Cincinnati Bengals (1989) "Who Dey Rap" produced by Greg Jackson

George Jones: You Done Me Wrong (1965)

Life-Changer: Kid at UT-Austin "Daily Texan"

I was a smart kid at Azle High School: Editor of the school paper, and winner of academic awards every year (English/English/English/History); then won statewide University Interscholastic League (UIL) awards, most importantly to me: Second in State for Editorial Writing.

Once I got to the University of Texas at Austin at age 18, I went in for an interview with a 20-something member of UT's "Daily Texan" newspaper staff. He asked me "what I read." At the time, I only read the daily Austin paper and the subscription to "Time" magazine that my mother had paid for (though I'd been reading "Time" for the past 10 years as a kid at home) and "Rolling Stone." When I mentioned "Time" magazine, the 20-something smirked and then brushed me off.

This smug kid, for whatever reason, let me know that I wasn't welcome. And I let this snarky 20-something keep me from being a part of the newspaper staff that I had previously thought I could be a part of (based on my previous qualifications and interests). What, though, could I have done differently? At age 18, reading the local paper and "Time" and "Rolling Stone" weren't good enough to indicate a skill set appropriate for the college paper?

That rejection did, indeed, change my life. And made me distrust the "gatekeepers." This one person didn't like me and so kept me from being a part of UT's "Daily Texan" staff, though I was smart and well-qualified.

I went on to hang out with poets, and to get an English degree. But I still miss the camaraderie and intensity of putting out a paper. And I will never forget this one creep mocking me for reading the out-of-fashion "Time" magazine and not being "cool" enough to work for UT's "Daily Texan."

Wuhan and Work Today

Wuhan (Covid) struck in the US in March 2020. I'd quit my cozy university job in October of 2019 and was temping in the months after. During Wuhan: Got hired permanently (via phone) at a new place in April 2020. Have only met my co-workers on three occasions in the past 2 years.

At first, the separation from co-workers seemed odd and a bit surreal. There's still a feeling of disassociation, despite our daily morning meetings via Teams. But what I do like about this new life: I don't have to get up and do my hair and makeup and clothes every day. (My clothing purchases over the past 2 years have been nothing but sneakers and sweat-pants and jeggings.)

I don't have to deal with awful Austin traffic to and from work. I'm not sucked in to office politics (I always had an opinion in the past. I always will have an opinion. But "opinions" are not conducive to being happy at a job. Being off-site keeps me at a safe distance.)

At some point, this 2-year oasis of high pay and utter non-engagement will have to end. How will I function then?! I'm spoiled! Can I demand to stay at home after this?

Roman Polanski kick on Netflix

Just recently watched Polanski's 1962 debut "Knife in the Water" (loved it) and 1965's "Repulsion" (thought it mediocre) for the first time. Others that I've seen over the years from Polanski: Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Tess, Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden, The Pianist.

After the brilliance of "Knife," have put as many Polanski films as available in my Netflix queue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_filmography

Year	Title	Distribution
1962	Knife in the Water	Zespol Filmowy
1965	Repulsion	Compton Films
1966	Cul-de-sac	Compton-Cameo Films
1967	The Fearless Vampire Killers[a]	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
1968	Rosemary's Baby	Paramount Pictures
1971	Macbeth	Columbia Pictures
1972	What?
1974	Chinatown	Paramount Pictures
1976	The Tenant
1979	Tess	Columbia Pictures
1986	Pirates	The Cannon Group, Inc.
1988	Frantic	Warner Bros.
1992	Bitter Moon	Fine Line Features
1994	Death and the Maiden
1999	The Ninth Gate	BAC Films / Araba Films
2002	The Pianist	Focus Features
2005	Oliver Twist	Pathé
2010	The Ghost Writer	StudioCanal UK
2011	Carnage	Sony Pictures Classics
2013	Venus in Fur	BAC Films
2017	Based on a True Story
2019	An Officer and a Spy	Gaumont / 01 Distribution

 

Dumb Dem 20th-Century Foreign Policy Moves in Europe

Post-WWI: Dem US President Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles. Crippled Germany and just made them mad.

Post -WWII: Dem US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Handed over Eastern Europe to Russia, created the Eastern Bloc and subsequent Cold War.

Cuban Missile Crisis: Dem US President John F. Kennedy. The US placed ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, and the USSR responded by threatening to place missiles in Cuba. After days of drama, the US agreed to withdraw its missiles from Italy and Turkey, and the USSR agreed to not place missiles in Cuba. (US media reported this as the USSR backing down, but in fact, the US agreed to withdraw its own missiles first.)

Today: Dem US President Joe Biden. Russia threatens to invade its former satellite state of Ukraine. Biden threatens to send 8,000 (!) troops to Ukraine in response to the 125,000 Russian troops massed on the Russia/Ukraine border. Per the above "Cuban Missile Crisis": Russia doesn't want the bordering Ukraine as part of NATO, which it's been threatening to become. (Just as Khrushchev didn't want Italy and Turkey to have missiles aimed at the Soviet Union.) If smart, the US will say: "OK, Ukraine won't be part of NATO"---and Russia will withdraw its troops from the border. If dumb (which Biden decidedly is), the US will really send troops to a part of the world that we have absolutely no military interest in.

p.s. Germany: Why are you still in NATO? Your current business/energy deals with Russia should completely preclude you from a NATO alliance and any US defense aid (the initial post-WWII purpose of NATO being defense against Russia). BUT: Do you REALLY want to throw in your lot with the Russians rather than with the West? I'd think twice about that.

Austin City Limits: George Jones (1986)

Today, ACL features rap and electronica and whatever random shit is momentarily popular. No more Americana (country/bluegrass/blues) per its foundation, no more connection to Austin, Texas, whatsoever. Zero soul left.

State Department Wannabe

When I was a Senior in high school (1983), there was no Internet, but I was interested in Russia and so tried to learn the language via a chart from the 1950s set of encyclopedias in our house. When I went to college in the fall of '83, I enrolled in a first-semester Russian language course as part of my youthful plan to ultimately join the State Department as a Russian expert.

I wasn't very good at languages, and did not pursue my Russian language studies. (To graduate from UT Austin, I had to have 4 semesters of a language: I ended up taking German, the language of my mother.) I was also not very good at the first Foreign Policy class that I took: I studied hard, and I also worked in the Government Department of the university---where I was responsible for printing out the  tests... Oh, yes, I cheated. And still got a "B" in the class! (How do you cheat and still get a "B"??)

 

Repulsion (Polanski, 1965)

 Dumb poster; movie only slightly less dumb, except in black and white (which makes it look more hip).

My Netflix review:
Ah, Bad Boy Polanski, here of the rotting potatoes and rabbit... If you're looking for a psychological thriller along the lines of Hitchcock's "Psycho" or "Marnie," you didn't come to the right place. "Repulsion" isn't a movie with a plot or reason, but rather a series of well-shot poses and "Incidents." Deneuve looks blank and lovely, as usual; but her character is not a real woman, just a canvas upon which Polanski plays out his own neuroses (just as many other directors have done). 

When Fuchsia Shoes Are On Sale...

...you MUST buy!

I'm not a runner, nor much of a walker any more (had my fill of walking, and paid my environmental dues, for a whopping 9 years from 2007 thru 2016, when I didn't have a car and walked miles every day in freezing/boiling temps)---although I HAVE been buying a bunch of sneakers while not going in to work because of Covid over the past 2 years... I don't "need" these shoes at all, but... this color is so pretty to me---I just WANT them!

Austin Homicides 2022: Of the 5 so far...

 ...3 of the 5 (2 just this morning) have been within 2 miles of where I live. Not previously known as a high-crime area. https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/austin-police-department-investigating-double-fatal-shooting-in-north-austin-suspect-is-in-custody-two-people-shot-dead-in-parking-lot

Thanks, soft-on-crime/defund-the-police/lower-bail liberals and Mayor Adler and DA!

In 2021, Austin had a record 88 homicides---FAR surpassing the previous record from 1984. Looks like 2022 is off to a similar GREAT start!

Austin murder chart since 1981 (per 100,000 residents): https://www.kxan.com/news/crime/map-where-have-austins-homicides-occurred-in-2022/   (This page is from Jan. 10; doesn't include the 2 murders that happened this morning.)

When will the f***ing liberal madness end?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update: As of 1/26/22: There are now 8 murders in Austin: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/8-homicides-in-austin-in-first-four-weeks-of-2022-6-this-weekend

1912 publicity for Nijinsky's "Afternoon of a Faun" by Leon Bakst

Just received today and haven't yet hung up.
So beautiful! Nijinsky and the Bakst art and the framing!
I'm not making very much money, but I'm making enough
so that I can buy some beautiful things like this. I'm very grateful.

 

George Jones: Loving You Could Never Be Better (1972)

Tammy is singing backup, out of sight offstage. George doesn't look happy about something.

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: We're Not the Jet Set (1974)

One of the best set of lyrics ever! "Our steak and martinis is draft beer with weenies..."

Le Sacre du printemps / The Rite of Spring - Ballets Russes (May 29, 1913)

Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," with choreography by Nijinsky,
debuted at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on May 29, 1913.

The audience was mightily disturbed (more likely by the discordant dance than by the music):
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/stravinsky/news/rite-and-the-riot/

Considered a major part of the birth of Modernism because of its utter break with classic dance.

This is the 100th anniversary performance, reproducing the original.

Nijinsky!

 

After dancing with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from 1909, and choreographing the seminal modernist "Afternoon of the Faun" (1912) and "The Rite of Spring" (1913), Nijinsky was kicked out of the company in 1913 by lover/mentor Diaghilev because of Nijinsky's marriage to a woman.

Am currently reading Nijinsky's uncensored 1919 diaries (published as "The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky"), an account of his mental breakdown. (He was subsequently institutionalized off and on until his death in 1950.)

I'm only about half-way through the book. In parts, as when he's recounting his youth (and poverty and sexual abuse by Diaghilev), he's lucid. In much of it, though, he's either in a schizophrenic fugue or else doing a form of automatic writing, in which he constantly channels any irrational thought that comes into his head. (In which case, he's not crazy, just experimenting.) 

At one point, he breaks from his dense pages of prose into "poetry." It goes on for 4 pages, but what I was reminded of, and what I'm condensing here, are lines that remind me very much of John Lennon and his Beatles song "I Am the Walrus," as well as "I'm Only Sleeping" and "Julia." (The Nijinsky diary was initially published in the late 1930s, and so would have been available to Lennon.)

Note: "Rif" is the first syllable of the Russian word for "rhyme": rifma.

...We are rif. You are rif we are rif. You are He and I am he. We are we you are they.

I want to tell you that one cannot write to you. I write to you to you. I will tell you you
I want to write to write. I want not to sleep, but to shit.
I want that you went...
You went and I went
You do not want to walk there

Gulia gulia gulia lia lia
You are gu lia gu lia gu
You are gu gu gu gu gu
Gu gu gu gu gu gu gu. You gu gu and I gu gu

I want to say that to sleep...
You do not want to sleep with me
I wish you and you with me...
We are you and you are in me.
I want you to you to you
You want for me you are He
I am He and you are in me.
We are you they are You....

I want to tell you
That you want to sleep sleep sleep.
I do not want want to sleep
You do not want want to sleep.
I will go and shit with you
You are to shi but I am not to shi.
I am not sha ming sha ming shi...

GEORGE & TAMMY - WE GO TOGETHER

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: We Loved It Away (Live, 1974)

1974 appearance; they divorced in 1975.

A Reporter’s Footage from Inside the Capitol Siege | The New Yorker (1/6/21)

Today (Jan. 6, 2022) on cable TV, I heard Biden and Harris (and various CNN reporters) compare the Capitol riot to Pearl Harbor (2000 dead) and 9/11 (3000 dead) AND the Holocaust (6 million dead).

Total dead from the Jan. 6 riot: 4 Trump supporters (1 shot by police, 2 heart attack, 1 drug overdose), and 5 police officers (none died on that day: 1 later had two strokes, 4 committed suicide days or weeks later). https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/how-many-died-as-a-result-of-capitol-riot/

If this footage had not been shot by a left-wing organization like The New Yorker, it would have been taken down from YouTube.

Out Of Control: George Jones (1960)

Lonesome Life: George Jones (1964)

...Unchain my heart and let the world turn out its light
Have pity on me please, oh, won't you lonesome life

Oh, lonesome life, I've been through many things with you
Like sleepless nights and broken dreams and love we once knew
You know I served my purpose, so let's do what's right
And let me go from you, I plead oh, lonesome life...

Sue Ann's bedroom: The Mary Tyler Moore Show 1976

RIP Betty White (1922 - 2021)

Alone on New Year's Eve...

I've been alone for forever, on multiple New Year's Eves. For me, it's not the "being alone" that's so ennervating, but rather the fireworks explosions of the youngsters living around me.

I live in Austin. And the city doesn't allow fireworks. Which doesn't keep people from exploding them on July 4 and New Year's. (Why have a city law if you're not going to enforce it?)

I always dread July 4 and December 31, because I don't know what assholes in my apartment complex are going to start setting off fireworks WITHIN the complex. There's an empty lot just in front of the complex. And the next street over is nothing but repair lots, which are empty on New Year's Eve. Why not go THERE?

It's not just me, it's my pets. I get unnerved at the explosions; they get scared. 

I always psyche myself up for "9pm to 3am"--- Is that not an unreasonable time frame? But in actuality, I think, on New Year's, that 11pm to 1am would be reasonable. 

p.s. written on 1/2: New Year's Eve wasn't so terrible this time! I was relieved when fireworks stopped around 2am.

A hopeful wish for 2022...

...that I'll have some places to go in order to show off my new purses!

While cleaning out my closet in late 2021, I came across purses whose leather had started to "peel" or "chafe" or, I don't know what you call the deterioration: 'Cause when I bought all of them over 10 years ago, I bought cheap shit claiming to be leather.

What I had in my closet was: a black purse, a brown purse, a red purse, a white purse, etc. (All now in shit-shape.) I applaud my 10-years-ago poor self for at least TRYING. But I nonetheless put all of these purses in a box to take to whatever Goodwill dumpster.

This past week pre the New Year, I discovered Poshmark, and revisited eBay purse listings, and went hog-wild. No guarantee that I'll be going anywhere with these purses, but at least I'll be PREPARED to go somewhere.

p.s. RE the two Dooney & Bourke purses: Back in the '90s, I used to mock the trendy "Dooney & Bourke" brand. And, back then, I worked in an office with a girl named "Donna" and a girl named "Brenda" who were very much into such things. I nicknamed them "Donna Dooney" and "Brenda Bourke." Now, D&B aren't so trendy, but they just looked good when I was shopping for expensive bags in earth tones.

Other brand names for purses I just discovered: Patricia Nash and Anuschka. A whole other world! Below are the purses that I just bought in past week: