity and I’d guess that to this day she has maintained her streak of not picking up a book since high school. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was quite fortunate when she packed her bags and left the next Spring. Anyhoo we went to see this movie and I really liked it. Not sure that Becky cared for it. It should have been a clue that our relationship was not built to last that we generally didn’t like the same sort of films. I recall watching They Shoot Horses Don’t They (1969) on TV with Becky and wanting to discuss it afterwards and she didn’t see the point either of the film or my musings on it. Warning sign.

Last night I watched Three Days of the Condor for maybe the fifth or sixth or seventh time. As I have previously on several occasions, I watched it with the missus with whom I’ve been happily married for 27 years. (Happy for me. I think the jury's still out for her.) She does pick up books and she reads them and she likes and loves many of the same films as I do and we both really like TDOC. In terms of “serious” relationships I’ve made up for my earlier misstep many many times over by this marriage.

TDOC one of the many 1970s films like The Parallax View (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), Marathon Man (1976), The Conversation (1974), Serpico (1973) and Alien (1979) in which there is a conspiracy afoot and one or two brave men — in one case a woman — tries to uncover it and live to tell the tale. Some uncover. Some don’t. Some live. Some don’t. If you want to know how the protagonist in TDOC fares — one Robert Redford — you’ll have to watch the movie and by the way I heartily recommend that you do. If you've seen it before, watch it again. What, you got something better to do?

Redford plays a CIA agent of sorts. Joe Turner reads books for the agency to see if the material is being used or planted by national security agencies for the US or enemy regimes in actual operations. He works in an office with seven other similarly employed agents. One seemingly typical day it is his turn to pick up lunch. He returns to find everyone in the office has been killed -- as he was meant to be. It seems our friend has uncovered something that some folks wish he hadn't (after all these viewings I'm still not clear on why they wiped out the whole office). Wisely Joe hits the streets (of New York) and soon realizes no one can be trusted. Though not a field agent, Joe is a resourceful sort which is a good thing because anyone on the run from the CIA has to use his wits to good effect. Not surprisingly his home is being monitored. This is the proverbial nowhere to turn scenario. So Joe kidnaps a woman, Kathryn Hale (Faye Dunaway) to aid and abet him. She is understandably reluctant at first but becomes a willing accomplice as she senses his sincerity and falls for his dashing good looks. This is after all Robert Redford.

A few posts ago I mentioned -- not for the first time -- the incredible run of films in which Ms. Dunaway appeared over a ten year stretch starting with Bonnie and Clyde (1967). This is not her meatiest roles from among those films, but as was her custom she handled it very well.

Among Joe's foils is a mysterious paid assassin played most ably by Max von Sydow. It's a helluva good story and for my money (what little there is of it) the finest directorial effort by the late Sydney Pollack. The computers are of course quite anachronistic but the storyline holds up well. Particularly the notion that oil is of paramount importance and would lead a country to go to war (sound familiar?). There are many elements of the film that have been subsequently borrowed by others such as the Bourne films. Here is the original rogue agent defying his superiors and foiling them at every turn. In TDOC Cliff Robertston and John Houseman have the type of roles that the likes of Chris Cooper and Judi Dench would later play as frustrated higher ups trying to reign in someone who "knows too much" and is a threat to national security. The stripping of trust is a staple of many very good films; its something Hitchcock did to perfection. It is a terrifying scenario when those closest to us can no longer be counted -- or are dead -- and our institutions betray us as well.

This is what makes TDOC among the great paranoia films of the Seventies coming out in the wake of government exposed lies about Vietnam, assassinations, domestic spying and Watergate. They were intelligent films that did not rely on prolonged action sequences, special effects, exotic locales or gratuitous love stories. America didn't feel it could trust its government anymore and this fear was reflected in film. Actually it might be more accurate to say that these weren't paranoia films as much as they were telling it as it was and is. If not in actual fact then certainly in feeling.

As to the movie going experience I can say unequivocally I feel much nostalgia.  Mind you I'm very very happy to own a veritable library of films on DVD and to have access to hundreds of others via such providers as Nextflix and Hulu but there was something special about movie going in bygone days. For me the Seventies were the pinnacle. It was the golden age of cinema with story the king and the shackles of censorship removed and a passel of great directors working. There were no computers to watch movies on and anything on TV was interrupted by advertising and edited for sexual content and language and extreme violence. Even without knowing what was to come in a few decades, many of us only rarely bothered trying to watch a movie on the telly. So going to the theater was a special experience. The one chance to see a film. There was no notion of waiting for anything to come out on video.

In those days I would actually go to movies at night, even and especially Saturdays as I did when I saw TDOC with Becky (it's bargain matinees for me now, the smaller the crowd the better). It was an event and there was always something good playing. Also the theaters were actually theaters and not the sterile multiplexes of today that have no character. Individuals theaters were unique. And the experience was actually called "going to the movie theater." Theater. 

I wonder whatever became of old Becky. We had a few good months and I'm only embarrassed that it was she who saw that we were going nowhere. The damndest thing though, I have no clear recollection what she thought of Three Days of Condor. Probably not much. Today's current crop of Spider X Wolverines probably suit her taste more.

But I am happy that the missus loves the Three Days of the Condor. She's aces.

The Ice Storm a Brilliant Look at the the 1970s Suburbia and When the Twain Did Meet

Joyless. Numbly going through the motions of suburban life in the 1970s. Barely understanding or caring about events shaping the country or the world. Not thinking not feeling and in fact avoiding the chore of exploring the self the act of being.

Plastic existence with the numbing drone of the television or of the softening effect of cocktails. Huge houses with too many rooms and too few ideas. Surrounded by nature outside and things -- so many things -- inside.

But it was comfortable. There was money and creature comforts so one could survive it all. There were also other people and the empty interactions that were supposed to bring community but only highlighted the isolation.

No film has ever captured the Seventies or suburban living and certainly not the meeting of the two as well as Ang Lee's brilliant The Ice Storm (1997). You will see the best minds of your generation destroyed by ennui.

The Ice Storm is set over a Thanksgiving in 1973 in a Connecticut suburb of New York. Kevin Kline and Joan Allen portray the principle mom and dad. With Tobey Maguire and Christina Ricci playing their children. Other young actors in the film include Elijah Wood and Katie Holmes in her film debut.

Richard Nixon is a sort of featured player appearing in archival footage as Watergate is starting to sink his presidency. Only the 14 year old Wendy (Ricci) seems interested in his web of lies. Her older brother Paul (Maguire) is in prep school and is more interested in a beautiful classmate (Holmes) and getting high and reading comic books.

Part of the brilliance of The Ice Storm is how utterly nonjudgmental it is. Lee's camera captures the stark beauty of the homes and landscapes and of the ice storm itself but it is otherwise objective in following the characters. We thus have neither sympathy nor antipathy for anyone. We merely observe. Having been around in the Seventies and having spent some time (thankfully not very much) in the suburbia of that time I can attest to the accuracy of what we see. Not just the physical look -- which is spot on right down to the tacky clothes -- but the feel of the time and place. Looking back it seems a sort of faux modernism. It was a prosperous time in which one working parent could support a family with a house and two cars. There was a comfortable sort of intellectualism that was more focused on the superficiality of reforming government and weeding out corruption than with challenging conventions or producing great art. The conformity of the 1950s was dead but so too was the spirit of rebellion of the 1960s. Shlock was in whether it was trashy disco music garish clothes bushy sideburns obnoxious game shows or prefab sports stadiums.

Kline and Allen play Ben and Elena Hood. Whatever passion that their marriage once had is long gone so Ben is having an affair with the wife (Sigourney Weaver) of a good friend and neighbor. Elena feels purposeless which perhaps explains why she shoplifts at the local drugstore. Their precious daughter stares numbly at the TV and willingly allows the neighbor boys to see her vagina. Their forever bemused son comes home for Thanksgiving though he leaves the following night for an unsuccessful  date with the girl of his dreams.

That night there is a terrible ice storm a huge cocktail party that morphs into the saddest key party you'll ever see and a tragic death. Even in death there is no great wave of emotion. There is more an emptiness of a person lost which is odd given the emptiness of the lives we see. There is also a lack of desperation almost an acceptance of going through the motions. Taking the next step doing the next thing. A death of conscience and consciousness. The children at once detect the meaninglessness of it all and participate in it. The easy affluence has sucked everyone into its vortex.

Yet this is a remarkably watchable film. The characters are still engaging and the settings striking. Lee created a world that is familiar accessible and in its own way entertaining.

In The Ice Storm no one gets what she or he wants. Whether everyone gets what they deserve is entirely the viewer's call. I don't know exactly how "rated" The Ice Storm is but it can't be rated high enough.

"Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another."

Writing sometimes comes out of anger or depression. Rarely from ennui. But sometimes....I made Apocalypse Now (1979) my President's Day celebration film. How about that.

People spend a lot of time numbing their lives. Television. You tube. Chores. Mundane everyday tasks.  It's not escapism but avoidance. At the beginning of Apocalypse Now Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) talks about the impossibility of being at home in the states after his first tour in Nam. "When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle." Many war veterans have said the same thing. Because for all its horror war reminds a person that he is alive. They are wide awake to life and that awareness is like a drug. Imagine having that horrible acid trip that is war the whole time wanting to come down from it then once down wanting to drop another tab. Oh man.

It's no surprise that the film has the feel of an acid trip. From the opening shots of the helicopter The Doors singing "The End" and the jungle going up in flames through the journey up the river culminating with the insanity of Col. Kurtz it is a long very strange trip.

Yeah the helicopters. I've had a thing for helicopters every since high school when one poured tear gas down on me and thousands of others gathered on the Cal campus to protest the Viet Nam War. Seminal moment. These were not enemy choppers and I was not an armed combatant. From curious bystander to instant radical. The sound of those blades chopping through the air....Still. Today. 

There's a lot of helicopter action in Apocalypse Now. There are copters raining death from above on a Vietnamese village. The airborne cavalry. There's Robert Duvall extolling the smell of napalm in the morning. It's one of the many oft repeated lines from the film.  Like another Coppola masterpiece -- The Godfather (1972) -- Apocalypse Now is much remembered for its quotes and for its iconic characters. But these are just the ornaments of a kaleidoscopic and weighty epic. It is a heavy heavy movie sometimes feeling like an enthralling nightmare that won't end. It is humorless but beautiful. Despairing of humanity. At once an embrace of the warrior mentality and repudiation of it. Kurtz is hero villain victim. So are all soldiers. Instantly tragic figures caught up in a game played by politicians.

Ultimately Apocalypse Now is about madness and how it lives such a rich full life just beneath the human surface and is able to reign freely and easily where man make war. Kurtz was the model soldier who eventually fell into his own special abyss of insanity in which murder cloaked in battle made so much sense. Surely Duvall's Kilgore is a nut. Surfing through the war and playing Wagner.

Apocalypse Now is remarkably free of tension and there is little real contemplation of death. There is shock and mourning as Willard's crew meet their fates but these and other deaths are props in a story more heavy with the weight of group psychosis and savagery. It is no accident that Kurtz uses the word horror for this is a horror story. The beasts are men driven to acts that would be incomprehensible in other circumstances. But war...They are alternately manic and like zombies. Bouncing from one extreme emotional state in the next. Adrenalin coursing through their beings then suddenly abating replaced by overwhelming lethargy.

How does one go back to normal after living in among and as such madness? No wonder returning vets so often succumbed to drug addiction. It was the only way to replace the intense feeling of living not on but over the edge. The higher wire act. The craziness. The roller coaster without wheels.

So You Want to Start Watching Films of the Seventies, An Introduction

So You Want to Start Watching _______is an occasional feature here at Streams of Unconsciousness. It is a guide to anyone unfamiliar with a particular star, director, genre, or time period in films. After a brief introduction, I will provide a sampling of films to watch. Although I will always strive to include the best possible films for each chapter in the series, I will also look to present representative work. I'll say a little bit about each film, all of which will be provided in chronological order. This is the third of the series. In the first I provided an introduction to the films of Humphrey Bogart and the second was an intro to screwball comedies.

Question: what was the best decade of American films? Answer: that most certainly depends on your taste in movies. Most cinephiles will argue for the 1930s or 1970s. The 1950s has a few supporters, TCM host Robert Osborne likes the 1940s, silent film buffs will undoubtedly extol the 1920s and many of the younger generation favor the last decade. I don't know that the 1980s or 1990s have many advocates.

For my money (what little there is of it) the Thirties has the big edge in quantity of good films but the Seventies boasts an advantage in quality. The 1970s were a perfect storm for films. The studio system had come tumbling down as had censorship. There was a plethora of independent-minded directors and screen writers who were getting free reign. Technical innovations had not yet morphed into an over reliance on special effects. And a changing Western Culture was ready for and indeed demanding more of cinematic artists. We've not seen the likes of the 70s in film since and may never. 

I could easily recommend dozens of films to get you started exploring the Seventies, but I've simplified the task for myself in the following ways: one film per year, American films only and none of the more obvious films that you're likely already seen such as The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Cabaret (1972), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Apocalypse Now (1979), Taxi Driver (1976) or Jaws (1975). I've also made a point to give you a variety of film types including horror/sci fi, comedy, gangster, thriller, cops and robbers and the always popular disco film.

The Strawberry Statement (1970) Why not start your tour of seventies cinema with a film that looks at the sixties? That is the campus protest movements that helped (as they say in documentaries) define a generation. TSS has held up over time, at least for someone like me who was "there." It centers around one student who simultaneously gets caught up in love (what guy wouldn't fall for Kim Darby in 1970?) and sticking it to the man. TSS features a great soundtrack.

The Last Picture Show (1971)  To many film lovers of today, Peter Bogdanovich is a frequent talking head on DVD special features and the author of some of the better books on movies. But he's had an up and down career as a director and this was his big up, so to speak. And it was a really big up. It features a great cast including Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Cybill Shepard, Timothy Bottoms and a very young clean shaven Jeff Bridges. It is about the death of a West Texas town in the 1950s, including its lone movie house. Screenplay by legendary writer Larry McMurtry.

The Getaway (1972) It's directed by Sam Peckinpah, so you know there's no shortage of blood. It stars Steve McQueen, so you know there's no shortage of cool. McQueen is Doc McCoy who gets out of prison just in time to get in on a big bank heist. There's screw-ups and double crosses and McQueen along with his lovely wife (Ali McGraw) on the lam to Mexico with murderous accomplices in hot pursuit. No production code to dictate how it all turns out.

Mean Streets (1973) Before they made Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990), Director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert Deniro made this terrific film -- albeit DeNiro was not the star, Harvey Keitel was. It is rough, especially compared to the slicker films Scorsese has made recently. But it is wonderfully rough in a manner appropriate to the story of small time hoods in the mean streets of New York. It has a verve and excitement that presages Scorsese's later works. But it is a great film in its own right.

The Conversation (1974) Gene Hackman likes to listen, so much so that he does it for a living. This is one four Best Picture nominees from director Francis Ford Coppola in an eight-year span. It is too often the forgotten one. For more see this post of mine from August '09.

Love and Death (1975) This film answers the question: What would you get if you combined Ingmar Bergman with Groucho Marx. I don't know what I can add to that. Although you could check out this post I wrote about the film last Fall.

Marathon Man (1976) Dustin Hoffman is a graduate student who likes to run. But this is the 1970s when any poor schmoe could find himself in the midst of a vast conspiracy in which no one can be trusted. Laurence Olivier is a sadistic ex-Nazi dentist who works on our hero's teeth sans novocaine. Ouch. Marathon Man is one of the many excellent political thrillers of the decade.

Saturday Night Fever (1977) Daddy, did they really make a good movie about a guy who danced disco? They sure did. Re-visiting it today one is struck by how dark a film it is. Yes there's plenty of leisure suits, Bee Gee songs and John Travolta shaking his booty, but there's also a story of working class angst and the desperation to escape it. There are also people at war, not the military kind, but the day-to-day grind within families and communities. At once entertaining and thought-provoking.

Animal House (1978) I think its one of the funniest movies ever made. The late John Belushi is the star of a delightful ensemble cast. Watching it today makes one wonder what else he'd have achieved as a comic actor. Animal House is the story of a renegade frat house that goes up against the stuffed shirt fraternity and the mentally constipated campus administration. Most of all its good dirty fun.

Alien (1979) My understanding is that 99% of horror and sci fi movies today are suitable only for flushing. "Back in the day" director Ridley Scott created this classic of the genre that sadly has been sequeled and imitated to death. It is an intelligent film rife with tension and it hasn't aged a day. Either this kind of film is hard to make, producers today settle for cheap thrills or Scott and company just hit a massive home run.

Others to consider: Network (1976), Three Days of the Condor (1975), All the President's Men (1976), The French Connection (1971), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Last Detail (1973), The Sting (1973), The Exorcist (1973), Serpico (1973), Little Big Man (1970),  Play it Again, Sam (1972), The Front (1976), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975) and on and on and on.....