You think there really is more obesity?

Well, so, Christmas came late for us. My family was a bit scattered, celebrating with in-laws and grandchildren in one case and creating a home-like environment for local jazz musicians in another. It was the morning after our Xmas that my brother railed against processed foods. It was the cause of mass obesity in the United States!

I disagreed. "Look at Tarzan," I told him. Johnny Weissmuller gradually getting flabbier. Or Elmo Lincoln, the fat guy who was the first movie Tarzan, (actually the second or third Tarzan since baby Tarzan and pre-teen Tarzan appeared in the same movie before him.) Lincoln really was an ape man, I told them. They had to shave his body hair for the movie.

Then there was the old serial Darkest Africa featuring chubby Manuel King as Baru the Jungle Boy.

Are people really more obese now, or were fat people considered healthy-looking back then? Women were more curvaceous up until the British Invasion. British youth, rendered dangerously thin by wartime rationing that continued into the 1950s, came to the US and people wanted to be willowy like them. But there was a time when big fat guys looked strong.

via GIPHY

By the way, they've started a new thing to make actors look more muscular. They discovered that, rather than making them build up more muscle, it was easier to get them to lose body fat. They're no more muscular than they used to be, but now they look sinewy and all their muscles are visible.

Look at old pictures of Charles Atlas. He didn't even have visible stomach muscles. It's because he wasn't some kind of freak with no body fat.

Acting for a Living: How to Act Outside Hollwood by Roy McCrerey

I bought this book for my sister-in-law for Xmas. She's working as an actor in Portland, Oregon. Recently, she's done two movies and a commercial.

I read half the book before I wrapped it up for her, and it was interesting. It argues that you can earn a pretty good living as an actor if you have to good sense to stay out of New York and Hollywood.

Every major city has production companies---they all produce commercials, industrial films, have local theater, there's local movie production and now states give tax breaks luring Hollywood productions to their cities. They all need actors, and there's not a glut of them like there is in Hollywood.

The author McCrerey said he had a much easier time landing roles in Atlanta than he did in New York, the gigs actually paid about the same and Atlanta had a lower cost of living.

He mentions one case---who knows if this is true, but there was an actress in some remote area in the South. There was a single production company in the area. But she was the only actor who lived around there so she starred in every one of their productions and earned a nice living.

In Hollywood, the younger you are, the greater your chances to succeed. Outside Hollywood, people often take up acting when they're older. There's some old guy here, a former realtor, who I keep seeing in commercials.

I don't know much about acting. I know that acting schools are often very bad. There was a bit of acting advice he gave that I found interesting---the author said to read a lot, preferably aloud. I suppose it lets you practice sounding natural while uttering other people's words. Other than that, he seemed to think you can get along fine without training. Just act natural.

I've been telling people to head North instead of South. Go to Canada, not Hollywood. I don't know if this is actually good advice---I don't know what the movie and TV industries are like up there now. It's not that easy to immigrate to Canada. But no one listens to me anyway so I feel I have total freedom in giving advice.

It seems like Hollywood or New York offer only massive success or utter failure. The odds against you in either place seem almost insurmountable. I've never understood musicians or comedians who think they have to go there. Every city has a music scene.

Robert Altman started as a director making industrial films in Kansas City, Missouri, his home town. A local businessman hired him to direct a feature called The Delinquents which was released by United Artists.

Max Landis, obviously a rapist

He doesn't look like a rapist.

We got us another one. Max Landis. Son of child-killer/director John Landis who has reportedly been covering up his son's sex crimes.

John Landis, you may recall, directed a segment of The Twilight Zone movie. He included a scene where actor Vic Morrow carried two kindergarteners in the middle of the night under a helicopter hovering overhead with explosions going off around them. Landis decided that the best way to film this would be to have Vic Morrow try to carry two kindergarteners under a hovering helicopter with explosions going off around them in the middle of the night. The helicopter crashed on top of them killing all three.

John Landis had the bad taste to show up at Vic Morrow's funeral:

A thin, bearded man was coming down the aisle, seemingly unable to walk without assistance. He was supported by a woman and another man (Mrs. John Landis and George Folsey, Jr., the production manager of the "Twilight Zone" movie). The bearded staggerer was "Twilight Zone" director, John Landis.

His stooges helped him to the lectern and he began a rambling eulogy --unplanned, unrequested, unwanted and shocking to Vic's family and friends. His mere presence at the funeral was offensive to them. He did this, presumably, on the advice of his attorney.

The most obnoxious remark he made, among many, was that he was "proud to have directed Vic in what Vic, himself, considered the best performance of his career."

John Landis was charged with manslaughter but got away with it. He was acquitted. This was in 1982. The public was so offended that a movie director could get away with murder that prosecutors began a crackdown on celebrities in Hollywood.

According to the Daily Beast

John Landis's son, Max, is now a screenwriter of sorts. According to The Daily Beast:

Netflix’s first blockbuster movie, the $90 million fantasy-actioner Bright, is a steaming pile of orc shit; a nonsensical garbage pile featuring elves, orcs, a checked-out Will Smith, Chicanx gangster stereotypes worse than those regrettable “Homies” figurines (a trademark of its director David Ayer), and a slow-motion shootout set to Bastille...

You might want to just read The Daily Beast article since that's all I'm quoting here. They report that women on social media are making allegations against Max Landis:

Written by a psychopath who sexually abused and assaults women, right? Cool

— Anna Akana (@AnnaAkana) December 22, 2017

Sometimes men who commit sexual assault are talented screenwriters and their work comes with baggage.
other times, they’re Max Landis.

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

Folks were mad that a Pepe Le Pew movie was being made because who needs a movie about a rapist skunk but at least it meant max landis could switch from cringe fiction to finally writing his autobiography and writing what he knows

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

It probably has been an open secret for so long because it’s hard to talk about the seriously fucked up shit he’s done when you say his name and everyone within earshot has to seek medical care from reflexively rolling their eyes so hard they sprain. you can’t control it.

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

I’ve been holding in this shit for years as more friends have accrued “max landis stories” bc it wasn’t my place and him & his dad are powerful figures so naturally going against that is terrifying for survivors so I’m SO glad people are finding out what a piece of shit he is.

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

I hope each one of his teeth break individually.

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

my last encounter with him was watching him tell my friend on the night that her ex beat her up that since she’s gotten abused before she should figure out what she’s doing to cause all that drama for herself and not to reach out to friends about it on social media

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

I hope this means I don’t have to avoid more cool parties that I know he’s been invited to too because life is too short to deal with someone who is like if a gross uncle and cocaine had a baby and the baby was also a rapist

— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017

The article goes on to quote Max Landis from an interview with Shelby Sells:

...wherein he alleges that an extra on one of his films tried to pursue him, so he gave her his number “because i was like, why not? maybe i’ll hook her up with one of my friends.”

“Women who are throwing it that easy—they’re not doing it because they think i’m cute, they’re doing it because they need some kind of validation. i’m a tiny, tiny bit successful, but in the scale of things you’re gonna fuck me for no reason? i don’t see it. i’m not on that level. i’m not a rockstar—i’m not in a band, you’re not going to be in my video. the only thing you could get from fucking me is getting to fuck me, and if so, lucky you,” said Landis. “i guarantee that’s not what any of these chicks who just throw it at me really want. granted they’ll have a wonderful time, but it’s weird. being a single guy in LA is fun as fuck and i love it. the fact that everyone here is so good-looking is intense and good and rewarding. something about everyone around you being a little bit better looking, it puts you in a good mood. i don’t feel bad or superficial for saying that. i’m also attracted to ambition and there’s a lot of that out here. but yea being a single guy in LA is great. sorry it took me so long to answer that question.”

Later on in the interview, Landis expounded on an ex he says he “gave a crippling social anxiety, self-loathing, body dismorphia, eating disorder to.”

“i mean you can’t really give someone any of these things, but the seeds of these things were there inside of her. we were in such a sort of unfair, fucked up relationship—not the kind where there’s a lot of yelling and screaming—the actual relationship was very nice and loving, but i was so fickle about her body. i’m not shy, i would just blurt out shit all the time. she ended up completely changing how she dressed and how she looked for me. that chick will never talk to me again,” Landis said.

Topless Ukrainian "feminist" in Vatican City

Alisa Vinogradova

A topless woman was sent by the feminist group Femen to steal the Christ baby from a Nativity scene in the Vatican. The place was full of tourists and the "sextremist" called Alisa Vinogradova obviously wasn't being inconspicuous about it. She had "God is woman" written across her chest, but they didn't say what language it was in.

I hope this was a mistranslation, but according to the Femen website:

FEMEN encourages women to follow the example of the movement and kidnap babies from religious denominations, thus, stating their right to use of their own body!

A while back, Femen tried to rile up Muslims in France by marching topless through a Muslim neighborhood. The Muslims didn't care. France may not be the right country for topless protests.

They didn't sound very outraged about it but Femen is now demanding that the would-be thief be released and that the Catholic church leave women alone and denounce pedophilia. Which is pretty good advice in general.

Overhead shot of model of I Love Lucy set

I always wondered how this worked.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Don't have much to say, but on this joyous occasion I didn't want to have "Two Guys Commit Suicide" as my last entry on this blog.

I'll just share a few Xmas tweets by J Elvis Weinstein, the original Tom Servo:

Trump didn't bring back "Merry Christmas" but he did remold it into a snarky, defiant phrase.

I don't know precisely what this refers to. Not really a Christmas thing:

Did the Ewoks eat all the dead stormtroopers in the forest after the battle? 

It could take several days for me to become confident what day of the week it is again. 

I bought my wife an O. Henry book for Christmas and it turns out she just sold her eyes.

My wife was raised with the superstition that you NEVER cut paper after dark. She lives by it to this day. She's fine if I do it though. 

Jesus is trending. Phew, it's his birthday.

Thanks for coming, Little Drummer Boy, no really, there's nothing we'd like more than you playing your drum here in the maternity ward

Two guys commit suicide

I live in what I consider to be a perfectly safe neighborhood. But there was a shooting a block away a few days ago. No one was injured. The cops were looking for two young men aged 23 and 19 who were suspects in a series of thefts and robberies in the area. The older one was from Illinois. I assume the younger one was, too.

They left the area and were 120 miles north of here. A SWAT team surrounded the apartment they were in and the two committed suicide. News reports didn't provide any detail but, at some point, they had been present when someone was murdered. I don't know if they were suspects in that crime.

I googled their names. The older fellow had been on the track team in 9th grade and the basketball team in 8th grade. He had an assault conviction at some point as a juvenile. When he was 18, he and a friend were arrested for series of thefts and robberies. They stole iPads and iPhones which they resold. When he was convicted, he was ordered to pay over $10,000 in restitution to his victims. He was also ordered to stay away from the University of Illinois campus. He may have been drawn by the university here hoping to get his hands on all those electronic devices the college students all seem to have.

He also had a conviction for a driving thing. For damaging property, resisting arrest and "escape". He had done this when he was 19 and was sentenced for it at 21.

I found his MySpace page. There was nothing there except a song by "Tyga" he had listened to.

There was no information at all on the younger kid.

Well, poor devils.