My happiest regards go out to one of my very bestest buds on god's good green earth....And many many more!

On the dire side....
The end is near.....

My three-week break is just about over. So much left undone!

I tried to take a break in the hills up past Frazier Park at a friend's cabin--but the bugs, the noise (of new cabins going up) and the rednecks (whose persistent glaring at my aforementioned back-windshield sign caused a large dose of The Fear) sent me reeling back toward the comfort of the noise and the smog of Home. Another time, perhaps.

Strange time this week---when my father AND my dear ol' Mums are BOTH in hospital, thankfully for different ailments (He for his foot, she for an attack of appendicitis)...still, I can smell the dank breath of mortality on my neck...or something.

No matter...she's back home and recuperating. He's still there, having his foot worked on.

Stepdad Brig and I went to pay homage to the 3-D Gods by being witness to a screening of 1953's "Inferno" starring that man-among-men Robert Ryan and the woman for whom 3-D was invented: Rhonda Fleming. A very tight, mean little B-feature, on the Dean's List I give it an easy 3 stars. The only film I can think of (besides perhaps "The Petrified Forest") that can be considered its own sub-genre: Desert-Noir.

(More film & TV stuff on the PopCult page)

The Green Reel is now less than two weeks off. Nothing to worry about.I expect KPFK will be having me on at this time next week.

This weekend got off to a rollicking start with the news of the passing (not unexpected) of Johnny Cash. So soon, too, after the death of wife June Carter Cash, last May. Could it be any plainer that he died of a broken heart?

Johnny Cash was one of those guys that seemed to always be there, throughout my life. I clearly recall my Dad's flirtation with country music around 1965-66-67, when all we heard whenever we went camping was JC, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, Patsy Cline--all the ones found on the Country Classics 60s CD collection (KBBQ was the station in the SFValley, if I recall correctly). I was there in 1969, when,in the summer of Neil Armstrong and "Space Food Sticks," the air around Lake Pokagon in NE Indiana was filled with Zager & Evans' sci-fi dirge "In the Year 2525," whose calculated morosity was leavened substantially by Johnny Cash singing "A Boy Named Sue."

The next year, 1970, as we found ourselves back on the sandy shores of Oxnard, CA, The Johnny Cash Variety Hour was the only program we kids were allowed to stay up to 10pm to watch.

As an adult, I've read about his hard life, his drug addictions, his recoveries---but there was always the music, and that voice, easily parodied, often imitated, but never duplicated.

So many politicians and public figures chatter these days about being of, by and for "the people." Johnny Cash not only claimed it, but lived it. Just listen to "The Man In Black" if you want to hear an honest take on class divisions in America. Listen to "What is Truth?" if you want a direct defense of the youth movement in the 1960s and 70s. And on a very human level, listen to "Sunday Morning Coming Down" (written by the great Kris Kristofferson) to hear a broken man reeling after a divorce (after mine, that song summed everything up brilliantly, and I still can't hear it without a lump in my throat).

Cash did this, and much, much more. He did music about how much he loved America, and he did music chastising America. He was the perfect American musician. Vaya con Dios (y June), mi amigo.

Nothing of any real import today...got a note from my Dad saying he's going back into the hospital to get his remaining (i.e.., "good") leg fixed.I was hoping to make a run up to see him while I had some time off...but oh well.

The Festival is only three weeks off! Nothing is worrying me right now, which is probably a sign that I should start worrying about something. See how that works?

OH! Good news! Just check the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and "Werewolf" is HANGING ON to that elusive #12 in their all-time Bottom 100 (http://us.imdb.com/bottom_100_films), and I simply couldn't be more proud. Those MST3K royalty checks should start rolling in soon!

(For both of you that don't know what I'm talking about: Your humble narrator appeared in a walk-on role in the film "Werewolf," a dismal wad of horribleness that thankfully got onto Mystery Science Theater 3000, that show where a guy and a couple of robots make fun of crappy old movies they're watching--and YES, they made fun of me, too)...

Just for fun, maybe I'll go rile up those sleepy fans on the MST3K Usenet group.

A story for our times?

Seems there was a man who worked in and around Hollywood. You know the type: slightly balding, slight paunch, driving a red Corvette convertible...Anyway, apparently his Monday was a very busy one, spent driving all over L.A. from one fancy restaurant to another, taking meetings of one sort or another...He noticed, though, that on this particular Monday, at every eatery, every red-vested young actor-type began fighting with the other car-parks for a chance to drive this guy's Corvette. It got pretty exhausting, after a full day of listening to these battles, that when he finally got home, he collapsed on the couch. His young, blonde trophy wife walked in and said, "Hi, honey, how are you? How was your day?"
And he sighed, "Oh--it had its piques and valets."

Bada-Boom.

Ohhhhhh, all right. Sheesh.

Talk about "peaks & valleys"! Today would have been a nice mellow day, spent at home making great strides in cleaning my horror of an office (see above)---but I had made plans to pick up Bridgette after school at 2:20, just to spend a little face time together. My bad--the pickup slipped my middle-aged brain and she called at 2:30 wondering where I was. Apologizing up & down, I said time just got away from me (I agreed with her that that was not much of an excuse, but it was the only one I had)... Well, our conversation gradually hit that slippery slope wherein any attempt at rational discourse would collapse like a soggy deck o'cards and she departed in a fit of pique.
Once again, I am Beelzebub, Simon Legree and Dick Cheney all wadded up into a nice stinking little package. O Lord, PLEASE get me through my daughter's adolescence without me throttling her or myself!

On the Film Festival front: seems somehow we got on the very top, front & center of the National Green Party website! Dunno how long the banner will be there, though, so if ya wanna, ya better check it out ASAP....

http://www.gp.org

When, I say, when is it okay to talk about having purple feet when one learns about the deaths of two musical iconoclasts without whom the world is a much poorer place?
Late last night, I learned about the recent passing of Mr. Wesley Willis, a rarity and mostly unknown musician who, ironically, appeared on my Music That I am Torturing Myself With page (Wonder who else will croak after being mentioned on this, the apparent Blog of Death?)...I say it one more time in his honor: "Rock over London, Rock On Chicago!"

THEN, this morning, I find out about the not-unexpected-but-still-not-anticipated death of Warren Zevon, 56. A wonderful part of my favorite year (1978) was spent spinning his album "Excitable Boy" until the grooves wore thin. Guess this warrants another listen.
His appearance on Letterman a few months ago was a heartbreaker. He knew he wouldn't play in public anymore, and even Dave was choked up. Another good one gone...
Brothah Gy is currently working on a radio documentary on the life & times of WZ. When I know more, I will pass it along here so that anyone interested may listen in.

Purple Feet? Oh...
Debs and I went to neighbor Michael's wine stomping yesterday. Got all squishy-toed and stained. Yay!

Borenstein: The state legislature is currently considering a bill allowing illegal immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, we discussed this briefly earlier with the citizen's group, I would like to hear the comments from all of you. The bill passed the assembly yesterday. The governor said that he would sign it. Do you support the proposal?

Camejo: The Europeans came over here illegally, they are 45% of our population, I say we let them stay and give them a driver's license. The people who have been here 20,000 years on this continent, desperately needed, no one is for them leaving, how can we not give them a driver's license?

Bet you're all agog wondering "Well, what's Dean think about this Recall stuff? And what about that great party that he & Debs threw last weekend? And what about the cat's head? Surely he must have SOMETHING to say on these topics?" Relax, gentle reader, as I intend to get you allllll caught up nice & comfy-like.
First of all, as you might imagine form mentions of my film festival (see below), I'm neither a Dittohead nor a Dem. I have been a registered Green since 1992. I have a serious difficulty with the S.O.P. of politics today, as I seem to have a pretty highly-tuned bullshit detector. It was buzzing off the scale earlier this week during the first goobernatorial debates, between Tom McClintock, Peter Ueberroth, Arianna Huffington, Peter Camejo and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante...There may have been one other, but it was someone else who obviously made such a positive impression on me that I can't remember who it was. Not that all of the above did the same, mind you: the first two guys are hard-core right-wing conservatives, nailing down the party lines, as expected, although Ueberroth came off as such an unprepared geek that I wonder what he was doing there. No matter, the Dem side was equally weighted down by the girth of Cruz Bustamante, who repeatedly refused to answer the questions asked of him and, on those rare cases where he opted to do so, came off as supercilious and smarmy. Arianna seemed awfully nervous so couldn't allow her deadly wit to really shine through...I think by the next debate she will either drop out or kick ass. Peter Camejo, to these somewhat biased ears, had the facts, the calm, and the funny all at his fingertips (when asked about the recent drive to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens (an issue over which I'm still scratching my head), his response was something like, "Well, since all European-derived people were once here illegally, we should rescind all licenses issued to anyone of European ancestry"...I'm not doing justice to his line, but the house broke up. I'll just bet his numbers go up, too.
I'll be back later...gotta run around town delivering postcards.....

September 5, 2003 Okay, so now I've decided to give this blogging crap a kickstart. Seems like a good time--just before 2am on Friday, 9/5/03. I've had two T&Ts already, have finally finished classes for this quarter, and have exactly 3 weeks off during which I promise to do the following (this is my solemn printed pledge--I put this out there, I've gotta follow up):

1. Sleep like a bastard
2. Clean up this goddamn office
3. Keep up on Green Reel stuff
4. Go see my Dad
5. Spend at least two days by myself in the mountains ('shrooms, anyone? j/k)
6. Meditate, or die trying
7. Write some music
8. Keep up with exercise and whatnot
9. See at least a movie a week
10. hmmmm.......

Hey, that's 9+ things that'll surely keep me busy. I start school up again on the 25th, and the film festival's on the 4th & 5th (still early enough in the 1/4 to not be a strain)....

Bridgette & I had a little falling out over the last couple of days--not the first, and I'm sure not the last--but we carefully and tentatively reconnected, I think, tonight. She read to me her essay on what she expects to accomplish in 8th Grade, and I have to admit, that kid's a helluva writer. There are adults that can't do as well. I will try to include it here eventually, if I can ever get it in print.

HEY! The Green Reel is only a measley MONTH away! But everything's running smoothly (knock wood)....Finally got postcards today: here's what they look like!