Asleep in New York

Hollywood Dolls: Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey

2012-01-13T07:00:00.002-06:00

Slightly creepy-eyed doll of Jimmy Stewart from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Complete with basket of money, and...suitcase?? I don't recall a suitcase in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Was he packed-up to commit suicide?

"Yes, I think I'll take my best jacket, in cases I go to Heaven. My swim trunks, in case I go to Hell..."

You know...for all those lakes they've got there. ;)

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Fluff from the archives.

Doll in my Collection -- December 2008 or January 2009. Photographs from same time, as was original draft.

Text written this morning, while possibly running a fever...

Can't think straight.

For all I know, this could be written in Greek.

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From the Vault

2012-01-12T03:21:00.000-06:00

Or maybe it's a glorified, should-be trash can. Or maybe not. Just realizing some things should never see the light of day...on a completely related note, this photo is from the film LOVE HAPPY.

I'm having a lot of fun -- or I guess you could call it fun; fulfilling in the artistic sense, yet upsetting to me personally is probably a more apt description -- writing my ongoing series, unofficially entitled My Days in Vaudeville. Tis autobiographical fiction (times fiction) at it's absolute worst! But I don't care. The Marx Brothers and metaphors are what I need right now, so why argue?

Anyway, while pounding out the next few pieces of it, I thought I'd post some stuff I wrote but never shared.

My Draft pile back here behind the red curtains of the Phoenix Theater is massive. I have nearly ninety unpublished posts! Dating all the way back to August 2008. Probably the first time I ever inked out on you ladies and gentlemen.

-- What am I, an octopus?

[Rimshot]

Thanks, Chico.

Chico Marx on the drums, ladies and gentleman.

The Vaudeville audience claps...well, what's left of an audience: a kid asleep in her chair, and two men with their sketchbooks on their laps.

-- How is it not silent in here?

While I continue on with this stage-anchored nonsense, and dramatic confessionals of self-doubt, I thought you might enjoy reading some actual film reviews. Ah! There's a novel idea...film reviews on a film blog. Why didn't I think of that??

I've got reviews for the following movies:

IT HAD TO BE YOU
JOHNNY EAGER
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
THE STORY OF MANKIND

And the film noir with Richard Conte AND Cornel Wilde?? I can't think of it...

Anyway, they're all here. All written somewhere. Two by hand, and three if by sea. No wait. Two by hand, and three of 'em already typed and edited -- been typed and edited!! Since 2008/2009 -- but I was too scared or shy or something to post them.

As if they matter, but fun is fun, and art is art, and if you stew Chico's underpants in the soup-pot it tastes more like clam chowder than tomato bisque.

Now you tell me what you know.

...

Other Vault Goodness coming soon to this theater!

-- "What?! Vaudeville's dying?!! Bring on the talking pictures!!!" shouts Groucho.

Dead End Kid Poetry.
Marx Brothers Poetry.
Several Sketches.
A Dana Andrews piece (yes, I remember him).
A series I vaguely recall promising, consisting of 38 pieces of Marx Brothers insanity, and not of the fictional variety!

"Hooray!" shouts the audience.

-- No, I don't know where I'm going with this. Further down the page, I imagine.

But I hope you'll enjoy what film-stuff I do throw out here, good people, because with every piece of fiction I write, despite the kind words and support, both in front of, and behind curtains, I feel worse and worse about myself as an actual writer, and want to run away again.

"Quick! Someone tie her to the stage!" shouts Chico.

And you think it's for your sake...this is a game we play. ;)

...

Back to my fantasies...or no; away from them.

I'll denote at the top of each old piece when it was originally written, just for kicks, right? Because it doesn't matter if I wrote it last year or last Tuesday...but for the sake of my blog: if it's not denoted, then I just wrote it. As in While You Were Sleeping, Elvis Perkins. I write fiction while you're sleeping, and dreaming of a girl who likes men in black socks. And she eats Clam Chowder.

-- Actually, I've never even tasted Clam Chowder.

See? You learned something.

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Out the Open Window

2012-01-11T06:01:00.000-06:00

I do sneeze, and outside the doorway, Chico and I hear the shuffle of feet. Voices.

The knob turns as Chico ducks beneath the bed.

Standing in the doorway is Dr. Hall, asking if there is a problem.

I shake my head no.

"Perhaps you're catching cold from being out in the rain," he says.

I nod my head yes.

Whatever they tell me, I'll agree!

Beneath the bed, Chico makes a noise, and Dr. Hall's eyes dart to the floor.

I'm sure he'll catch Chico now, but Dr. Hall doesn't even take the time to look. To investigate. Maybe I'm not crazy, but who cares. It's easier to see the picture already painted then to wait for some newer, clearer image to emerge. Or perhaps the artist wrote a sonnet and tucked it beneath a crazy painting. There's always something deeper. Hidden. It pays to break apart the frame.

The doctor steps into the hallway, calling for lackeys and a nurse.

"Help me get this girl to the operating room," he says.

Another man I can't see tells the doctor, it'll be a moment, and just as the doctor pulls the door to -- with one finger raised and an odd smile as if to say, There's no escaping -- I hear a slight tap come from the window.

I look. And there is Harpo: his face pressed against the glass, smiling a not-so-odd smile of, I am here, and I will rescue you!

I smile too, but then check, looking at the door to make sure I'm not being watch. To make sure I'm not crazy, and No, the door IS shut.

Chico crawls from beneath the bed, and is adjusting his jacket, squinting at Harpo, as if he too believes it may all be an illusion.

I move, thinking I can rise from this bed, but I can't. I'm still in an ice cold straight jacket. Not as wet as it was, but what difference does it make. A nearly dry and stiff sheet tied around me, and my wrist fastened to a bed. A white, wet inch worm; armless; a wingless bird...the bird is gonna eat the worm! And soon I'll be an ouroboros, and disappear completely.

Chico answers the window. Letting in Harpo.

Of course once the pane is lifted, there is a row of metal bars, and Harpo will have to squeeze between two of them. My eyes widen. Just how he fits through it, I'm not sure. I'm thinking surely he must be made of sugar! Through salivation, or perspiration, he can condense himself tight enough to fit through anything! Walk beneath doors. Squeeze through keyholes. Windows. The smallest man on Earth, and here he is at my bedside, looming like Christ upon the cross.

"You're not here to save me," I say.

And he nods his head yes.

Whatever they tell us must be true...I am here to agree. I take no concern of Chico crawling out the window ahead of us. How he squeezes through the bars, I'll never be sure! But he does. As Harpo frees me from the brown leather straps of the bed. He saws 'em in half with his bow tie, and through use of a taxi horn, fashions for me a bed sheet dress.

"You're very creative," I say. And he nods his head, neither yes or no...

Just sideways.

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Grace Kelly, and the Return of Hitchcock Barbies

2012-01-10T06:52:00.000-06:00

Last year, Mattel released several celebrity dolls, including one of Grace Kelly as she appeared in TO CATCH A THIEF.

As much as I want to support Classic Film-related dolls (if we buy them, they'll make more of them! Especially Hitchcock dolls!), I was totally bored by Kelly's dull makeup and slicked-back hair...the frou-frouy blue dress was about the only big appeal, but for thirty-five bucks: a doll dress??! No thank you.

So I was hoping she would hit the clearance aisle. Then I could have the dress. Give Kelly a makeover, or sell her.

But then, to my total delight, Mattel just released this:

Glorious REAR WINDOW Grace Kelly!!

Ah...darker makeup, a killer hair-style, and another amazing dress!

Plus this doll's packaging (the background, anyway) is totally epic.

I'm a big disbeliever in NOT deboxing my dolls -- My God, they can't breathe in there! I opened one yesterday who had been under plastic for thirty-one years. Can you imagine?! I swear I heard her whisper, "Thank you!" -- but I think Grace Kelly REAR WINDOW is one doll I'd HAVE to leave in the box.

Besides, if I touched her, I might get that marshmallowy goodness of a dress dingy, and then I'd hate myself forever.

Comparison shot:

Because at least one other doll collector will come across this blog (I hope) wanting to see which Grace Kelly doll she should spring for! Unless she's a rich doll collector: then she'll buy both, AND splurge on the Silkstones.

Photographs by me, taken at Walmart -- because I'm NOT a rich doll collector. ;)

...

Hope you non-Doll people/Grace Kelly fans also enjoy!

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A Postcard from Standish Sanitarium

2012-01-10T04:44:00.001-06:00

Be Glad You're Not Here...and Wishing I Wasn't.

From the backstage to the backseat; a hired-car ride in the rain. I turn my head and watch out the backglass as the train grows smaller, and darker, and all together disappears into the night, rain, black, and smoke.

Groucho lights his cigar, and the driver complains.

"Don't you know who he is?" I ask.

The driver ignores us, and Groucho laughs, telling me not to play the whole 'Don't you know who we are' bit with the locals; it isn't nice.

I didn't mean to be a snob, but the Marxes are pretty big names on the Vaudeville circuit, and if the man in the greasepaint mustache wants to smoke a cigar in the back of his own hired car, then tell me, why can't he?

Maybe the driver is allergic to smoke, I say to myself. And I wish the voice in my head would be quiet for one night. Quiet for one ride. I hardly ever get to sit this close to the Marxes when we ride the train from town-to-town, so now I finally have a chance to talk to them.

My other voice tells me the Marxes don't want to talk to me. I'm just a two-bit performance artist/actress/glorified sideshow freak in a red swimsuit and high-heels as I play the accordion with my teeth and thighs, climbing a ladder to a board twenty-feet high only to dive into water, all while still playing. Even when wet...

Never miss a beat.

I won't, I say to my voice.

We arrive to a daunting, three-story, nightmarish castle of a concrete building, and "No, I don't want to go to the Standish Sanitarium!!"

The boys wrestle me from the car...

My real voice shouts. My real voices cries. My other voice tells me to be strong, and brave, and surely sweet Harpo won't let 'em keep me here.

In the lobby, he looks at me, as if to say, "Well, maybe she isn't crazy...can't we keep her overnight?" An injured kitten -- maybe I could be mended! Maybe I just need a man who knows what he's doing; a man with a heart. But Harpo only sighs and walks away wordless.

Defeated.

Even the nice one's given up on you, my other voice says. And soon I'm lifted onto a white and metal gurney. Like freight, loaded onto a truck. I am nothing. I am not even human to these lab-coated men. To these two remaining brothers. Soon Chico slinks away; I hear him asking to use the telephone. Groucho is asking to see the doctor for permission to sign me in, and get the Hell out.

They roll me down a hallway. The gurney wobbly, squeaky. Wheels turning in my mind on stained white linoleum squares. Marked with treks of wet shoes. Squeaking. Wobbling hands go beneath me, struggling to lift me? I feel so heavy now. And these faces look constantly-aging. Beneath yellow lights on the ceiling...long yellow lights...I meet Dr. Hall. He talks to me through a mask; shakes Groucho's hand, and Groucho leaves.

Two of the ever-aging men take me into a white room. They strip me down, and wrap me in a cold wet sheet. Ice-water straight jacket! I don't bother to scream. They harness me to a bed.

Out for hours, or days...I awake to see Chico. He is standing over me. He puts a pillow behind my head, and offers to play the piano.

"There is no piano," I tell him.

So he pulls a chair over to my beside, and plays me.

I like it when he hits the high notes...if only he'd shoot the keys on the low notes.

"I'm making you uncomfortable?" he asks.

"You're making me wish I wasn't wrapped in a cold wet sheet."

He tries to tear it with his teeth. As he leans further into me, his hair tickles my nose and smells of train smoke. I try hard not to sneeze...

For fear of waking up: assuming this is a dream. A good night in the theatre. The audience clapped for me, and I felt so alive again! Awake as an artist, and alive. And here, before I could even bow, before I could even enjoy it, the Brothers rushed me off stage, and out the back door. Madness overtakes me -- every thing's in circles! kidnapped -- and I doubt every word coming from my mouth, and from my head. Over and over again, I say aloud: "I don't want to talk about it."

I don't know what to believe.

Embarassed. One voice inside me says, "Write more...write all you want, until you're happy!" but the other voice says to be quiet, and go back to 'sleep'.
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Greetings from Vaudeville

2012-01-09T03:47:00.002-06:00

Greetings from beyond the grave.

I died and went to Vaudeville...and this is me, waiting backstage.

Holding my accordion, in a swimsuit: waiting to high-dive off the low-dive into nothing and everything all at once.

I am no clearer now than I was ten months ago.

I left you because I died.

I died on the inside!

And I'm no less dramatic than I was ten months ago...

So let's start at the end, and work our way back to the beginning. I am sitting in a new office. I am sitting at my same old desk, at my same old computer, thinking maybe I should be looking at a brand new blog with no audience yet, instead of looking at the old blog hoping someone, anyone, still cares, and will listen.

I like my old audience.

Ten months is a long time to lose yourself, and never find yourself, and come slinking back with your accordion between your thighs.

I'm waiting for the Marx Brothers to finish their act. I watch Harpo and Chico's backsides intently, and smile.

"These goofballs...," they're always eating up the first five minutes of my act. I play the intermission. No. Scratch that. I play the accordion, DURING the intermission.

I hear rain pitterpatting outside the theater, and I know people will be heading home soon. "Hurry up now!" I whisper, waving my hand to no one because no one is looking. The Marxes are running around the stage like monkeys lit afire. The audience is going nuts.

I'm lost here, I thought, only yesterday, and now I feel finally like I'm fitting in! Waiting in the wings for the Marxes to finish their madness...I am going to sing and dance, and play the accordion, and put on a show for anyone willing to watch, for anyone willing to brave the storm later, instead of sneaking home now while they still have a chance in bearable rain.

In a red swimsuit, I slink across the stage. The Marxes are still bowing, but soon exit the opposite side from my entrance.

"You're not leaving yet, I hope!" I say to the crowd playfully. I'm happy. I'm forgetful! This isn't the end...it's only the intermission! Of course the crowd will stay; of course the people will stick around! Be damn a storm, the Marxes will be back soon. And then I can hide behind them again, until you like me again.

I am still here. Only a ghost, singing in Vaudeville. In another place...in a different kind of place; busier, bigger, more structured, uppercrust. I am a prisoner here.

After the show, the rain falls harder with every second and every step we take towards the train station. The Brothers will not let me go onto the train. Groucho takes me by the arm, and pulls me towards a waiting car.

In the backseat, I am squeezed between Harpo and Chico, and now their behinds are of no concern to me. I am a grownup, not a romantic, saucy, glossy-eyed, sex-obsessed girl in love with every man over forty (or am I?). "I am not," another voice says, and it's always best to listen to the first voice, not the second.

-- Or is it the other way around?

And I nod my head, only to have the brothers shoot glances of disapproval towards me, and then to each other.

The driver takes me to the Standish Sanitarium where Dr. Huntz Hall gives me a lobotomy.

Just how I got here, to this new office, to this old desk and blog, is a mystery.

I am lost here, and found here, and waiting in the wings.

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Movies in Review: The Best, Worst, and Favorites of 2010

2011-03-01T23:59:00.005-06:00

Because it's 2011. Because last Sunday night, every one was talking about the best picture of the year, and they didn't mean a movie filmed eighty-six years ago.

I like doing things out of date, and out of season.

But I did plan to make this post in January: the child was sick for a long time. Then in February, I forgot.

Now it's March...if I don't post it now, I'll never post it!

-- And the world would go on, completely unchanged, if not somehow better.

The following is a wordy recap of every film I watched last year -- every new-to-me title, anyway; not included are the films I had already seen before, though an asterisk does denote films I watched at least part of, prior to 2010 -- and how many sparkling stars each garnered in the eyes of yours truly.

[Ahem]

Total Number of 'New' Movies Watched:

125

First Movie of 2010:

GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE

Last Movie of 2010:

SEVENTH HEAVEN

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Obsessions of 2010:
To shed some light on why I watched what I watched; how my hopefulness to see certain people or elements effected my Surprises, Disappointments, and Personal Favorites of the Year; by knowing what, or even whom, I was obsessed with, will help explain why I loved the movies I loved most.

The Dead End Kids -- One of my longest obsessions ever; from December 2nd, 2009, until Spring 2010. I also became quite obsessed with one of their later-day series of films, known as The East Side Kids. And despite my excitement about TCM airing the films of their collective reincarnation, The Bowery Boys, in June, 2010, while attempting my fifteen Bowery Boy title, I just couldn't take it anymore...

I still plan to watch DEAD END, every year, on December 2nd, and would love to finish watching Bobby Jordan and Billy Halop's filmographies; otherwise, it's all best left to memories: fond, childish, and occasionally drunk.

The Marx Brothers -- And you thought this was a new obsession. No...In January, 2010, I saw a few minutes of ANIMAL CRACKERS. I was delighted! And curious. Later that month, I watched my very first Marx Brothers movie, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA. I was in love! But not wanting to pull myself away from the Kids too soon, I decided to pace myself with the Brothers. In March, I watched A DAY AT THE RACES, and DUCK SOUP. Pure Heaven! But then in April, I made the mistake of watching THE BIG STORE...

-- I missed the first thirteen minutes, so it doesn't qualify for Movies Watched in 2010; if it did, it would have made the 'Biggest Disappointments' List.

My interest in the Brothers then died.

But thanks to depression in June, and my obsession with the Kids (and all their related series) on its deathbed, I spent one afternoon, avoiding suicide, glued to the couch, giving the Marx Brothers another chance, by way of watching MONKEY BUSINESS and HORSE FEATHERS, back-to-back. A week later, I thought I was having a heart attack. I had to be rushed to an EKG machine. So my faith in the Brothers had been restored, sure, and they brought me joy times a million! But it's funny what stress and depression can do to you; I spent the rest of the month doped-up on drugs; cycled through several other mild obsessions throughout the year, and had forgot, completely, to return to the Brothers, until January, 2011. Shouting, "Oh yes! So this is where I left off!"

Freddie Bartholomew -- I saw CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS in 2005, but on mute. (As I watched all movies, 2004 through 2009: a strange habit I'll eventually explain.) And watching it with the sound on, for the first time, in Spring, 2010, brought about a resurgence in my love for child star Bartholomew, and finally piqued my interest in stalwart Spencer Tracy. I pursued much of both their filmographies, throughout the rest of the year.

Famous Partners -- Thanks to my newfound love of Spencer Tracy, I watched several of his and Katharine Hepburn's movies, making me want to finish out some of the filmographies of my other favorite 'Famous Partners', including William Powell and Myrna Loy, and James Stewart with Margaret Sullavan.

Boy Movies -- In addition to the Kids, and Freddie Bartholomew, I was pretty much game for any 'Boy' centered movie, from any decade.

Queen of the Ingenues -- I fell in love with Una Merkel, and became quite smitten with Marsha Hunt, and the aforementioned Margaret Sullavan.

Wallace Ford -- Oh Boy. If there's one obsession, from the past three years, I wish I would have blogged about (but didn't), it's 'Wallace Ford'. A man I came to love after watching a Little Tough Guy film. Soon after, I was surprised to see him again, and once again paired with Billy Halop, this time, in BLUES IN THE NIGHT. But despite my immediate fondness for him, I didn't really become obsessed until after my second viewing of his most famous movie, FREAKS. I finished out the year, of 2010, with 'a bottle of wine and a box of B's'. Public domain dvds I ordered from Oldies dot com, as an early Christmas gift to myself. Drinking the nights (and year) away, while having a great time kicking through Ford's filmography.

But overnight, in the dawn of the current year, poor Wally was replaced and soon forgotten...the second I watched ANIMAL CRACKERS:

Ford was out, and the Brothers were back in.

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Movies I Started, But Failed to Finish:
For various reasons: some accidental; some not-so-much.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY -- A tornado outbreak, combined with my recording a George Raft marathon; it was all too much for my DVR to worry its pretty head about. And the already recorded DOUBLE INDEMNITY, a movie I've wanted to watch for years now, a Holy Grail Film, was eaten alive at the thirty-minute mark. Along with three of the four George Raft titles. But due to the tornadoes, three people were also killed, so that keeps things in perspective.

PRIMROSE PATH -- Another movie that malfunctioned, thanks to stormy nights, and Directv's shabby, refurbished equipment.

LLOYD'S OF LONDON -- I got bored after Freddie Bartholomew grew-up to be Tyrone Power.

ANGELS IN DISGUISE -- Covered prior. Covered Wagons. Let's not get particular. This is the Bowery Boys we're talking about...the unfinished title that marked the end.

IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD -- I made it to intermission, and never went back. Did I mention I hate long movies?

BACK DOOR TO HEAVEN -- I couldn't make it, Mr. Ford. Bored. Bored. Bored.

SCARLET STREET -- A minor Holy Grail; unfortunately, I passed out.

THE SET-UP (1949) -- Probably a great film, but on the particular night I tried to watch it, I wanted romance, not boxing!! Silly me.

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Biggest Disappointments of 2010:

INVISIBLE STRIPES -- Started off strong, with tons of factors I love (Warner Brothers; Prison; Humphrey Bogart! Bogart in the Shower!!), but got so darn convoluted. What a waste of talent!

EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE (1949) -- Blah. What a boring piece of gloss and cardboard. I watched it, trying to finish out my list of films paring Van Heflin with Barbara Stanwyck. This one wasn't their worst film, by any means, but the one I enjoyed the least.

SATURDAY'S HEROES -- Despite the drek MGM occasionally put him through, I thought Heflin could do no wrong. I was wrong.

THE TOWN WENT WILD -- Freddie Bartholomew as the grown-up, on the verge of marrying the girl next door, or is she his sister? You don't want to know; you won't care; and by God, if you love Bartholomew as a child, the way I love Bartholomew as a child, then for the love of CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS, steer clear!

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Biggest Surprises of 2010:

THE BEAST OF THE CITY -- I watched it to see Wallace Ford, and was fascinated! Early Gangster movie, focusing instead on the life of cops; and one such cop's involvement with an extra-sexy, dancing Jean Harlow! Yowza.

YOUNG TOM EDISON -- I watched it to see Bobby Jordan, and was shocked when I not only enjoyed Mickey Rooney more, but enjoyed Mickey Rooney period! I never thought it would happen in my life.

CASS TIMBERLANE -- What I just said about YOUNG TOM EDISON? Replace 'Bobby Jordan' with 'Spencer Tracy', and 'Mickey Rooney' with 'Lana Turner'.

THE MORTAL STORM -- I guess I doubted the pairing of Stewart and Sullavan could ever again produce the greatness of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. But damn it, THE MORTAL STORM, rating-wise, matched it!

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Biggest Surprise AND Biggest Disappointment:

THE CAT'S PAW (1934) -- I watched it for Harold Lloyd. Plus the added bonus of seeing Una Merkel as the romantic leading lady! And a story akin to MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON?? Gosh, I was in Heaven!! Then...well, it's too bad about the ending; Mr. Lloyd lost his head.

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Worst Movies I Watched, 2010:
Movies rated two-and-a-half stars, or less.

GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE

SKY LINER

MIDNIGHT MANHUNT

THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X

GAS PUMP GIRLS

ZIS BOOM BAH

FRAMED (1975)

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR

ANGEL'S ALLEY

SMUGGLER'S COVE

FIGHTING FOOLS

SATURDAY'S HEROES

CHALK

THE TOWN WENT WILD

LOVE, HONOR, AND OH BABY!

-- Out of the above fifteen titles, ten of them involved at least one Dead End Kid.

Now let that be a lesson to you. ;)

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The Absolute Worst Movie I Watched All Year!

GAS PUMP GIRLS -- Of all the messes I encountered while pursuing the Dead End Kids, this title was, by far, the most putrid. I have never seen such atrocious performances by actors in all my life. The girls were fine (by exploitation film standards). The Aged Kid was fine. But the boys? The young ones?? Like a bunch of super-size Ken dolls impersonating a four year's old interpretation of James Dean.

Unless James Dean is a terrible actor. I wouldn't know; I've never seen him.

If so, my apologies to four-year-olds everywhere.

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My Absolute Most HATED Movie of 2010!!

ROAD TO ZANZIBAR --Road to freakin' Zanzibar. I hated this movie so bad, I will never, ever again watch a single film starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby together. Alone, Crosby is fine. I find him attractive, and thoughtful. But together?

They're completely unfunny.

And one thing I can't stand, is when a famous person thinks he's so funny, he has this sort of smugness about him, with a constant smirk: and Bob Hope has it. Not a single time did I actually laugh at him! I had to force myself through this, just to see Una Merkel, and yes, Leo Gorcey, who I had read was in this film, but unless I fell asleep, or passed out, due to my TOTAL annoyance, I never saw him.

Still, I did give ROAD TO ZANZIBAR two-and-a-half stars, compared to GAS PUMP GIRLS receiving one-and-a-half stars, but at least GAS PUMP GIRLS, in its own horrible way, was once or twice, charming, thanks to the main girl singing a song I related to, but have since forgotten -- I believe it was, "I'm lonely, and I need a friend..." -- and a close-up of a much older Huntz Hall saying a tender goodbye.

And it should be noted (mainly for my own amusement, since no one's still reading this, are they?) I think I watched GAS PUMP GIRLS when I was a kid -- so it may not even count for 2010 -- possibly while obsessed with the USA Network's weekend late-night programing block, known as Up All Night. I was a big fan, of the edited soft porn, and of host Gilbert Gottfried.

So there. I don't like Bob Hope, and I used to love Gilbert Gottfried. I'm fine with these truths, but if you want to throw stones at my head, be my guest.
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Personal Favorites of 2010:
Movies I loved most, no matter how many stars I gave them. Also: The titles of all five-star movies are withheld until the end of this post, despite their equal classification as personal favorites.

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS (1940)

MY BILL

LITTLE TOUGH GUY

THE ESCAPE ARTIST

A DAY AT THE RACES

GIVE US WINGS

THE MANCHU EAGLE MURDER CAPER MYSTERY

THE BEAST OF THE CITY

MONKEY BUSINESS

HORSE FEATHERS

LISTEN, DARLING

THE CLOCK*

THE MORTAL STORM

ON BORROWED TIME

FREAKS (1932)

BOY SLAVES

THE PROWLER

ENCHANTED (2007)

THE SHOPWORN ANGEL

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Great Movies Watched in 2010:
Movies that received the 'near perfect' four-and-a-half stars.

A DAY AT THE RACES

DAVID COPPERFIELD (1935)

HORSE FEATHERS

NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950)

THE CLOCK*

THE MORTAL STORM

ON BORROWED TIME

FREAKS (1932)

MISSISSIPPI BURNING

TOY STORY 3 -- the only topical movie on my list. And I realize this movie was JUST nominated (and lost) for best picture, but to me, the first TOY STORY rates Four Stars, and TOY STORY 2 rates Five Stars; I think this one is in between.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

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The Absolute Best Movies I Watched All Year!
Movies that rated the 'perfect' Five Stars.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

THE FRESHMAN (1925)

DUCK SOUP

THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925)*

If I had to choose the best out of these four, in cinematic terms, I'd probably go with THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN. And as you can see by the asterisk, I watched part of it, years before, during my mute phase. Since it didn't matter whether a movie made sound or not, I used to watch a lot more Silent Films.

As for my personal favorite, out of the 'Best' titles, I'd probably pick A NIGHT AT THE OPERA. But we all know where my head is, these days. And with whom...all four of the whoms. ;)

And speaking of those devils, I'd like you to rest peacefully (but not in peace; not yet!) that along with this post, dies my nostalgia kick. It's time to get back to current events! And by current events, I mean I have thirty-eight posts scheduled, for the new month upon us, all concerning the Marx Brothers.

-- March equals Marx Madness!!

So if you're not a fan, you may want to skedaddle. ;)

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Thanks, times a million, for reading this!

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Fun with Keywords! (vol. 6) And so was September...

2011-02-24T02:33:00.008-06:00

Well, nothing followed last night. It's twenty-four hours later, and yes, I finally slept. You cared, didn't you?

I ended up editing an old piece. Wandered to the kitchen for a snack. While eating, I heard the child coughing. Went to check on her; realized she was fine, but saw her tooth-shaped necklace hanging from the bedpost.

-- She lost the tooth at school, thanks to a little girl on the swing-set: my daughter was pushing her, and wham! The little girl kicked my daughter in the mouth. Out came the loose tooth, and the nurse in the school office put the tooth in a tooth-shaped necklace. Now you know everything.

It was a good thing she coughed, and I saw the necklace, otherwise I might have forgot to play tooth fairy.

Returned to the kitchen, and opened the junk drawer, where I usually stash a dollar bill, for such occasions, but there was no dollar bill. I've already played tooth fairy two times this month! And now, on the third tooth of February, I need not one, but two dollars (one for the tooth, and one for the necklace -- I convinced my child the tooth fairy would be smitten with the tooth shaped necklace, and pay her double; actually, I'm just grossed out by teeth, and this was my clever way of not having to open the tooth-shaped charm, and retrieve the bloody, kicked-out tooth...so now both of 'em are going in the trash).

In the cold of night, minutes before three AM and rain, I walked outside, through fog, and darkness; my eyes fixed on the edge of the forest, twenty feet from my car. Of course I had to leave my purse out there, on Tooth Fairy night! And in the passenger seat, I dug for two dollars worth of singles. It's exactly what I had.

Back in the house, I laid the two bills on the floor, and doused them with Lysol. Washed my hands, and donned rubber gloves. Once the bills were dry -- or reasonably dry -- I folded the money, returned to my daughter's room, and stuffed the money into her special white pillow. Swiped the necklace. Dropped it into the urn on the mantle in the living room.

Done.

Exhausted from motherly chores, and chilled from my trip outside in pajamas, I removed my rubber gloves, and went to bed. Worked on my new screenplay.

I fell asleep, and couldn't remember today, what I wrote last night.

Re-read the half dozen pages, while ago, and it's horrible! My novels -- as I vaguely recall them; now packed away, gathering dust -- were probably none the wiser. But good Lord, my instincts for 'it all', are getting worse with age. I remember when I was twenty-three and brilliant. Now I'm twenty-seven, and I wish a little girl on a swing-set would kick ME in the head.

And if I'm lucky, the blow would kill me, or at least knock enough sense into me, to realize, answering questions on a blog is all I'm cut out for in this life.

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Now where were we?

Ah yes, I remember: the last time I saw Paris...and if it still stars Elizabeth Taylor, then I still don't want to see it.

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"TCM who says damn good actress"

Ha. I've always wondered that, myself!

You know, in the opening promo for some spotlight series -- I can't think of the name of it -- on TCM, shown in-between movies; and the very last voice in the promo says, "Damn good actress." To me, it sounds akin to Bea Arthur; like a woman whose voice is manly, or a man whose voice is womanly. Just a strange, old voice. So if anyone out there knows, please let me know: lest I have to put some actual effort into this, right off the get-go, and go google it, myself.

-- I'm already the Tooth Fairy; isn't that enough?

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"15 key words about New York"

Hmm. How about:

New York State
The Big Apple
Empire State Building
The Empire Strikes Back
The Umpire Strikes Back!
Yankees
Giants
Jets
Mets
Seinfeld
Vaudeville
Woody Allen
Nathan's Hot Dogs
Broadway
The Great White Way

I would say, "42nd Street," also, but that would make the list sixteen, and I've been requested only to come up with fifteen. Besides, they're all pretty inadequate, as it is.

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"Was Cornell Wilde and Dana Andrews brothers?"

You mean, WERE Cornel Wilde, and Dana Andrews brothers...

No, they were not.

Dana was born in Mississippi.

Cornel was born in Hungary.

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"Whaddaya say whaddaya know"

What do I say, and what do I know? Well, I know that you've misquoted Cagney. And I say the actual line is, "Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say?"

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"Does Lucas Cruikshank play Fred and Derf in the Fred movie?"

Yes.

And you would not believe how many hundreds upon hundreds upon HUNDREDS of hit I've got, thanks to my review of FRED: THE MOVIE.

And why in the hell I chose to review FRED: THE MOVIE...well, I don't know. From what I remember, my daughter loved it, and after it was over, wanted to come to the office to look for pictures of Fred, and his co-stars. After little was found online, I said, "Well, it's too soon for any reviews to be out."

She asked, "Well, why don't you write one?"

Ha.

I did, and figured my regular readers thought I was nuts.

But that review is now officially my most read piece, and has garnered more hits than anything else on this silly blog.

And to think of all the times I wrote serious pieces. Artful prose! All I really had to do for attention was review a made-for-TV movie starring a YouTube superstar.

The most troubling thing, though, about all of this, is the number one search result I get, in reference to FRED: THE MOVIE, are requests for pictures of the underage Cruikshank in his underwear.

-- Do perverts have nothing better to do??

Regular readers: can you imagine how disappointed these kids are, when they come over here, expecting some modern blog, with a review of Justin Bieber's performance in MY LIFE STORY, EVEN THOUGH I'M ONLY SIXTEEN, AND HAVE YET TO DO ANYTHING IMPRESSIVE WHATSOEVER, COMPARED TO THE MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF TALENTED PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME BEFORE ME, AND WILL COME AFTER ME, BUT THEY NEVER GET THEIR OWN BIO-PIC, NOW DO THEY? (or whatever the title is; NEVER SAY NEVER, maybe? I have yet to pay attention. And refuse to pay attention, ever again, to a YouTube superstar, with the exception of the poetic and piano-playing genius, Bo Burnham) and instead find my yammering about the Marx Brothers?

-- I actually referenced the Marx Brothers in that FRED: THE MOVIE piece, but later deleted the reference, fearing young people wouldn't know who the hell I was talking about.

I did them a disservice -- for which I am now ashamed.

I mean, one good thing could have been borne from that FRED piece: some kid, thinking, "Who the hell are the Marx Brothers?" could have left my blog, googled it, thus finding one of the many Marx-movie clips over at YouTube, and voila! A young, art-hungry mind would have inherited the greatness and joy that IS the Marx Brothers, all thanks to me.

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Now wake up. You fell asleep during my diatribe.

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"Is the Bowery Boys a spin off from the Dead End Kids?"

Yes. And no.

The Bowery Boys is a later day version of the Dead End Kids, in the sense that four of the original DEKS went on to star in the Bowery Boys series.

Yet, the Bowery Boys, as a series, is not related to the actual stories, characters, or overall 'universe' of the Dead End Kids. For instance, Billy Halop is absent. Bobby Jordan is underused. And Huntz Hall is one of the leaders, instead of nosing around in the background. Same goes for Gabe Dell. Punsly is gone. And Leo Gorcey is pretty much a jerk any way you slice it.

-- For more on the DEKS, the East Side Kids, the Bowery Boys, and what-have-you, read my recently (as in, last night) edited piece on the non-related, non-Marxian Brothers, HERE.

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"Does Judy have an Australian accent in Fred the Movie?"

I don't know. It sounded Australian to me, but Pixie Lott, the gorgeous actress/singer who played her, is from London, England.

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"Danny of the Bowery Boys"

If asked, "Danny of the East Side Kids," I'd shout, "Bobby Jordan!" But this is the first Dead End Kid or Bowery Boy related question I can't answer from memory!

Hmm. I've been looking through Richard Roat's book, Hollywood's Made-to-Order Punks, but I can't find mention of a character named 'Danny' (outside of Jordan in the East Side Kids) anywhere.

Minutes Later

Okay, over at Wikipedia, I found listed an actor named Danny Welton, who played, uncredited, a character named Danny, in the 1956 Bowery Boy entry, FIGHTING TROUBLE.

He has no Wikipedia page of his own, nor is he mentioned in Roat's otherwise thorough book, but there are some films listed on Welton's very skimpy IMDB page, and some rather 'colorful' looking options came up, once googled.

So, Danny Welton. Now go have fun.

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"Does Autumnal Equinox make you tired?"

Sure. So does blogging.

So does reading my blog.

Now you have the two cures for insomnia.

A) Read a lousy blog.
B) Write one.
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Fun with Keywords! (vol. 5) August was a lifetime ago...

2011-02-23T01:45:00.004-06:00

Well, six months, anyway.

With the good intentions of writing a 'Fun with Keywords' piece, during the late summer of last year, I saved some of my 'then' keywords, thanks to statcounter, and all the wacky ways, via search results, people found my blog.

So not all of this is real relevant at the time.

If you want to see a real relevant, maybe Chico will take you to the zoo.

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"Older Gene Tierney"

Older than what? -- Older than dirt??

-- That's not a nice thing to say!

I'm guessing 'Older', as in her later years??

Well, I'll give you a basic overview...

Tierney was born in 1920. She made her film debut in THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (1940), at the age of nineteen. Five years later, she was Oscar nominated, best actress, for LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945). After working with Humphrey Bogart, in THE LEFT HAND OF GOD (1955), Tierney took a break from Hollywood. She was going crazy. In the early 1960s, She returned to film, for three more movies, ending with 1964's THE PLEASURE SEEKERS. She later made a TV movie, DAUGHTER OF THE MIND, with CLOSE TO MY HEART co-star, Ray Milland. Once retired from Hollywood, Tierney enjoyed a happy marriage (her second), lived in Texas, and felt much better mentally. She also authored an autobiography, Self-Portrait. Tierney died in 1991, at the age of seventy.

I do recommend her autobiography, if you can find a copy.

As for her film-work: Tierney's best movie is LAURA.

As for her best performance, don't trust the Oscars; skip LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, and go straight to THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR.

And if you don't want to go there, go to the zoo with Chico.

I'm sick and tired of carrying the nuts.

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"Sleep in New York Cheap"

Is it?

I've never slept there...

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"Movies with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews"

TOBACCO ROAD (1941)
BELLE STARR (1941)
LAURA (1944)
THE IRON CURTAIN (1948)
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950)

And if I had it my way, they also would have co-starred in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, with Andrews replacing Cornel Wilde. And in WHIRLPOOL (1949), with Andrews, instead of Richard Conte, bow-tie and all.

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"Are all the dead end kids deceased?"

Yes.

The second-to-youngest died first. The actual youngest died last.

-- For more on their dates, and ages, click HERE.

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"Bowery Boys dvd box set"

Whether or not this product will ever be released, I have no idea, and after watching several entries in the Bowery Boys series, I can frankly, my dear, tell you: I don't care. If they do release it, I'm not gonna buy it.

But, for all the real Bowery Boy fans out there: Good luck! I do hope dvds, or box sets, are released, for your sake.

Or, for your sake, I hope you've been taping each entry off TCM. Because 48 films, squeezed into one box set, would cost an awful lot of money, not only to buy, but to make. So. Keep hoping. And there's always unofficial, bootleg copies of their films, sold online. Just be careful, and remember that the East Side Kids ARE on dvd -- almost every title in the series -- and I own several of them! Because Slip and Sach will never beat Muggs and Glimpy.

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"The Last Days of Humphrey Bogart"

He was horribly sick, dying of cancer. His wife, Lauren Bacall, slept at his side. Or she tried to sleep. She instead watched him peck at his chest all night, as if something was trying to escape. His soul, most likely. He died the next morning.

That's not the last days, but the last night.

If you want more about his last days, call Lauren Bacall and ask her. Or maybe read one of the ten million books written on Humphrey Bogart. I can't stand a single word written about him...not even my own.

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"Kind sleeping in New York"

Is it 'kind'?? Someone just told me it was cheap.

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More to follow. Because I drank two cups of coffee before 'bedtime', and started writing a screenplay! Was confused, as to why I was writing a screenplay, when I should be writing a novel. And now, thanks to the confusion, and thanks to the coffee, and no thanks to you, or Chico Marx -- I CAN'T SLEEP.
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Prompted Poetry: Oz Lobotomy

2011-02-08T04:10:00.004-06:00

The other night, I was over at Robert Frost's Banjo, one of my all-time favorite blogs, because of the poetry and music, because of the title -- tis poetry itself! -- and because of John Hayes, a nice fellow blogger, poet, and banjo player who puts up with my late night, jackassy and sometimes intoxicated (though not anymore...) comments and online shenanigans.

Hayes has an excellent series -- and associated blog -- entitled Writer's Talk. He interviews his fellow writers, and while reading one such entry, about a writer named Tess Kincaid, I followed a link to an interesting site she founded, and dubbed 'a creative writing group blog'.

Now, I thought, Why don't I join something like that? Why don't I get out of my cave, and wander around, and make my neanderthal-ish noises amongst the poets who walk upright?

So the group blog is called Magpie Tales.

I had no idea what Magpie meant -- I thought it was a bird, and I guess I'm right -- but googled it, and apparently it means a collector.

Me cave poet learn good. ;)

And every week, there's a prompt in the form of a photograph, to which you write a poem, or a short 'vignette'.

I'm guessing 'vignette' means 'story'?

I didn't really notice that part at first, so for my first entry, I wrote a poem, on February 5th, in ten minutes, while staring at a picture of bricks -- which has now been replaced by a new photograph and prompt, because I can't read, and thought TODAY was the day to submit entries for last week's prompt.

Apparently not, and now I'm too late.

Oh well. I probably wouldn't have liked wandering outside my cave, anyway.

[Ginger slinks back into darkness]

Groucho shouts:

"Now be brave, my fine, French piece of bric-a-brac!"

How did Groucho know I'm French? ;)

-- Bastardized French, but French none-the-less.

Thanks, Imaginary Groucho!

I've lifted the photograph, and shall go about posting the cave-poem it inspired, whether the link to join the crowd has expired, or not.

And it has.

But there's always next week, right? Right.

Well, I hope there's a next week...

For now, just let me try your patience.

Oz Lobotomy

And onto the pavement I crumble
to my knees
are now my teeth
and I can't breathe through
my femur
but I guess you knew
that from birth

Onto the mossed and rotten bricks
my teeth chip their paint
and scrape my kneecap
like fish bait
slivered onto a hook

My eyes find time to study
the cracks
the rocks
the pores of the
sidewalk
cobbled and red
a blood-soaked
yellow brick nightmare
where the Scarecrow is missing
and Dorothy is brain-dead!

Follow the yellow brick road
and you'll find
the Tin Man
keeping time
with the oilcan
and laughing with the Scarecrow,
"So you stole it right from under her?!"
Right from inside her head

And as I bleed onto this pavement
this whetstone
a knife sharpened
for the killing of a
gramophone
plays Waltz Me Around Again Willie
for There's no place like home

Sure, Glinda, I've got it!
But the shoes won't clack themselves
and my legs are glued to the pavement
the cobblestone
a brick highway
I've been lobotomized by a
man with no spine
no bones
he doesn't want me anymore

I'll get used to this sight
of erosion
of death beneath me
as I bleed from the knees
and breathe from my eyes
and I always wondered what it would be like to die
in the open air
and sunshine

Your shadow cast beside me
makes for good company
-- You want to watch me suffer for a while?
He packs a picnic lunch
and keeps my panic attack
subsided
as my teeth begin to bail out
without permission from the pilot

Why does blood taste like pennies?
Copper flavored candy
drips from the corner of my mouth
drooling over his meal of
hot tomato soup
and the spoon is placed against my cheek
and now what he eats is the same as what I drink

I'll drown for the lack of motion in my own body's
incapable
commotion
torture chamber!
Out of date cobblestone highway
bricks of porous life, once clay
now petrified
art of construction
and I am decaying
while my lover finishes his lunch.

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Free Tips on Blogging; or, Ginger Ingenue's 'How to Blog'

2011-02-02T03:43:00.015-06:00

Welcome to the Ginger Ingenue School of Blogging! Pull up a chair, and watch as Ms. Ingenue ever so carefully lays out the well-guarded secrets of how to write a wonderful blog!

-- Results may vary. If you actually lose followers, please don't sue.

"Lesson number one," she says, as she bends over to pick up a piece of chalk, and avoids the frog one student has unleashed from his crumpled-up top hat.

Oh yes, your teacher, Ms. Ingenue is dressed like a naughty librarian -- in fact, the library fired her for being so naughty, and that's why she's here, teaching you how to blog! -- with black high heels and black thigh highs, and all of this is irrelevant. Irrelevant.

"Don't you know what irrelevant means?" she asks the class.

"Sure," says Chico. "They've got irrelevants in the circus!"

Her star pupil. Sitting in the back row, between his two brothers.

And in the desk next to him, Groucho says, "Yeah, and the irrelevants keep stealing my pajamas!"

-- You didn't know you were gonna be in the same room with the Marx Brothers, now did you? Oh yes, lots of famous people in Ms. Ingenue's class today. Fred Astaire is passing a love note to Ginger Rogers. Dana Andrews is listening to opera on his ipod. And upon the dunce chair, sits Marilyn Monroe.

Now back to our lesson!

Ms. Ingenue bends over to pick up the chalk she purposely dropped a second time, and this time, Harpo honks his taxi horn. The brothers laugh. Fred and Ginger slip away to make-out behind the filing cabinet, and Dana Andrews has nodded off to sleep.

Marilyn's still trying to read the word 'Dunce' on her hat.

"It's a 'd', Marilyn," says Ms. Ingenue. "'D' as in 'dog'."

-- Always willing to encourage even the most hopeless of pupils.

Now back to our lesson!

Startled by the taxi horn, but otherwise undaunted, Ms. Ingenue drops the chalk a third time, and this time, takes her sweet ass time in picking it up! While retrieving the chalk, ever so slowly, in order to give the Marx Boys a healthy look at Ms. Ingenue's equally healthy backside, she then rises too quickly, disrupting the one single bobby pin from her updo, causing a cascade of brunette curls to slap her blushing face. A chocolate covered strawberry.

But this is all irrelevant, for Ms. Ingenue is allergic to chalk!

"Chico," she says, "now be a good boy, and go fetch me a pair of rubber gloves."

"Two hand rubbers coming right up!" he says.

-- We won't see Chico again for the rest of the day. Two lucky girls received Ms. Ingenue's rubber gloves...or Chico received two hand-rubs from two lucky girls.

Either way.

Ms. Ingenue washes her hands of the whole affair, along with the chalk dust, and uses Fred's immaculate top hat to control her unruly hair, and Groucho's greasepaint mustache to write on the blackboard...of course, you can't see black on black, so Ms. Ingenue has Groucho crawl (while riding on his back) to the other side of the room where Ms. Ingenue once again rubs her finger between Groucho's nose and lips, and then onto the wall to write the following lesson for the illumination and benefit of her ever-dwindling class.

LESSON NUMBER ONE in the Art of Careful, Deliberate Blogging

Don't move to the woods just yet, Walden. Just disappear from your blog -- nay, the entire blogosphere! -- for a long stretch of time. The longer you're gone, the better; the more people are going to miss you, and the more they miss you, the more likely they'll come and read your blog as soon as you get back. Of course sometimes staying gone for too long will make the heart grow less fond. People will dislike you for being so distant, flippant, and otherwise unobtainable. But don't be the Monroe of the blogging world -- no, don't be easy! -- be the Greta Garbo of the blogging world! Be so distant, and flippant, and otherwise unobtainable, that people will never truly know you at all, and when you write that rare, God awful, late-night essay, and post it, no one will be there to read it, and you won't have to feel embarrassed!

Ah, no more regret!! No more wishing you hadn't wrote about your ideal form of suicide; or how the Dead End Kids are the best actors of all time! Because that wasn't YOU talking, genius. That was the five-dollar-bottle of wine you bought at Walmart last night. In fact, it was all three five-dollar-bottles of wine you bought at Walmart last night, and used as a time machine to drink your way through the night, and write BIG prose (prose that seemed big at the time) and a few poems involving your sexual fantasies of actors who are old enough to be your father, but now they're dead (so it doesn't matter), but just what kind of girl wants to have sex with men who are already dead, though every girl (I assume) longs to have sex with at least one man who's old enough to be her father.

So you're normal.

At least we've established that.

LESSON NUMBER TWO

Always write about the most morbid subject you can think of. That way, your audience will become accustomed to your outgoing, and brave personality! Nothing will shock them!! If you want to post naked pictures of yourself: go ahead! If you want to declare yourself a puppy-hating atheist: be my guest! There is no stone unturned that can't be turned again in the land of morbid blog topics. Discuss your latest suicide attempt. Draw pictures of your messy divorce. Post a video of your weeping. Tell 'em all how long you've been sober, and how lonely you are. And make sure they know every single gory detail about your last doctor visit, panic attack, therapy session; how your cat is getting castrated today, and you hope he doesn't hate you for it later. Likewise, how your Billy Halop look-alike lover just got a vasectomy, and you hope he doesn't hate you for it later, either. After all, just because you're through having children, doesn't mean he doesn't want any more kids. Did you ever think of that, you selfish beast?

"Dunce!" shouts Marilyn.

-- That's right, Marilyn! Good job.

Dana wakes up and tosses Marilyn a dog treat.

Meanwhile, there are soft sighs coming from behind the filing cabinet, and Harpo is painting a picture of a horse on Ms. Ingenue's lavish backside.

LESSON NUMBER THREE

The next time someone leaves you a nice heartfelt comment, completely ignore it! That's right. Make 'em work for your personal conversation. You're not being paid. After all, if people want to converse with you, they should email you. Of course don't respond to your emails, either, because then people will write you back. And then you'll have to write them back. And then they'll write you back, and so on, thus creating an ongoing pressure akin to keeping a basketball in mid-air, for if the ball hits the ground, it will make a horrible sound, waking up your only child. And if your child wakes up, then what? Then you have to stop blogging and go to bed, and it's all the stupid emailer's fault. Why can't people just leave you alone, or leave comments on your blog? Why can't every single blog post you write receive twenty-something comments (at the very least!) and every commenter say how much they loved your piece, and what a genius you are. Oh, what a great writer! Oh how witty. You're the best blogger of all time.

The reason no one says these things to you, is because they're jealous of you. That's why.

And so you go on every day, writing, and slaving away over a hot stove of a blog, wishing and hoping to some day be recognized, and possibly awarded -- and by awarded, I mean you'll get a little badge you can affix to your sidebar: oh the joy! -- and garner millions upon millions of comments!

Your comments are all you have, you know! So when you get them, ignore them, and soon the commenters will leave you alone, and then you'll be a starving artist. No one will love you! This will send you into such an emotional state of turmoil, you'll be inspired to write as well as any author, or college-taught baboon.

Assuming you don't already write like a college-taught baboon...

If so, cheers to you!

And if you don't believe it's possible, just ask Marilyn! Why, when she came to Ms. Ingenue's blogging school, she couldn't even tell her right from her left, her top from someone else's bottom, or Dana Andrews from a hole in the wall.

Needless to say, Dana wasn't impressed with Marilyn, anyway, so she ended up going to bed with the hole in the wall.

Chico was very jealous.

...

Fred and Ginger emerge from behind the filing cabinet, only to have their clothes once again shed from their bodies, this time no thanks to their roaming hands, but all due to Harpo's giant scissors!

-- Snip, snip.

And Groucho's all out of greasepaint from his upper lip, and both eyebrows, so I guess that concludes our broadcast day.

Thanks again, for your attention, and now please stand and pledge allegiance to the flag of Freedonia, as we listen to Ms. Ingenue's own creaky rendition of the Blogosphere's WorldWide National Film Blog Anthem.

"Gesundheit," says Groucho.

Ms. Ingenue sings:

Oh, say can you write
by the blog's early light
what so proudly we hailed
as the TWILIGHT's last sequel

Whose bad plot and dim stars
thru the box office plight
O'er the chick-flicks we watched
were so shamelessly steaming?

And the Marx Bros. were there!
To bombard your despair!
Gave proof to the night
that are hearts are still here!

Oh say does that speak-easy password (Swordfish!) yet stand?
O'er the land of the free
and the home
of the
bland.

[Static]

Class dismissed!

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Snow Feet

2011-02-01T03:18:00.001-06:00

This evening I have the strange desire to stab my forehead with an ice pick.

You think that'd be a good way to go? -- An ice pick to the forehead??

I don't know. 'I'm a stranger here, myself.'

...

On January 8th, I didn't come to my office to write. Instead, I spent the afternoon doing whatever boring thing I deemed more important (i.e. less frightening) until I went to pick up my daughter from school. There I found her red-faced, holding her coat, and begging to stay in the front seat, and for me to turn on the air conditioner.

Sure enough, she was running fever.

A high fever.

Two days later, a snow storm blew through, bringing a half a foot of snow to my otherwise green land, and for a while, at least, my unseasonably warm life.

School was canceled for days, which came in handy for my ailing child.

I let her play outside without many clothes, to break her one hundred and three fever, so she enjoyed it, to an extent.

Despite the re-freezing of ice on the roads, I was prepared to take her to see her usual doctor, but the office was closed for the entire week.

Helpless; exhausted from taking care of a child, staying at her bedside off-and-on most nights -- though partaking in wine, and LOTS of Marx Bros to keep me sane -- I stumbled, on the fourth day of her sickness, as I walked through the yard, right after sunset; on the eve of trash-day, so my can wouldn't miss the trash pick-up. Stumbled, because I was tired. Because my plan for a depression-free 2011 was fading from me. Trying to escape like the snow melting into the earth, only to make a damp, soft ground easy for my high heels of black leather boots to stab through to the skulls of those who died before me. Scraping against bones long forgotten, as I stumbled through the shadow of an overgrown coffin, a tin box I call home, and inside is a child always sick, and I can't do any thing to change or stop it!

On the sixth day, on the way to the hospital, for a worry-soaked trip to the ER, a white car in front of me turned, smashing into oncoming traffic. Another white car, flew into a ditch. From the vehicle at fault, once it spun, and came to a halt, sprung a girl my age or younger. Her head in her hands. Bending over. I'm not sure if she was crying, puking, or what.

Made it to the hospital.

My next door neighbor, who looks like Groucho(!), came into the waiting room, with a blonde, and they brisked me through triage.

In the hospital room, I fight to find enough space to stand; the tiny room, my child on the bed, in a gown; Groucho and the blonde, stay, and lean against the wall; Gummo's in the chair; and in walks the nurse; a beautiful brunette who bought me a pregnancy test when I was sixteen. Sister to my ex-boyfriend/possible soul mate/love of my life.

Details.

She looks overwhelmed by the amount of people squeezed into one room, and among the faces (in the stateroom!) is me.

Of all people; a ghost from the past.

They give my child a strep-test, a flu-test -- 'and two hard-boiled eggs!' -- then x-ray her chest.

A ghost from the present. A ghost, always! I drift down the hallway, and into the open door of each emergency room, I see people bleeding, and dying. A man in a yellow neck brace. One guy escapes, because it takes too long for the gum-chewing nurse to show up, and giggle, "Have you seen my patient?"

Shifted tenses. Shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Waited for the doctor. Groucho and the Blonde discussed what the Blonde should cook for supper, then say good-bye. My child cried to go home, and finally arrives the test-results, and an actual doctor: an old man, complete with Bill Cosby sweater, said it was only a severe viral infection, and he's old-fashioned; he doesn't believe in antibiotics. Just give her liquids.

Kool-aide will solve all my problems.

The doctor left, and in walked the nurse; familiar, but distant; asked if I'm still living in town, and what I'm doing now, but doesn't wait for the answers.

She hands me a contract. 'The party in the first part'...I sign it's okay to state my daughter has been here, and there's no reason for the second party not to disclose it.

I'm disclosing it now, aren't I?

All together, she ran fever for eight days; sick, and home for ten.

It took me a long time to get caught up on housework, chores, and errands. In a state of bad depression. But as of last night, it seems to be edging its way into a hypomanic state, which equals writing!

In my absence, though, I did write tons of poems, took some star-inspired photos, and drew another pastel picture of a (different) Marx Brother.

Another snow storm forecasted for today, but hopefully it won't reach me -- I'm in the South part of the state. But it will replace my near-eighty degree temperatures, with freezing cold rain. And tonight, the child said her ears were itching. She started sneezing, and coughing. Had trouble falling asleep.

I know it's fixing to begin again.

But snow will melt again.

And fever will break, again.

And I'm sober again.

Life goes on just the same.

__________________________

Harpo Speaks...Harpo Speaks...and two hard-boiled eggs.

2011-01-06T14:36:00.009-06:00

I'm obsessed with Harpo. Gosh, I've got it bad...

You know I'm obsessed when I start drawing pictures of someone. It's like I've got something in my head, and writing won't get it out -- prose cleanses the mind; poetry cleanses the soul -- and photography refills the mind. So maybe drawing and painting refills the soul? So maybe I don't have something that needs out...maybe I have something that needs in!

Harpo, and all the Brothers Marx, have been visiting me in my dreams. I can never quite remember the dreams, but every night, this new year, there they are! And when I wake up, I have the distinct feeling the Brothers were trying to tell me something, but I can't recall their words, only their faces. I feel surprised -- every single morning -- that the dream wasn't reality.

Of course, the last few nights, I've been lonely...writing again seems to re-open all my wounds, and I feel nervous and vulnerable. The more I write, the worse it gets! So right before I go to bed, I use my cellphone to watch videos on YouTube. To comfort me; I do searches for Marx Bros., Harpo Marx, Harpo Harp, Harpo Speaks...and so that would explain why they've been visiting me nightly in my dreams: every day, they're the last thing I see!

And here is my favorite video so far:

Harpo says: "You gotta do the talking...I can't."

That's how I feel right now. I can't talk. You gotta talk for me!!

Nervous times a million...

Yes, 2011 already feels depression free. Like someone snuck into my house, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day, and gave me a lobotomy in my sleep!

Depression free, sure, but I've got anxiety disorder, panic disorder...

"And two hard-boiled eggs."

Ha. I think the cure for all this is an increase in art. More writing. More reading. And lots and lots of Marx Brothers!

I got a hundred dollars for Christmas, and was gonna save it all, to buy new shoes and clothes this Spring, but I think I'm fixing to order Harpo's autobiography, Harpo Speaks, at least. And maybe Henry Miller's book on writing. It's been a long time since I've let Henry Miller teach me anything!

So make that three hard-boiled eggs. ;)

...

As for the Harpo sketch I did yesterday: I finished up the ink; making it less abstract. Now I don't like it as much. But it does look like Harpo. Just a bit too 'soft'. And when I broke out the pastels, I accidentally smudged blue on his harp. Gonna have to paint over it. I may just start over, on canvas, and do watercolors like I wanted to do in the first place.

So Harpo's wig was either red or pink, according to several online sources, and according to my favorite Marx Bros. enthusiast/expert, fellow-blogger, Matthew Coniam. But for some reason, I always see it, in my black-and-white translating mind, as blonde.

Or that's the way I originally perceived it, when I first fell for him, last January.

...

Off to try and shake this nervousness.

_____________________________

Link: If you, too, are obsessed with the Marx Brothers, and they've been haunting YOUR dreams! Be sure to check out Matthew Coniam's
The Marx Brothers Council of Britain.

I'm fixing to pack a suitcase, and move in there. ;)

_____________________________

Hal Roach's Nightmare Sequence

2011-01-05T14:56:00.005-06:00

A worthless human being; I was so productive the first four days of the new year: completely depression free! Cleaning house from top to bottom, writing poetry, cooking homemade spaghetti, spending lots of time with the child. Then today, what have I done? Stayed in my pajamas, and laid on the couch for hours, watching TCM's Our Gang marathon.

A lazy bum!

Though I was delighted to see Ernie 'Sunshine Sammy' Morrison -- Scruno, of the East Side Kids -- cavorting with his original gang.

I think I watched nearly all twenty-one of the East Side Kid movies, last year, and missed his presence, once he left the series.

Other Favorite Our Gang Members:

-- and for the record, I'm only a fan of the silent years; as for the talkies, though, I do like Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer.

Allen 'Farina' Hoskins
Mickey Daniels
Mary Kornman

I'd really like to see those last two in Roach's spin-off series, The Boy Friends.

They made such an adorable couple!

Me, doting over child stars in love. ;)

Eating a bowl of Trix, and wondering where the day went...

After I finally made myself turn off Our Gang, did I do chores? No, you productive and worthy citizen of society: out making a good living for you and/or your family, no doubt; I did NOT do my chores.

I got it in my head, that I MUST sit down and draw a picture of Harpo Marx.

So I went and fetched my sketch book, pen and pastels, and put in my Marx Brothers tape, telling myself, Rewind it, and whatever movie it ends up on -- out of MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS, DUCK SOUP, and A NIGHT AT THE OPERA -- that's the movie from which I'd draw him.

Well, it ended up on MONKEY BUSINESS, right at the party scene, when he's fixing to play the harp. Fate!

I turned out the lights, stood six or ten inches from the TV, and sketched a quick bit of the harp, half of his face, a few curls, one eye...it looks more like an abstract caricature, instead of Harpo himself, but I love it!

Did I let myself color it? No...I wanted to break out the watercolors, which I haven't used in forever...so I'll use my tried and true (love) pastels later. And instead, made myself go and fold clothes, wash sheets, bring up the trashcan. Yawn. Eat a bowl of Trix. Think about pink alligators, and how I really should get myself to the office at one o'clock like I promised, instead of one-thirty, so I'll have more time to write!!

But now I'm done.

Off to color Harpo's wig the wrong color! And watch more Our Gang. And be a worthless human being. ;)

At least I'm happy.

...

Thanks for the welcome back! :)

_________________________

Link: The Official Mary Kornman Website.

Lots of great info and pictures, of a beautiful Little Rascal.

...

And for the record, TCM isn't just having an Our Gang marathon today; they're currently in the midst of an entire month-long salute to Hal Roach Studios! With 24 hour marathons of Roach goodness, every Tuesday-night-through-Wednesday.

So have fun being lazy with me!

...

EDIT: I completely forgot to cite the inspiration for this entry's strange title. The first Our Gang short I watched yesterday, featured Farina eating too much chicken, getting a stomach ache, then running home to his momma, who put him to bed, and told him, Now don't blame me if you dream of pink alligators! Which tickled me. And then Farina had a Harold Lloyd-esque nightmare of scaling a building, but unlike Lloyd, Farina fell to the pavement, crashed through the sidewalk, and landed back in bed. :)

_________________________

Like a Bird from the Sky...

2011-01-04T15:09:00.002-06:00

...I'll fall onto your head, at the start of the year.

Think I fell in a hole, and forgot how to climb out.

The other hummingbirds came along, and asked, "Why don't you just fly out?"

"Don't ask me silly questions."

Ha. Hummingbirds can't talk!

-- This is what happens when I write a blog piece, when I actually want to write poetry, but am in too good of a mood. ;)

...

So I disappeared again. And you thought, "Well, that's the last we'll ever see of her," again. But here I am again. THUD. Right on your head. Black birds all over the pavement. The New Year killed the flying and the swimming, here in the portal of Hell -- the deep, Hot South -- and God is giving us a rainfall of blackbirds as a warning. "Don't eat the fish!" Don't go outside...out with the old, and in with the new...well how 'bout out with the new, and in with the old?! In with Ginger Ingenue! ;)

THUD. Right on your head, and I'll slide into your lap, and ask, "Honey, did you miss me?"

"Don't ask me silly questions."

Ha. Ghost can't talk.

And I'm a ghost now. I died, three or so months ago, and now I'm haunting you. Haunting this blog. Here to share stories of my obsession with FREAKS, Wallace Ford, and my latest, return-to-love -- thanks to TCM's New Year's Eve treat I didn't see; a storm blew through, and messed up my Directv, or maybe a whirlwind of blackbirds flew past, and knocked out my dish -- the Marx Brothers, and Harpo times a million!

I heard his voice today, for the first time ever, and was shocked how sexy it is! So thick and deep, I want to take a bath in it!

If I weren't already clean...

After hours of house and yard work, I took a bubble bath...a bubble bath! On a Tuesday afternoon. How decadent! Skipped lunch -- had a caffeine pill, and a glass of water, instead -- and ran the hottest, most snow-scented bubble bath I've had in ages.

Shaved my legs. Splashed cold water on my face; had to lie on the bed for a while, just to cool off. And now I'm here; here at my desk in the middle of the day. I've never been a middle of the day writer before. An early morning writer; a Midnight writer, and my all time favorite, the ALL NIGHT writer! But never afternoon...a new tradition, I say. Ginger Ingenue, blogging ghost extraordinaire, shall now blog in the middle of the afternoon! ;)

And for my next trick...

I shall come back from the dead, and review movies, and generally say things that have already been said, but who's keeping track?

THUD. I've hit you on the head, and slid into your lap.

Sitting at my desk, in a black silky top. It's warm for winter. The lights are out. The door, shut. And the fan's on low. My window is open. And every time the warm winter breeze blows in, the peppermint oil I sprinkled on the sill kisses me with sweet thoughts of men I've never met (in person), and men long dead.

Pretty thoughts, and ghosts.

________________________

Link: It's raining birds in Arkansas!!

An article forwarded to me by the best editor in Chicago. ;)

-- Thanks for the idea...

__________________________

The Politics of Linking; plus Post Thieves and Blogging Doubt

2010-09-28T06:43:00.007-05:00

"I told you they didn't like you!"

Woke up at two fifteen and couldn't fall back asleep.

From naked and sweating at night, for months now, I was surprised of the sudden need for a nightgown, a sweater, three pairs of socks, and a blanket. Sat on the couch, and ate a bowl of Life.

Ventured to my office. Thought it'd be fun to check in on fellow film bloggers, and people I haven't read in a while. All cozied up, I started clicking, but instead of the warm fuzzies, my heart got nothing but hurt:

One of my all time favorite film bloggers has removed me from their sidebar list of Favorite Film Blogs.

You know, it's one thing for someone to never link to you. But to link to you, then remove it?

What did I do wrong??!

I don't know. I guess in this person's eyes, my blog has turned into such a mess, it's no longer a favorite, or worthy of a link.

I'll always link a blog that doesn't link to me, if I like it, and think it's great, original, and/or worth mentioning. Sharing. Want other people to partake in it. And enjoy it!

But if someone links here, and then says, "Nope, sorry, Ginger. You're just not good enough anymore," and removes it. That's tough.

I feel like garbage.

I delete their link, and that's it.

...

So what are your politics on linking?

I'll occasionally come across a blog that links here, and if I don't like it, I don't link back. But I may follow it, just in case I start liking it.

And I always follow a blog for a while, before adding its link to my sidebar.

So following is one thing, but putting a constant link to someone else's work onto your blog: it's a privilege for them, right? You shouldn't link EVERY blog.

I'm not running a chop shop here. I'm not asking for any money, from anyone or any thing. I don't deserve it! It's just a blog for Christ's sake. But why share my space with lesser bloggers, and advertise for hacks, if I'm gonna work hard on this? Though my posting is sporadic, I DO work hard when I'm here. Other times, I'm quiet because of you-know-what, and what ails me: what's wrong with that?

I don't expect a get out of jail free card in every aspect of life, due to illness, but I've always hoped friends -- even online friends who don't know me completely -- will be understanding and forgiving when it comes to my long stints of silence.

...

I'm in a cave, and no one likes me. Wouldn't it be funny if I had a real problem to deal with. ;)

My house is on fire.
The world is caving in!

I'm just thankful my daughter is healthy right now. I was so scared she'd get sick again, and we'd miss this past weekend's carnival.

We did. But only on account of a much-needed rain.

...

Hackenfish.

Some spam site stole my last film review, and did this to it:

One-liner accessories?? A force in the South?! It's like they translated my piece into a foreign language, condensed it, translated it back into English, then posted it to their crummy site.

There's no fairness online, anymore.

People steal stuff from you.

They disregard you.

...

Tonight, despite my sadness, I pressed on with the reading of film blogs, but after a while, felt a nagging doubt creep into my brain and kick its way down to my heart:

"I don't know what I'm doing."

I'm not as good as everyone else. What kind of authority am I on classic film? Who needs to know my opinions?? I didn't go to film school. I've never studied film. I didn't even finish my first semester of college. I hated it!

If I did go back to college, I still wouldn't study film. I'd study geology. Go dig up rocks, and tell you how old they are. What they're made of. How they got that way. Sit in the dirt, and be quiet, like a kid with her shovel on the beach. Lonely, watching all the other kids build castles. Build a tower around me, out of rocks.

-- Give me something I can hang onto!

We'll sign our names in the sand, and it doesn't matter what we use to write them, or if we stand there watching. Audience or not:

It's gonna wash away.

___________________________

Shirtless! (and wet!) Buster Keaton

2010-09-25T03:23:00.003-05:00

In a sad mood, and it's only getting worse. Like embarking on a drive through a ten mile tunnel, when all you want to do is stay in the sun! But sometimes, you have to drive through the tunnel, to get where you want to go.

I suppose. ;)

Endure the darkness.

"I don't even want to start this!"

A long, lonely drive...

...

And to cheer myself up, I officially declare this, Ginger's Shirtless Saturday!

The First Entry.

I hope you enjoy. :)

...

Tonight, the Kid and I are going to the carnival.

So at least there's fun out there, and sexiness here.

Now if only I could improve my mind.

________________________________

The Autumnal Equinox 2010, or, The Moon is the Battlefield Where I First Said, "I Love You."

2010-09-22T03:27:00.008-05:00

Frank Stanford is rolling in his grave. Or smiling. You never know about Ol' Frank.

It's almost the first day of Fall.

The Autumnal Equinox always does screwy things to me.

I feel like being a minimalist tonight, so I will be.

"You don't know me.

-- I do what I want."

...

Misquote great poet. Quote cartoon star!

I'm sitting at my desk, with a child's-size Breathe-Right Strip across the bridge of my nose. I've been sick since Sunday night.

Caught it from the child. She was sick Friday through Monday. Went to school Tuesday (now yesterday). The school nurse called at one o'clock, waking me from my re-heated lasagna and Sudafed induced slumber, to say, "Your child is in the office, throwing up in our trash can."

Why wouldn't she be?

Because God loves me SO much, he gave his only begotten Son, to come to Earth, to be a door to door salesman. A book salesman! For five dollars extra, you can get his autograph in red ink.

...

I am tired.

...

I have become quite infatuated with Man v. Food host Adam Richman. Due to my own created-through-spontaneous-writing fantasy. Now I don't chastise him for overeating...watched three episodes last night, and imagined myself at his table-side, handing him napkins, cheering him on. "Eat, you Yankee, son of a bitch!"

I was a sailor in a former life.

...

The Moon is the Battlefield...

I've been accidentally mangling the title of Frank Stanford's epic poem. I don't know how long I've been doing this. Doesn't matter. But the other night, while checking emails, I was inspired to entitle my next train-of-thought blog piece, 'Gmail is the Battlefield Where I First Said I Love You'.

But it's not 'The Moon is the Battlefield Where I First Said I Love You'...stupid Ginger. The title is: 'The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You'.

So the Moon is not the battlefield. The Moon is ON the battlefield. And now the Moon can speak. It says I love you, to whom? I don't know. The Sun, I suppose.

...

The Autumnal Equinox vs. My Internet Anxiety!

The Summer Solstice is the day with the most light.

The Winter Solstice is the day with the most night.

The Vernal Equinox (March) and the Autumnal Equinox (September) are the days where dark and light are almost equal?

Well, it's at least where the center of the sun tries to bore a hole through the center of the equator, which is wrapped dead center 'round the center of the Earth.

Hmm? Balance.

Libra-type holiday. Always searching for balance, and tomorrow I'll have it.

But to be Libra, bipolar, AND alive on the Autumnal Equinox: it's almost a holy trifecta of insanity! I feel wired.

Always a strange day. The death of Summer. The First day of Fall -- Sorry Foreign People: "The First day of Autumn." Plus, the first day of Libra season. Where you can openly hunt Libras! Get a permit. An orange vest. Fill a thermos. Wear camouflage. You're not nervous, are you? Tell the Libra something romantic, and they'll go into daydreamer's mode -- like headlights in a deer's eyes. Now all you gotta do is pull the trigger.

On the battlefield. I like the Moon AS the battlefield. It's the end of time, and we're all living on the Moon, and pretty soon, the Moon will implode, due to both armies having plenty of explosives. "I love you."

"You never told me."

Boom!

And then it's over.

...

Enjoy your last day of Summer.

___________________________

Photo credit: Ginny Stanford. 1973. Of poet Frank Stanford, shooting a short-film entitled IT WASN'T A DREAM, IT WAS A FLOOD, in a certain state where a discontented Libra needs sleep.

___________________________

The Lines I Love: Errol's Good-bye to Olivia...

2010-09-20T04:36:00.002-05:00

"Walking through life with you, mam, has been a very gracious thing."

-- Errol Flynn to Olivia de Havilland, as they said good-bye with their boots on, in THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941). Their eighth and final film. Their final scene. Their final lines.

_______________________

Review: FRED: THE MOVIE (2010)

2010-09-19T06:05:00.027-05:00

Starring: Lucas Cruikshank, Jennette McCurdy, Pixie Lott, John Cena, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, and Jake Weary as Kevin.

Directed by: Clay Weiner

Genre: Comedy; Kids

Color

First Time I Saw It: Last night; September 18th, 2010.

Synopsis: Teenage geek vies for the affection of a hot girl, and is finally accepted by his peers, after throwing a party, and posting a video of it online.

Trivia: This is not a made for TV movie. Nickelodeon bought the rights to air it.

It will be released on DVD, October 5th.

Based on the original characters and web-series, created by Fred himself, Lucas Cruikshank, one of the most popular and watched YouTube stars ever.

Like a lot of parents, all I heard for a straight month was, "Mommy, I can't wait for FRED: THE MOVIE!!"

My daughter loves Fred Figglehorn. Thanks to iCarly, her favorite TV show, we were first introduced to Fred, the fictional character, and his real-life alter-ego, seventeen year old web-star, Lucas Cruikshank, by way of his guest appearance.

I thought, "Is this an actual web-show? Or is it fiction, created for iCarly?"

Searched it on YouTube, and sure enough, the Fred videos were real, with millions upon millions of views, on each entry in the series.

Fred Figglehorn, a six year old kid, with an alcoholic mother, an absent father, a creepy stalker's crush on a girl named Judy, a massive hatred for a boy named Kevin, and a friendship with an equally-dysfunctional girl named Bertha.

Now, the movie is different from the web-show, because we actually get to see these characters.

The biggest change? Fred is not six years old anymore. He's fifteen. Plus, he's lost his trademark 'Fred' t-shirt in favor of strips and suspenders, and his infamous shrill voice is now at a slightly lower (though slightly more obnoxious) pitch, due to Fred's increase in age.

I was most interested to finally meet Fred's crush, Judy, as an actual person, played by a gorgeous young singer from England: Pixie Lott.

Her accent sounded Australian to me, but Fred kept referring to it as a Southern accent. Of course Fred's not too bright. And thanks to his delusional sense of reality, there are several scenes in the film not actually taking place. We are merely witnessing Fred's fantasy world, where Judy is interested, Fred's father is present -- and is big and buff! played by John Cena -- and Fred is cool, sings, etc.

He even invents his own mentor -- also played by Cruikshank -- the imaginary 'Derf'.

Derf is Fred spelled backwards. ~ What Fred can't have in reality, he creates in his mind.

Think FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF meets NAPOLEON DYNAMITE -- if Ferris were a dork, and Napoleon hyper and attractive.

Cruikshank narrates his story, and if you're not accustomed to Fred's voice, I imagine you'll want to throw rocks at your TV, and immediately sit your kids down with a copy of a 1930s Marx Bros. film, just so they'll know true comedy, and not be disillusioned by the questionable antics of a popular web-star.

I understand. ;)

But it is funny. Not a classic, of course. But I love the first two seasons of the web-show, so I enjoyed it.

And my daughter? She laughed almost constantly!

Despite its G rating for TV -- my DVR rates it as "Iffy for 10+" -- FRED: THE MOVIE does contain the occasional risque joke, and splash of off-color humor. For instance, Fred is running, screaming, and stops suddenly atop a dam, and says, "Dam." Not damn. But it's funny to hear him say it, regardless; this sweet momma's boy, whose standard range of profanity is limited to the homemade cusswords of hackin' and gammit.

Another example: Fred is outside, fixing to jump on a trampoline, in an effort to visit hot girl-next-door, Judy, and says:

"I've never even seen Judy's backdoor. But I bet it's really nice."

-- Sure, Fred; the backdoor of her house.

There's also some implied drinking, and weed-smoking, in the final party scene, but it's subtle, because the characters are only pretending to drink and smoke weed, to make the video of the staged party more impressive.

Before the party, Fred even says, "[...] and we're gonna do a lot of illegal stuff. Kids our age can't do it, but we're gonna do it, anyway."

Fred's mother in the film, does drink openly.

-- On the web-show, she also 'works the corners', and his father's on death row.

Stuff the kids won't catch, or understand, is always fun, but I could have done without the gross-out scenes, and potty humor. Even my daughter admitted, "The Fred movie was pretty good. I just didn't like all the fake vomit."

Ha. When a first grader declares a film has too much fake vomit, you KNOW it has too much fake vomit.

And there was too much nastiness in general. I literally had to turn my head as Fred ate a fly, stuffed himself full of sardines, threw-up on Judy, etc. Without the immature flourishes, FRED: THE MOVIE could have been a lot better.

In one of my favorite scenes, Fred imagines himself at Judy's house, and she's sitting on the floor with a handheld vacuum cleaner, crying. A modern Cinderella, greeted by her Prince not-so-charming, who comes bearing the gift of a pet 'squirrel' (a Pomeranian) and the two sit fireside, singing.

The other female lead in the cast is Bertha, played by Jennette McCurdy ('Sam', of iCarly fame). She's kinda weird in this one. A perfect match, though, for Fred, so I figured it would go the way of SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. Instead, they opted for the PRETTY IN PINK ending.

Again, my daughter nailed it. "I think Fred should have picked Bertha. They make a better couple."

Yep. But I'm sure original Fred, the six year old, would be delighted to know, nine years later, he finally wins the heart of his beloved Judy.

To gain her love, and impress all his schoolmates, Fred hands out party invitations to over a hundred people, all reading, 'You are NOT invited'. He and Bertha then stage a party, video-tape it, and upload the video online to the fictional YouTube equivalent, BlueTube.

-- In the movie, Fred calls the site, BlueTube, but you can clearly see, at the top of his computer screen, most of the YouTube logo.

I enjoyed the montage where they're making the video, more than the video itself.

Both are fun, especially the music, and if you watch 'em in slow motion.

I did notice, during my second viewing of the party video, as I paused it to take pictures: there's a bit of an upskirting of Jennette McCurdy! She's wearing a short party dress, and spins around RIGHT in front of the camera.

Yep. Pretty G-rated stuff, huh, Nickelodeon? Flashing a teenage girl's butt.

There's also a scene where Fred is in a laundromat, stripped down to his skimpy underwear. Which I thought strange, considering the boy is HOT, yes, but still underage.

Cruikshank was only sixteen at the time of filming.

A good time to mention the mothers in this film! I'm pretty sure arch-nemesis Kevin's mother was played by the chick from the Progressive Auto-Insurance commercials.

-- Yep, just looked it up. Stephanie Courtney.

And Fred's mother looked so familiar to me. I kept thinking, "She's either from an 80s movie, or a former cast-member of Saturday Night Live."

Turns out it was the latter. Siobhan Fallon Hogan. Plus, she played Elaine's roommate on Seinfeld. Remember? The one Kramer frolicked with, then hurt themselves on the glass-top coffee table.

-- Two of my past obsessions: SNL (1970s through '90s) and Seinfeld.

So if you're familiar with the original Fred videos, I think you'll be more amused than those who've never watched the web-series.

And if you're already a big fan of Fred, then great! Enjoy his starring effort. Because who knows: in a few years, Cruikshank may go the way of most young actors, drift into obscurity, and grace nothing more than your fond, occasional memories of his videos on YouTube.

Or, he'll be a multi-millionaire, and you can see him in FRED: THE SEQUEL.

...

Cute, but not always pleasant.

**1/2(stars)

__________________________

And When You Least Expect It

2010-09-18T02:05:00.018-05:00

BOOM!

I'm an ass. I'm a jerk. I make a fool of myself.

...

I've been telling everyone, "I feel like I just stepped out of a cave."

Born again. My depression gave birth to me.

Some mothers eat their young.

...

From the movie, the writing, the sunrise, I felt giddy and playful and alive. I decided to go into the sunlight, to keep the feeling going, and not weep in the dark, on the couch, watching old movies. I figured it'd be good for me, to stay in a good mood.

So after I woke up my child, I had to listen to her cry about not wanting to go to school; about how her throat hurt, and she didn't feel well -- I assumed she just didn't want to go, since they had two test today. Took her temperature. No fever.

"You're going to school."

Dropped her off, came home, did my chores, and got dolled-up. Went to town. Had a decent time, except I was lonely. Started feeling like something was missing. That I had forgot something. Started missing everyone! Started thinking my house would burn down. Started worrying.

All the sexy thoughts and fun I had, were drained like a pool at the end of summer. "They're not gonna re-fill you either," says the step-ladder. "That's right," says the diving board. "They're gonna throw a tarp over you, instead."

In the darkness again. I have a strange pain in the side of my head, and feel like I'm gonna pass out.

At my last stop, shopping for groceries for the weekend, I'm walking outside with my buggy filled with food, and there are two men sitting at tables, with crosses, jars for money, and bowls of lollipops. "For just twenty bucks," one man says, "you can feed a mother and her child for a week."

The guilt inside me. I just spent over a hundred dollars, on stuff to make lasagna, bake banana muffins; nice, fancy, name brand food, and I remember getting welfare and government-approved groceries. Why not? Here, take five dollars. Make it six. Yes, I'd like a lollipop. You have a nice day, too.

Walk through the crosswalk. Can't even begin to think about karma: a truck nearly runs me over! I stand there, staring at an old lady who wasn't looking where she was going, and all I can think to do is say, "Excuse me."

I walk to my car. Mood ruined. Every thing's black. The hatch won't open. I'm fiddling with the key, pressing the button. It won't budge! I need to load my groceries and get home. School's out in half an hour, and I'm half an hour AWAY from the school!

In a gray dress, black leggings, and high-heels, suddenly the heat gets to me. In this concrete parking lot, on a hundred degree day, and somewhere, despite the near-state-wide burn ban, SOMEONE is burning, and the smoke is visible, unbearable. I can hardly breathe, and this stupid thing won't open, and a woman is trying to squeeze between me, my car, my buggy, and the next car. "Excuse me," I say, and nearly start crying.

The woman says, "No, I'm the one who nearly hit you while ago." And she apologizes.

I forgive her. "We all have bad days."

I tell her not to feel guilty, and how nice it was, for her to want to find me and apologize. For all she knew, I could have been a crazy person. And not in the bipolar sense. In the raving, angry lunatic sense. I could have told her to go to Hell, and be more careful. No one's perfect, though. I mess up, too.

...

With the groceries in the backseat of the car, instead of in the stubborn/locked trunk, I make it just in time to pick my daughter up from school. Drive home. Put away cold food. Take baths. Cook supper. I'm tired! I leave her to watch iCarly, and draw on her new stack of paper while I go to bed, just for a quick nap, I promise, Honey.

"Come wake me up when your show is over."

I can't seem to get out of bed. "But mommy, there's a bad show on," she says. And I finally make it to the living room. Change the channel. Notice her face is red, and she looks so tired. Kiss her forehead. She's burning with fever!

God damn it.

...

All summer, I avoided this place for two reasons.

Reason one: my friend with cancer? She was in the hospital, and she wanted me to come see her. And I wanted to. I did. But I was so scared to go. Decided to be brave, and unselfish, and go the next day. That night, my daughter got sick, and I was at HER bedside. The kid was sick for several days, and then my friend died.

In April. Just a few days after that last post -- the one that sat at the top for five months, while I was away.

Went to the funeral, and skipped the burial. The next day, I got sick. Came back around (online), only to email one of my favorite blogger friends. And offer to make her a video, of a special night on TCM. Because she's always been so kind to me, and so supportive of my writing. And I wanted to be a good friend.

I had such a void in my soul from not visiting my other friend in the hospital. I never told her what she meant to me, or anything. I'm a coward! I'm a selfish, horrible coward. And now it's over, and what?

I had learned my lesson. Decided to be a good friend -- a better friend! 'Cause God knows I'm always the inattentive jackass when it comes to my friends -- and wanted to show everyone I care about, and everyone who cares about me, how much I'm glad they're in my life, and alive in general.

We'll all be gone someday, and it scares me.

But then that night, at the end of April, when I was taping the movies off TCM, tornadoes ripped through the state, one after another. Satellite lost signal. Of course that's a blip on the radar, in comparison: several people were killed. And I was scared. I felt guilty. I wept.

I never wrote my friend to tell her what happened, why the movies didn't tape. Of course she would understand, and it would have been nothing but a blip...but in my mindset (my dark, basement-dwelling mindset) it only exacerbated my guilt for being a horrible friend to everyone. Especially my late friend.

So May dawned, and my daughter got sick one more time before finally graduating kindergarten. She sat on stage, in a little red chair, wearing a gold robe and hat; the same stage I sat on, exactly twenty years prior. And in the same classroom as my kindergarten reception, my sister gave my daughter a bouquet of flowers, to which she declared:

"This is the best day of my life."

...

Reason number two: my daughter didn't get sick all summer. Not once. Not a single fever. Not a single cold. Nothing! Just a happy, healthy kid. And I was happy for her!

I have a strange phobia -- or a superstition, I guess you'd call it -- concerning my daughter, and blogging. It seems every time I stay away for a while, with no legitimate reason to stay away, other than laziness, or interest in something other than classic film, AS SOON as I come back, and start blogging again, and get all giddy, and silly, and having fun with it, and catching up, BOOM, my daughter gets sick again, and I'm busy at her bedside. Which is fine. I know blogging is a one, and motherhood is a ten on the whole 'Scale of what's Important in Life', but it just seems to be a rule, now. A jinx! The second I let my guard down, she gets sick again.

But like I said, not a single ailment all summer. Then she goes back to school at the end of August. The second week there, she comes down with strep throat and runs the worst fever of her life! And I thought, "Okay, she hasn't been sick in a long time. I can handle this. I can do this! I'm just grateful we made it through the summer..."

Five days of high fever. Ten days of penicillin. Finally she's better, and back to school (after missing an entire week), so I thought, "Okay, Ginger, relax. Back to blogging now. Surely you're in the clear, for a while, at least..."

Never wanting to blog in the summer, for knowing I couldn't be good to anyone, and knowing I would only jinx my self and my daughter, and make her sick.

Ha. That's how I think. I know it doesn't make sense, but at the time -- or always, really -- due to my depression, I'm incapable of knowing when I make sense, or when I THINK I make sense.

Now she's sick again, and I don't think I can handle it. Like going swimming when you haven't slept. I'm too tired. Afraid of drowning. Afraid of tying bricks to my own feet, and diving in, and saying, "Well, okay, that's it."

__________________

I came out of the cave, and into the sunlight, and it burns. Hot concrete on one hundred degree days, and smoke in my lungs, and a sick child crying 'cause she doesn't want to be sick.

"I know, sweetheart," I said at bedtime, as I tucked her in. But then I started crying, too. And I couldn't STOP crying.

I come out of the cave, and I let my guard down. With a bored soul, I want to create! I want to have fun! I want to connect with people. I make an ass of myself.

Then it starts to rain. Acid rain, and me unsheltered. If I just stay in my cave, I don't feel as bad when something 'scary' happens; I'm already depressed; try all you like -- rain all you like! -- you can't make water any wetter.

I need to stay in my cave. Come out in the sun (in the mental sense) and there goes the sun and here comes the acid rain, and I feel horrible now. My chest hurts, and I'm nervous, and I can't stop shaking.

The one thing I've failed to mention about my absence, other than the movies I watched and the obsessions I lost (sorry, Kids), is in June, I had to have an EKG. My chest hurt. My arm went numb. The entire side of my left body was in horrible pain. From my jaw and neck, all the way down to my back and ribcage.

Same old thing. Heart is fine. It's nerves. It's stress. It's depression. It's lack of sleep. It's the doctor asking me a million questions. "Are you suicidal? -- Homicidal?!"

Ha. I'd like to cry every time a butterfly hits my windshield!

As if I'd ever hurt anyone on purpose.

...

I went outside tonight, to take out the trash, and feed the cats. I looked up, and saw the Moon; a yellow moon, with a halo of haze about it, as it were giving off heat.

Usually the Moon looks so cold, and white. Blue. Lonely insomniac, waiting for dawn. And now it's trying to warm up the sky?

I'm confused.

"Don't make an ass of yourself, Moon."

To move the oceans, in quiet, is probably the best thing for you...

And here I am, on the verge of writing poetry; not blogging about classic film, but back to my yammering. My depressing train-of-thought. I should be in bed, trying to sleep, but it's so quiet there. So lonely.

Can you see I'm bipolar??

The Moon is blue/the Moon is yellow.

It's visible.

...

I'm tired of feeling ashamed.

________________________

Sex in a Tool Shed

2010-09-17T07:01:00.007-05:00

Years ago, I saw a movie I liked. Late at night. I was possibly drunk at the time. And recently, while making a list of my favorite movies from every decade, I wanted to add this film to it, remembering, at least, what decade it hailed from -- my beloved 1980s -- and a pretty blonde having sex in a tool shed with an older man, then pushing a baby carriage across a green field. I couldn't recall the title. I probably never knew it.

...

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I tried. I ended-up channel surfing. From nine PM 'til three AM, I watched several shows, including Man Vs. Food. Because watching a semi-attractive man -- or at least a man who has a boyish smile, pretty eyes, and an overall good personality -- gorge himself on hamburgers bigger than my head (though possibly the same size of his own head) is entertainment?

I don't think so, Fred Astaire.

It's NOT entertainment; it's killing him. People are watching this man, and paying this man, and cheering him on, just so he'll overeat, make himself uncomfortable, make himself sick, gain more weight, and look like a total pig. Does he WANT to be obese?

A LETTER TO ADAM RICHMAN

Dear Mr. Richman,

Please stop killing yourself for money. If you want to eat something until you can eat it no longer, I'd be willing to frame your picture and hang it on my bedroom wall.

Sincerely yours,
Ginger Ingenue

Man vs. Woman -- Man vs. My Thighs!

During one episode, last night, in the midst of eating out, he said he was glad the crowd was nice enough to fan him. I thought, "If he's hot, why doesn't he just take his jacket off?" And then I realized, he doesn't want to take off his jacket, because at this point, his smile is the only thing boyish about him: the man needs a bra!

Maybe I'll lend him one, should he decide to come over, and accept my challenge. Yes, I'm gonna bake for him lots of apple pies, and see if he can eat them.

What'd you think I meant? ;)

...

I am a lonely girl. And I can't sleep.

...

Tried to sleep. The child is whining. I get out of bed, and wander to the kitchen in nothing but white cotton panties. Eat Pringles straight from the can on the baker's rack. This is three AM. I go back to bed. Too lazy to make a sandwich. Too lazy to stay awake; to go to my office, and write something! "You go back to blogging like Frankenstein to his monster. Let it lay here cold and dead for five months, then suddenly, on a whim, shout (or did I whisper?), 'It's alive!'"

I tried to sleep. Heard cats screaming. Flung open the door, and twenty feet up my persimmon tree (or hell, maybe it's a plum tree), climbs a fat raccoon. "Damn you, Adam Richman, get the hell out of my tree!"

In the yard, grazing, a buck deer ignores me. I stand near-naked on the steps, shining a flashlight, cussing at the raccoon, cussing at the cats, and cussing at the world in general! Because everyone's asleep (in my mind) and I'm not.

...

Finally slept for a couple of hours, to wake up Thursday, and have a miserable day. Watched BOY SLAVES: the only highlight. Did chores. Turned off the lights, wept, and pretended I live in a cave.

Went to pick up my daughter from school, and two trucks nearly hit me. Another ran a stop sign, and then had the audacity to wave at me!

...

Tonight. The kid is in bed. I go to bed. I actually fell asleep! Before ten o'clock, then I had a nightmare, and woke up a little before two AM. Been awake ever since. Wandered to the kitchen in a blue flannel nightgown. Cooked waffles. Orange juice. Snuggled in bed with the one cat lucky enough to live in the house.

Was flipping through channels again, wanting to watch a movie. Saw the title, WISH YOU WERE HERE. Thought, "That's a good title for a movie..." Read the info, and what do you know: it was my long lost 'sex in a tool shed' movie! Gorgeous young blonde rebellious teen who lost her mother, and replaced her need for mourning and comfort with a need for sex, and plenty of it.

She ends up with an older man, which I always like on film: where the man is older, but not wiser. Though possibly better in bed.

I wish I would've had the guts to sleep with an older man, while I was young and hot. Instead, I wasted it! Now I'm some old cat lady, at only twenty-six, fixing-to-be twenty seven. Yelling at raccoons, and jackasses who run stop signs. There's got to be more to nighttime, than watching TV shows, and drinking orange juice. I want wine, dancing, and something special to happen!

Perhaps if I didn't live in the woods. If I lived in a big city...I could meet a man who wears suspenders and a fedora. Who daydreams, and watches old movies.

A Fred for a Ginger.

...

My soul is bored.

_______________________

Fun with Keywords! (vol. 4) Where was I??

2010-09-15T03:30:00.008-05:00

Oh yes, answering questions. ;)

After five months in an emotional slumber, I guess I'll pick-up right where I left off.

"Did Cornel Wilde use a toupee?"

I don't think so; not in his heyday, anyway.

"World doll 19" Ginger Rogers value"

Good/Used condition: twenty to thirty bucks. NRFB: thirty to fifty bucks.

"1949 brunette woman"

Um, ME, if I lived in 1949? ;)

"Harpo Marx"

Played the harp.

"State Fair with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews"

1945. Fox. Technicolor. Four out of Five Stars. A sort of MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS without the MGM gloss.

"Actor Humphrey Bogart doll"

Made by Effanbee in the 1980s. Wish I had one!

"Cornel Wilde Naked."

Wish I had that, too!

"East Side Kids Bowery Boys"

Who??

"Scarlett O'Hara Barbie dolls"

There are plenty of 'em.

"Naked Scarlett O'Hara doll"

Just take its clothes off, chump.

"Ginger Fox Naked"

Who is this Ginger Fox?! You can see ME naked...just give me a million dollars and a Humphrey Bogart doll. ;)

"Casino spiel Humphrey Bogart"

Um, by 'Casino', I'm gonna assume you meant 'bar', as in Rick's, and by 'spiel', I'm gonna assume you're looking for the famous lines from CASABLANCA?

"I bet they're asleep in New York. I bet they're asleep all over America. [Slams fist] Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world! She walks into mine."

"Would like to see the bowery boys on TCM one whole day"

Well, then I hope you were watching July 23rd (or was it the 21st?) of this year. They showed 'em from five am 'til prime time. If you missed it, TCM is still airing the entire Bowery Boys series, one entry every Saturday.

"Movies with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews"

From best to worst, their five films include:

LAURA
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS
THE IRON CURTAIN
TOBACCO ROAD
BELLE STARR

"Are all the Dead End Kids deceased?"

Yes.

Bobby Jordan died in 1965, at the age of 42.
Leo Gorcey died in 1968, age 51.
Billy Halop died in 1976, age 56.
Gabe Dell died in 1988, age 68.
Huntz Hall died in 1999, age 79.
And Dr. Bernard Punsly died in 2004, age 80.

"Bowery Boys DVD box set"

There isn't one, yet.

"The last days of Humphrey Bogart"

He wandered off into the ocean, and went for a swim. Thus meeting Leslie Howard. The two old friends swam to the bottom of the sea floor, and opened a door, and were never heard from again.

Ha. I have no idea. What am I, psychic?

I think he was in a horrible state of pain from throat cancer. He wanted wife Lauren Bacall to snuggle up with him in the bed. He died the next morning. The world lost one of the best actors ever, a woman lost her husband, and worst of all, two kids lost their father.

Now don't you like my little silly version better? ;)

...

Oh, I'm sorry I went away for five months. I was in a bad state of sobriety-fueled depression. Now my little girl's back in school (first grade), so I have more free time during the day, and my insomnia is acting up (for the millionth time in my life!), so I have more free time at night; figured it was a good time to return.

______________________

Fun with Keywords! (vol. 3) Answering the questions no one really asked me...

2010-04-09T02:53:00.016-05:00

Bored. Sad. Lonely. Noivous.

Thought another round of this might cheer me up.

-- In quotations are the exact phrases or questions found in my 'Recent Keyword Activity', or the internet search results for this blog; people tried to look this stuff up, and some search engine gave 'em my address.

"Laura Tierney"

Gene Tierney, as Laura, in LAURA, maybe?

"Slept two hours bronchitis"

Sorry to hear that. Feel better soon.

"Billie Cagney, alive or dead"

Why? Is she wanted?? ;)

-- Get it? 'Wanted, Dead or alive'.

I really don't know.

Tis Cagney's wife; for you non-Cagney experts out there.

I would say 'for you non-Cagney fans' but I've yet to meet one. Introduce yourself, and I'll kick you in the slats. ;)

"What movie is Bobby Jordan shirtless?"

Well now you're speaking my language! You can see Bobby Jordan shirtless in DEAD END, ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL, possibly in CRIME SCHOOL (I haven't seen that one since I started crushing on him, so if he was shirtless, I didn't pay much attention; but I'm pretty sure he is), PRIDE OF THE BOWERY (while pressed against a shoitless Leo Gorcey), BOWERY BLITZKRIEG (unless you got a botched copy, like I have), KID DYNAMITE, MR. WISE GUY (in a tiny bathing suit), and briefly, in bed, in SPOOKS RUN WILD.

Enjoy. :)

"What's the difference between the Dead End Kids and the Bowery Boys?"

The Dead End Kids refers to the original six actors who starred in the Sidney Kingsley play, Dead End, and then, in 1937, traveled to Hollywood to reprise their roles in the film version.

Later incarnations of the 'Dead End Kid' series -- Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, and yes, even Bowery Boys -- contained actors who were NOT original Dead End Kids, because they did not star in both the stage version and the film version, like the six original DEKS.

So the difference is: The Bowery Boys is the fourth subsequent series, spawned from the Dead End Kids, though it has nothing to do with the popular characters found in Kingsley's play and its adapted film; the Bowery Boys is also more comedy-based; and only contained, at the most, four of the six original Dead End Kids, and at the least, only one.

Bowery Boys and original DEKs: Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, and Gabe Dell.

The Dead End Kid series spanned from 1937 to 1939.
The Bowery Boys, from 1946 to 1958.

"Happy Birthday poem Ginger"

Me? You want me to write you a poem??

Okay...

Happy Birthday to you
You're one year older
Would you like some new shoes?
I can make you colder...
Give me your clothes
And I'll bake you a cake
Feed you a line
and hand you my rake
Now get in the garden
and hoe up the weeds
So it's your birthday? How special.
Don't die on me, please.

-- Ha. Yes I know that was awful. I'm not drunk enough to improvise a good poem.

"Richard Conte photos"

I don't know. Click on 'Richard Conte' in my sidebar. I've got some decent Conte pictures floating around.

Or check out my friend Artman's blog:

Art, Movies, Wood, and what not.

He's a Richard Conte fan, too. :)

"Noivous definition"

Noivous? Means ya' noivous!

What dontcha undastand? ;)

"Is there such a thing as touch of pneumonia?"

YES! It's real. It will haunt you. Go run and hide your children!

"Does Warners release the Bowery Boys on DVD in 2010?"

I don't know. Maybe they'll put 'em on dvd. Maybe they won't. Maybe you should be taping them off TCM like I am. Or maybe you should buy 'em from bootleggers on eBay before they all get thrown in the hoosegow for bootleggin'!

Maybe Warners will release 'em in a nice box-set; or in several box-sets! Maybe they'll release 'em from the 'vault', and put 'em on special dvds from the Warner Archive Collection, and make you pay twenty to thirty bucks for one damn movie.

Meanwhile, the East Side Kid movies roam free at the Internet Archive.

Warner Brothers = smart, sneaky moneymakers.

Monogram = public domain.

"Bogart poem"

There once was a man with a lisp
Who liked the bend of my wrist

I gave him a tug
He gave me a hug

I stole his fedora

That's it.

-- Ha. I don't know; I wrote a real one several years ago. Go and try and find it. Or here's an idea: write your own poem, Lazybones.

"Why did Bobby Jordan leave the Bowery Boys?"

Because in the days of the Dead End Kids and East Side Kids, the movies centered more on a group dynamic. In the Bowery Boys series, Leo Gorcey as Slip, and Huntz Hall as Sach, were the two main characters, and Bobby Jordan was just part of the gang. I guess since he was an ORIGINAL kid (there's that 'O' word again), he felt he should be a main character, and maybe he was sad or mad he wasn't.

-- Whether he was sad or mad is the part I have to guess at. I don't know if the split was amicable, or if he was just disappointed, ready to move on; or if there was bad-blood, or what.

After he left the Bowery Boys, I think Bobby Jordan should have joined forces with Billy Halop; they could have starred in their own series! Instead of Bowery Boys silliness, they could have been tough, gritty, film noir-ish, ex-reform schoolers, who just returned from WWII (as they both had, in real life, anyway), and found work as Private Investigators! 'The Dead End Detectives', or, 'East Side P.I.s'!

-- No I don't think I have too much time on my hands. ;)

Coming up with film series for Kids long dead...

"1940 sexiest man alive"

Dana Andrews!

-- Just look at him; he knows it, too!

"Nick Conte"

Richard Conte's real name; short for 'Nicholas' Conte.

"Bowery Boys on TCM"

Every Saturday morning, at Nine Thirty AM (my time; not NY time).

"Audrey Hepburn doll"

Mattel has one from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, and several from MY FAIR LADY.

Madame Alexander has one from SABRINA, and one from FUNNY FACE.

I think all but the MY FAIR LADY ones are pretty hard to get.

"James Cagney 'kisses' Mae Clark with a grapefruit"

Ha. It's from THE PUBLIC ENEMY.

And Mae's 'Clarke' is spelled with an 'e'.

"Bobby Jordan naked"

Well, now let's not get perverted! At the height of his popularity -- in the 1930s -- Bobby was only in his early teens.

As mentioned above, though, several of his East Side Kid movies -- where Bobby was more grown-up -- feature him shirtless.

Hasn't anyone ever told you, It's better to leave SOME things to the imagination?

-- Now if you want to see Leo Gorcey naked, I may can hook you up. ;)

"Why does TCM keep showing the same Bette Davis movies?"

Because they want you to love Bette Davis as much as they love Bette Davis. That way, the next time Warner Brothers releases one of her early/obscure titles to a Warners Archive dvd, you'll want to shell out twenty or thirty bucks for it, when you could have just recorded the damn thing when they were showing it ad nauseam.

Soon they won't show it anymore, and you'll miss it.

Like a zombie, you'll chant, "Must see Bette Davis!"

You're a Bette Davis addict! You'll have to go to Bette Davis rehab...

Just like I want 'em to show CRIME SCHOOL again, so I can see if Bobby Jordan is shoitless! Makes me noivous, though, when Bogie, sans the (stolen) fedora, has to carry little Bobby Jordan outta da rubble.

I DVRed it last December, but deleted it after one viewing. [Stupid!]

Now I've gotta wait for TCM to re-show it, or break down and buy it. Which I'll never do, because I'm cheap and optimistic.

But enough about my personal life... ;)

[Rimshot]

-- What movie of Bette Davis do they keep showing, I wonder??

Maybe Robert Osborne has given up his (suspected-by-me) crush on Leslie Caron, and now has the hots for Bette Davis.

If I ran TCM, I'd show nothing but DEK movies during the day, Jean Arthur in the afternoons, Film Noir at night, Fred and Ginger Sunday morning for church, and every Saturday night have 'Dana Andrews is Gorgeous, in Uniform, and/or possibly Shirtless' marathons.

Now that's my idea of The Essentials!

I will retire now.

Sorry for my lack of blogging, recently. I've been in a hole, convinced no one likes me, planting a garden, avoiding the filing of my taxes, trying to write a short story, and enjoying the brilliant words of a certain book I'll gush over later.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

__________________________________

Happy Boithday, Bobby Jordan!

2010-04-01T02:55:00.010-05:00

Born April 1st, 1923, today is the special day of my favorite Dead End Kid!

Happy Birthday, Bobby Jordan!!

[Blows Bobby a kiss]

...

I had several things I wanted to post today -- a nine-page essay I wrote by hand during my recent blogging absence, a couple of drawings of Jordan, a DEK-inspired poem -- but since I haven't been online lately, I don't have the essay typed yet.

I could share the drawings and poem, I guess, but I'm feeling kinda shy.

Maybe I'll post 'em later...if I get brave, and get the chance. I do have a dentist appointment this morning: some way to spend Bobby's birthday! Lying on my back...though when I get home, I may just shower (wash away the germs from the dentist chair), crawl in the bed, lie on my back, and watch 'Angel' in DEAD END.

...

Here's hoping everyone has a great day!

-- And that I don't have any cavities. ;)

...

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!!

__________________________

Poll Results (for) "Who's Your Favorite Marx Brother?"

2010-04-01T00:18:00.003-05:00

Groucho -- 19 votes (51%)

Chico -- 4 votes (10%)

Harpo -- 5 votes (13%)

Zeppo -- 2 votes (5%)

Gummo -- 1 (2%)

I've never really seen them. -- 2 votes (5%)

I don't like the Marx Brothers. -- 4 votes (10%)

____________________________________

Not at all surprised Groucho won.

My favorite is Harpo! Then Chico. Then Groucho.

I've watched three of their movies, now:

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA -- in February.

In early March, A DAY AT THE RACES -- my favorite!

And nearly a week ago, after misplacing the disc from Netflix for several weeks (I found it, among other things, while searching for my Census papers!), I finally watched DUCK SOUP.

...

The other night, TCM showed a whole bunch of the Marx Brothers movies. I put a tape in the VCR, and caught six hours worth; MONKEY BUSINESS and HORSE FEATHERS -- along with two of the other titles I've already seen.

I also DVRed AT THE CIRCUS and watched a bit of it today while putting it on tape.

This was after I watched my holy grail -- Holy Hell!

A movie I'd LOVE to review, but I'm not sure how.

I haven't wrote a proper film review since last July. Of course, what's so great about proper film reviews?

Nothing, except they serve their purpose, and right now, I'm not really keen on serving a purpose.

-- Want a drink? I'll serve that. ;)

Besides, I've been trying to think of a new way to review movies. Something fresh! Not the 'Let's take it apart, and see how it works' method, but a method more akin to, 'Now I'm gonna give it wings, kick it off a cliff, and see if it can fly!'

...

Thanks for voting! :)

And if you didn't vote -- well, thanks for reading this now.

I'm glad you're here.

________________________________

And that's how I got cancer.

2010-03-31T01:31:00.008-05:00

I stayed up all night that night, writing about the Bowery Boys, and for what? So some chiseler with a fancy website, and a journalism degree in place of a heart, could steal my piece and make hackenfish out of it?

Sure.

I really sat here and counted up how many films were in each of the four subsequent Kid series, and how many Kids starred in each film, etc, just so someone who doesn't give a damn about it, could lift my words and math, and post it to her site, smothering me in the google search results for 'Bowery Boys on TCM'.

Not that I care about hits.

I wrote about the Kids, because I care about the Kids!

So I got a little upset. I decided to not blog for a while...it's not worth the loss of sleep.

Instead, I've been watching a lot of movies.

For 2010, my count for new-to-me movies is damn near fifty!

I got one of my holy grails in the mail yesterday. A VHS from the 1970s.

-- Well, the movie is from the '70s. I'm guessing the actual tape was made in the '80s, by recording the movie off HBO, or its equivalent.

...

My Kid had an extended Spring Break. She got sick last Friday, and is only now feeling better. Going to school tomorrow. I'm gonna lay on the couch, and eat, and be happy. Watch my VHS from the 1970s/80s and hope it doesn't give me some sort of strange, 'old plastic' disease.

I cloroxed AND lysoled the tape and its cover.

Bought it off eBay, so who knows.

...

Been absent from blogs in general. Reading the updates in my feeder, though, things sound pretty standard on the Western front.

As if I'm adding anything of interest!

Don't you ever get tired of the same old movies? Of the same old reviews?? Of the same old quotes, the same pictures, the same posters, the same bloggers rambling, wanting desperately to rejuvenate their blogs, so what? So more people will read them?

Why don't they go into Walmarts, and grocery stores, and hand out business cards.

"Here, read my blog! It's great!! It tells you everything you could easily find out just by visiting Wikipedia, the internet movie data base, by reading Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, by reading a million other film blogs, or just by watching the movie yourself."

Better recycle those business cards. Landfills will be filled with 'em! ;)

Kidding.

Feeling rough and pessimistic. Bored with a capital B.

Too much mommyhood. Too much Spring Break, and sickness and fever.

I could easily sleep for a week, then eat for a week, then watch the Marx Brothers for a week.

There should be a mental hospital like the one in A DAY AT THE RACES. Groucho could be my personal doctor. Chico my nurse. Harpo could come and play music for me.

"How'd ya like to get cancer?" Groucho would ask, waving his cigar above me. Blowing smoke in my eyes.

Yesterday, I stood too close to a microwave with a butter knife nearby, and a blue/white flash of light burst from the door. I thought, "This is it; if I ever get cancer, this is where I got it."

...

My DVR is dying. The second one in two years. Thanks DirecTV! I really wanted to lose all my Ginger Rogers Star of the Month goodness, and Bowery Boys movies!

...

I wish it were Summer and hot, and not so quiet here.

I want to lay in the sun, and FEEL something. To sweat, and get tan and cancer!

After my microwave incident, I thought of writing a short story about a girl who drinks water from plastic bottles, and gets plastic water bottle cancer -- the landfills will be filled with film bloggers's business cards, and the empty plastic unrecycled water bottles! -- and people everywhere will join together to lament their cancer caused by cell phones, TV/computer screens, earbuds and headphones, twitter, facebook, and Groucho's ghostly cigar.

I had a dream last night. I was walking through the living room, and the telephone rang. Stumbling in the dark to answer -- "Who would call me at three AM?!" -- I recognized the caller's voice.

"Do you know who this is?" asked Leo Gorcey.

I listened to him whisper about his life and career. I sat down by the window, and looked up at the full moon. I kept waiting and wanting to ask him, What makes a great actor great??

-- As if Leo Gorcey knew! Hell, maybe he witnessed it.

But he kept on talking 'til he finally hung up.

...

I woke up in bed, and had to tell myself it wasn't real.

It doesn't matter.

...

One minute I want to blog more than ever, the next minute, I think, What's the point?

It's all been said.

-- Or will be stolen!

I've got the broken record cancer: a blogger's disease.

Let's run away and forget old movies are old!

Live on an island where the 1930s are still taking place, and while wearing shells and a sarong, I'll squeeze you fresh juice daily, with fruit pressed between my thighs.

"The Great Depression? What Great Depression?!"

-- What so great about it, anyway?

I feel like dirt, and I'm lonely...I need more writing and sun!

I need a man to rub oil on my back. Build me a VCR out of sand, and power it with hyper lobsters! Build me a hut out of palm leaves, and make love to me after cuddling during movies from the 1970s.

"How do you get movies from the future??" he'd ask.

"Due to an unfortunate incident involving a microwave and a butter knife, I'm now capable of time travel!"

No cancer for me.

_______________________

Happy 100th Birthday, Richard Conte!

2010-03-24T23:18:00.001-05:00

Born March 24th, 1910, today is Richard Conte's 100th birthday!

To celebrate, at supper tonight, I watched most of A WALK IN THE SUN. 'Most', because I had to get the kid to bed.

She just woke up screaming -- a nightmare, I guess -- and I'm exhausted; spent most of Conte's birthday driving South for a photoshoot of a town where I got lost, accidently ran a stop sign, had to ask sweaty construction men for directions out, and try my best not to let my dress fly above my knees while taking pictures of buildings, benches, and creeping ivy.

Yawn.

I had hoped to shoot an old movie theater -- one of those giant two-story historic-type buildings -- but apparently it's been refurbished, repainted, and turned into a nightclub.

...

Sorry for the lack of writing and everything else online. I went into a strange phase after my last post -- I'll explain later -- and now my daughter's out of school for Spring Break. Been spending lots of time with her, which takes a lot more energy, requiring more sleep, thus deleting my late night freetime and resulting hijinks! ;)

I should be back soon.

I hope you're all well. :)

And wherever you are tonight, Nick Conte -- Happy Birthday!!

___________________________

Bowery Boys on TCM! -- and How the East Side Kids became Men...

2010-03-06T01:56:00.026-06:00

Starting today, TCM will begin airing all the films of The Bowery Boys, with one 'new' entry, every Saturday morning. There are forty-eight total in the Bowery Boys catalog, so it'll take nearly a year, to show the entire series.

-- I'm so excited!

I've never seen a Bowery Boys film, before.

And until I learned about this, back in January, I honestly didn't think I'd have the chance to ever see one.

Unlike The East Side Kids, the Bowery Boys have never been released on DVD; only a few of 'em were ever released on VHS; and none of 'em are available to download or watch for free at the Internet Archive.

Tomorrow is LIVE WIRES, the first in the series. Made in 1946.

Of the original Dead End Kids, it stars or features three of 'em:

Leo Gorcey
Huntz Hall
and Bobby Jordan.

But another original Dead End Kid, Gabe Dell, will soon be on hand; Dell makes his Bowery Boys debut in the fourth outing, SPOOK BUSTERS, in 1946.

The following year, Bobby Jordan makes his exit from the series; only eight entries in, Jordan quit after 1947's BOWERY BUCKAROOS.

Bobby was upset, because Gorcey and Hall were the obvious stars of the Bowery Boys, while the preceding Sam Katzman/Monogram series -- the one Leo Gorcey and agent Jan Grippo revamped to become the Bowery Boys -- The East Side Kids, had always charmed due to its group dynamic, with only a gentle hinting (at least in the early years) that Jordan was the star.

-- Though he was quickly equaled by Gorcey. And soon, Hall.

In the first official entry, BOYS OF THE CITY (1940), Jordan's Danny is the main character, while Gorcey was more or less just one of the gang. By the second entry, Gorcey as 'Muggs' is the obvious leader of the group, and he and Danny are two best friends amongst a whole group of club members.

Huntz Hall was not originally in the East Side Kids. He joined in 1941's BOWERY BLITZKRIEG, and when he did, the focus shifted from Muggs and Danny, and the rest of the gang, to Muggs, Danny, Glimpy (Hall) and Scruno (Sunshine Sammy Morrison), and then the rest of the gang, usually including Leo Gorcey's little brother, David, and several other future Bowery Boys alumni.

Dell joined the cast in 1942, with MR. WISE GUY, but rarely took part in the antics of the Kids. He usually played a bad guy, an enemy, a chiseler, even a nazi spy!

Because of his service in the war, Jordan left The East Side Kids in 1943. He made a cameo, in uniform, in 1944, but was officially out of the series until it was reborn 'The Bowery Boys'.

Ol' Sunshine Sammy had left the East Side Kids, too, also due to service in the war, but when asked if he, like Jordan, would return for the new, re-envisioned 'East Side Kids as adults' Bowery Boys series, Morrison wanted nothing to do with it.

He declined for the same reason Bobby would leave...

So then it was just Gorcey, Hall, and Dell. The three oldest of the original Dead End Kids. And they all got along pretty well.

In his autobiography, Gorcey remarks how when the whole thing began -- with the stage play, Dead End, in 1935 -- Billy Halop was the star, and everyone knew it; he had his own private dressing room, while the other five Kids had to share one. And Bernard Punsly was too busy reading and studying. So that left the three oldest boys, and little Bobby Jordan...

Gorcey said Jordan was too young to pal around with.

They seemed to pal around fine with a capital F in some of those early East Side Kid films...(think shirtless scenes, and pillow-fights!) so I don't know why he couldn't have made more room for Jordan in the Bowery Boys series. They were all men, now. Grown-ups. Couldn't they act like it?

But just another member of 'Leo Gorcey and The Bowery Boys' was not to Jordan's liking. And despite my never seeing a Bowery Boys film, I can't help but agree; the idea of Gorcey in the lead, Hall as his sidekick, and Jordan in the 'group' just doesn't feel right. I think Jordan would have made a good sidekick, too, with Hall as the silly one, and Jordan as a more serious smart aleck. Or if Gorcey hadn't been so hellbent on becoming the leader (where's Billy Halop when you need him??) the three of 'em could have made for a damn good trio!

And in case you're wondering about the other two Original DEKs I've barely mentioned: Billy Halop and Bernard Punsly never did a single entry in The East Side Kids, OR in The Bowery Boys.

Halop was the leader of Universal's Little Tough Guys, made during the same years as the Dead End Kid films and the dawning years of The East Side Kids.

Later, Halop also starred in GAS HOUSE KIDS (1946), the first entry in an East Side Kid imitation series. Halop's co-stars included former Our Gang member, Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer, and two time Bowery Boy collaborator, Teala Loring.

Punsly was also a part of the Little Tough Guys, but retired from acting, in 1943.

...

Gabe Dell exits the Bowery Boys, in 1950, after one of the most popular entries, BLUES BUSTERS.

Even Gorcey left! Abandoning his own co-creation (or co-reincarnation) after his father -- who played 'Louie Dumbrowski' in the Bowery Boys -- died in 1956.

Gorcey's last film in the series, is CRASHING LAS VEGAS.

And then there was one...

Huntz Hall was the last of the original Kids to work in any of the subsequent series.

He starred top-billed in the last seven Bowery Boys films, including the series finale, IN THE MONEY, in 1958.

Not only did this film mark the end of the Bowery Boys series, but it also brought to a close the on-screen sentence these 'Kids' has been carrying-out since their collective film debut, in 1937.

Twenty one years this group of actors spent working together (in some combination), and that's not including the two years they spent on Broadway, in the original stage production of Dead End!

So twenty-three years...

And plenty of films to show for it! There are seven Dead End Kid movies, nine Little Tough Guy movies, twenty-one East Side Kid movies, and forty-eight Bowery Boys movies, equaling a grand total of eighty-five films in the entire 'Kids canon!

-- Not to mention the three serials, and several 'almost' DEK features (starring more than one of the original Kids).

A bit overwhelming to want to conquer, but I love it!

I can't wait to see the latter-half of their filmography.

I do have a slight feeling, though, I won't like The Bowery Boys as much as I like the East Side Kids. Partially due to the aforementioned idea of Bobby Jordan getting pushed to the background, but mainly because I've read, as the Bowery Boys progresses, it opts for flat-out goofiness.

-- But oh well. Nothing tops the original DEK films. Of course we're talking comedies now, not dramas...

One rule of thumb:

If Billy Halop's the leader, it's probably a drama.
If Gorcey's the leader, it's probably a comedy.

And the simplest way to identify which series is which:

The Dead End Kids = the original six Kids from Broadway.
Little Tough Guys = mainly all of 'em, but never Gorcey.
The East Side Kids = four of 'em, but never Halop or Punsly.
The Bowery Boys = four of 'em; never Halop or Punsly; mainly Gorcey and Hall.

It's rumored the whole reason TCM's showing The Bowery Boys is because Warner Bros. plans to finally release the series on DVD (sometime next year, I believe...) but whether or not it's gonna be individually, or as a box set; the entire series, or just selected films, I have no idea.

...

For all you non-DEK fans out there:

Perhaps this will melt your butter...

Ginger Rogers is TCM's Star of the month! :)

I tell ya; between John Garfield day (March 4th), Ginger Rogers all Month, and the Bowery Boys for nearly a year, I am set with a capital S!

____________________________

Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say...and why so noivous?

2010-03-05T01:46:00.007-06:00

I'm not well. To my menagerie of ailments, I've recently added some new symptoms. For a week now, my hands won't stop shaking, and when I lift them up, and lay 'em out flat, they look like I'm playing an invisible piano.

-- I would say 'typing', but it's a very rhythmic course of energy, like ocean waves.

Also, the other night, while worrying about something, I noticed a funny feeling in my wrists -- worse than the one caused by the shaking -- and looked down to discover my fingers had actually turned blue.

The worst new symptom, though, is best described by asking, Have you ever grabbed hold of an electric fence?

When I was a kid, my parents had a garden, and to keep the deer out, my father ran a wire around the entire length of the garden, and hooked the wire up to a generator, or maybe a tractor battery. -- I'm sure whatever he could find!

Too short to simply step over the wire, if we wanted to go into the garden, we had to lift up the wire, and crawl underneath it.

Well, if my father was already out in the garden, working, the wire was usually turned off, but I'd shout to him, anyway, "Daddy, is the fence on?"

Sometimes he'd forget, or sometime he wasn't there, and I'd risk it. Grab hold of the wire, and 'feel' if it was on!

I got shocked several times. That awful sensation; electricity burning through your whole body, and you can't let go of the wire!

That's how I've felt lately...like I'm holding onto a weak electric fence, and I can't let go. Currents constantly pulsing through me.

Several days of this, and now I'm starting to 'tick' and move like James Cagney, in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. Ol' Two Gun Rocky Sullavan, and his shot nerves! You know how Cagney kept shrugging his shoulders, moving his head, his jaw? Rocky was nervous! Haunted. By nerves suppressed so long, they've shattered; plus 'lost youth', and 'swallowed guilt'...

God, Cagney was brilliant!

I love near the end of the movie, when Father Jerry asks Rocky if he's afraid, and Rocky says:

"I think in order to be afraid, you gotta have a heart. I don't think I've got one. I had that cut out of me a long time ago."

He's right. To feel no more pain, you cut out your OWN heart, with the same bar of soap Peter Pan tried to use to re-attach his shadow. Now stash the soap where the heart used to be, so your chest doesn't cave in, and you're all set for the death-chair!

Unafraid...

'Course nervous ticks may result.

Tonight, I keep leaning forward, just an inch, then another inch, and then I lean back.

Lean forward, lean forward...lean back.

Then when I realize what I'm doing, I started shaking all over...so I'm learning to ignore it.

--- I've learned to ignore lots of things!

"Carved-out my heart, a long time ago..."

It's just when new symptoms -- and possibly new ailments completely! -- emerge, it's hard not to ignore 'em; it takes time to get used to...and makes me feel feverish, and queasy. I'm seasick! All this leaning and shaking in my desk chair.

I tried going to bed, but I couldn't sleep.

I bet if you stuck a lightbulb in my mouth right now, I'd light up the entire night! A new aurora borealis.

[Children pointing towards the sky] "Look Mom! It's Ginger Ingenue's Nervous Breakdown!"

What pretty colors.

...

Because of all this nuttiness, I missed the last night of my blogathon.

I was so disappointed.

I actually wrote a big piece Sunday afternoon (the last day of February) and planned on posting it that night.

Then right after Midnight (March 1st) I was gonna post a 'Well, that concludes my blogathon' post...and all I 'learned' from it, and how much fun I had, etc.

Anyway, I think I cried myself to sleep that night. Woke up feverish, jittery, etc. around one AM Monday morning, looked at the clock and felt heartbroken. I had tried so hard to post every day/night for one whole month, and failed. :(

Stayed away, I think to sort of punish myself.

Of course the main reason for my absence is obvious: I've been in a lot of pain, and didn't want to talk about it. Been 'sleeping it off' (not in the drunken/hungover way; but in the depressed way), and been watching lots of movies to feel somewhat 'comatose'.

And so many neat things have happened lately! Movie-wise...that piece I wrote on Sunday and didn't post, a funny story, TCM goodness.

-- Almost makes me want to declare another month of blogathoning! But I don't think I should...

Better rest. And take care of myself.

Not that I WON'T blog all all. It's a nice way to relax, and have fun. And writing always helps (huge understatement).

...

Like the new header? :)

-- It's not up just yet, but it will be, soon.

I figured it was high-time I gave this blog a proper description...warn people what they're in for!

And 'Creative Writing' sounded like a pretty good catch-all.

Besides, what else could I put?

'Morbid, Rambling Nonsense written by someone destined for a white padded cell'?

Well, I tried that, but it just wouldn't fit. ;)

___________________________

While editing, I looked up the definition of 'Creative Writing' over at Wikipedia. States some guys named Paul Witty and Lou LaBrant define Creative Writing, as:

1) The need for keeping records of significant experience.

-- Like watching movies??

2) The need for sharing experience with an interested group.

-- My blog readers! :)

And 3) The need for free individual expression which contributes to mental and physical health.

Ah-ha!!

And you thought I was nuts. ;)

_________________________

Classic Movie...Napkin Holder??

2010-02-27T23:57:00.016-06:00

Last night, in an effort to cheer myself up, I went over to eBay for a minute, and did a few searches related to my current interests. And while looking through entertainment memorabilia, I came across this:

Tis a napkin holder, disguised as an advertisement for DEAD END!

Apparently from an old drive-in movie theater.

I've never heard of such a thing! People collecting film-related napkin holders...

I'm tempted to buy it, just to hide stuff in; like a little treasure chest. Maybe my beloved BIC ink pens would fit! ;)

_________________________

Photo credit to the lady selling this thing. I think she has another one, too, for a different film; and I meant to do a new search, over the entire site, for 'movie napkin holders', to see how prevalent (or not) they exist on eBay, but forgot.

Will go over later, and get the link for this; and will do my further research then.

I would do it now, but I'm working on a piece I had wanted to finish before Midnight, and couldn't. And since I was gonna post about this napkin holder anyway, figured it would make for a good fill-in 'quickie', and therefore, not upset my blogathon, by causing an 'absence of posting', this next-to-last-day.

Oh, and I'm not quitting the blogathon, mind you; it was only declared for the month of February, anyway.

After that, Ginger Ingenue reserves the right to disappear completely. ;)

Not that I will...

_________________________

UPDATE; an hour later: Here's the LINK. And never mind.

-- One of these days I'm gonna learn how to read...

It's not a movie advertisement napkin holder at all; it's a movie advertisement FOR a napkin holder! A little metal-backed sign you hook ON to a napkin holder.

Well, that's not as fun!

It probably wouldn't even work, unless you already owned a vintage/retro, diner-type napkin holder; then you could follow the included instructions from the days-of-old, hook it on, and pretend you're in a better time.

Meh.

This is what I get for posting it as a 'quickie', instead of waiting 'til I could research! ;)

If nothing else, I guess we all learned something...

"Yep. Ginger can't read."

________________________

On my way down

2010-02-26T23:42:00.003-06:00

So the Kid was sick; then sick again; then sick again. Then I got sick, right? Was better for ONE day, injured, and now the kid is sick AGAIN.

Though at least there's some variety -- this time, she has the stomach flu.

I was on my way out of town yesterday; I really needed to buy groceries, because I've been too sick to go and buy them. Was ten minutes out of town when the school called; your kid has puked all over the playground.

All right.

Went and picked her up. Bathed her. Took care of her. MY JOB, right? That's fine.

Went to bed early last night.

Been with her since five o'clock this morning; she woke up crying...cried all morning. Ran fever. Miserable.

I'm not expecting everything to be perfect and easy, but there's never even a break anymore. I hate waking up in the morning, knowing it's gonna be nothing but 'stress' all day, and 'fear' all night. I hate for my kid to be running fever, and running to the bathroom, sick and hurting, and taking medicine all the time. I'm so tired of it, for the both of us.

This year has been nothing but sickness, and worry, and snow and ice. And next is tornado season. That'll be fun, too.

-- Yes I am in a bad mood. ;)

I'm sorry; I wish I could cheer up, or just cry.

...

DUCK SOUP finally came in the mail today. I should probably go pour me a drink, and get in the bed, watch a movie, and Relax.

I should; but I won't. I don't want to be drinking if she wakes up and needs me. And I really don't want to start a new-to-me-movie just to pause it every two seconds 'cause I'm sure I heard the dawn of something serious via the baby monitor pressed against my ear!

I'm too nervous...

I think I need a vacation. I think I need to go lie in the sun somewhere. I think I need to throw the baby monitors in the trash can (if just for one night). And get more sleep. I think I need to stop drinking. I think I need ONE MORE, and right now! I think I need less time to think, and more time to write. I think I need more quiet time. I think I need to clean the dead ladybugs out of my giant bathtub so I can take a bubble bath tomorrow night. I think I need to teach my child the importance of not licking dirty doorknobs. I think I need to get some sleep tonight in case tomorrow is awful too.

This blogathon is almost over, so pretty soon, you won't have to read this sort-of-thing. I'll just be quiet...and you'll know that I'm in my own personal basement.

It's a lot less time consuming, that way. ;)

Nothing to write; nothing to read. Just blank.

I hear her whining.

It's coming you know? Something bad is always coming, and when it's gone, something else comes right after.

While lamenting that thought to a friend yesterday, he told me, Sure, a lot of little bad things always seem to happen in my life, over and over, and no, there's never much time to come up for air, but if I would only learn to react to it, differently. If I could just TAKE it, and not worry so much, it wouldn't seem so bad.

And if I was colorblind, the sun would still burn my eyes if I stared at it.

What difference does it all make??

I'm so tired.

Please ignore me.

And forgive me.

It's hard not to feel hopeless and shy when you're alone late at night.

It could be worse, though, right?

Of course, right! :)

I just need some sleep.

Or some help.

Or a drink.

A vacation.

Something better, and brighter, than this stupid, cold, and sickly year has offered.

Or maybe I should write a novel.

NOTES FROM THE BASEMENT ala Notes from Underground.

In honor of the title; in namesake only. If I could actually WRITE like Dostoyevsky, I guess all my problems would be solved.

And if the sun weren't so bright, it wouldn't burn my eyes in the first place!

-- Colorblind or not...

Of course, who in their right mind stares at the sun?

Me, apparently. I can't seem to take my eyes off it...

I'm in the WRONG mind.

I thought I was going to bed? ;)

I really hope you quit reading this a long time ago, and have moved on to a more pleasant blogger who actually writes about movies...

Or, whatever makes you happy.

_____________________

The Ten Biggest Movies I've Never Seen

2010-02-25T01:00:00.005-06:00

In reverse-chronological order:

PULP FICTION

STAR WARS

JAWS

THE GODFATHER

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

BEN-HUR (1959)

CITIZEN KANE

KING KONG (1933)

INTOLERANCE

THE BIRTH OF A NATION

____________________________________

A few notes:

I'd actually rather see the 1925 silent version of BEN-HUR (pictured above) than the 1959 version.

-- You know how I feel about big Technicolor affairs...

And I have seen an hour or so of THE GODFATHER, but it was on TV, with commercials, so I thought, "This isn't the way to watch a great film!" and forced myself to turn it off.

I don't even know what the heck LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is about! But I hear it's good, right? ;)

-- Always listed on those Top 100 lists.

I also hear BIRTH OF A NATION is one of the most racist films ever. While I'm not really looking forward to all that, as a film buff, and a Southerner, I imagine I can handle it.

And if you've lost all respect for me now -- especially as a classic film fan -- due to my never watching CITIZEN KANE, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna watch it.

Nope. Never.

-- My brother-in-law and I have a pact!

I'll tell you 'why' later...

___________________

Get thee behind me, Professor! Or Tony, or whomever...

2010-02-24T23:22:00.004-06:00

Guess who's feeling better!

Guess who almost just spelled 'guess' with a 'q'? ;)

I can't tell you the last time I actually WROTE something.

I've been sick for several days -- maybe a week -- and some jerk nearly broke my wrist yesterday, so although I finally felt well this morning, I couldn't do much of anything, but lie on the couch and continue 'resting'.

I'm tired of resting!

I'm tired of scheduled 'Kisses' and fluff and my blog updating without me.

It's strange; like a ghost is posting to your blog...

What if someone schedules a whole bunch of entries -- a whole month's worth of entries! -- and then, on their way home one night, they die in a car crash.

Their blog would keep updating, and people would keep commenting...

"Oh, I love this entry! Good job!!"

Never knowing....

I find the whole thing creepy. The possibility of updating a blog from the grave!

-- Or is it 'beyond' the grave? What if you don't think there is anything beyond the grave?? And even if you do...what, you're gonna ignore paradise for a while, and update your blog from Heaven?!

"Hi, everyone. I'm floating on a cloud, and eating marshmallows."

Or maybe you're a sinner.

"Hi, everyone. Still burning in Hell, but I just had to blog about the great Bette Davis movie I watched this morning!"

As if they let you watch Bette Davis movies in Hell...it's probably nothing but Joan Crawford. ;)

My Hell would be marathons of big technicolor musicals:

Satan to Ginger, while cracking a whip across her backside: "Here, you naughty girl! Watch WEST SIDE STORY!"

Ginger to Satan, while secretly enjoying her spanking: "But Satan, I've already watched it three times today!"

Satan to Ginger: "Well watch it again! HA HA HA..." [Satan singing] "Maria, I've just met a girl named Ma-REE-ah..."

Am I annoying you yet? ;)

Well, I'm gonna post a lot tonight. Assuming my wrist can take it -- it's the right wrist, so using the mouse is pretty rough, but as an unpublished, unemployed, 'in my mind', not-at-all professional writer, I'm trained to write through anything!

And assuming my child -- who keeps making strange noises in her sleep -- doesn't wake up screaming, crying, running fever, and/or spewing forth any form of substance from her body, then YES, I will blog all night...

(Well, maybe not all night; I've got to go grocery shopping in the morning. But oh well.)

Ginger Singing: "I could have blogged all night...I could have blogged all night."

Pardon me a second, will you? Now Satan wants to act out a scene from MY FAIR LADY.

[Ginger rolling her eyes] "In 'artford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire..."

"Confound it, Ginger, quit dropping your H's!"

"Yes, Satan...I mean, Professor Satan."

-- He's such a perfectionist. ;)

_____________________

Kisses! James Cagney and Jean Harlow; THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

2010-02-23T23:45:00.001-06:00

_____________________

Kisses! Richard Conte and Valentina Cortesa; THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949)

2010-02-22T23:30:00.001-06:00

____________________

Sicker today than last night...

Scheduling this to post, so I won't wake up in a panic on the brink of midnight! ;)

____________________

Kisses! Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain; STATE FAIR (1945)

2010-02-21T23:58:00.004-06:00

___________________

Leftover 'Kiss' from Valentine series.

Wish I would have remembered to schedule it, but no; pulled the same stunt as last night; fell asleep, woke up a few minutes ago, and thought, "Ah! My blogathon!"

-- Actually, I thought, "Ah! My throat hurts, and I can't breathe through my nose!" ;)

Came in, and scoured my draft-pile: found this.

And back to bed, I go...

____________________

The Quickest Blog Piece Ever.

2010-02-20T23:59:00.003-06:00

Gotta post something, if I'm gonna have a post for the day!
Just woke up from a feverish sleep. Cold medication.
Dreamt I was at a carnival, with an all you can eat buffet.
The boy I lost my virginity to -- he had put on weight -- and he hugged me, and seemed much shorter. His cheek was clammy, and when I pulled away from him, he wasn't him! He was a different man, and he got mad at me for not still being delighted to see him.
Next I walked out, and saw another ex-lover working at the carnival. He was throwing away stuffed kittens, into the trash bin, along with uneaten nachos, and the cheese-sauce stained all the kittens soft skin.
I walked away, and another boy hugged me, then another came up and hugged me...
I couldn't get back to my child, waiting for me to take her home and put her to bed.
Finally I got back to her, and at home, one of her dolls came to life, ripping itself from its own arms, and running across the dark living room floor as I boiled water on the stove, and cried.

Ha. Woke up at nineteen minutes to Midnight, and came straight in here to the office.

Instead of writing up this nightmare, I should have used my time more wisely, and edited-up some fluff.

Loud trucks keep driving by, and I wish they'd shut up!

'Course I can't even think, anyway: just woke up and fully medicated.

This probably isn't even my blog!

I'm posting my nightmare to The Deeper Meanings of The East Side Kids.

There: I mentioned them by another name. ;)

-- Maybe someone's smiling!

Should I drink a cup of coffee, or go on back to bed?

Ah! It's eleven fifty nine pm.

__________________

Twenty minutes later -- Added a picture, a label, deleted a phrase, and fixed one MAJOR Freudian Slip.

Ha.

Otherwise, keeping this piece intact, to preserve the nonsense of my super-fast, dreary-eyed writing. ;)

__________________

My Soul is not a Billboard...

2010-02-19T01:53:00.006-06:00

Nor is my blog; nor body. Though maybe they should be.

Last night, I came to my office, despite feeling sick, and was gonna write a piece or post something, anyway, but then I checked my email, and right there on top of the pile, was a letter from some chick -- Subject line: Weird Request -- asking if she could please send me a gift card to her online jewelry store; I could have free jewelry! And all I had to do (ah, here's the catch) is review her precious little jewelry and jewelry store on my blog.

Oh, you mean my classic FILM blog??

-- Don't be fooled by the long rants of death, religion, and delicate metaphors using the Dead End Kids as the physical manifestation of my lost faith, and creative-wise, as my own personal angels of death; this is still a film blog. ;)

So immediately, I was offended, but thought briefly of responding:

Sure, I'll review your jewelry! And provide a link to your website on my blog; all you gotta do is write a two-thousand-word essay, entitled, My Favorite Dead End Kid and Why.

Ha.

I'm sure she'd love that. The chiseler.

She can keep her crappy mass-produced jewelry and advertise her site the hard way.

You think I send out a bunch of form letters to every one who mentions the words 'classic film' or 'old movies' on their blog??

-- "Hey, come look at Asleep in New York! It's really great! I'm a boring jackass!"

I mean, that's obviously all she did; I used the word 'jewelry' in my Ash Wednesday piece, and she saw that, and read nothing more, and sent me a God damn form letter.

"Ha, ha," thought the chiseler, "I'll get this naive blogger to peddle my jewelry."

Peddle it yourself, Chiseler. I sell out to no one.

...

The only way I'd ever advertise on this blog, is if I found something I truly loved and wanted to share it.

Like every time one of us writes a piece about how great TCM is, or how they're gonna be showing this movie, or that movie: we're really just generating more attention for TCM, thus earning more money for Ted Turner, and the like.

And that's fine by me. I love TCM! Without it, I wouldn't have such an extensive collection of Classic Film and Old Movies in my home video library, or as I like to call it, my 'Thanks, TCM! These tapes are no longer blank' collection. ;)

...

Other Products I would Happily Advertise:

Campbell's Tomato Soup
Fender instruments
Modest Mouse in general
Green-tinted, gregg-ruled, spiral-bound stenographer notebooks, or 'Steno Books', as Ampad likes to call them.

"Hi, this is Ginger Ingenue. And when I want to write a mediocre poem, or a bit of fluff about the Dead End Kids, I always reach for my Green-tinted, gregg-ruled, spiral-bound Ampad Steno Book. "

And what better companion for my Steno Book, than a delicious, chewy-capped BIC ink pen!

I always joke, if I become a famous writer, that's the one product I'm gonna insist on advertising! I LOVE BIC Ink Pens. I adore BIC ink pens. If I could properly marry a BIC Ink Pen without injuring myself, or contracting some strange 'Ink poison', I would do so happily, if not legally or sanely.

And did you know they changed my precious BIC ink pens?!

No kidding!

I'm heartbroken.

Now every time I go to Walmart or The Dollar Store, I look on the office supply aisle, hoping I can still find a package of those wonderful, heaven-sent 'White Pens with the black chewy caps'...

I believe their technical name, is the BIC Round Stic medium number ten -- black ink, only, though; blue ink drives me crazy!

I think I must have replaced my love of smoking (quit six-and-a-half years now!) with chewing on those caps.

After all, an oral fixation mustn't go unfixed. ;)

So yeah, BIC replaced the white-and-black pens with 'A new look!' and they're ugly, and I hate them, and their caps aren't as chewy!

Could probably find some of my beloved White Pen/Black Cap ones over at eBay...From whence I've just returned!

[Clever segue, Ginger]

Was looking for a bootleg dvd copy of OFF THE RECORD -- 'cause TCM ain't showing it anytime soon! [rimshot]

(Sigh) But all I found were a bunch of naked photos of Joan Blondell.

I'd like to take a moment, and address the general population of Everywhere, by stating, ON the record...

I DO NOT EVER NEED TO SEE JOAN BLONDELL TOPLESS AGAIN!

Oy.

It's like eating a big meal, late at night; when you wake up in the morning, "Strange," you think, "I'm not at all hungry for breakfast."

Enough toplessness to last me a lifetime!

...

Checked a few other new-to-me blogs before I started writing this piece; some chick posted a bunch of saucy pictures of herself, looking lost in thought, in that inept sort of way. "Oh, I'm so deep...I don a crocheted 'vintage-style' skull-cap, and I love baby owls. I'm majoring in philosophy to impress my boyfriend. I go out once a week with my girlfriends, so we can drink martinis and discuss Grey's Anatomy. Then I go home, drink, and search Blogger for the word 'jewelry', and send form letters to boring, uninteresting, and only formerly-attractive nutcases."

Would probably do me a world of good, though, to tone down the death and religion stuff, huh?

I could post half-naked pictures of myself.
Get some free jewelry. ;)

I do get slightly jealous, though -- this is serious Ginger again, by the way...wearing a monocle, and writing with a quill! -- I mean, I'm slightly young. And feminine. Yet I don't really feel like it, or act like it. To get a hundred plus comments, on a blog piece, simply by posting photographs of yourself, looking disinterested, and slightly imbued with angst -- I like to think their heads are actually filled with old school muzak from the Weather Channel! But what do I know? -- is sort of travesty, isn't it?

"No!"

Okay, so it's one way to get ahead.

Of course, it's also a good way to endear yourself to stalkers. ;)

And once your blog is SO freakin' popular, then what??

[crickets chirping]

I mean, I just passed the 'One Hundred Followers' Mark, and you think it phases me?

No.

-- And by 'No', I mean 'Only slightly'.

What phases ME, is when I do a good job. When I meet a new friend. When I feel like I've made some sort of connection with a person out here who loves the same things I do, or thinks, or feels a similar way. Or when I can soive a poipose. Solve a moider! Wash yoi doity socks. Make you some Campbell's Tomato soup, and stoi it.

I slightly forgot where I was going with all this. ;)

No, I'm not drinking tonight.

Just feeling a bit feverish, and sick.

In a good mood, though! Obviously.

And I'd much rather be sick and happy, than well and depressed.

____________________

If you just read this entire thing, congratulations! You win a free piece of jewelry! All you gotta do to claim it, is write a two-thousand word essay, entitled, My Favorite Dead End Kid and Why. ;)

Just don't get mad if your free jewelry is actually a string of yarn and some fruit-loops.

After all, I'm running a blog here, not a business! No one pays me for this. ;)

Nor will I EVER accept any money.

Chiselers: take note.

The rest of you: please send more ibuprofen; some tomato soup. Oh, and a bootleg dvd copy of OFF THE RECORD, if you have it! ;)

____________________

Sketching a Scene: Pat O'Brien as Father Jerry; ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938)

2010-02-18T21:46:00.000-06:00

"Hiya, Rocky!" ;)

~ Ink on white paper.

~ Sketched January 4th, 2010.

I was gonna do the whole gang from ANGELS, but after O'Brien, I started on Huntz Hall and messed up his chin! -- You can still see a few lines of it, hovering above O'Brien's head. -- Thought I better salvage what I had.

The best and hardest part about drawing O'Brien? The eyes!

You gotta make 'em look joyful, and sorrowful, and kinda Holy.

"Right, Fadda?"

"Right!"

My hand got tired, so I quit coloring-in his shirt, or is it a robe(?).

'Course I'd been leaving it open for Cagney's hands and gun, anyway.

Obsoive:

Here it is with the source I used -- the dvd cover from ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES.

See? It's my own fault; I should have finished drawing the men, first -- O'Brien, Cagney, and Bogart -- before ever starting on those pesky Kids.

_____________________

Ash Wednesday Alive

2010-02-17T04:30:00.009-06:00

I've always secretly wished to be Catholic. Always, wanting a different religion -- one to make more sense to me, than just, "You can't go to Heaven until you're saved, you say it out loud, stand in a tank of tepid water, and we dunk you asunder."

Makes sense.

I had no warning of my own baptism. I was wearing a t-shirt, torn shorts, green nail polish on my fingers. This is the way I have to face the congregation?? The preacher lead me to the church library, and told me to undress. Me and another girl: we had no idea what we were doing...at Church Camp, I felt a pain in my heart (guilt, most likely), and said a few words in my head, tears came to my eyes, and that was it. I'm saved forever?! I won't have to burn in Hell...sounded like a good, fair deal to me. Despite the fact that I was a good, fair girl, and had no business burning in Hell for all the sins I never committed, but oh well. Whores can be saved. And good girls can be saved. And me, and this tall girl named Jenny threw our clothes onto the library floor.

I wore a white choir robe. Barefoot. Green nail polish on my fingers. I walked to the baptismal, and this preacher, who'd been molesting older women in our church's congregation, put his hand over my mouth, and cut off my breathing. Dipped me underwater.

-- It just occurred to me, I've told this story before, in a blog piece entitled 'Penance Envy'.

Ha. How clever I used to be. The former me.

Now I'm just morbid, and repetitive.

So it's Ash Wednesday, is it?

And I've always secretly wished to be Catholic.

A few years ago, I asked my lover if I could go to confession.

"No," he said. He'd be ashamed of me; quit speaking to me.

-- He never let me have any fun.

I was already dressed up, too; I just wanted to drive South, to a bigger town and walk through the doors, and down the aisle of a Catholic church. South, 'cause they're ain't no Catholic churches in my town, or are they called 'Cathedrals'?? No Synagogues either.

He wouldn't let me. And all I wanted was the mark on my forehead. Ashes, instead of a lack of breathing, and a choir robe in water. A spectacle. Eyes watching as this fake-preacher pulls me up, and I'm dripping wet, and everyone clapped, and what for? Because I'm going to Heaven??

I just wanted Ashes on my forehead. Something I could know, and be close to. A quiet box -- darkness -- and a man to ask me to confess all my sins. I'd whisper 'em, happily, and then what?? I'd pay for 'em!

Good deal. What a good honest deal. No silly dipping me in water, to wash away my sins. Let me admit 'em. Let me pay for 'em!

I wish I were Catholic. Or at least had lovers who let me daydream, and go out on limbs while in my euphoric headspace.

I wish I were in New Orleans.

Isn't it Mardi Gras yet?? Or does that fall at the end of Lent??

I'm not from Louisiana. I'm not Catholic. I'm French, sure. Of French descent (there's the answer to your question of my ethnicity, Mr. You-Who's-Hopefully-Smiling).

So it's Ash Wednesday. Maybe I'll have my own celebration! Maybe I'll dress up, and burn a candle. Admit my sins to the Dead End Kids, and Billy Halop will stick his finger to the flame, and press it lightly against my forehead.

I'll tell my sins to Bobby Jordan:

Forgive me, Bobby, for I have sinned...I've never been to confession. Will you go easy on me? Can I finger my own rosaries?

I can't sleep tonight. I went to bed at ten o'clock (now last night) because I didn't feel well. And I fell asleep, only to be woke up by a million things, including a whining, whimpering kid.

If she gets sick again -- and if I'm getting sick -- then who will take care of the both of us?

My imagination? My daydreams? The ghosts of actors past??

I'm losing it.

Whatever I had, I'm losing it, and I wish I could run away.

I'd go to Mardi Gras dressed as a bird. A sexy bird, with a white sparkling swimsuit, white high heels, and pair of white feather wings. Diamond jewelry. Fake diamonds, 'cause that's all I can afford; all ex-lovers ever bought me. How practical. Or maybe...maybe I do have some real diamonds. Maybe I've just forget 'em...lost 'em.

If nothing else, I could go dig for more in the mud. Probably diamonds all lining the backfield, and I don't know well enough to go and look for 'em. Diamonds beneath the mud, and dirtroads, and good thing my ground isn't covered in concrete like those big city jungles; they may be hiding the world's treasure trove of precious stone, and gold, and silver. And here I am, on a mountain of mud and diamonds!

I'm tired.

A happy Ash Wednesday to the non-sleep deprived. To the Catholics. To the non-baptised.

To those people lucky enough to have sleeping children, grown children, healthy children, or no children at all.

I'M TIRED.

I wish I could write about movies instead, but when I found out less than an hour ago, that it's Ash Wednesday today, an alarm went off in my head, and this is what came to me.

A happy Ash Wednesday to everyone I didn't already mention -- or is Ash Wednesday not supposed to be happy?

Perhaps it's a good day for depression. For people like me, to sit around and write bad poetry, and stare at the sky, and wish it were blue, not gray; to wish you were Catholic, not ex-Baptist; to wonder why you ever listened to ex-lovers in the first place; if you wanted to drive South, and go the Chapel (is that what it is??) then you should have done it! God damn it. You should have drove, and confessed your sins, and got it off your chest, or head, or heart -- or wherever the hell it sits! -- and then maybe you wouldn't be here. Unable to sleep. Rehashing old stories, year after year.

...

Happy 'Forgiveness' Day.

______________________

Sketching a Scene: Richard Conte as Nick Garcos; THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949)

2010-02-16T20:00:00.001-06:00

Ink on copy paper.

Sketched in early June, 2009; during my big Richard Conte crush, and THIEVES' HIGHWAY obsession.

I'm fairly happy with it.

I know his eyes are too big, and I messed-up his hand -- I can never do hands!

Plus, one sleeve of his jacket has a cuff, and the other one doesn't.

-- Oops. ;)

___________________

Fun with Keywords! or, How to find Ginger's blog without really trying (vol. 2)

2010-02-15T03:54:00.013-06:00

I haven't checked my statcounter much, since my return to blogging, or especially since I started this 'blogathon'.

-- I just want to write, and not worry how many people are reading.

But, it is fun to see how or why people find your blog; what they're searching for. What they want to know, and what you might can teach 'em! ;)

-- I like serving a purpose, see?

So here are some recent searches, along with my input.

Hope you enjoy it! :)

...

"doctormacro1 Jean Arthur"

Try Doctor Macro's site: Doctor Macro's High Quality Movie Scans.

"Gene Tierney Dana Andrews"

They did five films together.

-- You can read more about it HERE.

"James Cagney singing I don't want to play in your yard"

It's from THE OKLAHOMA KID, 1939.

"partner Humphrey Bogart"

Humphrey Bogart had a lot of famous partners. One is the aforementioned Cagney; wife Lauren Bacall; director John Huston.

I also count Billy Halop, but that's my own silliness. ;)

-- To read more about it, CLICK HERE.

"Who were Barbara Stanwyck's favorite actors?"

Hmm, I don't know...Good question!

I know Stanwyck loved William Holden.

And, maybe, Joel McCrea??

He and Stanwyck were oft-partners.

Perhaps a Stanwyck expert out there can enlighten us in the comments. :)

"Leo Gorcey quotes"

Well...quotes from his movies, or quotes from real life??

"Go slip in a lake!" is my favorite, from Gorcey-in-a-movie; as Spit, in DEAD END.

From Gorcey-in-real-life, how 'bout:

"I did not meet too many wonderful people in my twenty-five years in Hollywood. But then, they did not think I was so wonderful either."

Honest kid.

"photo archive for Errol Flynn"

I found a great one, one night! Several years ago...

Not sure if it's still around.

Try his official site, In Like Flynn, or the slightly less official, but more casual, Errol Flynn (dot) net..

"Billy Halop's movies after the Dead End Kids"

After the Dead End Kids last film at Warner Bros., ON DRESS PARADE, in 1939, Billy Halop continued with a similar series over at Universal, called Little Tough Guys. He also co-starred in TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS, and BLUES IN THE NIGHT.

Halop served in WWII.

After returning, he did THE GAS HOUSE KIDS, DANGEROUS YEARS, TOO LATE FOR TEARS, etc. And things pretty much went downhill from there.

Halop did a lot of TV; namely All in the Family.

Most of his film roles, later in life, were bit parts, or uncredited.

"James Cagney mistaken identity"

Um, Frankie Burke looked and sounded a hell of a lot like James Cagney!

(Perhaps that's what you meant...)

For ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, Warner Bros. hired Burke to play Cagney's younger self.

See: it's uncanny! A good actor, too.

"Fred Astaire handsome"

Yes, he is! :)

"Humphrey Bogart it's just you and me kid"

Ha. If you're talking about the quote from CASABLANCA, it's, "Here's looking at you, Kid."

"Can you have a touch of pneumonia?"

Apparently so! ;)

The way I understand it: 'a touch' of pneumonia is more traditionally known as 'the walking pneumonia'.

Hence, the person suffering from it still feels well enough to get up and walk around.

"Fred Astaire World Doll"

I have one!

-- You can see it HERE.

"How to respond to will you be my valentine?"

Just say yes!! :)

____________________

Written Valentine's Day morning -- so I'm afraid that last bit of advice is no longer topical! Held off on posting, though, so the standard 'Happy Valentine's Day' entry could stand alone.

____________________

Bad Day? Lonely Night? Just Remember...

2010-02-14T23:55:00.003-06:00

Text art from last November.
In the background, my racine green fender,
an unfinished painting of the bed where I lost my virginity,
a basket of watercolors,
and my banjo case -- also a fender.

Everything seems to be coming out
in semi-poetry!

...

Anyone else have an awful Valentine's Day?

Or maybe it's just me...

____________________

Edited at 2:02 AM, February 15th.

Thought I'd add more to this, since I no longer feel like writing an actual 'piece'.

____________________

Happy Valentine's Day!! 2010

2010-02-14T05:05:00.002-06:00

Tis my favorite holiday! Second only to Halloween.

No religious overtones; no gift-buying pressure. Not for me, anyway! I've got the kid some cute stuff: a little kitty-cat bracelet; some chocolate, etc. But for the most part, it's a gift free, and GUILT free holiday!

Just fun, and romantic...and (sigh) extra-sweet!

So who's my lucky Valentine??

Well...I have a couple in mind.

There's my Pretend Valentine.

And my Ghost Valentine.

And, of course, my little girl.

Then the whole world can be Valentine!

What do you say, world? ;)

[The world says, Yes!]

I'll bake you some cupcakes, World, and we'll kiss on the cheek. Be sweethearts forever!

...

In other news: I've been unofficially absent the past few days.

My blog posted those 'Kisses' photos, and that Halop birthday tribute, because they were already scheduled to post.

Like I said, I've actually been offline quite a bit...

Wednesday night/Thursday morning -- I watched several new movies, then had a movie marathon in bed!

Thursday night/Friday morning -- it was snowing! So I couldn't get online. Went straight to sleep.

Friday night/Saturday morning -- right as I was putting my fingers to the keyboard, the kid got sick again.

So, no, not much in the way of writing lately. But I'll fix that soon! Lots of stuff later tonight.

-- Why?? Because you're my Valentine! ;)

Or, 'Because I can. Because I want to.'

That's the answer for everything!

...

Lots of happiness, to you, my friend.

I hope you have a wonderful day! :)

An Extra Happy Valentine's Day!!

Plus, a kiss on the cheek, if you want it. ;)

_____________________

Poll Results (for) "The Dead End Kids -- Who's Your Favorite?"

2010-02-13T23:54:00.005-06:00

Billy Halop -- 4 (14%)

Leo Gorcey -- 6 (21%)

Huntz Hall -- 1 (3%)

Bobby Jordan -- 5 (17%)

Gabriel Dell -- 0 (0%)

Bernard Punsly -- 0 (0%)

I've never really seen them... -- 8 (28%)

I don't like the Dead End Kids. -- 4 (14%)

_____________________________

Thanks to everyone who voted!

-- Your apple pie is in the mail. ;)

I really thought Billy Halop or Leo Gorcey would win...

Nice to see my favorite, though, Bobby Jordan, garnered several votes.

I guess it was silly to assume the majority of film-fans had already seen the Dead End Kids.

Haven't you ever watched ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES??

-- If not, you should be ashamed of yourself! ;)

Go watch it!

And if you've never seen the Kids at all, first watch DEAD END.

I'm fresh out of apple pie, so how 'bout I offer some 'Irish Caviar'?

Just don't insult it...

The ghost of Leo Gorcey may slop it in your eyes. ;)

____________________________

Kisses! Gene Tierney and Richard Conte; WHIRLPOOL (1949)

2010-02-13T18:00:00.000-06:00

________________________

Kisses! Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward; MY FOOLISH HEART (1949)

2010-02-12T18:00:00.003-06:00

_____________________

For more on MY FOOLISH HEART, click HERE.

_____________________

Happy Boithday, Billy Halop!

2010-02-11T18:00:00.007-06:00

Taking a break from the 'Kisses at Six, for Valentine's Week', to send a Birthday Wish to long lost Billy Halop.

-- Although the first night I saw this picture, I do recall whispering, "Oh wow, I want to kiss him!" ;)

[Blows a kiss towards the screen]

Happy Birthday, Gorgeous!

...

And to Everyone else:

I hope you're Warm and Safe. :)

___________________

Kisses! Cornel Wilde and Gene Tierney; LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)

2010-02-10T18:00:00.000-06:00

________________________

Naked Poetry; or Ginger, the Hollywood Screenwriter, circa 1930s

2010-02-10T03:05:00.014-06:00

I wrote five new poems tonight! Two while cleaning house, one in the bathtub, one on the bed naked (after the bath, before I could dress), and the fifth one, again on the bed, but in my favorite black satin nightgown -- the one that laces up like a corset! And my hair in a cute ponytail.

Out of the five, only one contains a single reference to the Dead End Kids -- Billy Halop: again inspired by my love/lust.

...

In an alcohol-free good mood tonight!

Due to some breaks, and improvements:

We missed the snowstorm.
The kid's not running fever.
She's feeling better.
She went to school today!

I got some housework done.

I exercised tonight! -- for the first time in forever.

I used to always dance for an hour every night -- back when I was thin, and fit, and kind of pretty -- and here lately, I've been 'drinking' before my baths. Not a good way to return to being 'thin, and fit, and kind of pretty.' Plus, the dancing makes me happy -- improving my mood, like alcohol does, but without slowing my creative mind...like alcohol does. ;)

And as mentioned, in the frame of two hours, I wrote five poems!

-- I feel alive tonight!!

And cute tonight.

Plus, I got something in the mail today.

No, not my eBay 'prize' -- I won it, didn't I? ;)

My Netflix! And I was so excited; I thought I might watch it tonight, before coming in here to my office, but then I couldn't decide the best way to watch (serve?) DUCK SOUP: as a 'date with myself, in bed' kind of movie, or a 'watch it in the morning, for breakfast' kind of movie?

Ha. DUCK SOUP in bed, or DUCK SOUP for breakfast??

The Duck Soup Inn -- Bed and Breakfast for Honeymooners who love the Marx Brothers!
Proprietor: Ginger Ingenue

I should go into business! Or build a time machine, and become a Hollywood Screenwriter, circa 1930s. I'd want to work for Warner Brothers! And just sit around the lot all day; running errands for old man Jack; doing chores here and there; taking naps on the casting couch, and waking up long enough to watch dailies; rummaging through wardrobe, to borrow dresses and costumes used in the sexier numbers from the Busby Berkeley musicals.

"Hey, Huntz Hall! Want to come open me up?"

-- I'm wearing Ruby Keeler's metal suit from 'Pettin' in the Park'; GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933.

Huntz will call, "I've got your can-opener right here!"

And we'll slip off to one of the fake beds in the back of the prop department.

Oh, life on the Warner's lot would be Heaven!

Of course, Old Man Jack would eventually want some work out of me.

I'd hammer out a Mark Twain adaptation:

HUCK FINN
(1938)
B&W
Drama

Warners could do it up big, like THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, but with kids -- not THE Dead End Kids; as much as I love 'em, Mark Twain's masterpiece is no place for all of them...

Only my favorite.

In the vein of his 'Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom' character from A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER -- the hoodlum with the halo -- Bobby Jordan would make a perfect little Huck!

And for Tom Sawyer, how about Frankie Thomas??

-- Ha. How 'bout Frankie Burke?! ;)

Old Man Jack likes the script, and gives me a raise, which I blow on new nightgowns to wear, and new notebooks to fill.

...

What year is this again? ;)

...

UPDATE: I just went and looked at my Netflix disc, and guess what -- it's not even DUCK SOUP!

This is the second time lately Netflix has sent me the wrong movie...

Though the one they sent does contain Huntz Hall...

Hmm.

Black Satin Nightgown, would you like to go watch a movie in bed after all??

[Nightgown rustling]

In Nightgown language, that means 'Yes'. ;)

___________________

Written February 9th; around 11:30 PM.
I 'slipped off' somewhere, and forgot I hadn't already posted this!
Came back, and posted it, and forgot to give it a title!

-- Ha. I think I need more sleep. ;)

____________________

Kisses! Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell; FALLEN ANGEL (1945)

2010-02-09T18:00:00.003-06:00

_____________________

For more on FALLEN ANGEL, click HERE.

_____________________

Meet the Dead End Kids -- or, "Yep, Fellas, it all comes from loining."

2010-02-09T02:20:00.013-06:00

I noticed over in my sidebar, the Dead End Kids -- Who's your Favorite? poll is almost over. Only two days left, and only twenty or so people have voted.

I've voted three times, really. The first time, I voted for my own personal favorite. The second time, I used my cellphone to vote on behalf of my five-year-old daughter; she loves Huntz Hall!

Then the third time, I voted vicariously for a friend of mine; he likes Billy Halop because he kinda looks like Billy Halop; he saw him in part of ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES; and he hates, Hates -- HATES -- with a capital H! Leo Gorcey.

And at one point, Gorcey was in the lead (of the poll), so I told my friend, "You better go and vote, or Gorcey's gonna win it."

He avoids my blog, so I did the voting for him, but he saw me...

I think it was the same night I finally coaxed him into watching KID DYNAMITE.

Upon its ending, I asked him what he thought of it.

He said, "I hate the guy in the hat! I hope he dies..."

I told him, "That's Leo Gorcey," and assured him Gorcey's long been dead.

My friend said, Well, not only is he glad Gorcey's dead, but he wants to piss on Gorcey's grave; and not only does he want to piss on his grave, he wants to dig up Gorcey's bones, piss on them, and then re-bury 'em. And THEN piss on his grave.

-- Ha. I don't understand it. I love Leo Gorcey!

Hell, I love all the Kids...

My point tonight, is: there are ninety-something people following this blog now, and only twenty-one people have voted in the Favorite DEK poll.

Go vote, damn it! ;)

I honestly, sincerely -- with all my sweet, Southern heart -- want to know who your favorite Kid is.

-- And if you vote, I'll bake you an Apple pie! Best Apple Pie you've ever tasted...

And like I said, the winning vote, at the moment, is thirty-three percent for 'I've never really seen them...'.

So if you've never really seen them, click on this:

It's a near-six minute clip from the DEK's film debut, DEAD END.

My favorite Kid is long-haired Bobby Jordan -- the shoeshiner -- 'lamenting' his abusive, alcoholic father.

"So I grabs a kitchen knife, THAT BIG, and I says, 'Touch me you rat, and I give you this!'"

-- I did that once, too, but mine was a 'step' father, and pair of sewing shears. Ha. Perhaps that's why I love 'Angel' best.

Billy Halop's the luscious-haired, gorgeous one, who's half-naked at the start of the clip -- leaning forward:

"Yep, fellas, it all comes from loining."

Then later, he's the one donning overalls; throwing knives with Humphrey Bogart.

Huntz Hall is the one who wants five cards in poker.

Leo Gorcey's the punk in the felt hat, smoking, and making cat-calls at blondie.

Gabe Dell is dirty-faced T.B. -- "Just keep it in mind."

And Bernard Punsly's the slightly-chubby one, who doesn't know the meaning of 'da mark of tha squealer'.

Now you know them. ;)

Or if nothing else, you've seen 'em before, and forgot, and this refreshed your memory! (How convenient.)

I'd just hate for 'I've never really seen them...' to be the winning vote. Better than 'I don't like the Dead End Kids,' though!

-- As if it matters, in the grand scheme...

I'm just in a good/silly mood tonight because we avoided a major snowstorm today! (Though there's still a slight chance 'til sunrise.)

Thank God we live at the bottom of the State.

Plus, the Kid is doing somewhat better; she may go to school tomorrow!

Perhaps I'll watch a movie for breakfast... ;)

...

A million-times-more-important things in this world, I know, but come on! Make me happy, and Vote. :)

Your apple pie ain't gettin' any warmer...

_______________________________

Kisses! Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney; LAURA (1944)

2010-02-08T18:00:00.004-06:00

My favorite kiss ever, onscreen.

"Get some sleep. Forget the whole thing, like a bad dream."

_______________________

Movies for Breakfast (days four, five, and six)

2010-02-07T23:56:00.011-06:00

Sunday, Jan 31st. A fussy child. A cranky friend.

Fought with both.

Worst cup of coffee I think I've ever had.

No movie. Too much 'reality'.

Monday, Feb 1st. Is January already dead??

Fixed the kid breakfast, lunch; got her dressed, and sent her to school.

Didn't feel well, so after I washed up, and cooked breakfast, I crawled back into bed. Watched DEAD END. Fell asleep before it was over, and dreamt forgettable dreams, til I was awakened by a phone call.

The lady at the local library wants to inform me, that no, they do NOT have a copy of Sidney Kingsley's Dead End, A Play in Three Acts. And why would they? They never have a copy of any thing I want to read; no Henry Miller; no Flannery O'Conner. Every single book I've wanted to read in the past few years, I either had to buy a copy of myself, or drive an hour to the University Library in College Town and sit in the well-lit nook, and read.

Me, reading O'Conner's A Good Man is Hard to Find; Spring 2007 -- Still the best short story I've ever read!

Tuesday, February 2nd. So what if the groundhog saw his shadow? Our weatherman says it's an early Spring, and that Yankees point too many damn cameras at that groundhog, and no wonder he saw his shadow!

I roll out of bed, regretting the prior night's alcohol, the lack of writing...a lot of things.

I fix my kid breakfast, and what is this anyway? GROUNDHOG DAY?? Every damn day is the same.

I shuffle her off to school, all bundled up, and I don't even waste time cooking breakfast, or watching a movie. I simply go back to bed. But before I go to sleep, I make a few recordings of recited poems, because this morning, I sound a bit raspy, and vulnerable; filthy yet innocent: an interesting combination! Like a church-going whore, or a tattooed baby.

I really should quit drinking and get more sleep.

Upon waking, I see the sun, and all is gorgeous. I kick myself for staying up late, and for drinking so much, and for being a worthless human-being in general.

I throw on some make-up. Race to my daughter's school, careful to avoid the dead armadillo and the vultures eating it. In the road, right across from the abandoned rent-house with the bedsheet blowing in and out of the open bedroom window. A Barney the Purple Dinosaur bedsheet, and somewhere in this world, a poor kid is crying to his cracked-out, meth-addicted mother, "Mommy, I want my Barney bedsheet! Where is it??"

Imagine: he can't sleep without it, but his mother doesn't care. They rented the house and set the woods on fire; red cedars now grace the side of the dirt road, and there's nothing I can do to heal them. There's nothing I can do, to take that sheet from the window, wash it and dry it, and fold it up nicely, then find the child, and return it to him.

That sheet will blow there 'til the landlords tear it down.

I pick up my child, and the Teacher looks angry. It's the second day in a row I've been late.

There's really no excuse for me. I've been going back to bed, and sleeping all day, when most normal people are out in the world working, earning a living, DOING SOMETHING, making a difference, being somewhere with other people, and everyone is alive and human, and I'm nothing. They might as well lock me away, in a white padded cell, and set it on fire.

The ghost of Zelda Fitzgerald and I would get along swell!

We could put on ballets in Hell, and the Dead End Kids would watch and clap...then throw tomatoes at us.

Those fickle kids.

After some shopping, the Kid and I are home again; she says she feels perfect, but she looks kinda tired and worn-out.

I bathe her, and cook her supper, because I'm an awful mother, but God damn it, I'm dedicated!

Never will my child lose sleep for the lack of a beloved bedsheet...or because of fever, or hunger, or anything else.

-- Not if I can help it!

I lost TOO MUCH sleep as a child, because my parent's were always screaming, and my mother crying, and if I could only sleep at night now, I wouldn't have to sleep in the daytime.

I clean the house, because I know she's getting sick.

My unwatched Netflix is lying on the baker's rack. I've so been looking forward to watching it -- to lying in bed, in something silky; to drinking; to watching something new and fun; to making a night of it! A date with myself; with film -- but I won't do it now, because I'll have to listen to her, and take her temperature, and be 'dedicated' all night.

I'm not complaining.

Life could be worse, though I can't help but panic. I take two pills, and buzz around the house, cleaning.

I take some time to play with my child. And I can't even remember the last time I watched a movie at breakfast!

It seems writing about it -- my 'Movies for Breakfast' series --- has somehow jinxed my routine.

I want to find the perfect balance -- to writing, and life, and old movies, and being a good mommy, a good friend, a decent human being -- but I can't find anything but being lonely and scared.

-- And I'm so sick and tired of being lonely and scared!

After I get the Kid to bed, I go to my room and cry. The smallest upset; it'd probably just be a blip on the radar to most mothers, but to me, it's like a bomb falling. They should really put me away somewhere. A white padded cell. I'm a fire spreading, and I need to be put out. Set me on fire! YOUR fire shall cancel out MY fire.

...

I'm not watching movies for breakfast anymore, so I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time...

If there were a dark hole here right now, I'd point to it, and tell you -- all raspy and innocent:

"I'm going into it."

...

Keaton's face is how I feel inside.

____________________

Written February 3rd -- finished around four AM -- right after posting that Halop poem.

Just now felt 'low' enough to edit it.

____________________

Silver Linings, and Holy Grails!

2010-02-06T23:59:00.027-06:00

I'm exhausted. Taking care of a pneumonic child is exhausting!!

-- Taking care of a child, period, is exhausting, so girls: do yourselves a favor, and until you never want to be selfish again, or until you hit the age of thirty (whichever happens first), just keep your legs together.

-- There. I said it. Million dollar advice! ;)

In a better mood tonight. Convinced now, that perhaps my daughter has more strength in her than I once perceived, and I've got a hell of a lot more patience.

Going out on a limb tonight! Gonna enjoy my good mood, and do some blogging...because today, damn it, I spent twelve-plus hours, waiting hand and foot on a sick child; taking her temperature, and giving her medicine, and playing with her, and monitoring her, and holding her while she cried.

It was the longest, most emotionally-draining day in FOREVER.

But, thanks to blogging, I'm gonna have some fun...at least until she wakes up for me. Hopefully that won't happen. Hopefully, she'll snooze happily until morning.

Last night, right after I posted that Bronchitis notice, she woke up screaming. I ran to her bedside:

"What is it, Honey??!"

"Mommy," she said, "I can't sleep."

Ha. And I thought the WORLD was ending.

...

Optimistic. Perhaps it's silly to be -- and God knows I hardly ever am, nor was I last night; I know better! -- but Hell, I'm in a good mood now, and the kid is snoozing...

Never mind. Right as I wrote that last line, she woke up coughing.

I can't win. ;)

...

[Quiet again]

So Holy Grails and Silver Linings.

Yesterday, due to the million-times more important news of my daughter's diagnosis, I failed to mention (or even enjoy, really) the fact that I won one of my 'HOLY GRAIL movie memorabilia' items via eBay!

No kidding.

And I had JUST made a list of my HOLY GRAIL items, composed of 'In Your Dream!' type items (for entertainment purposes, to later blog about) and realistic/practical, 'You may actually be able to acquire this item' type memorabilia. And, obviously, hailing from the latter category, I have acquired it; paid three bucks for it, and it should be here within the week.

Hooray.

Gonna frame it, and add it to some other stuff I'm planning on framing/hanging on the last empty bit of wall space here in my office. I'll photograph it, and share it with you then. :)

...

[And now for that list...]

Ginger's HOLY GRAIL OF HOLLYWOOD MEMORABILIA

The 'Realistic' Stuff' --

* A 1930s playbill from the stage production of The Petrified Forest, starring Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart
* A 1930s playbill from the stage production of Dead End
* (a few authentic lobby cards and posters...)

The Not-so 'Realistic' Stuff --

* The handheld baseball game Dana Andrews kept fiddling with in LAURA
* Ray Milland's pawned typewriter from THE LOST WEEKEND

Dream Items for Everyone! --

* 'The, uh, stuff dreams are made of' Bird statue, from THE MALTESE FALCON
* Rita Hayworth's black gloves from GILDA

Though I do own a pair of those! Unbitten by Rita, of course, but perhaps bitten by me. ;)

-- As if that's sexy, Ginger! They cost about four dollars...and look just as cheap.

Now I imagine most people would cite Audrey Hepburn's little black dress from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S -- though I think it was actually auctioned off a couple years ago, wasn't it? The same reason I'm not listing Marilyn's white dress from THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, or Dorothy's ruby red slippers, etc. -- but I've always much preferred the following:

* Audrey Hepburn's red coat from CHARADE
* Audrey Hepburn's black-and-white party dress from SABRINA
* Audrey Hepburn's entire wardrobe from ROMAN HOLIDAY (minus that God-awful 'Crescent Roll' hat in the finale)

More clothes! Because I'm in a girly mood...

* Scarlett O'Hara's green-and-white 'BBQ at Twelve Oaks' dress from GONE WITH THE WIND

I'd wear it everywhere!! Even to bed.

(Okay, maybe not to bed...)

...

A few more dresses could be listed here, but it's almost Midnight, and if I don't get this posted soon, I may turn into a pumpkin!

Or derail my blogathon...

Or get called back to 'Mommy hood' in general.

...

Thank you all for your caring thoughts regarding my daughter's sickness, and for all the well-wishes for her soon recovery.

When she wakes up tomorrow, feeling a million times better -- here's hoping! -- I'll be sure to pass those along. :)

____________________

Bronchitis, with a touch of pneumonia.

2010-02-05T23:58:00.003-06:00

That's what the Kid's got. :(

-- How much, exactly, is a 'touch'??

I don't know.

I don't know what to do or what to think. I don't know how much a touch is, or why the doctor wouldn't x-ray my daughter's chest; why the pharmacy messed up her prescription; if it's gonna become full-blown pneumonia. Are we gonna have to make a trip to the hospital? Should I pack a bag now?! Should I start praying?!?

I feel helpless.

So helpless and desperate, it's almost funny.

Quiet, and alone, and scared -- not so funny.

I just want her to get better.

...

All afternoon, instead of Waltzing Matilda, I kept singing 'Walking Pneumonia'. It made my daughter laugh, and her cheeks turned red and her fever soared higher.

This isn't what I thought motherhood would be.

I'm not a nurse. I'm not a doctor.

I've got no training for this!

What do I do???

Ever since she started school last August, it's just been one sickness after another; over and over....

-- Though yes, I realize there are mothers out there raising kids with chronic and/or fatal diseases, and here I am, going nuts over 'bronchitis, with a touch of pneumonia'.

Of course, that can turn serious too...

Oh, I don't know. I hope I'm over-reacting!

I just want her to get better, and SOON.

___________________________

Blogger creates Creating Pages!

2010-02-04T23:58:00.010-06:00

Oh wow. Blogger has finally enabled us to make our own pages!!

Under the 'Posting' tab, it says 'New Post', 'Edit Posts', 'Edit Pages', and then 'Comment Moderation'.

Click on 'Edit Pages', and make a stand-alone page for your blog.

You can make up to ten of 'em, and link 'em either in your header section -- beneath, or embedded in your actual header, if you've got one of those cool templates with the already built-in 'buttons' -- or you can just list 'em over in your sidebar.

-- Wordpress has offered stand-alone pages forever; but I've always thought Blogger a million times better than Wordpress.

A Few Ideas for Pages You Could Make:

'About This Blog' -- if you don't have a blog description displayed in your header.
'About Me' -- in you don't have your profile displayed in your sidebar.
'More About Me' -- if you DO have your profile displayed, but want to yammer some more.
'My Favorite Movies Ever!' -- make a big list of all your favorite movies; then that section of your Blogger profile won't look so crowded.

Whatever you do, don't use Blogger's suggestion of adding a Google Map-to-your-physical-address as a page; unless your blog is related to your business, a non-profit organization, or some other public place, you REALLY don't need a random blog-reader knocking on your home door at three a.m., wielding a hacksaw, ready to toss the bits of your body into thy nearest freezer.

-- Just a thought. ;)

As for me: I'm not sure I'm gonna use pages around here -- I've got a test page linked in my header right now, and it's messing up the dual-colored-ness of my sidebar and blog! Can't have that!

But if you want to make your blog read more like a website, or even fashion a blog INTO a website: then this is really great news!

At the height of my Dana Andrews obsession, I wanted to make a website for him, but to forgo the cost of an actual web address -- and due to my inexperience with building an actual web site -- I tried to make Dana Andrews (dot) com out of a Blogger blog. And aesthetically, it just didn't work.

It was too much 'blog' and not enough 'site'.

Maybe now I should make one for the Dead End Kids??

Good idea, Ginger! One more thing on your plate won't hurt. Especially while you're struggling to operate a blogathon, AND take care of a sick child. ;)

It's raining here tonight. Wearing the gold lace nightie from the Leslie Howard nightmare, and I just watched a horror movie! Eating a Sour Apple Blow Pop. Promised myself I'd go to bed early in case I take my daughter to the doctor's office tomorrow, but now I just want to blog and build make-believe websites!

Thanks, Blogger.

...

Anyone else gonna make some pages, or a whole new 'site'? :)

...

Sorry if I misled anyone: this post (obviously) has nothing to do with Jean Arthur getting spanked.

______________________

Film Inspired Photos: Me, and the Ghost of Dana Andrews

2010-02-03T23:57:00.002-06:00

Me and my old lover. ;)

Not sure when I took this; probably Fall 2008, and meshed it together using Google's Picasa.

Lost the original when my laptop died, but had already uploaded it to Blogger, and it's been in my draft pile ever since.

...

This is all I've got for tonight. My daughter is sick, sick. And every time my fingers come within an INCH of my keyboard, she starts coughing her head off; sounds like a wheezing, antique machine gun aimed at a galvanized bucket.

______________________

Dead End Poetry: Billy Halop's Brass Band

2010-02-02T23:05:00.021-06:00

Oh Billy Halop
come blow your trumpet
and maybe I'll blow you...

"Okay, Ang', what do ya' do?"

"I blow."

I watch too many movies.

Like Leo Gorcey
my soul is shorter
than it should be.

I bet you'd cease to love me
if my heart were fully grown.

-- Or made of wood.

It is dirt
and decomposing

All the poetry and prose

Tack it to the wind that's blowing
nowhere
'cause it's got nowhere to blow!

Except
through your open window
and into your ears:

I'm that unwanted ringing.

I bet you'd cease your singing
if you knew I couldn't hear.

All the years
and onto Heaven
All the boys
are in their cabins
Building fires
-- bunch of madmen!

We've got to let this go.

______________________________

Lines four and five are quotes from DEAD END.

The kids are playing poker, and Gabe Dell, 'T.B.', asks Bobby Jordan's character Angel, what he's gonna do; and 'Ang' -- short for Angel -- says, "I blow'.

It came to mind because of the previous lines, about blowing, and, uh, Billy Halop... ;)

And x-rated or not, this whole poem was actually born from a Dead End Kid-themed parody of a nursery rhyme I recited for my daughter earlier that evening:

"Little Billy Halop
Come blow your horn
Gabe Dell's in the meadow
Huntz Hall's in the corn
And where's Bobby Jordan
who looks after the sheep?
Down in the hay bales
fast asleep."

...

Written January 16th; this is the fifth poem I wrote about the Dead End Kids. The first one is eight pages long, and I'm still not happy with it (needs editing, and I hate to edit poems; this 'Halop' one is completely 'as written'); the second one I wrote is WAY too x-rated for this blog (ha; when I get bored, I get 'lonely'...), and the seventh one will be posted soon, if this one goes over well. ;)

-- DEK poems three, four, and eight, are pretty much just half-poems, or 'poetry bits', but may also (eventually) show their dirty faces here.

...

And as if I haven't rambled ENOUGH already...

I do plan on writing more tonight -- I actually WANT to write tonight!! Compared to last night, when I felt completely dead inside -- but the kid is sick and running fever, so I wanted to get something posted quick (I've had this poem typed up for weeks now), just in case I get called away (to take care of her) before Midnight. Hopefully her fever will subside, and she'll sleep through the night (for her sake, and yes, selfish me, for my sake) and feel a million times better in the morning!

I doubt we're that lucky, but here's hoping...

Hoping for her; hoping she'll sleep. Hoping I can write. And hoping you're well, too.

I hope you liked this poem.

I realize there aren't too many Dead End Kid fans around here, but I suddenly feel, to make the MOST of my little obsession, and artistic inspiration, it'd be best to spread some sort of passion; to light a fire in case other people are looking for 'warmth'.

...

But as for poetry:

I've been writing poems since 1998. And hardly ever, have I actually written poems about Classic Film Stars. I usually save that for prose, or for blogging. So it's strange to have The Dead End Kids suddenly grace a handful of poems.

Other Stuff I've Written involving Classic Film Stars:

The too-often-mentioned Leslie Howard novel
A Fred and Ginger short story
A James Cagney poem
A Bogart poem
The eight poems on the Dead End Kids
And one poem, guest starring Virginia Mayo.

...

I hear my daughter whining. :(

'Angel of Healthy Children', please come and find me, and bring me some of your magic cough syrup!

-- I wish I were the 'Angel of Healthy Children'; I'd use my wings to fly all over the world, kissing all the sick kids on their foreheads; reading 'em poems, and silly nursery rhymes, about you-know-who, sleeping in various parts of a farmyard. ;)

________________

Hollywood Dolls: Ava Gardner

2010-02-01T23:59:00.011-06:00

Tonner Doll Company releases an annual Hollywood Doll. In 2008, it was Joan Crawford. In 2009, Bette Davis.

For 2010, it's Ava Gardner!

Now I'm not the biggest fan of Gardner, so this doll will not be joining my collection -- although she is very pretty, and immaculately dressed!

This particular outfit is entitled, 'Dinner with Ol' Blue Eyes.'

Just wanted to share it with any of you doll collectors, and/or Ava Gardner fans out there. :)

...

Plus, it's almost midnight here, so if I'm gonna have a post show up for the date, I've got to make it fluff, and I've got to make it quick. ;)

______________________

Links:

Tonner Doll Company's Ava Gardner Doll; Official Page

My 2009 entry on Blonde Bette Davis

________________________

Movies for Breakfast (day three)

2010-01-31T23:20:00.016-06:00

Saturday, Jan. 30th. Woke up at eight o'clock to feed and dress the child, only to hand her over to another.

Went back to bed.

I dreamt I was back in college -- a different college; sort of fancy; an ivy league, or something foreign -- and I was walking with an old friend of mine across campus, where the buildings are tall and brick and covered with ivy. The ground is moss, and there's a brown wooden bridge arched high above water.

We walk and talk, and we're happy to see each other.

I have a feeling he's still smitten with me, and I like it.

We enter a classroom -- a big white room, with a white tile floor, and a low ceiling that seems to be made of white cloth -- filled with desks, and tons of students.

It must be the first day of school, because we all gather about, introducing ourselves. People keep pushing the desk into different configurations. Sometimes against the window-less walls; sometimes into long rows, or squares of four.

At the latter arrangement, the old friend and I sit beside each other, when up walks Leslie Howard.

-- Now I haven't had a dream about Howard in a long time, but in 2007, when I was writing the novel about him and the afterlife, and the ocean, and all that, Howard often plagued my dreams, and they were usually surreal. As if writing a novel about him conjured up a fictional version of his ghost to haunt my sleep.

Leslie sits down across from us, and says hello. For a moment he acts as if he knows me; he's very playful, and friendly, and there's a strange spark in his eyes, as if yes, he does know me; but as far I'm concerned, we've never met.

The Old Friend doesn't like Leslie. But Leslie is completely un-jealous and un-riled by all the attention I'm receiving, not only from the old friend, but from all the other men in class.

I'm wearing a gold lace nightie, and all the men want to hug me. At first I don't mind, but then I start to feel cheap. And the old friend of mine is staring at me. Leslie just smiles -- the way he always treats me; forever unaffected -- as if it means nothing to him for me to be uncomfortable. As if he can't rescue me, anyway. I'm like a movie to him: he watches me, and he enjoys me, but he can't touch me, and that's fine.

The Old Friend and I are sitting off alone now, and he won't speak to me. He's staring at the sole window in the room -- it's made a sudden appearance! As if thin air grew and stretched itself into the image of a window in an instant.

Leslie asks me if I'd like to go home with him.

I say yes.

We walk across campus, and the buildings seem taller and darker now. Soon we're at his house, and he introduces me to his wife. She's sitting in a pink chair, in a small blue wall-papered room, and she doesn't rise to greet me, or even smile when I shake her hand. She just stares at me. Cold-eyed.

She looks like Greta Garbo.

"This is my friend," Leslie says.

And the wife nods towards a far wall, covered in framed pictures of Audrey Hepburn.

"You kinda look like her," the wife says. Not as if to compliment me; it's more of a complaint.

I brush it off. I smile again, politely, but Leslie -- in his usual way -- finds it fun to pester me; to aggravate the situation.

"I think it's true," he says.

Then in a very quiet way -- very tender -- he whispers:

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

...

I woke up sweating. Reached for the journal on my nightstand, and wrote down my dream.

Finally rolled out of bed, damn near four o'clock. Took a bath so long and hot, I damn near scalded myself. Distracted. I felt as I had taken a step back into my own fictional past.

Cooked the requisite toast and coffee, but before I could eat, I was re-joined by the child.

We watched the Snorks.

I wasn't in the mood for a movie, anyway...

Sometimes my dreams are sufficiently cinematic.

____________________

A Warning to Spammers

2010-01-31T00:43:00.015-06:00

I've been getting spammed lately like you wouldn't believe! And I've already done two things I hate: I turned on the word verification, and enabled comment moderation (for my archives; the most heavily spammed area).

And as the spamming lightened up a bit, I turned 'em both off, and what do you think happened? A ton more spam!!

So here's a little message for all the Asleep in New York spammers out there:

LISTEN YOU CHISELERS,

IF YOU DON'T QUIT LEAVING YOUR FOREIGN-WRITTEN ADVERTISEMENTS AND LINKS IN MY COMMENT BOXES, I'M GONNA HUNT YOU DOWN, WITH THE GHOST OF LEO GORCEY, AND WE'RE BOTH GONNA KICK YOU IN THE GOD DAMN SLATS.

GOT ME??

...

Ha.

Just needed to take care of some business.

You nice, normal readers: feel free to ignore this. ;)

________________________

Movies for Breakfast (day two)

2010-01-30T23:15:00.018-06:00

Friday, January 29th. A less fun day. Woke up and took one look outside at the impending ice storm. And I knew -- KNEW -- I shouldn't even bother waking up my daughter; to pull her from her warm, cozy twin bed, and toss her out into the cold wet day. But no. I checked the local news, and since her school was unlisted in the state's many closings, I went ahead, against my better judgment, and woke her up. Fixed her breakfast.

Bundled her up, and kissed her goodbye.

Stood shivering in the open doorway; watching as she was carried to the truck of a man who works in town, and passes her school every morning so little recluse ME only has to pick her up in the afternoons; out into the wind and soon-to-be freezing rain, she waved and smiled; got into his truck, and they got stuck.

They had to drive my car.

A rush against time -- God knows, when you live in the backwoods, and an ice storm is blowing in, the electricity won't stay on long, and it usually takes hours, days, even weeks! for the power to come back on. I had to do laundry and dishes (because I was lazy the night before), and make sure everything was clean and 'ready'. Ready for what? I don't know. Storms make me nervous, and nervousness makes me 'nest'.

When I was twenty years old, and nine months pregnant, I was so scared of childbirth, I spent every night scrubbing the entire house...washing the walls, the ceiling fans. Anything to keep my mind clear. Of course all Moms nest, I guess, but it's a habit I've kept with me. Anytime I get scared, the house gets clean.

So out of the tub, and into some clothes, and into chore-mode, postponing my weekday ritual of breakfast-and-a-movie.

Of course, then I realized, "If the power does go out, before you can make your precious toast and coffee, you won't get ANY toast and coffee today."

Into the kitchen. Filling up two bottles of water (one for a backup). Making two pieces of toast. A cup of coffee. Onto the couch to sit, not lie down; to watch the news; the weather report; excited meteorologist ready to burst at the thought of ice and snow and sleet. A meteorologist's dream! To have something BIG to discuss...everyone wants something big. I want to write something big, and think big thoughts, and FEEL something big, and real, and whole. And the storm is picking up outside. The power blinks and the windows shake. I eat quickly. But before I can even finish my first piece of toast, the telephone rings.

Some idiot, calling from the school. Letting me know they're gonna dismiss at nine o'clock.

Why on earth did they not just cancel school to begin with?? Why wake kids up and get 'em dressed, and out into the cold world, just so parents could leave their warm homes, or jobs, and go back out onto wet roads, into bad weather, and fetch their poor children who could still be sleeping?!

I hate 'em. I hate the stupid chiselers. These illogical jackasses who run the damn school. It's always something. Something stupid. Growing up, my step-father was in charge of deciding whether or not we'd have school the next day, and he was good at it. This girl on the phone was practically giggling! Embarrassed, because she knew it was stupid; knew that making these phone calls would have parents riled up, saying, "Why on earth did you have school in the first place?"

-- I kept my temper. Said nothing.

The power blinked.

I knew without electricity, we'd have to evacuate to the neighbor's house. You can't stay in your own home, in an ice storm, when your heat's electric and your walls are made of tin.

I feared the homesickness -- among a million other things! Plus the fact that I wouldn't be able to watch any Dead End Kids for a while. So during a rare short breakfast, anticipating the return of my child (without a car, I had to call the man in town, and ask him to bring her home; all within the same hour he took her; me feeling guilty to ask such a favor) I got a Dead End Kid booster shot, by way of watching the last ten minutes or so of DEAD END.

...

The kid came home, and I gave her a bath -- because everything must be clean! Fixed her a second breakfast, consisting of waffles. Did chores, etc.

The power did go out, sometime around ten am.

And I was just fixing to pack a suitcase for us to go stay at the neighbor's, when after a mere half-hour, it came back on! It has to be some sort of record. A miracle! Jesus, you say? No. Probably the ghost of the Dead End Kids, thawing out my power line by swinging on it like a trapeze. Then sitting around, drinking beer and watching the storm. Waiting for me...

All caught up on chores, and satisfied with the clean house, the clean kid, and everything clean and 'ready'. But still shaking; stressed out and nervous 'cause I'm always stressed out and nervous! The kid went to play a video game in the bedroom, so I finally had the chance to be quiet, and relax; lie on the couch and enjoy a cup of coffee. The breakfast cup -- starring Molly Ringwald?? Ha. Like a new flavor of Coffee Mate. 'Instead of Pretentious Vanilla Bean Extract, just add a little Brat Pack!' -- had went cold before I could finish it.

Turned out the lights, and decided to watch a movie. "What's good on a day like this??"

My first inclination was A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for a Mid-afternoon's Ice Storm.

I've been wanting to re-watch it, anyway, now that I'm into swan-neck Anita Louise. But the last scene or so of DEAD END was still warm in my mind, so I was longing for more Bobby Jordan.

I compromised.

Re-watched half of MY BILL, and nearly fell asleep.

...

The ice storm wasn't nearly as prevalent or vicious down here, as in the northern part of the state, so really, we were lucky. The power went out one more time, but only for a minute. The worst part: my daughter started coughing and complained of a sore throat -- damn chiselers at that school! Their silly one hour of class time gave my kid pneumonia! Or at least revamped her prior cold by making her get out of bed that morning.

Or maybe I made her get out of bed that morning...

Either way, life instead of movies.

It happens, I suppose. ;)

________________________

Movies for Breakfast (day one)

2010-01-29T23:59:00.006-06:00

Thursday morning, January 28th. After the Kid left for school, I took a bath and got dressed, and magically turned four pieces of wheat bread into toast, and water into coffee.

It's the second coming!

I stretched out on the couch, and while consuming my magical double-breakfast (I usually only turn two pieces of bread into toast, but was feeling slightly hungover, so the more bread the better), via TCM (without checking the guide), I watched A NIGHT AT THE OPERA: my first taste of the Marx Brothers!

Funny thing is, the night before, while acquiring the aforementioned hangover, I had added a whole bunch of the Marx Brothers movies to my Netflix queue, based mainly on the theory that since I'll soon be graduating from The East Side Kids to the Bowery Boys series, I should really 'pay my dues', and study up on some of the more famous comedic duos/trios/partners, and groups of previous eras.

The Three Stooges are about the only other comedic group I'm familiar with. No Abbott and Costello. No Laurel and Hardy.

Who else is there??

...

As for the Brothers themselves: I think I like Harpo the best.

It takes a lot of talent to be silent, and still make people laugh; to effect people. In A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, when he segued from the piano to the harp, I was completely entranced!

My entire youth, forced to attend church every Sunday, staring at pictures of Angels playing harps, it seems almost like forbidden fruit! Don't touch this instrument...No, Ginger, you can't play it. You're not good enough. Girls who get drunk and eat too much toast, and make jokes about Jesus have to play the flute, the guitar, the banjo, or a dirty toy accordion. No harps for you!

It's so beautiful. And I wish I could play it.

I'd get drunk and play it naked, and write 'Un-Holy' on my forehead.

That's what you get when you 'force' youth...

Naked, rebellious harp players.

What say you, Harpo??

Ha. Harpo says nothing.

Who's your favorite Marx Brother?

If I were a man, I'd dress just like Groucho.

...

I'm so tempted to start reading, and learning ALL about these fellows...but stepping up to the land of Marx Brothers, a complete virgin to it all, it's like looking at the ocean, and declaring, "For my next miracle, I'm gonna drink this with a straw!"
____________________

A Month in the Mind of a Film Fan...

2010-01-28T23:44:00.007-06:00

I've decided to make myself do MORE around here. Because I can...because I'm bored. Because I'm lazy.

Yes Mam.

Or Sir.

Or Whomever. ;)

...

(Sigh)

I don't write enough.

And the other night, while sitting here, staring at the screen, I thought of quitting and deleting my blog, or at least deserting it again; my reason whispered to no one but the dolls and ghost and pictures in my office, "I've got nothing to say..."

But then I sort of whispered in response, "You've got plenty to say! You just won't let yourself say it."

Thanks inner self!

That's 'Smart Ginger'...There's Sad Ginger, and Smart Ginger, and the rarely-seen Happy Ginger.

...

Would you like to know my real name??

I'm gonna write it on a piece of paper, and stick it in a bottle, and throw it at your head. And maybe one day, the sea of dirt and dust will let it travel through the backwoods, and over mountains, hills, and in through your living room window, and right into your bowl of soup.

Then you'll curse my bottle. Toss it into the garbage can. "God damn it, Ginger! You got soup all over my clean shirt!" And after all that work performed by the woods and dust and dirt -- mountains and hills are thankless: tis gravity! -- my name still goes unread.

...

Ha. Feeling boisterous this evening.

Most people are mourning J.D. Salinger, but as a fellow recluse, I know what death is...no longer having to lock yourself in.

...

So about this Blogathon: I figured I'd write something, ANYTHING! every day and/or night for one whole month.

Whether it's posting a 'current flow of thoughts' piece like this silly bit, or an actual review, fluff, just a picture, or one of the damn-near a hundred unpublished drafts I've got piled up, the point is, I want to write more, and I want to try harder.

I want to BE HERE.

And be less of a mental and emotional recluse.

Starting tonight, January 28th (my Father's birthday!) until the death of February -- here's to Salinger! And more on him later. And a tribute to my favorite ink pens.

Why? Because I can.

Because I want to!

You won't hate me, will you?

I feel like a rock who thinks she can swim.

_______________________________

Famous Partners: Humphrey Bogart and Billy Halop

2010-01-16T02:10:00.007-06:00

The first time I saw Billy Halop, I thought he was Humphrey Bogart. A very young, luscious-haired, circa 1930s Bogart! But when this 'young Bogart' opened his mouth to speak, I knew I had just discovered a different actor entirely.

It was 2005. The year I first started watching old movies on a regular basis.

One night-into-morning, TCM was showing several films starring my then obsession -- and first true love! -- Humphrey Bogart. So I snuck up front, away from my writing, away from my office, to catch the end of a movie I've only recently watched in its entirety.

I didn't know anything about it; just that Bogart was in the cast, and I wanted to catch a glimpse of him.

Sitting in my old (ex) movie-watching pal, the red leather recliner, I turned on TCM and saw a dark-headed actor, brandishing a knife.

I thought, "God, Bogart looks so young! What year is this??"

Ha. It was DEAD END, 1937. And I had yet to see a Bogart movie from the 1930s. All my Bogart experience hailed from the 1940s: CASABLANCA, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE BIG SLEEP, etc.

From 2004 until Spring 2009, I watched almost every single movie on mute; but I was familiar-enough with Bogart's voice, and turned the volume up to get a listen to this Kid Bogie..and what I got was an earful of Halop's distinct, almost-shrill, and very lisp-free voice.

Immediately I blushed, cursed myself an 'idiot', and realized, "Ginger, that's not Humphrey Bogart! It's just some kid..."

Sweet Billy Halop.

But because of this brief case of mistaken identity, long before I was completely familiar with Bogart, Halop, the Dead End Kids, or Classic Film in general, I always have, and always will -- in a very fond, and personal way -- associate these two actors.

Other such characteristics that make them a fitting pair:

Humphrey Bogart and Billy Halop: inverted initials! HB, BH.
Both were born in New York City, New York State.
Both got their start on the stage. From Broadway to Hollywood (B and H again!).
Both were married four times: Bogie had three divorces, and widowed Bacall; Halop had three divorces, and at least one annulment.
Both had unusual voices: Halop's slight shrillness; Bogie's lisp.
Both were under contract to Warner Brothers in the 1930s.

Films of Bogart and Halop:

DEAD END (1937) -- Bogie gives Halop pointers on gang fighting, and how to properly throw a knife. Obviously, the other Kids co-starred; this was their collective feature-film debut.

CRIME SCHOOL (1938) -- The Kids first movie at Warner Brothers. They all get sent to a corrupt reform school, where Bogart soon takes over.

Bogie, inspecting the wounds of an abused Billy Halop.

I saw CRIME SCHOOL soon after the case of mistaken identity granted by the final scene of DEAD END, and laughed as I thought, "Hey! It's that same boy! The one who looks like Bogart...I guess they made a bunch of movies together, huh?"

What I didn't realize, is that Halop made MORE movies with the other kids in the film: most of whom, with the exception of Halop and Bobby Jordan, thoroughly annoyed me!

At first. But then I saw...

ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) -- the Kids and Bogart together again, but this time Bogie didn't have a single scene with Halop; nor with any of the Kids.

I saw this one in 2007, a little over a year after watching CRIME SCHOOL, and it finally dawned on me, that these Kids were an actual group of actors. Too bad I was in full-on Cagney mode, or I probably would have pursued the rest of their films right then and there! I loved them. All six of them.

But of course, it's still nice to catch one of the Kids solo...especially Halop.

Especially Halop with Bogart!

And it only happened once.

YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH MURDER (1939) -- Now this one is special. Not because it's a great movie, but because it stars my favorite actor ever, alongside the Kid I mistook for Bogie's own younger self. And, without the other Kids around!

Just Bogart and Halop: Partners in Crime.

But before they get sent up the river, something Delightful-to-Yours-Truly, yet very anti-prophetic in general, is said.

Bogart tells Halop:

"And from now on, Kid, you and me are gonna be just like Siamese twins. There ain't gonna be nothing happening to me, without the same thing happening to you."

Too bad it didn't turn out that way: in the movie...or in real life.

Here comes the divide -- the 1940s. During and after the war, Bogart stayed busy making the films that made him a legend. Playing Sam Spade, Rick Blaine, earning several Oscar nominations; winning the Award in the 1950s; generally proving what a great actor he is! Plus, he found his perfect wife, had two children. All while serving his country yet again (Bogie was a Navy man in WWI) by way of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Billy Halop, after making several films at Universal, joined the military, went overseas, and became a Sergeant.

When Halop returned to Hollywood in 1946: crickets chirped.

His movie career ended. His marriages ended.

He never had any children.

Eventually, Halop found work on television -- most notably as the cab driver on All in the Family -- but he also went to school, and upon completion, became the second Dead End Kid to enter the medical field: Bernard Punsly was a doctor; Billy Halop, a registered nurse.

Two more things Bogie and Halop had in common:

Both were heavy drinkers.
Both died in California.

In 1957, Humphrey Bogart died of Cancer.

In 1976, Billy Halop died of a heart attack.

Bogie was age 57.

Halop, age 56.

For a brief moment in my film-loving life, I thought they were one in the same.

Two very talented actors. Bogart, on a much larger, and more successful scale, sure, but talent is talent, and Halop had plenty...

...even as a Kid.

_________________________

How can a grave be early??

2010-01-12T01:32:00.013-06:00

Gene says, "Don't worry, Dear; I like your bow-tie!"

Gene secretly thinking: Sheesh, I bet Dana Andrews would never wear a silly bow-tie like that...

-- First person who can show me a picture of, or name a movie, where Dana Andrews wears a bow-tie wins a prize!*

* Yeah, and by 'prize', I mean a heaping dose of my depression.

[Readers boo; throw tin-cans]

______________________

I took a ride today (now yesterday).

To forget about an almost sick child, or a child who's getting sick. I haven't quite figured it out, but every night, about an hour after I put her to bed, she starts coughing. And I'll tuck her in, and sneak into my office, all cleaned and nightgowned, and ready to write, and she starts coughing. Hasn't anyone told her, Mommy doesn't write much anymore? Why don't you sleep, and be quiet? Don't you know your mother is selfish?

Every night. After an hour, give or take, she coughs, and I sneak back into her room, and spread Vick's Vaporub all over her furniture and walls. I check the humidifier and make sure it's not leaking. I fluff up her pillows, and make sure she's up on her apnea/reflux ramp I had to build last year for a completely different, 'God, why does she keep waking up sick every night?!' kind of reason.

I spend the rest of the night, worried at my desk; ear glued to the baby-monitor; and my eyes glued to this screen...waiting for words to write themselves!

...

I got an email yesterday (or last night...sometime) from a nice boy who used to read my old writing.

It was possibly the best letter I ever read.

All it said was: I REMEMBER YOU. I miss reading your writing.

...

So I drive past a cemetery and see an empty beer box lying near the headstones. There's a plane in the sky, and I smile at it, while listening to a cd I made in 2006, labeled 'Love is Stupid'. I imagine an Ex-Love from that era is onboard that plane, and I suddenly wish it would nosedive!

No. I feel my car slightly lose control, on account of the ferocious wind, and I tell myself, Think of your karma, Ginger! If you wish that plane to nose dive (not to mention all the other people on board! You selfish, selfish jerk), your luck is to crash, too; headfirst into those woods over there, then some drunk kid can throw empty beer boxes near your headstone.

I take the cut-off road past the house where I lost my virginity, and no one's home.

I eye the window to his bedroom, and I wonder if I could sneak in -- I just want to lie down for a while -- on green cotton sheets, and no one's home, so no one could mind!

I'm driving slower now, through potholes, and curves, and narrow gravel covered bridges with small animals moseying out onto the yellow lines.

Sure, armadillo, I'll break for you.

I have no need to save time.

I pass a truck on a curve, and the road's too small to avoid the dead animal's head, just laying there staring out at the highway. Wouldn't it be strange if we just let dead people lie where they may?

No one's home, so no one minds...

I take the cut-off road now due to my nostalgia kick last November (I wanted to see the 'lost' house), and because the main highway into the Next Big Town contains the cross to mark the Dead Boy's Death Site, and every time I used to pass it, I'd say hello, with my hand on the window, and something on that cross would sparkle as if he heard me and winked.

After two years it quit sparkling, so now I can't stand to pass it. As if the world forgot him, and his ghost has dissolved into the concrete, the traffic, the sound of motors, screaming children, dogs barking and howling and knotted together, panting, chasing tires, getting hit, bones crunching, and someone didn't break 'cause they couldn't waste the time.

On the next highway now. Drove straight across the Dead Road, and I apologize twice to the cemetery to my right, and above me, that plane seems to be suspended. Frozen. Perhaps my wishes and karma, and spiteful daydreams confused nature and fate, and the god of unpleasant destinies to keep the plane from moving forward, or from crashing. It's the married man on the fence of 'Should I get a divorce and be single, happy, but lonely? Or should I stay and be miserable in this loveless prison forever?'

I don't know. The plane isn't moving. It points up, then down, but never leaves the upper level and smack-center of my eyesight.

The trees ripped from the ground, by last year's tornado, are still rotting on the earth, but the powerlines are all repaired, and I guess that's all that matters. Who needs oxygen and shade and life when we've got electricity! Lights, and screens; internet and emails...

I think of the boy who loves classical music...he still remembers me!

For some reason, my main wish in life is to be completely forgotten, but never out-of-print.

Who needs oxygen? We've got cold black text, and big ideas, delicate prose, and fiction; hard-back, tight sewn bindings...Could I just PLEASE lay down for a while? On his green sheets, I could lie forever and write my novels, and no one would care.

...

The plane is still there, but joined by a pack of vultures. They're circling above me, while the wind blows my car slightly askew.

In my head, there's something I can't unwrap. It's like a present marked DO NOT OPEN TIL CHRISTMAS, 1937. To open it, I'd have to build a time machine! To build a time machine, I'd have to have an education and the proper tools. I don't have either! -- But we do have electricity, and ever-dying oxygen, and highways, and crosses that no longer sparkle.

Roadkill: and the vultures to eat it.

I notice a sign outside a church that reads: WALMART CAN SAVE YOU MONEY, BUT IT CAN'T SAVE YOUR SOUL.

Why can't it?

...

I'll go to Fred's instead. Ha! Maybe he can save my soul...assuming I have one to be saved; assuming I want it saved!! No thank you. I'll go to Hell with the Dead End Kids and we'll light fires, and make love, and drink beer, and you can keep your Heaven if there's nothing in it but bad writers of cheezy billboards signs and people who can't even break to save poor armadillos.

I just want to lay down for a while...

My mind turns to last August, and the deathwish I carried. Passing the Lake's access road, my reoccurring daydream of drowning is in full swing..."I could do it today"...but no; it's too cold. I want to drown, sure, when I get ready to go, but I don't want to drown in ice water.

I want to go out on a sunny day, like today. I want to feel the warmth and darkness, and sink to the bottom, knowing my soul is my own -- once saved -- but I unsaved it. I'll unbaptise it! Drown it once, and it's God's. Drown it twice, and it's mine. The owner of a well-bought mistake.

...

In the Big Town now; at Fred's, looking at DVDs. They have THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK, Harold Lloyd's last film, for two dollars and fifty cents. A genius! And his curtain call is on the clearance rack. Meanwhile, you can buy some fluffy, modern, soulless romantic comedy, written, directed by, and starring Hacks! for ten dollars each.

I see THE BIG COMBO, but I already own that one.

...

Onto Walmart.

There's flaming hellfire above the doors, and in the meat department, a fat guy calls out across the aisles, "Hey, I like your dress! It's pretty..."

"Thank you," I blush.

I'm too shy to ever feel somewhat attractive anymore. Me, in lace and tights and a silk flower in my hair. Leather zip-up boots. I'm like a flapper on the backseat of Leo Gorcey's motorcycle, and we're going full-speed!

It crashes to avoid the war...

Lying unconscious, somewhere near the cereal aisle. Or maybe I'm just having trouble breathing. My almost-anemia is acting up because I skipped lunch, and I keep heaving like I'm whistling. Eyes shut. Is this hell I see before me? No, it's just a crowded Walmart, and now I'm panicking.

On the ketchup aisle, I laugh to myself as I realize Huntz Hall is somewhat of an amalgam of 'Hunt's Ketchup' and 'Heinz Ketchup'. Ha. If I ever have a son, I'm gonna name him Henry Hall and call him 'Huntz'.

-- 'Henry', because I want him to write like Henry Miller, and look like Henry Fonda; 'Hall' because it's a secret; and 'Huntz' for a nickname because Henry Hall was Huntz Hall's real name. Neat!

But I'll never have another child -- why take him down with me? Like all those other people, not just the Ex-Love, on the plane...one poor child attached to my sinking ship is bad enough; I'll make her a pair of wings so when the ship absconds completely she can fly back to earth while I'm happy underneath.

...

I make my way to the checkout, and two girls walk up behind me. They start mouthing about all the things I'm putting on the counter; how there's even MORE stuff in my buggy.

"Damn...let's go find some OTHER line!"

Yeah, why don't you go find some other line, you smart-mouthed heathens?! Youth, wasted on the young. Making strange noises, and rolling their eyes, and giving ME, a polite stranger in a pretty dress (just ask the man in the meat department!) a hard time; ruining my head full of daydreams, and doesn't it count for any thing that I wished the plane NOT to crash from the sky?! That I broke for the armadillo, and tried my best to avoid the dearly departed, decapitated head and luster-lost cross. I can't win!! I avoid the Lake road, always -- ALWAYS! now; since last August -- because who would cook my child's supper? Who would get her clean, and feed her, and read to her, and put her to bed, and listen to her all night, every night, on a baby monitor while Mommy tries to write with the distinct smell of Vick's Vaporub emitting from her busy typing fingers and up the hallway. I just want to buy my groceries and go home.

I know Walmart won't save my soul, but surely it doesn't have to crush it?

Five items in their hands, they waddle off to the express line. Good for them.

If I didn't have a child -- if I hadn't 'laid down for a while' on green sheets, or any other -- I'd probably get away with buying only magazines and soda pops and whatever else it is KIDS buy these days...me, hoveling; it's 1937. I walk outside into the warming afternoon, and I can barely stand upright. My chest is caving in.

Behind the wheel, I drink some tea and eat a snack, because God knows if I don't, I'll pass out.

Almost home again. Almost-Back-to-Life again.

The suspended plane is gone, and I resolve never to think of that particular Ex-Love again.

I hope his plane always stays in the air (except, of course, when it's ready to land) and I want him always to be safe and happy. Warm, and safe, and happy.

No one should drown in ice water.

No one should fall asleep while driving.

I briefly entertain the notion of driving past the cross and hoping for the best, but I don't. I take the House of the Lost Virginity Road, and live in the past, and in daydreams; if I do go to Heaven (if there is a Heaven), I hope my bed has green sheets, and there's a typewriter by the window. I hope Bobby Jordan and I can 'court', and be sweethearts, and wear each other's pins.

I wish I had an education. I wish I had the tools.

I wish my soul didn't ache so much, but that's what you get when you unbaptise it. When you want to drown, and every day, you fight the desire to want to drown. To lay down for a while...to pass the circling vultures and rise up, past the suspended planes, the fickle married men who never say they love you and if ONLY they would have said it...past the sweet boy who remembers you...past the air and color and life itself. Ascend the need to breathe; past cemeteries, frozen ponds...

I see a ton of them!

All the creeks, and ditches, and riverbeds: they're frozen. The little dells, and hollows.

Ha. Reminds me of 'Dell' and 'Halop'.

I wonder if my Lake is frozen??

Instead of drowning, I could just walk across it.

Remembered, and forgotten.

If I ever learned to skate, I'd be a lot better off.

If you need tools to build the time machine, how do you make the tools to build the tools?

I apologize to the cemeteries.

Unload the groceries.

Take care of my child.

_____________________

Poll Results (for) "2009: Was it good for you?"

2010-01-11T22:54:00.003-06:00

No, I had a bad year. -- 1 (6%)

It was okay. -- 3 (18%)

It was awful! -- 3 (18%)

I don't remember... -- 2 (12%)

Yes, it was good. Thanks for asking. -- 5 (31%)

Are you kidding? It was great! -- 2 (12%)

____________________________

Movies in Review: The Best, Worst, and Favorites of 2009

2010-01-06T01:37:00.011-06:00

Cornel Wilde, locked in a battle to the death. Says to the other guy, "What do you mean you didn't like A SONG TO REMEMBER?! -- I almost got an Oscar for it!!"

Ha. Nobody tell Cornel's ghost, but I didn't like it either.

...

I'm sure I've mentioned before, how I keep an ongoing list of all the movies I watch, the date I watch them, and how many stars I rate them. I've been doing this since Summer of 2007, when I killed my old blog and started watching movies on a nightly basis.

I simply felt my obsessive movie-watching would be more productive (in a sense) if a kept a record of all the movies I watched. Then in the future, maybe I'd start a film blog and use those records to write reviews.

Hooray for the future. ;)

[Now looking through my notebook..]

I've got five pages for this year. A lot less, I bet, than 2008, or especially 2007.

Also: keep in mind, this is only for movies I had never seen before. Or had never watched completely, and finally finished; perhaps seeing part, or even most of, prior to my rating it. (I'll denoted these with an asterisk.)

Total Number of New-to-Me Movies I Watched in 2009:

95

First Movie of 2009:

THE NAKED PREY -- on January 2nd.

Last Movie of 2009:

'NEATH BROOKLYN BRIDGE -- on December 30th.

Biggest Disappointments of the Year:
Movies I really looked forward to watching, because I was SO sure I'd love them, and was shocked when I didn't.

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN -- overrated and weird, and my eyes still burn from the technicolor. I think Cornel Wilde may have actually been a block of wood.

JOHNNY EAGER -- it's like THE ROARING TWENTIES threw-up a pile of vomit starring Robert Taylor and a gay Van Heflin.

WHIRLPOOL (1949) -- ended my love affair with Richard Conte. Stupid bow-tie! Boring. I nearly fell asleep.

Worst Movies I Watched All Year!
Movies rated two-and-half stars or less.

THE SANTA FE TRAIL*
SILK STOCKINGS*
ZIEGFELD FOLLIES
PUBLIC ENEMIES
PRETTY BOY FLOYD
ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON -- (Yikes!)
ADVENTURES IN MANHATTAN
THE CHASE
LET'S GET TOUGH!
BOYS OF THE CITY

The Absolute Worst/Most-Hated Movie of the Year!

ZIEGFELD GIRL -- Gah!! My hell would be to watch this movie over and over again, especially the scenes with Lana Turner...watching it once was bad enough, but sheesh. You know a movie's bad when even Judy Garland can't save it! And I can usually watch Hedy LaMarr take up space, and enjoy it, but that's basically all she does here; she's a gorgeous cardboard cut-out! Even my beloved Jimmy Stewart was awful! I literally yanked on my hair through most of the last hour, and wished to God I wasn't sober; watching an MGM trademark overblown 'Musical Glossy Mess' without alcohol is like having to undergo surgery without an anesthetic. In fact, I'd opt for the second, if it ensured I never had to watch this movie again.

Biggest Surprises of the Year:
Other such stand-outs; movies I didn't think I'd like, but did; or movies that were much better than I expected. Sort of the opposite of the 'Disappointment' category.

MADAME BOVARY (1949) -- because I'm not wild about Jennifer Jones; I'm still not wild about her! But she was good, and that ballroom dance sequence was gorgeous. Poor Van.

POSSESSED (1947) -- because I'm not wild about Joan Crawford, either, but goodness, she was excellent. Instilled my respect in her as an actress, despite my not liking her. Poor Van again.

THE WHOLE TOWN'S TALKING -- I used to have a weird block about Eddie G. Robinson. I've always thought him a superior actor, but I just didn't enjoy watching him. Well, this movie cured me! Plus my beloved Jean Arthur was extra Peter Pan-ish.

THE GOOD FAIRY -- because I normally don't like Margaret Sullavan. In this one, she's cute and charming. Plus Frank Morgan!

HOLIDAY INN -- because I usually don't like Bing Crosby. Though I am finding him more and more watchable. There's still no hope for Bob Hope, though, so don't even throw those Road movies at me! ;) I'll stick with Bing when he co-stars with Fred.
...

Now for personal favorites of the year: these are movies that didn't neccessarily warrant a high rating, but I loved 'em anyway!! The whole Best vs. Favorites debate. I mean, just because you watch a five star film, it doesn't mean you're gonna love it. And sometimes my favorite movies only rate three stars or so. Just the way it goes. Knowing the difference between art and entertainment.

Personal Favorites of 2009:
Ratings span from three stars to five stars.

THE NAKED PREY
THE MORE THE MERRIER
MY FOOLISH HEART
THE BIG COMBO
PRESENTING LILY MARS
EASTER PARADE
EASY LIVING (1937)*
THIEVES' HIGHWAY
CRY OF THE CITY
THE FEARMAKERS
THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR
BOY INTERRUPTED
PARTY WIRE
SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON
THE BQE
KID DYNAMITE
DEAD END (1937)*
A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER

The BEST Movies I Watched All Year!!
Movies rated five-stars.

THE KID BROTHER

(And...)

DEAD END*

Yep, that's it! And it was damn near the end of the year before I saw either one. I honestly thought I was gonna suffer through 2009 without witnessing a single Five Star Film! But thanks to Harold Lloyd; Joel McCrea, Bogart, the Dead End Kids, etc., I finally saw two of them.

Quick Numerical Recap for 2009

I watched...
2 movies rated ***** stars
18 movies rated **** 1/2 stars.
21 movies rated **** stars.
26 movies rated *** 1/2 stars.
17 movies rated *** stars.
8 movies rated ** 1/2 stars.
2 movie rated ** stars.
1 movie rated *1/2 star.
0 movies rated * star.

So at least there were no awful movies!

Just one really bad ZEIGFELD GIRL.

But twenty-six good movies, twenty-one really good movies, eighteen great movies, and two perfect movies??

Sounds like a pretty good year...

Movie-wise.

More on life in 2009, later (or maybe never) -- plus all my obsessions and crushes from when I was absent.

-- And you thought my return to blogging was gonna be fun? ;)

By the time I wrap-up 2009, it'll probably be 2011.

_________________________

What I'm Obsessing Over (12.09)

2009-12-31T04:00:00.002-06:00

The Dead End Kids! I can't stop watching DEAD END, or ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. Enjoying Bogart month on TCM (via my DVR), and lots of The East Side Kids, via the Internet Archive.

-- removed from sidebar & added here, September 15th, 2010

Or maybe they pucked like rabbits...

2009-12-31T03:57:00.009-06:00

Famous Partners Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, NOT having sex...Flynn thinking, "Damn it! It's not for the lack of trying."

I've been wanting to come back to blogging for about a month now. I had meant to come back in October, and didn't. Then I was gonna write a novel in November, but was too sick. So December comes, and I had every intention of returning, or starting over completely. And then one thing after another happened, and I didn't. Oh well.

So then yesterday, in the midst of domestic chaos (the pipes beneath my trailer home decided to fall apart, leaving me with no plumbing!) I thought, Yes, I'll go back tomorrow (now today), and I'll write about my rejuvenated love of film, etc., and let myself write whatever I want to write about life, and talk to my old friends, and happy, happy thoughts, and then tonight, after a long, well-earned shower, I came into my office and got scared.

I didn't want to come back.

In hopes of a sign -- something to push me; to make me realize, that YES, I do want to come back! -- I thought I'd check my email first (something I haven't done in a long time), and there in my inbox, along with Christmas cards and tons of spam, was a new comment on an extremely old post I did on the partnership of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.

Okay.

So this comment said I was inaccurate. Or better yet, that I had chose an inaccurate word to describe Flynn and de Havilland's million year old relationship.

Okay again.

You know, I realized something in my absence from this place: no matter what we think we know about things that went on a million years ago, about our favorite movies and stars, there's no way to EVER know if what we're writing about is absolutely TRUE.

And that's fine. But that's also why I plan on writing only opinions from now on. No more of this re-arranging facts I've read from wherever.

Just opinions.

Like how that commenter can take his or her comment and choke on it.

See? Now there's an opinion. ;)

Inaccurate my foot...

What should I say, huh? That Flynn and de Havilland...

A) had sex.
B) didn't have sex.
C) were madly, completely in love with each other.
D) hated each other's guts.

I have no idea!

All I know is hearsay, and regurgitated Hollywood folklore. Like the one about how Flynn once tried to rape de Havilland.

There, is that better? Nice story...

I thought saying they had sporadic crushes on each other, but nothing really ever came of it, was sufficient.

But what do I know??

Inaccurate....

Blogs are inaccurate. Wikipedia's inaccurate. History's inaccurate. Comments are inaccurate! Sufficiency's inaccurate. The world's inaccurate!!

...

Ha. What a sweet disposition.

An awful Christmas. Horrible Sickness. A failed attempt to leave life completely. And I choose now to start blogging again. Oh, why not? Why not blog again...something fun to do. I miss all my old friends. I miss writing about film. I miss writing period. I miss listening to myself type. I miss regurgitating Hollywood folklore into my own brand of inaccurate sufficiency.

I miss BEING HERE.

Anyway, it's New Year's Eve, so who cares what I miss.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!

And to you:

I hope you're wherever you want to be.

I hope you have no plans to leave anything completely.

And I hope you're always accurate, and choose your words wisely, so random anonymous strangers won't criticize you, and get you all fired-up, defensive, and slightly upset (then again, I'm always upset), but hell, it got me here, didn't it?

On New Year's Eve, just like I wanted.

It's a good time to start over.

A good time to come back.

_________________________

Poll Results (for) "What's your Favorite Dana Andrews Movie?"

2009-10-21T13:00:00.000-05:00

LAURA

18 (50%)

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

9 (25%)

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS

4 (11%)

FALLEN ANGEL

1 (2%)

THE OX-BOW INCIDENT

1 (2%)

[other title]

2 (5%)

I don't care for Dana Andrews.

1 (2%)

-- compulsively cleaning out my sidebar. Ignore me. ;)