Jim Nabors RIP

You know how Sergeant Carter would make Gomer do 50 or 100 push-ups? It bothered me for a time that Gomer Pyle could beat me up. I started doing push-ups. A friend of mine who had just been kicked out of the Marine Corps said it was easy. You just do 100 push-ups a day. Not all at once. You do as many as you can. Then you do more. And later you do more until you get to a hundred and, in a fairly short time, you'll be able to do a hundred all at once.

I got to where I could do thirty or forty and decided that was good enough.

He inspired me to be physically fit up to a point.

Jim Nabors has died at age 87.

Matt Lauer vs Brian Williams

I ate at a restaurant which I don't usually do. It was a place favored by elderly working class people. A couple sitting nearby were discussing Matt Lauer. The wife thought that The Today Show was the last people trusted, by which I think she meant that it wasn't blatantly biased as far as party politics went. They compared and contrasted Brian Williams with Matt Lauer. Would you rather have an abuser or a liar?

I should eat out more.

There was that one time I ate lunch at a Pizza Hut. A large extended family was eating there. Several tables were lined up. The family matriarch spoke in a European accent I couldn't identify. She said that all the places they lived had ghosts. One night, the family was in bed. They heard someone walk to the bathroom and close the door. They lay there waiting for them to come out and go back to bed, but no one came out again. Finally, one of them yelled, "Get out of the bathroom already so we can sleep!" But no one answered. Because it was a ghost!

Garrison Keillor

How Garrison Keillor might look while explaining that it was all a misunderstanding.

I read the New York Times article about this and looked at some of the comments.

The first one seemed kind of overwrought since the public knows almost nothing about it at this point:

I am disgusted by Mr. Keillor's flippant attitude and his attempt to belittle the allegations against him. My childhood memories of listening to APHC with my family have been forever tainted by this horrible, arrogant man. He and everyone else who is accused of misconduct has the right of self defense, but to just shrug his shoulders and proclaim this is a trivial matter is obscene, as is his mind, apparently.

Kudos to MPR for first investigating the allegations, then taking swift decisive action as they proved to have merit. "Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong." Ironic words, eh?

 And this one I found more interesting:

When my husband and I saw The Prairie Home Companion in one of its final NYC performances with Garrison Keillor, we couldn't believe how Keillor treated one of the female performers. He stood too close to her (she back away but he stepped forward again - not a pretty dance). He kept touching her: it was really creepy! She smiled up at him as she backed away, but he kept on coming. He even said something about being mad at her because she was married and wanted to spend time with her husband. No one laughed... but I overheard others in the audience calling what we witnessed harassment. It was ugly.

The first I heard of Keillor being canned was from my mother. She was bothered by it. There would soon be no men left!

I told her it was good. Let someone else have a turn.

She told me about the times she was harassed by a D-list celebrity, first around 1950, and the second time by the same guy a couple of years later. The first time, he put his hand on her and she knocked it away. The second time, he openly looked down her shirt (she was sitting and he was freakishly tall) and she said nothing because she and several other people were in his apartment and his wife was sitting right there.

This was a guy who, being six and a half feet tall, appeared in low budget horror movies and a number of oddball roles. He died in 1979 at age 50, poor wretch. He was in two pretty good movies and a lot of crap and had been president of Independent Film Producers of America.

Garrison Keillor? Are they kidding?

First off, Variety published an exclusive article on Matt Lauer. Read it here:

http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/matt-lauer-accused-sexual-harassment-multiple-women-1202625959/

I don't watch the Today Show. I know Matt Lauer mainly from the interview where Tom Cruise called him "glib".

Now Garrison Keillor has been canned by Minnesota Public Radio the day after he wrote a syndicated column pooh-poohing the suggestion that Al Franken resign. MPR isn't saying much about it, but according to AP:

The homegrown humorist told The Associated Press he was fired over “a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.” Keillor didn’t detail the allegation to AP, but he later told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he had put his hand on a woman’s bare back when trying to console her.

“I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness, and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized,” Keillor told the newspaper in an email. “I sent her an email of apology later, and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. 

“We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”

It's hard to imagine that's the whole story.

I usually cringe slightly when people---often people who are barely left of center---complain about "rich White males", but that's who it's been in these cases. If you're keeping track, it's been forty-five or fifty Whites, about half of them Jewish, plus one Black and one Japanese. I said before that I don't think the Japanese guy should be included---there was a single accusation which he denies and no one alleged he used any position of power to get away with it.

Matt Lauer, dangerous pervert

Matt Lauer and his mortified son, Jack.

The guy was paid $28 million a year. More than half a million dollars a week. He has a net worth of over $60 million. But no woman wanted him and he had to resort to sexual harassment. $28 million a year wasn't enough for him to act like a decent human being.

Matt Lauer has been fired from the Today Show. They're not saying for what exactly, but it was "inappropriate sexual behavior" in the workplace.

He appeared in two Sharknado movies along with Zionist sex criminals Anthony Weiner and Jared Fogle. A third victim of the Sharknado curse.

What did Lauer do that was worth $28 million a year?

He humiliated his son once already by regaling millions of viewers about trying to talk to the 15-year-old about sex. His son told him he already knew and thus avoided his father steering him into a life of sexual predation.

They may have fired him so quickly in part because they knew the New York Times had been investigating him for weeks. It's being reported that he sexually assaulted a staffer during the Sochi Olympics.

Are the sexual harassment accusations over?

Richard Branson is being accused of sexual harassment. Says he can't remember committing that particular sexual assault. He seems to be the only new guy to be accused. Maybe the wave of accusations has run its course.

I'm disappointed that Shia LaBeouf hasn't been accused as I said, and there are other wealthy celebrities I wouldn't mind being rid of. Tom Cruise, obviously. Jesse Eisenberg. James Franco, who tried to molest a high school girl. Seth Rogen. That ape of a comedian Joe Rogan. Clint Eastwood, for what he did to Sandra Locke. 

I don't think George Takei should have been included in this. He had no position of power to keep his alleged victim from telling on him.

Look at Andy Dick. He's worse than any of them, but he wasn't included because he's already washed up and no one hesitates to have him arrested. 

Dustin Diamond has disappeared completely after his criminal conviction. I never watched Saved by the Bell but I hated that guy. It must be because I identify with him too completely. Mocked, despised. I keep asking myself what I would do in his shoes. He looks awful. He's tried different facial hair. Maybe a wig would help. Glasses might distract from problem areas. He should experiment with different hats.

Notice there are no accusations against Woody Allen. They TRIED to drag him into it by attacking him for commenting on Weinstein's case but they couldn't do it.

Al Franken doesn't remember, but he's terribly sorry

Al Franken can't remember doing any of that stuff but can't rule it out. He can't remember every single photo someone took.

MURPHY: “Are they mistaken that their butt was grabbed is that what you are saying?”

FRANKEN: “I am not saying that. As I said, I take thousands of photos. I don’t remember these particular photos.”

MURPHY: “With all due respect, people are going to find it hard to believe that someone such as yourself wouldn’t know that they were grabbing someone’s butt.”

FRANKEN “I can understand how some people would see it that way.”

MURPHY: “But have you ever placed a hand on some woman’s butt?”

FRANKEN: “I can’t say that it hasn’t happened. In crowded chaotic situations, I can’t say that I have not done that. I am very sorry if these women experienced that.”

I don't know. Doesn't sound good, and he must know it doesn't sound good, but he may be able to bluff his way through with this double talk.

Well, if he can pull it off, good for him, I guess.

Nothing really new on the sexual harassment front

Nothing really new on the sexual harassment front over the Thanksgiving weekend. John Conyers resigned from whatever committee he was on and Al Franken announced he would return to work on Monday in spite of his shame.

I listened to Marc Maron's WTF podcast on YouTube, a 20 minute segment of a longer show. He discuses Louis CK who he was friends with. He had heard the rumors about CK and asked him about them. CK said they weren't true, but he didn't want to publicly deny they were true because that would only make it worse. Jon Stewart has claimed to be completely oblivious to it.

There was talk about it being an "open secret" but if no one actually tells you, how would you know?

Contrast that with J Elvis Weinstein who said that he read about the rumors and thought they were probably true. I never heard Louis CK perform, I never watched his show. I read about the rumors about him and assumed they were probably true, and if I had heard his comedy I would probably have been that much more convinced.

Lil Peep

This a rapper known as "Lil Peep" who died recently of an overdose.

Why do they cover themselves with tattoos? He also put crap all over his teeth. If his career hadn't worked out or went in a different direction, all that stuff would have been a terrible handicap.

This was his passport photo his mother posted. He was a lovely boy. It makes me sad that he did that to himself.

Night Moves (2013)

So, I watched this movie, Night Moves (2013), not to be confused with the 1975 detective film of the same name. Directed by Kelly Reichardt who's known for her really low budget movies. The movie had so many similarities to the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang that a producer working on an authorized adaptation of the book sued. 

Two environmentalists and a crusty old veteran blow up a dam in Oregon. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard.

I really hate Eisenberg. I can't stand his acting, I don't like his looks, I don't like his hair and by all accounts he's a horrible person. He was one of those borderline humans who enthused over Israel's 2014 slaughter of over 2,000 people in Gaza including at least 525 children. Maybe Reichardt thought an unappealing star would make it less likely that the movie would inspire copycat crimes, although they made it look pretty easy.

Once the crime is committed, we mainly see Jesse Eisenberg trying not to look suspicious, but Dakota Fanning's character has become wracked with guilt and may get them all arrested.

Slow but not boring. 

Available on Fandor.

Local teachers who've been in movies

There's this teacher at the local junior high school. He was friends with my brother when they were in high school. Turns out the guy has about eight credits listed on imdb. He wrote, directed and starred in one short film, appeared in couple of TV episodes and in acted in a few movies. I know he's appeared in movies that didn't get listed there.

I don't know how his students react when they find out that he's an actor.

In my day, we had a teacher who told us he had been in a movie over the summer. We might have been impressed or shown some interest, but this was in the first week of our first semester of high school. We didn't know who this guy was and we were in a large class of kids who didn't know each other. No one wanted to be the first to enthuse over the teacher's glamorous life.

He's in his 70's now. If he were still teaching, he could tell the class he was in a movie that was mocked on Rifftrax, the new incarnation of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Kids who knew what it was would be impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGweZgg_roA

He appears at the :55 second mark. The guy following behind the other guy.

Al Franken is a monster

Al Franken doing that thing with his mouth like Anthony Weiner.

Well, I'm shocked. A little. Al Franken is as bad George H.W. Bush. Two more women say he groped them while posing for photos.

From the Huffington Post:

“I shook his hand, and he put his arm around my waist and held it there,” the second woman said. “Then he moved it lower and cupped my butt.”

“I was completely mortified,” she added.

In order to escape the situation, the woman excused herself to go to the bathroom. At that point, she said, Franken leaned in and suggested that he accompany her. She grabbed her friend and fled to the bathroom without him.

The second woman told several people ― including one of the reporters for this story, Zachary Roth ― about the incident some years ago, but didn’t want it reported then. She said she didn’t tell anyone at the time of the incident because inappropriate behavior from men was not that unusual to her or her friends.

“Sexual harassment happens so often, you have to learn how to move on,” she said, describing her thinking at the time.

Several other factors also left her feeling powerless.

“I felt like I didn’t have a voice,” she said. “This man had all of the power, all of the authority. In addition, he is a white man and I am a woman of color. I was 21 years old. And I was afraid that he would use all of those privileges to discredit me, to make me feel even smaller than I already felt.”

Getting rid of Franken wouldn't be so bad. From counterpunch.com:

Just months ago Franken was one of three co-sponsors of the dangerous  Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2017. This bill looked to increase US interventionist powers. Franken has always been an enemy of the world’s people, even when he wooed liberal appeal at home. In the current political climate, imperialism and sexual harassment seem to be the only things we can count on.

What was glossed over in the extensive coverage of Franken’s harassment was that it occurred while he was performing comedy for the military abroad. Franken performed for the United Service Organization (USO) often. He was all for that stupid Iraq war.  Now might be a good time to talk about how imperialism and patriarchy are related. But we would rather just humiliate and eliminate the individual men who did these crimes than do anything to change our collective culture of violence.

How many people are there walking around groping strangers? Is this a common thing? One time, they showed security video on the news of employees chasing down and tackling a groper in a department store. In the local news, a guy who had the same name as a guy I once worked with was chased down by a university student and arrested for groping a college girl. Later, the student who made the citizen's arrest was arrested for the same thing.

"Do you know who I am?" he told the cops.

Is Shia LaBeouf through?

Intelligent-looking Shia LaBeouf  shouting racist abuse at cops.

I kept hoping there would be a wave of sexual harassment accusations against Shia LaBeouf so we'd finally be rid of him completely, but he may be finished anyway. A news search revealed a few foreign language stories about that Swedish tennis player movie but that was all.

Someone pointed out the way LaBeouf would operate. Every time he did something that would damage his career, he would back off and do some of his terrible performance "art". His latest "art" was having people chanting an anti-Trump slogan for as long as he was president.

In 1921, artist Franz Jung, a Dadaist, hijacked a German ship to the Soviet Union. Now THAT was performance art.

But LaBeouf would do his crap "art", get the Democrats and progressives sort of on his side, then go back into acting. He'd make another movie, rake in more money, then commit some other crime and go back to performance art.

But, thank God for body cams. Georgia police seem to have snuffed out LaBeouf's career. I hope it stays dead.

The movie he was filming in Georgia will bomb worse than expected. What did they think would happen? They hired a violent recidivist criminal to star in a movie that didn't sound very good to begin with.

Turns out Charlie Rose is a pervert

Now Charlie Rose? He seemed so dignified. I heard he kept interrupting people and I noticed this watching his show one time, but I didn't watch it regularly.

Rose employed a lot of young women behind the scenes on his show. They became known as "Charlies Angels".

According to the Washington Post:

Most of the women said Rose alternated between fury and flattery in his interactions with them. Five described Rose putting his hand on their legs, sometimes their upper thigh, in what they perceived as a test to gauge their reactions. Two said that while they were working for Rose at his residences or were traveling with him on business, he emerged from the shower and walked naked in front of them. One said he groped her buttocks at a staff party.
 
Reah Bravo was an intern and then associate producer for Rose’s PBS show beginning in 2007. In interviews, she described unwanted sexual advances while working for Rose at his private waterfront estate in Bellport, N.Y., and while traveling with him in cars, in a hotel suite and on a private plane.

I learned about this the way I get a lot of news. I looked at Twitter, J Elvis Weinstein had tweeted "Charlie Rose but now he falls".

I thought, "Uh oh. I wonder what that's about."

I did a quick news search and sure enough.

Rose interviewing Bibi Netanyahu

One more Al Franken accuser

 
He's no Bill Clinton, but Al Franken has again been accused of harassment or sexual assault---I don't know what the criminal charge would be.

A woman claims Franken gave her the ol' George Bush treatment as her husband took a picture of them together at the Minnesota State Fair.

CNN reports:

...as her husband held up her phone and got ready to snap a photo of the two of them, Franken "pulled me in really close, like awkward close, and as my husband took the picture, he put his hand full-fledged on my rear," Menz said. "It was wrapped tightly around my butt cheek."

"I take thousands of photos at the state fair surrounded by hundreds of people, and I certainly don't remember taking this picture," Franken said. "I feel badly [sic] that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected."

I suppose it's possible that a third person---isn't this a gag they used in old movies?---a third individual grabbed the woman's buttock and she assumed it was Al Franken doing it. And her husband taking the picture somehow failed to notice.

Many years ago, I was in a Safeway. There was a rack of books from a Christian publisher. I stood there reading a "treasury" of clean jokes. One of the jokes was a preschool girl was very proud of her shiny new shoes. She and her mother got on an elevator. A man and a woman were on the elevator with them. Suddenly the woman slapped the man and they began shouting at each other. Then the girl and her mother got off the elevator and the girl says that that lady scuffed her shoe so she reached up and pinched her bottom. 

The joke wasn't as clean as I'd like.

Charles Manson no longer alive

Charles Manson, dead of natural causes at 83. He was raped in reform school when he was 12, but I don't think that's what his problem was.

I finally heard one of his songs and it was just crap.

I don't remember ever hoping for his death, but I feel pretty good about it. If I never see another prison interview with him again it will be too soon.

Is there a coming backlash on sex abuse claims?

People are worried that there will be a backlash against the wave of sexual harassment accusations. I don't know if there will be. This may not make a difference, but I can't see that the standard of proof has changed. Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Louis CK had multiple accusers and have more or less admitted what they did. Roy Moore is obviously a pervert. Cases with less evidence or where there wasn't a larger pattern of abuse get less response.

In defense of Kevin Spacey on a minor point, I didn't think he was trying to divert attention when he came out as gay at the same time he made his apology to Anthony Rapp. I don't think he was conflating homosexuality and pedophilia or trying to hide behind being gay. He (sort of) apologized for something he said he didn't remember doing. He needed to explain why he didn't remember doing it but still thought it was something he might do if he were really drunk.

And I mentioned this briefly before----in his roast of Rob Reiner, Al Franken listed gay men and men rumored to be gay and jokes that they raped Reiner when he was a child. Most anti-gay comments are in joke form, so this being said as a joke doesn't make it any better. Franken conflated homosexuality with child rape and it didn't seem to bother anyone.

How was that an attack on Rob Reiner anyway? How was it roasting him to say he was molested as a child? How was it a joke? What was the punchline?

I decided a few years ago that I should be more moralistic. Not moral, just moralistic. I was moral enough. But I was tired of being open-minded, of pretending not to be offended by things that were intentionally offensive. I feel much better as a result.

Maybe Al Franken's not so bad after all

So far so good. No new Al Franken accusers. Maybe the elderly Minnesota millionaire will pull through.

Democrats who have their panties in a bunch over Donald Trump staying out of Vietnam---he couldn't be drafted due to bone spurs---might note that Al Franken, who supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the massive US and NATO bombing of Libya, kept his brother from being drafted by helping him lose so much weight that he was rendered 4-F, which is fine with me. Franken wrote about this in Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.

If Trump had bone spurs, he was prone to problems like tendonitis. The military had pretty good reason for not wanting him (assuming his condition was real.) Having trouble walking would be a serious handicap in combat.

It's rich people like John McCain, who WANTED to join the slaughter in Vietnam to advance his career, who I can't stomach.

Alabama high school helped Roy Moore prey on children

 
There was a really ghastly murder case in the 1920s. I won't go into detail. It was in Los Angeles. A young man was fired from his job at a bank when he was caught embezzling money. He decided to kidnap the banker's daughter and hold her for ransom. So he went to the girl's school.

He told the people in the office that the banker had been in an accident and was dying, and he wanted to see his daughter before he died.

They asked which one? He had two daughters.

He didn't know her name, but it was the younger one.

They told him the girls were twins--they were the same age.

So he said to just give him whichever one was smaller and, shockingly, the school handed her over to him.

I'll end the story there. School officials didn't think it was strange that the dying father wanted to see one twin daughter and not the other? That this guy didn't know her name? They couldn't pick up the phone and make a call?

I was reminded of this hearing about Roy Moore, the hyper-religious right-wing Alabama politician who was removed from the state supreme court twice. Turns out the guy has a history going after girls as young as fourteen. When he was a lawyer in his 30's, he was known for hitting on teenage girls in a shopping mall.

He asked a high school girl working at Sears what school she went to. She told him. He asked for her phone number. She didn't give it to him.

But a few days later, she was sitting in class at school. She was called to the office. She had a phone call. It was Roy Moore. The school called her to the office to take an obscene phone call from a sexual predator.

Moore told Sean Hannity that he MIGHT have dated teenagers when he was in his 30s----he can't remember, but he sure wouldn't rule it out.

Moore still has his supporters. Some think it's all a left-wing conspiracy. Others told reporters that the Devil is trying to bring him down. How do they know God isn't trying to stop him?

The guy who kidnapped that girl in the 1920s had a defender, too. Ayn Rand was going to write a book about him. He was a crude Nietzschean like she was, and Rand was outraged that an Übermensch would be judged by ordinary people on a jury.

Al Franken stinks

Another hilarious Al Franken gag photo.

I never thought much of Al Franken on Saturday Night Live. He was known for bad taste. Older writers referred to him an Tom Davis as those guys who wanted to say "fart" on TV. (They can say that on TV now and it's not the boon Franken thought it would be.)

Politically, he's a right-wing Democrat. He's a Zionist, defends and supports Israel's ongoing crime against the people of Gaza, he supported the invasion of Iraq, the destruction of Libya and he supports mass government surveillance. Now he's a neo-McCarthyite. He went to an elite prep school and was a Harvard boy.

If he resigns, good riddance to him.

In fairness to Franken, in the '30's or '40's, the comedy team The Ritz Brothers were traveling by train. Their manager was with them and he fell asleep. So the zany Ritz Brothers gave him a "hot foot". If you had been that manager, would you have rather had a second degree burn on your foot or have those morons take pictures pretending to molest you in your sleep?

Franken is not as bad as The Ritz Brothers. At least not in that regard. I'm not aware of the Ritz Brothers calling for mass surveillance or the destruction of entire societies.

I was going to put a picture of a pediatric burn ward in Gaza here, but I couldn't.

George HW Bush again

The picture above is of the Wiggles, a children's band from Australia. See what they're doing? All pointing both hands at the camera? You know why they do that? It's so that, when they're photographed with children, no one can accuse them of touching them inappropriately.

It's something that women and girls appearing in photos with George Bush, Sr, should insist on.

Another woman has accused George HW Bush of groping her while posing for a photo. This was in 1992, when Bush was in his 60s. Now that he's in his 90s and rolling around in a wheelchair, people assume he's too senile to know any better. He wasn't senile then, was he?

Al Franken sexually assaulted woman on USO tour

Al Franken confirms he sexually assaulted woman.

Now right-wing millionaire and Democratic Senator Al Franken has been forced to apologize for sexually assaulting shiksa radio anchor Leeann Tweeden on a USO tour.

Tweeden wrote, "He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth."

Politico.com reports:

According to Tweeden, Franken crafted a performance skit during the trip to make the anchor kiss him against her will. “I felt disgusted and violated,” she said of the incident. “I tried to let it go, but I was angry.”

Tweeden wrote that it wasn’t until she returned from the overseas trip that she discovered a picture of the senator groping her as she slept.

Tweeden’s allegations were published Thursday on the radio station’s website accompanied by a picture depicting Franken grabbing the anchor’s breast while she slept aboard a C-17 cargo plane as they departed from Afghanistan.

In a statement, Franken said, "I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann. As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn't. I shouldn't have done it."

Franken has called himself a "DLC Democrat" referring to the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council. He co-sponsored Senate Resolution 498 which supported the 2014 Israeli massacre of over 2,100 Palestinians in Gaza.

There's been talk about Al Franken running for president. The Forward ran an article suggesting that Franken could be the first Jewish president.

No. I don't think he can.

Newsweek quickly threw together an article on Franken. They quote him from a roast of Rob Reiner. He jokes about Reiner's father, Carl Reiner, raping his son and having his friends over to rape him:

“On a typical night, Carl would slip into Rob’s bed, roll him over, swab him down and say something like, ‘I’m thinking about hiring Morey Amsterdam to play Buddy Sorrell, what do you think? Well, the success of The Dick Van Dyke Show changed things dramatically. Carl started inviting many of his famous friends to fuck his son. That list includes some of the greats in comedy: Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Rip Taylor, Danny Kaye, Charles Nelson Reilly and Rock Hudson—whom I frankly don’t think is that funny.”

You remember all that fuss about Kevin Spacey? Here Franken was joking about gay and seemingly gay men as child rapists.

There's lots more, but that'll do it for now.

Thought Spiral #28, why you shouldn't go to Hollywood

Listened to Thought Spiral Test Show #28. 

Comedian Andy Kindler talks about how he got discouraged as a musician, in part because negative feedback affected him far more than he realized. Kindler came to L.A. when he was twenty as he pursued a career in music.

I've transcribed part of this as accurately as I could. It seems much more fluent listening to it than reading it.

J Elvis Weinstein

Josh Weinstein said:

"...but that's every twenty- or twenty-one-year-old who's pursuing something--and especially--you came to L.A. to do it which...that to me seems, like, almost insurmountable. You know, and even though my wife started in L.A. and got a record deal, you know, but it's still like--it doesn't seem, you know---it's like, because I come from Minneapolis where there's a local scene, you know, and people become sort of local heroes before they, you know, build their audience and get that self-confidence in a world that's more supportive than L.A. where you're gonna feel like you suck most of the time, you know, in any pursuit."

Kindler said, "Well, I think the advantage for me was, when I came out to L.A. and I drove cross country and I was in a relationship like I couldn't stand--it was just a terrible drive, but it was a great drive, too, I really wanted---I didn't come out to L.A. to make a music career, I came out to L.A. to feel bad about what I did in another environment. You know what I mean? Why not be by the beach and hate yourself? And---"

"So it was just like, 'I want to live in L.A.'"

Andy Kindler

It's so strange to me that people go to New York and Los Angeles hoping to hit it big instead of pursuing success someplace that a person might actually want to live.

Of course, they both moved to Los Angeles when they were about 20 and did pretty well. 

Someone who did something smart was a girl who was into beauty pageants. She moved to Wyoming because the population was so small and the competition so limited, she easily became Miss Wyoming World and got into the Miss USA pageant. She didn't win. She was first or second runner-up. If the winner had quit in disgrace, she would have been Miss USA and would have had a shot at becoming Miss Universe. She later turned out to be dangerously deranged.

I say go someplace easy.

Weinstein comments that some people are "super talented" but aren't driven to succeed. Some people aren't very talented but do have the drive to succeed. The ones who are highly talented and highly driven are the ones who always succeed.

The highly talented ones with a drive to succeed can fend for themselves. The ones we need to worry about are the untalented but driven and the talented but undriven. They're the ones who need to find a place where the competition is less fierce. Like Toronto with its thriving movie and television industries. Israel is a horrible country controlled by murderous inbred racists, but they have their own TV and movie industry. You'd have to be chosen by God, but how much competition would you have there? If only Monaco had a movie industry.

Something to practice in front of a mirror

Donald Trump is being mocked for stopping to drink water during a speech in Asia, and it did look pretty stupid. He shouldn't have mocked Marco Rubio for his water-drinking fiasco. He should have taken as a cautionary tale.

I thought that Rubio should have picked the water bottle up and casually unscrewed the cap as he spoke, then taken a drink when he had a pause in the speech. They do this with inexperienced actors---give them something to do with their hands. It makes them look more natural. As I said at the time, that water bottle could have been Rubio's salvation. Instead, he looked like an idiot.

Anthony Weiner wants cards and letters?

 
I've heard that people sign up on Twitter in hopes of being able to communicate with celebrities. It doesn't work. Writing to your favorite stars in prison would be a better bet. Sadly, there aren't that many celebrities in prison.

The New York Post reports that Anthony Weiner's email "away message" gives instructions for writing to him behind bars.

The message reads:

I'll be away for a while but I would love to stay in touch. As quaint as it may sound, the best way to reach me is by sending me a letter. When you write, I'll get you information about how email might work. 

So please include you full mailing address here and of course include it when you write.
And although you didn't ask, yes, you may send me books via Amazon. (No crock-pots or washer/dryers, though.) 

My address is: 

ANTHONY WEINER - Register # 79112-054
FMC DEVINS
FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER
P.O.BOX 879
AYER, MA 01432 

In gratitude, Anthony

He seems pretty cheerful about it after making a fool of himself sobbing in court.

The message was intended for people who have his email address. I don't know that he's inviting just anyone to write him a nice letter.

As I said, it was published in the New York Post. Few enough people read this blog that I'm not adding much to the potential deluge of mail to the Federal Medical Center.

You might check google about the dangers of being pen pals with a sex offender.

George HW Bush groped high school girl

"As soon as the picture was being snapped on the one-two-three he dropped his hands from my waist down to my buttocks and gave it a nice, ripe squeeze, which would account for the fact that in the photograph my mouth is hanging wide open," Roslyn Corrigan told reporters describing how George HW Bush groped her in 2003 when she was only 16 and he was only 79. 

You look at him now in his 90's and you think, well, maybe he's senile. He groped that actress recently. He must be demented.

But he was a spry 79-years-young then. 

Anthony Weiner doesn't seem so bad now, does he?

Now it's Lars von Trier's production company

Lars von Trier. Should have shaved before taping his mouth.

Not going to say much, but it's spreading. Actresses in India are complaining about sexual harassment now and Lars von Trier's production company, Zentropa, perhaps unsurprisingly considering everything, has been accused by nine women of fostering an environment or bullying and sexual harassment. They haven't accused Trier himself of anything, but the co-founded has been spanking and groping women.

http://variety.com/2017/film/global/lars-von-triers-production-company-zentropa-accused-of-allowing-sexual-harassment-and-bullying-1202613362/

Andy Kindler, early opponent of Louis CK

Just two links. Andy Kindler appears in a vice.com article by a reporter who was shut down in 2015 trying to report on the rumors now proven true about Louis CK

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evbggm/i-got-shut-down-while-trying-to-report-on-the-louis-ck-rumors

And a clip from his State of the Industry Addresses, apparently from 2012. He attacks CK for his dick and masturbation jokes, and something about the Emperor's New Clothes, which could all be taken as comment on what were then rumors about him: 

 http://allthingscomedy.com/contents/519/17-andy-kindler-has-strong-feelings-about-louis-ck-podcast

Paul McCartney rumor

Paul McCartney was once a hairy, hairy man. I read that there are rumors that he got rid of his beard through electrolysis. If this is true it was a terrible mistake. Growing a beard, or even stubble, is a safe, affordable alternative to a facelift. Ringo looks like a million covered with stubble which he seems to have somehow dyed.

Paul apparently had a nose job. He had his nose made smaller which feminized his appearance, and without a beard he looks like an old lady, especially after his hair transplant. Looking at him now, it's hard to believe he once battered his pregnant wife. Didn't stop him from getting a knighthood.

All the Beatles were rather violent. Probably from attending those horrible English schools with the bullying and the caning.

Fashion tips

I've seen this with men. As you age and put on weight, don't continue wearing clingy knit polo shirts. I've seen formerly athletic guys who wear these after they've gotten flabby. They look down and are horrified that their shirts have ridden up over their bloated stomachs, so they quickly tuck their shirt in, then the fabric is straining against their flab and looks terrible.

Wear button down shirts and don't tuck them in. An untucked shirt can conceal ill-fitting pants whether they're too small and can't be buttoned or too big and are all bunched up at the top.

Beards can cover your aging appearance and draw attention away from dental problems.

A beret is the poor man's toupee. If you wear a hat but have a full head of hair, casually remove and adjust your hat while talking to new people so they won't assume you're bald.

Richard Dreyfus, George Takei now

Is this the face of a predator?

It all made sense when it started. Harvey Weinstein was a monster. As someone said, he never did ANYTHING consensually. It'd be shocking if he WEREN'T a rapist.

There were already rumors about Kevin Spacey and Louis CK and there were those two scumbag Zionist directors, Toback and Ratner.

Richard Dreyfuss gushed over how proud he was of his son for telling about the time that Kevin Spacey touched him in his bathing suit area. George Takei attacked Spacey for "coming out" as gay in the same statement in which he apologized for climbing on top of a 14-year-old boy thirty years ago.

But now Dreyfuss stands accused of exposing himself to Jessica Teich who said that he had harassed her for months and George Takei has been accused of throwing himself at a former (male) model in the 1980s. Dreyfuss kind of admits it. Takei denies it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-sexual-misconduct-george-takei-richard-dreyfuss-gary-goddard-20171111-story.html

Now Louis CK

Louis CK is all washed up. Probably. Anyone who was interested could read the rumors that he liked to force women to watch him masturbate, but the New York Times has finally run an article that interviewed his victims and named names.

He just made a movie, I Love You, Daddy, apparently an attack on Woody Allen which will likely be shelved as a result.

So this wave of sex scandals has actually benefited Woody Allen, strangely enough. In reports about Harvey Weinstein, they kept listing other Hollywood sex scandals repeating the disproven accusation that Allen molested his adopted daughter. Allen was then attacked for his comment about Weinstein, that Weinstein was a sick sad man and that he hoped it wouldn't turn into a "witch hunt", which isn't a surprising concern from a man who has been the target of a demonstrably false accusation for the last thirty years.

Of course, MOST people who commented on the Weinstein case were attacked for it. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck. Mayim Bialik. Some clothes designer I never heard of. Some attacks entirely justified, some less so perhaps. You had to denounce Weinstein in exactly the right way.

So, what will Louis CK do now? He could go back to using his real name, Szekely, maybe work behind the scenes as a comedy writer, as long as other people didn't have to be around him.

I watched an episode of his show, probably on Netflix, and it didn't grab me. I heard an interview with him on Fresh Air on public radio and didn't like him, and I heard comedian Andy Kindler attack him in his State of the Industry Address (find it on YouTube).

I wrote on here asking what wealthy movie directors would do if they were unable to get money to continue making big budget (or relatively big budget) movies. Would they go to zero budget movies filmed on prosumer equipment? Even in disgrace, it seems like CK would be in a far better position to go on making movies than most people. He'll still have a following. Look at the people defending him in the comments sections on the internet. And it doesn't seem like shame or public humiliation would be a problem for a man who likes strangers to watch him masturbate.

Spacey's Nazi father

Danny Lanzetta and Kevin Spacey, 1991

House of Cards ought to just bring in a new guy, a Dick Sargent so to speak. There must be someone who vaguely looks or sounds like Kevin Spacey. It would be a nice gig for someone, and it's not like viewers would be mad at him for replacing their favorite star.

Spacey came from a terrible family. His father was a Nazi who raped his older brother for years. I don't want to think about it. Read about it here.

I don't know if he was warped by his childhood or if he inherited his father's horrible Nazi genes. But rehab sure wouldn't hurt anything. Spacey reportedly checked into the same place as Harvey Weinstein.

Horrible German form of execution

I started to watched a movie called Four Just Men (UK, 1939). A group of World War One veterans go around fighting crime and Nazis.

But I got distracted by the opening scene. It starts with the Germans about to execute some British spies in 1918.

"What? No! That can't be right!" I thought.

They were going to chop their heads off with a big axe. I know the Germans had their version of a guillotine which the Nazis used to kill thousands and thousands of people. But an axe? Where would they even find anyone willing to do that?

I googled it. I knew I shouldn't have. All kinds of horrible things come up.

It was only after World War One that the German government ended the practice of chopping people's heads off with axes, but the Nazis brought it back. The last execution by axe in Germany was in 1935. 82 years ago. There could be some 100-year-old German walking around right now who remembers participating in the execution as an 18-year-old recruit.

Was Malia Obama a victim?

 
Back in January it was reported that Obama's daughter, Malia, landed an internship with serial rapist Harvey Weinstein.

https://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2017/01/20/Report-Malia-Obama-to-intern-for-Harvey-Weinstein/5171484930818/

I hope to heck she had Secret Service protection.

Weinstein got advice from Ehud Barak

Receiving award from the right-wing Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The fact that serial rapist Harvey Weinstein is a devout Zionist played a direct role in the sex scandal.

The Guardian reports that it was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak who directed Weinstein to the Tel Aviv-based company "Black Cube", made up of former Israeli intelligence agents, to gather information to discredit and intimidate the women Weinstein raped.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/08/ex-israeli-pm-introduced-weinstein-to-agents-who-suppressed-abuse-allegations

From the article:

“Over a year ago, Barak was asked by Harvey Weinstein if he knew an Israeli company he had heard of, that was capable of helping him with business issues he had. Barak confirmed to [Weinstein] the company he heard of was likely Black Cube,” a spokesperson for Barak said in a statement.

Harvey Weinstein hired Israeli agents to attack his victims

Ronan Farrow's New Yorker article on Weinstein hiring former Israeli Mossad agents to spy on and intimidate his victims:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies

It reports that Weinstein hired them through a law firm so their activities would be covered by attorney-client privilege. The same thing came up recently with the reports on how the DNC used an attorney to pay for the apparently phony Trump dossier because they wanted to keep the fact that they paid for it a secret.

You ever want to keep stuff secret, do it through a lawyer.

Anthony Weiner: We can all relax

Anthony Weiner arrives at prison.

A black Mercedes hatchback with Florida plates dropped sinewy Zionist pedophile Anthony Weiner off at prison at 10:45 eastern time. Who does he know from Florida? [It was his brother, Jason] The car drove away ten minutes later.

I guess they'll give him "treatment" for being a sex pervert. They should teach him a trade. He'll be unemployable in his current field when he gets out.

The New York Post reports that Weiner spent Sunday holed up in his apartment. His father went out for coffee and they spent five hours together.

Inmates in the prison include Peter Madoff who helped his brother, Bernie, steal billions. I wonder if the place has a gym.

Somewhere in the prison.

Dustin Hoffman: Worse than I ever dared imagine

I never liked his hair.

There's an article in The Express Tribune about Dustin Hoffman. It's a Pakistani newspaper, so, happily, this news is spreading world-wide.

"Graham Hunter’s account has prompted a new examination of Hoffman’s reputation within Hollywood," the article says. "The unsettling thing about his alleged brand of creepiness is that much of it was not even an open secret—it was simply open."

Graham Hunter was the woman who reported being sexually harassed and assaulted by Hoffman when she was a 17-year-old intern.

The article focuses on Meryl Streep's statements about Hoffman over the years.

The article quotes a 1979 Time magazine article in which Streep described her first meeting with Hoffman:

“He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin—burp—Hoffman,’ and he put his hand on my breast,” Streep said. “What an obnoxious pig, I thought.” Hoffman doesn’t appear to have responded publicly to this claim from Streep in the years since the interview.

 Streep’s story echoes Hoffman’s own account of “very gently” pinching his Graduate co-star Katharine Ross’ rear end during their first screen test. He did it, he said in a 1992 interview, “as a way to help loosen us up.”

...
“I’m a flirt,” the actor told Peoplemagazine in a 1983 cover story. “I also have a lot of chauvinism, a lot of womanizing in my past. It’s hard for me to find a woman unattractive, unless she’s angry or down on herself.” 

He once told Playboy that he lost his virginity at 15 to a 20-year-old “nymphomaniac” when he pretended, in a darkened room, to be his older brother, Ronny. 

The hagiographic 1982 biography Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood’s Antihero rounds up several disturbing anecdotes as evidence that Hoffman is a known “womanizer”: 

Even Dustin has admitted on occasion that he loves to flirt, claiming that he does it as an involuntary reflex. He has supposedly cornered women in elevators to solicit sex and has even unzipped one woman reporter’s blouse to peek down her chest during an interview. He tries to catch himself, but finds it difficult to overcome the temptation. 

...

Just to be clear: Allegedly unzipping a reporter’s blouse during an interview, cornering presumably unwilling women to ask for sex, tricking a woman into having sex with you by pretending to be someone else, and grabbing your co-workers’ breasts and asses are not examples of “flirting.” 

I didn't especially like Dustin Hoffman before this. The more times I sat through Kramer vs Kramer the less I liked him. With the onset of middle age, I stopped liking The Graduate which was pretty much a standard romantic comedy/stalker film, but one in which the girl's entire family is left shattered. I liked Straw Dogs and I didn't hate Marathon Man, but not because of him.

Tootsie was overrated, my hatred of Tom Cruise distorted my perception of Rain Man, I didn't like Straight Time. Ishtar was good but I'll have to reassess my feelings about All the President's Men.

For years I didn't like Walter Brennan. I felt guilty about it. He couldn't help what he looked like or sounded like. Then I found out he backed George Wallace for president. I relaxed and freely hated him. I think it'll be the same with Dustin Hoffman now.
 

Anthony Weiner heads for prison in the morning

 
Today's the last day of freedom for Anthony Weiner. Tomorrow, he checks into Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts. They have treatment there for sex offenders.

There's still time. He can chicken out and make a run for it. But he has a rather distinctive appearance. You'd have to have pretty bad case of face blindness not to recognize him.

Director rushes to Dustin Hoffman's Defense

Volker Schlöndorff, a major figure in New German Cinema, has come to Dustin Hoffman's defense. Schlöndorff, 78, directed Hoffman in the made-for-TV version of Death if a Salesman. A woman who worked on that movie when she was seventeen-years-old reported that she was harassed by Hoffman. The director said he was just trying to help her relax.  

I welcome the #MeToo campaign and do not want to sound dismissive of what I consider a serious cause. However, one should not smear, tar and feather indistinctively every male around. Calling Dustin Hoffman a predator is simply going too far. I hope this fades away.  

It’s plain silly. Just watch Christian Blackwood’s wonderful documentary “Private Conversations” on the making of DOAS [“Death of a Salesman”] to check what a kidder Dustin was on the set, at all times, with everybody. Standard Monday morning question was indeed: “Did you have good sex over the weekend?” A joke, a running gag, everybody laughed at [it]. 

Foot massage? Yes indeed, he was 16 hours standing on the set (as he never sat down), so he was tired, and, besides, there is a line in the play about it: “These arch supports are killing me.” Dustin Hoffman, ever method acting, made it his own. Everybody gave him a foot massage now and then, on the set, amidst the chaos, nothing ambiguous about it. 

As to the joke who was going to get Warren Beatty, only a teenager in her unlimited fantasy could take it seriously. Slapping her butt on the way to the car, with driver, stage manager and PAs [production assistants] around, may have happened, but again in a funny way, nothing lecherous about it. He was a clown, it was part of the way we portrayed Willy Loman as well — but he never played the power play. He was teasing the young, nervous interns, mostly to make them feel included on the set, treating them as equals to all the senior technicians. She may have got it wrong, confiding it to her diary then, but as a grown-up 30 years later she should know that his was no “sexual harassment,” and not call him a “predator.” 

In her innermost, she must know that this teasing was not to put her down, but to make her relax with all these celebrities around. She had a self-assured playful way herself. If he knew that she would be upset when he was teasing her, he wouldn’t have done it. Not the sensitive man he was, and still is. I wish Arthur Miller was around, he would find the right words, but then he might get accused of sexually molesting Marilyn Monroe.

Why bring Arthur Miller into it? He was married to Marilyn Monroe. Why would he be accused of molesting her? I thought Miller was a jerk for insisting that she convert to Judaism. Why would anyone think they were entitled to tell their spouse what their religion was going to be?

So, maybe Dustin Hoffman was just a very nice man, a very nice man who later slapped Meryl Streep in the face and demanded a playwright sleep with him before he would adapt her play into a movie.