It's a wrap!

Deep into the embers of winter, knocked out of the saddle again, by some pesky bug. Damn! Under siege, and feeding the beast. Turkey stock. Pho. Antibiotics. I'm old, just fork them over, doc so I can re-group. Binge watching MI5, and football. The NFL and Bowl games. Oh, the comforts of the couch on an unseasonable winter day; no snow in the high country. Reservoirs drooping. Let's do something fun! Med fueled and sugar propelled:

The Shaka awards to the best Telly of 2013. I said it last year, and I'll say it again, the best series still at the top of the list, reigning supreme, Borgen, a Danish export which just completed it's run of three seasons. The rest of the list had wannabe glimmers: Broadchurch, The Fall, Orange is the new Black, Top of the Lake, The Returned, SOA (under-rated), Justified (Elmore and Timothy Olyphant) The Good Wife (the worst title on the face of the planet), and the Killing, the show, which like a flat bodied species would not die, surprised and will rise again under the Netflix banner.

The early Shaka movie awards, in no particular order: Alfonso Cuaron's,
Gravity. American Hustle. And Blue is the Warmest Color.

Best book read this year: Richard Ford's, 'Canada.'

Be safe tonight. Waiting in the wings: The year of The Horse.

Schmaltz is good sometimes...

1. Just ran one last errand. It's crazy out on the streets. Cars hunting for parking; kids in tow behind fatigued parents. Some men looking rather dazed and confused, unfortunately not from mugs of ye olde merry ale. It's all rather, um, traditional. Appalling, by foot. Mail order on the other hand, is da shizzle. Packages via drone? Bring it on.  Life imitating 'The Hunger Games' culture.

2. Billie Jean is going to Putinville. Can't wait for the pictures at 11.
Sochi could be pink by the time the powder settles on the alpine. Billie Jean getting down with the Pussy Riot girls. Yow! Stay tuned. Check out SNL's BJK skit on last week's Christmas show hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Instant classic.

3. My favorite Christmas movie. It's not 'A Wonderful Life. Or 'A Christmas Carol.' Nope. Not 'Miracle on 34th St.' The movie I love, steeped in drama, nuclear family, fake snow, and hetro boy/girl next door desires (schmaltzy as hell) filmed on a back lot in Culver City is 'Meet me in St. Louis' with the great Judy Garland, who at the time was 21, and a major star in the MGM stable. I first saw the film in black and white ( we did not own a color set) on an Admiral telly when I was 12? The music, the melodic Garland voice burrowed deep into my gelatinous psyche and I have never forgotten. To this day, when I hear Hugh Martin's song, 'Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas' sung only by the great Garland, I am emotionally rendered. It is one of those beautiful mysteries of life.

4. Mele Kalikimaka, all.

Jack Frost nippin...

1. Feeble thoughts while I freeze my azzz off in the apartment. As a kid, I experimented er, childishly: I once placed a pan of water on our back steps in SF when we were living there, and thought it would freeze overnight. Not. Or, I often entertained the thought of an egg frying on the sidewalk under a blazing hot day. Now that I'm grown, all I can think of when the temperature drops into the 30's is my residency stupidity. Picture this: palm trees, sloshing waves along the shoreline, flip flops strewn next to a towel, Maui Jim dark glasses surveying mobile deliciousness, yeah, baby, the only frosty I'll ever see is my red bean, fluorescent snow cone which I'll be sucking down! 'Snap back to reality...'(thanks Eminem). Instead, the only sound I hear is the cha-chinging gas and electric bill as it rockets into the stratosphere; and the grunting inability of cardio/weight lifting barely cracking a sweat in the frigid gym.

2. So, there was this guy that fell asleep during a United Express flight. And when he woke up the plane was dark, cold, and he was locked on board in Houston. There is a happy ending to the story,
but how does this even happen? The Airline would not refund (!) his ticket, instead giving him a hotel voucher. Dueling attorney's probably lit up his cell phone like a Christmas tree.

3. Paul Walker. Ok, I confess, I'm a 'Fast and Furious' ho. The man was too young; too charismatic, too kind...forever young.

4. Nelson Mandela. January 18, 1918-December 5, 2013. A blazing light in the dark.

Drove my Chevy to the...

Fifty years ago in the summer of 1963, John Kennedy, visited Hawaii to address a conference of mayors. Thousands, 6 deep, thronged the streets as his motorcade moved through downtown Honolulu. I don't exactly remember why, but I found myself embedded at the airport, eschewing the chaotic city streets for a glimpse of the President as he caught his return flight back to the mainland. I was perched far enough behind the surging mass to have an unobstructed view of Jack Kennedy as he turned at the top of the boarding platform waving...his hair, shockingly more auburn than any photo had ever depicted.

Months later my senior class picnic was held at Bellows Field Beach, a wild, beautiful stretch of sand and surf near the town of Waimanalo.  I was driving my blue convertible Chevy Nova; the car packed with girls, towels, and illicit cigarettes. Tunes were blaring from the radio; an excursion from the mundane rigor of high school was always an excuse for hi jinks. We were the top dogs, the alphas and we were going to enjoy every second of the day. It was 9:00 when we left the campus. Somewhere between the school and Bellows Field, with the radio cutting in and out and the breaking news marred by heavy static, we learned Jack Kennedy had died in Dallas. Every person in the car began to cry. I was emotionally paralyzed behind the wheel. To this day, I have no idea how the car did not lurch off the road. When we returned to the school, the nuns led us in the rosary via an intercom. I drove my Chevy not to the levee, but home; retrieved my cigarettes and retreated to the park behind my house. There after lighting the first smoke, I balled my eyes out; my adolescence crushed, like so many others, fluttered hopelessly under the Hawaiian sun.

True Blue

1. Joni Mitchell. The greatest songwriter, recording artist of her generation turned 70 on Thursday. Her songs have been covered through the decades by Judy Collins, Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, Tori Amos, Hole, Annie Lennox, Prince, etc. etc. Her album, Blue, is the crown jewel in her long and storied career which has spanned 4 decades often weaving in and out of musical genres...from acoustic to jazz, to pop.  Never afraid to cross over and experiment, her music spurred collaborations (the list is long) with Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, Peter Gabriel, Pat Metheny, Willie Nelson, and Tom Petty among others. A Canadian national treasure Joni Mitchell was awarded a Companion of the Order of Canada, only the third recording artist to have that honor bestowed. Leonard Cohen, and Gordon Lightfoot are the other two.

2. Blue is the Warmest Color. I went. I watched. I loved it. Like all thought provoking artistic endeavors which differ from subjective concepts of the norm, there is a shit storm that surrounds it. Banned in Idaho. As an artist, conservative backlash like that, um, bring it on. Can't stand the heat? Get out of the fire. The author, Julie Maroh, of the book, 'Le Blue est une Coleur Chaude which the movie was based on blasted what she saw. I respect Maroh's critique, but when you give your work up to another medium, visions often collide. Abdellatif Kechiche, the director, has been smacked down by his two young actors. The 10 minute scene has been dissected over and over again. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you've been floating with Bullock in another galaxy. Is there a lot of 'skin?' In the context of the story, no. In the actual protracted scene, yes. Understand this, though, this is a very French film. It's 3 hours. It is packed with dialogue. Tight camera shots. Intimate excursions...dining, bars, school, demonstrations...hand held cameras; roiling tension, vulnerability, and growth. This is not just a coming out. It is Adele's story. Mostly. And Emma's too. It is a complex journey which spans 5 years. It is ultimately unrequited love. This is not a film for everyone. No doubt there will be dialogue and bitching for days. But, if you're living outside the lines, that's nothing new. Kudos to the French jury for presenting the Palme d'Or, Cannes, 2013 to this movie. It took stones. In years to come, this film in every aspect, will be the benchmark by which all others in this genre are measured.

'If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear...'

If you know the rest of the lyrics, then maybe you were part of the fabric. Summer of love. 1967. Legend has it that John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas wrote the song in 20 minutes. The Euros embraced it; the song holding #1 on charts across the pond. Back home in the States, the whiff of incense and weed beckoned. Everybody wanted to come to San Francisco.

But, if you missed the wedding then, it's hard to take you on that magic carpet now. You had to be there; the unchecked pandemonium; the liberating self-discovery; the claustrophobic, condensed adventures within the Haight Ashbury.

Lone Mt. College, class of 68. Fuckya! Several blocks removed from the Panhandle, hippie hill, and that infamous intersection. 45th reunion. For approximately 5 hours, down at 'the' wharf, is there any other, past the watering hole along the Embarcadero where most of us bellied up to the bar with our fake id's...colors became more luminescent, edges softer, depth of field: no LSD. Who we had become, expansive; prodigious unfolding mysteries. Generous in the noon light. Dispatched middle-age. Post menopausal. Bound up in a love affair, that spans decades. Like clusters of stars that illuminate and dazzle existentially, migrating in and out of galaxies, we are there. If you're lucky, you can place the face with the name. But, who cares? Intimacy sweeps the room. For those fleeting moments, you remember where you were and who you broke bread with. That is what you take back with you. Resonating. Across the miles.

...Sent to Draaaain..

1.Yeah, slow night on the telly, but wait, what's this I see? Why it's the film, 'Lincoln.' Which I brushed aside when it was in hyper distribution. Darling of the critics, starring the male 'Streep.' The chameleon. The great Daniel Day Lewis. Hardware spilling from his trophy case. I watched, dazzled by the brilliant performance. And what tweaked a nerve, as I poured myself a
shot of Jameson, is politics have not evolved; it could be 1864 up on Capitol Hill today. Or as Yogi Berra would exclaim: 'it's deja vu all over again.' Befuddlement reigns. A group of white men are holding the country hostage. Over a bill which is Law. Dopily, I went to one of my favorite government weather sites for a weekend update and found it blacked out, a tiny casualty of this childish tantrum. If this is a pissing contest, fellas, the train has already left the station, and you're pissing into the wind.

2. In October, it's always Smashing Pumpkins time. Half Moon Bay. The top of the heap, my friends. Slabs of fields emerging from the fog, splashed with orange from the road to the seashore; magical buoys heralding costumes. Candy. The occasional trickster.

3. 'Blue is the Warmest Color.' Awarded the coveted PalmeD'Or, the highest honor at Cannes this year. Tunisian Director, Adellatif Kechiche. French actors, Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos. Apparently, the Director is fuming over the interviews given by his young stars, who have criticized his filming technique, in particular the 10 days it took to film the central erotic segment of the movie. Kechiche wants distribution stopped. Film opens Oct 25th. What this guy needs to understand is that

his train has also left the station.