Reviews Written By: AGKPTMTR3UX1Rprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Best | |
 | "The Scum Bunch" | 2009-11-19 |
| THE BAD GUYS WON has all the charm of Kitty Kelley's tabloid biography of Frank Sinatra, His Way, which is to say it has a seedy eye-at-the-keyhole quality which we all admit is objectionable even while we secretly revel in it.
I don't know if author Jeff Pearlman (who gives a nod to his cousin "Dan" in the acknowledgements---is this the late journalist Daniel Pearlman?) is right in his assertion that the '86 Mets were the GREATEST team ever to play in New York (either the '27 Yankees, the '52 Brooklyn Dodgers, or the '98 Yankees with their 125 wins, could contend for this honor), but they were certainly the LOUDEST. The '86 Mets were a brawling, obnoxious, sociopathic, and preeminently dynamic group of guys who won big on the basis of sheer ROCKS. They fit their time, the Ivan Boesky Era, hand in glove, a time when excess flowed as readily as vodka and material wealth was as dispensable as the cocaine that was disappearing up Darryl's and Doc's noses. Things were so bad that more than one airline banned the Mets from travel after the team returned to them planes soaked in rum, vomit, urine, feces, and Animal House buffet-style menu offerings. Sexual harassment suits abounded. " 'F' 'em!" the Mets shouted happily and moved on to their next target. In the midst of the season-long orgy of booze, blow, broads, bar fights that Pearlman recounts with such glee, this team of two-fisted drinkers happened to win just a few (108) ball games. They had 16 innings of trouble in one day with the Houston Astros (whose pitcher was doctoring the ball by everyone's non-admission), and they nearly lost the World Series to the resurgent Boston Red Sox who had them down to their last out when the ball dribbled ever-so-slowly between Bill Buckner's legs . . . dooming the Sox to another eighteen years of egg salad baseball. Sadly, the '86 Mets were broken up right after their Championship. They were deemed "unmanageable" by the ownership, which deemed the costs of supporting the team's bail, property damage, and tort suit costs just too high, despite the fact that the Mets had reinvigorated New York baseball (and baseball in general) in a way not seen since The Era of The Giants', Yankees' and Brooklyn Dodgers' 1950s annual contests. But, for this fan, it was glorious while it lasted. | ||
 | 1916 | |
| ""It'd be enough to make a cat laugh if it weren't so sad."" | 2009-09-24 |
| According to the biographies, Morgan Llywelyn was born in New York (or Ireland)(or possibly on-board ship sailing between the two). In any event, she is thoroughly Irish (or Irish-American)(or as Welsh as her name). Her love of history came early, when her mother encouraged her to explore her Llywelyn roots. This exploration made her a modern reinterpreter of the old Celtic legends which she presents in the form of novels. Prolific, she has written more than a score of books in that many years.
Given the length of most of her works, her imagination is clearly protean. The quality of her output is unsurprisingly uneven, to be objectively critical. You can't have a winner every time, especially at that pace. I've liked many of her books, but disliked others. In The Horse Goddess we meet the ancient Celts of the Iron Age Hallstatt Era. In Druids we are witness to the downfall of the Gauls in the face of Roman imperialism. In Bard we view an unspoiled Ireland first being colonized by the Celtiberians. In Red Branch we are presented with a readable retelling of the Ulster Cycle legends. As the story opens here, we meet young Ned Halloran as he embarks as a second class passenger on the TITANIC, not to emigrate, but to visit his sister in New York. To be brutally honest, this contrived opening made me roll my eyes. I put this novel back on my shelf at that point, where it gathered dust for eleven (!) years. When I finally did pick it up again, I read it straight through, which should say something about the story. Upon returning to Ireland, Ned is enrolled at St. Enda's School For Boys, an alternative school headmastered by Patrick Henry Pearse, poet, lawyer, educator, Irish nationalist and visionary idealist. Like his American namesake, Patrick Henry Pearse believed that the only alternative to liberty is death. St. Enda's was his ground for preparing the future leadership of Ireland. The boys are given an excellent classical education, leavened with sport, Irish history, and compulsory use of the Irish language. Llywelyn does a nonpareil job of bringing her fictional character of Ned Halloran into contact with the historical Pearse, and through Pearse we are introduced to other Irish Republicans. Thus, our Ned is a front row observer of the birth pangs of the Irish nation. Just as Ned graduates St. Enda's and begins a career as a journalist, Ireland is granted Home Rule, but this right is suspended indefinitely for political reasons. It is at this point that the Irish leaders begin to plan a Rising. Pearse calls it "a conspiracy of poets." It is. Most of the leaders of the Rising are artists, musicians and writers (Ireland abounds in great literary figures). Some are working class organizers. Few are militants or have any military training. Yet, this small band took and held central Dublin, Wexford, and other towns against overwhelming British military might for six days. Their Proclamation of Irish Independence remains a stirring read. Pearse is appointed as President of the Provisional Government. In Llywelyn's Dublin, Ned Halloran becomes his personal courier. It's important to point out (as Llywelyn does, without malice), that the leadership of the Rising made several disastrous mistakes along the way: First, the heads of the Provisional Government badly overestimated the general Irish sentiment against Great Britain and for complete independence in that era. Once the Rising began, Pearse, Connolly and the other leaders discovered that they could not count upon what they anticipated as a popular groundswell of support for the Republic. Most Irishmen would have been content (at that point) to remain in the U.K., albeit with Dominion status and Home Rule. Llywelyn is a rock-ribbed Irish Republican, but she does not shy away from recounting the fact that many Irish jeered Pearse (or worse yet, ignored him utterly). Given that the Great British Empire was at war with Germany, most Irish were content to defer Home Rule until the enemy was defeated. In the event, the Irish had to fight for the right to govern themselves after the war anyway; the leaders of the Rising were prescient in that regard. Second, the Republican leadership failed to recognize that so many young Irish boys had enlisted/been conscripted into the British Army by 1916 that any attack on British forces would necessarily been seen as disloyal, a betrayal of "our boys at the front." Given the extent of the bloodletting on the "green fields of France," the last thing most people wanted was a fraternal bloodletting on their front steps. The timing of the Rising, then, could hardly have been worse. Third, the Republicans were woefully unprepared. Their war plans were ill-considered and amateurish. They did little to protect themselves from infiltration. Communications broke down. Orders were conflicting and confusing. The Rising was first cancelled on Easter Sunday, (and then at the last moment only postponed to Easter Monday), causing many otherwise ready supporters to have stood themselves down. By the time the situation clarified itself, the element of surprise was lost and these troops never came into action. The Republicans established their Capitol in the Dublin General Post Office. They seized only a few well-defended strong points. They did not take control of essential service points like the Telephone Exchange and Dublin Castle. Control of these service points allowed the British Imperial Government to summon help from beyond inner Dublin. Fourth, the Republican decision to acquire arms from Germany, while pragmatically necessary (no Allied nation would have sold them arms in 1916, and the possibility of importing them from America was fraught with too many difficulties to be practical), put the Republican movement squarely in the enemy camp with the Central Powers, alienating many (Irish, English, American or Allied) who otherwise would have been supportive of Irish aspirations. They were seen by their natural friends and allies as treasonous and seditious toward the Allied cause. Admittedly, some Irish leaders did see themselves as pro-German. The decision to use German arms was in fact the catalyst for the terrible personal consequences which afterward befell the Irish leadership of the Rising, no matter their individual political views. Nevertheless, Llywelyn does underscore that ultimately the British seized defeat from the jaws of victory: First, although the Republicans numbered only a few thousand throughout Ireland, the British military treated all Irish as disloyal, opening fire on noncombatant men, women, and children, causing unnecessary deaths. This created anti-British, pro-Republican sentiment. Second, although the Republicans held only a few strong points in Dublin, the British artillery barrage of the city was indiscriminate, destroying swaths of Dublin and killing hundreds who had not even left their homes or places of employ. Again, this created pro-Republican, anti-British sentiment. Third, the post-Rising crackdown disrupted the lives of thousands of uninvolved persons, whether through mass arrests or property seizures or gratuitous brutality. Yet again this created pro-Republican, anti-British sentiment. Fourth, the British authorities gave broad legitimacy to and made noble the otherwise-marginal Republican leadership by quickly arresting them, trying them in secret Courts Martial, and shooting them summarily within days. There was no "typical" British sense of fairness or justice extended to them, no legal due process provided to them, no constitutional protections invoked for them, and no appeals procedures made available to them. The actions of the British military command highlighted what the Republicans had been saying all along, that the rights of Englishmen were restricted only to Englishmen and that the Irish were treated as a colonial people, and worse yet. By putting 67 men (including Pearse) before the firing squad, the British did nothing more than create a mass of martyrs for the Republican cause. British "kindness" to James Connolly, allowing the sick, wounded man to be shot in a seated position, was seen as a form of mockery; their decision to commute the death sentence of Countess Markievicz was seen as patronizing (Markievicz herself was outraged, and insisted that she be shot, but her demands were ignored). The British refusal to allow last visitors or letters was seen as an act of gleeful cruelty. The venial treatment of the bodies after death (dissolving them in quicklime) enraged decent people everywhere. The fact that the rest of the Republicans were pardoned in a General Amnesty of 1917 only seemed to prove that the initial British reaction was irrational (and indeed the commanding General in Dublin was later sacked by Downing Street, but only long after the fact). By dying for Ireland at the hands of the British, Pearse and his fellows created the critical mass necessary for the independence movement to coalesce; while there were no further outright rebellions for the duration of the Great War, the Republican movement percolated, finally reemerging in 1919. Though most historians consider the Irish War of Independence to have started at that point, the Easter Rising truly was the first battle of that war. By mildly fictionalizing history, Llywelyn allows us to get inside the story of the Easter Rising of 1916. This is the first novel I have read that has endnotes, and many of the characters' quotes are their actual words, either spoken or written. This is masterful historical fiction. This is the first volume in what became Morgan Llwelyn's "Irish Century" series which consists of 1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion,1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War,1949: A Novel of the Irish Free State,1972: A Novel of Ireland's Unfinished Revolution, and 1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace, all critical points in modern Ireland's history, and all seen through the eyes of the Halloran family. | ||
 | The Tibetan Book of the Dead | |
| ""O Child Of Noble Family, Listen Without Distraction . . ."" | 2009-09-11 |
| Named for the mythical (?) and mystical kingdom in the East, Shambhala Publications is known for bringing some of the greatest and sometimes most obscure philosophical writings of Mankind to the attention of the general public. Heavily (though not exclusively) concerned with Buddhist and Taoist thought, Shambhala Pocket Classics are an attractive set of unabridged minibooks which fit comfortably in a shirt pocket, making them perfect for reading on planes, trains, and automobiles. Titles in the set include THE BOOK OF TEA, WAY OF THE JEWISH MYSTICS, ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES, TAO TE CHING, POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON, THE ART OF WAR, and this volume by with commentary by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD (BARDO THODOL in Tibetan).
The BARDO THODOL, a classic text of Mahayana Buddhism, is a fascinating little book in and of itself (though Trungpa's speculations in his extended "Commentary" sometimes become an endless hyperintellectual slog), meant to be read to a dying person as he or she passes from this life into the Bardo state, wherein all the karmic issues of the departed's recently-ended life are faced and addressed. What I wish I knew is how the author, Padma Sambhava, speaks with such authority about the hallucinogenic conditions in the Bardo state, the luminosities, the rays of light, the apparitions, the varying states of terror and ecstasy experienced by the departed, and so on. It would be so easy to say that he invented all this to comfort the living, but there is a very strong ring of truth in what is written here, (and much of it is not comforting). So what then? Part of this Great Truth is that each of the stages of the Bardo reflect our own states of mind while alive, and the BARDO THODOL is, in that sense, a guide to right living and right thinking. Putting aside everything else, that is the real value of the BARDO THODOL. | ||
 | A Man of Honor : The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno | |
| "Omerta Man" | 2009-07-06 |
| I've read a fair number of books on the Mothers And Fathers Italian Association including Honor Thy Father by Gay Talese, and Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story by Bill Bonanno, but this is the first book of its type that's actually imparted a kind of logic to Mafioso thinking. Joseph (Peppino) Bonanno was a Godfather of the Old School, and he may actually have BEEN the Godfather that Mario Puzo based his Godfather on in The Godfather. In these pages, the college-educated, literate and thoughtful Bonanno comes across as a man of erudition, a man who consciously CHOSE to uphold the traditions of the Sicilian Vespers, traditions of Family and Honor, Loyalty and Silence. It's ironic that he chooses to speak in these pages, but having read him, this reviewer could understand him (somewhat); at least his belief system is not so utterly alien to this reader. Is A MAN OF HONOR candid? Yes and no. Bonanno certainly evades some subjects, particularly those that could get him indicted by the law or killed by his rivals. He'd be a fool to speak on those, and this man is no fool, and certainly not Joe Valachi, in any case. This is not a confessional book. Leaving aside his choice to stay silent on certain subject matter, Bonanno does explain things as he sees them. Sicily has been conquered and occupied by virtually everyone else who ever had a maritime interest in the Mediterranean (that IS everyone else). As a result, there are brunette Sicilians, blond Sicilians, redheaded Sicilians, white Sicilians, black Sicilians, and every shade in-between Sicilians. There are Sicilian hill-folk, Sicilian plainsmen, Sicilian townsmen, Sicilian country-dwellers. There are Sicilian farmers, Sicilian fishermen, Sicilian cattlemen, Sicilian sheep ranchers, Sicilian fruit farmers and Sicilian grain merchants. Each group often spoke its own dialect. This smallish island is a palimpsest of peoples moving through history. Since Sicily was so often subjugated, the locals learned not to trust the occupiers who most often exploited or abused them. Even the eventual Italian government in Rome was alien to the island and tried to force its ways upon the islanders. This made Sicilians dour and closemouted (except amongst friends), hotheaded and prone to violence (most often between strangers). (f)amily was the basis of everything. The numerosity of Sicilian children meant that families intermarried widely with other families, and these interlinked families became clans. Internecine generational warfare between clans (a la the Hatfields and the McCoys) was not uncommon. Neither were cross-generational alliances. As close friendships formed and friends became accepted members of these clans, they slowly transmogrified into the (F)amilies we understand today. These Families were, in their inception, actual families. According to Bonanno, the admittedly legendary beginnings of the Mafia date back to the 1300s, when local Sicilians took up cudgels against a French occupier who had raped a village girl; her distraught mother ran through the streets shouting, "Ma fia! Ma fia!, My daughter! My daughter!" "Ma fia!" soon became a Sicilian acronym, MAFIA, for what translates roughly as "Down With France, Up With Italy!" Even Bonanno doesn't quite buy this story, and he says so; he's almost certainly correct, for no other reason than that "Italia" didn't exist as such until the late Nineteenth Century. The Mafia functioned as a shadow government in which "connections" meant everything, and, given the vagaries of human nature, ability rather less. The shadow government could supply employment, bribe officialdom, and mete out justice (rough and otherwise) to the population. It worked in Sicily, paternalistically, and often at a high cost in blood and treasure, but it did work in place of the often brutal rulership; when the Sicilians came to America, the Mafia came with them. Bonanno revers the Traditions of his ancestors, and in more than one place decries their erosion in America. He's both right and wrong. In a pure democracy, the Mafia would become as useful as an inflamed appendix, but in a less-than-pure democracy it had a place. And so it did. In a sense, it functioned similarly to the homegrown landsmenschaften of the Jews or the Benevolent Associations of the Irish, but having been an outlaw group from its beginnings it remained an outlaw group. It is important to realize that most Italian immigrants shied away from the Mafia and created democratic law-abiding support organizations like their non-Italian neighbors did. Still, a hard core of Family-oriented people remained and still remain. The Italian immigrant influx of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was spurred by the rise of Fascism, and the newly-arrived Family-oriented immigrants (like Bonanno) found a niche in the illegal but widely tolerated practice of bootlegging. Having subverted Prohibition, the Families moved into other illegal enterprises like loan sharking and extortion. At the same time, they continued their old warfare. The Castellammarese War of the 1930s was brutal and caused tremendous attrition, but it did lead to the organization of the Families in the way most Americans are familiar with them today, structured to ensure peace (mostly) amongst themselves. Even as the Families organized and grew and gained influence in America they began to die, says Bonanno. In retrospect, the Castellammarese War was a first death knell, as due to attrition by death, "men not of our Tradition," non-Sicilian Italians (like Joe Valachi, a Neapolitan, Bonanno points out with a sniff), and others (Jewish mobsters like Meyer Lansky) were permitted to serve the Families (they were never to be considered as full Family members, but they soon outnumbered the Sicilians themselves). The openness of American society broke down the centuries-old omerta. Children married non-Sicilians. Papas lost their life and death veto power. The concept of Mob "Bosses" replaced that of Family "Fathers," with a corresponding decline in unanimity. Pure greed and moneymaking replaced the wielding of influence and the wages of respect as primary motivations for the Families. Lucky Luciano (or "Charlie Lucky" as Bonanno calls him) became the prototype for this new American Mafioso. Competition-based killings between and even within Families gutted them out. Even the children most inculcated into the Tradition failed to grasp it fully (visit my review of Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story) for my take on this point. It's when speaking of the Tradition and of its rise and fall that Bonanno speaks most clearly. Sometimes, he's downright funny, as when he describes his attempts to win over his explosive would-be father-in-law. Other times, he's much less endearing, as when he admits his glee at an enemy's death. He's also got the world's best poker face. He describes the Family as a self-contained mutual support society of doctors, lawyers, small businessmen, laborers, tradesmen and their wives and children, essentially harmless. Illicit activities like bookmaking are waved off with, "That's not considered a crime in our world." He claims to have banned traffic in women and in narcotics from his Family, but "If a man wanted to go into business with someone outside of our world that was his decision," a statement which covers a multitude of literal sins. He claims never to have taken graft (probably true; why would HE need to be paid off?). He claims never to have accepted a penny for his role as Father to the Family, "but if people wanted to show their respect with a gift of money, how could I disrespect their good intentions?" and he admits to receiving free services and products as a sign of respect. The fact that this respect often contained a good-sized dollop of fear doesn't seem to occur to him, or at least he never admits it. He plays up his legal business connections, all the while saying that he accepted stock or an officership in these various companies because the owners "wanted" him for a partner. In what might be laughable, he describes strong-arm men as "the lowest of the low of our world." He never denies using their services, though. All in all, I'm sure I would have liked the man, but I wouldn't have trusted him as far as he could throw me. Joseph Bonanno was a career criminal. Yes, he undercut the larger society with vice and drugs; and no, he does not apologize. In his non-apology I grasped a simple kernel of truth, and that is that a crime is only a crime if it is recognized as a crime. A hit man can sleep at night only because, as a Family "soldier" he does what soldiers have always done---killed their enemies in war. The Family-endorsed gratuitous violence that goes along with this is meant as a warning to others of the same Tradition. Let me hasten to add that I am not excusing murder and mayhem, but saying that murder and mayhem exist only in the absence of sanction. It is when two different social groups like gangsters and lawmen collide, or if a soldier exceeds his sanction, or if a person acts on his own to kill without sanction, that the question of the validity of sanction arises. The armed soldiery of any nation is not generally classed as a group of murderers, but remove sanction and recognition of sanction by one's self and others, and we are left with our Lieutenant Calleys and Reinhardt Heydrichs, our Charles Whitmans, our Osama bin Ladens, and our Mafia contract killers. Perhaps that's why assassination is often referred to as "sanction." Rationalize that gambling, liquor, and women and drugs are "what the people want," and the criminal aspect of vice becomes just a behavioral control mechanism of an authority to be disregarded. We accept only the sanctions we are prepared to accept. We ignore the sanction we are programmed to ignore. Ignore it, just as it was ignored by Joseph Bonanno, literate and intelligent though he obviously was. In a world comprised of men like himself, Bonanno was no criminal; but by living in 20th Century America, he was perforce subject to its values, not just his own. That's this Man of Honor's blind spot. Yes, it was "cosa nostra" it was "Our Thing" for Men of Tradition like Bonanno, but regardless, even understanding it, it does not make it, in practice, one whit less ugly than it really was. | ||
 | Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia | |
 | "Bull, Run" | 2009-07-01 |
| The saddest part of Sammy The Bull Gravano's life is not recounted in these pages, it came after. Having spent several years in Witness Protection, the Bull dropped out and dropped back into crime. The cadaverous state of the American Mafia is evidenced by his eventual fate: Prison, for running a large-scale Ecstasy distributorship in partnership with the Aryan Nation. Nothing glamorous there. And, really, nothing glamorous about his earlier years. The Bull grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the 1950s there was no such thing as ADHD. Sammy was just "a slow learner." Frustrated with school, he dropped out and joined a teenaged gang, The Rampers. Eventually, he entered the real Mob. Of course it is impossible to determine whether what Sammy says is the unvarnished truth, but unlike Bill Bonanno in Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story, Sammy really doesn't spend any time rationalizing or explaining away his activities. He's a gangster, plain and simple. Much like Bonanno, however, he's enamored of the "Honor Code" of the Cosa Nostra, a Code which overrode all other considerations. His drug-addicted brother-in-law caused some trouble with a made guy and got whacked; Sammy did nothing to stop it. Sammy was tapped to hit "Johnny Keys" Simone, a man he greatly respected; he carried out the execution. He was in neck deep as a plotter when John Gotti decided to stage a coup and overthrow Gambino Family Boss "Big Paul" Castellano. Although Sammy liked Paul, he felt that Big Paul wasn't protecting the Family's interests and had to go; Big Paul ended up in a bloody heap outside Manhattan's Sparks Steak House. And lastly, he turned on Gotti when he realized that the Dapper Don, with his $5,000.00 bespoke suits and handpainted ties, was about to throw him to the wolves by breaking the omerta and talking to the cops. There's nothing much of the The Godfather here; most Mob activities rely on extortion and strong-arm, and only rarely does Sammy see any romance in it anywhere. The sad fact is that the American Mafia (which at one time was very powerful and influential, with contacts in Las Vegas, the unions, myriad businesses, and the government) devoured itself in round after round of meaningless contract killings against its own, killings most often precipitated by the bruising of egos. Self-attrition killed the Mafia, aided by inadequate and brutal leadership (like Gotti's), the breaking of the omerta (by Sammy and others), government-sanctioned avengers dedicated to smashing Organized Crime (like Rudolph Giuliani), and the very real lack of security offered to its members. Why enter the borgata when your chance of dying hovered around fifty percent, and why try to earn a dishonest living when greedy and foolish overlords and underlings would steal it from you? So much for "Honor." The grand irony is, of course, that the emasculation of the Mob has led to the rise of "new Mafias," Russian, Colombian, Jamaican and otherwise, of the ascendancy of street gangstas like the Crips and the Bloods, of the massive proliferation of the drug culture, and of more violence than even Albert Anastasia could have countenanced on his worst day. Where such violence was limited to hits between mobsters, the new violence includes innocent bystanders, children and families. The "Good Guys," like Bruce Mouw and Rudy Giuliani, did us no favors by disorganizing Organized Crime. | ||
 | Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia by Peter Maas, ISBN 0694518700 | |
| "Bull, Run" | 2009-07-01 |
| The saddest part of Sammy The Bull Gravano's life is not recounted in these pages, it came after. Having spent several years in Witness Protection, the Bull dropped out and dropped back into crime. The cadaverous state of the American Mafia is evidenced by his eventual fate: Prison, for running a large-scale Ecstasy distributorship in partnership with the Aryan Nation.
Nothing glamorous there. And, really, nothing glamorous about his earlier years. The Bull grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the 1950s there was no such thing as ADHD. Sammy was just "a slow learner." Frustrated with school, he dropped out and joined a teenaged gang, The Rampers. Eventually, he entered the real Mob. Of course it is impossible to determine whether what Sammy says is the unvarnished truth, but unlike Bill Bonanno in Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story, Sammy really doesn't spend any time rationalizing or explaining away his activities. He's a gangster, plain and simple. Much like Bonanno, however, he's enamored of the "Honor Code" of the Cosa Nostra, a Code which overrode all other considerations. His drug-addicted brother-in-law caused some trouble with a made guy and got whacked; Sammy did nothing to stop it. Sammy was tapped to hit "Johnny Keys" Simone, a man he greatly respected; he carried out the execution. He was in neck deep as a plotter when John Gotti decided to stage a coup and overthrow Gambino Family Boss "Big Paul" Castellano. Although Sammy liked Paul, he felt that Big Paul wasn't protecting the Family's interests and had to go; Big Paul ended up in a bloody heap outside Manhattan's Sparks Steak House. And lastly, he turned on Gotti when he realized that the Dapper Don, with his $5,000.00 bespoke suits and handpainted ties, was about to throw him to the wolves by breaking the omerta and talking to the cops. There's nothing much of the The Godfather here; most Mob activities rely on extortion and strong-arm, and only rarely does Sammy see any romance in it anywhere. The sad fact is that the American Mafia (which at one time was very powerful and influential, with contacts in Las Vegas, the unions, myriad businesses, and the government) devoured itself in round after round of meaningless contract killings against its own, killings most often precipitated by the bruising of egos. Self-attrition killed the Mafia, aided by inadequate and brutal leadership (like Gotti's), the breaking of the omerta (by Sammy and others), government-sanctioned avengers dedicated to smashing Organized Crime (like Rudolph Giuliani), and the very real lack of security offered to its members. Why enter the borgata when your chance of dying hovered around fifty percent, and why try to earn a dishonest living when greedy and foolish overlords and underlings would steal it from you? So much for "Honor." The grand irony is, of course, that the emasculation of the Mob has led to the rise of "new Mafias," Russian, Colombian, Jamaican and otherwise, of the ascendancy of street gangstas like the Crips and the Bloods, of the massive proliferation of the drug culture, and of more violence than even Albert Anastasia could have countenanced on his worst day. Where such violence was limited to hits between mobsters, the new violence includes innocent bystanders, children and families. The "Good Guys," like Bruce Mouw and Rudy Giuliani, did us no favors by disorganizing Organized Crime. | ||
![Donnie Brasco (Extended Cut) [Blu-ray]](product_images/4931000/4931227_thumb.jpg) | Donnie Brasco (Extended Cut) [Blu-ray] | |
| ""I'm not like them---I am them."" | 2009-06-24 |
| How did I miss this film for twelve years? As a Pacino fan, a Johnny Depp fan, and a mobster movie addict, it's nothing short of amazing that I only watched DONNIE BRASCO for the first time this week. My only complaint about DONNIE BRASCO is that it's too short and light. Another fifteen minutes of screen time would have deepened the characters immensely. DONNIE BRASCO doesn't do a great job of capturing the ambience of the late 70s, but it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise impressive picture. Overall, with its renditions of petty thievery, (breaking open parking meters for change), cheap shot extortion (putting muscle on Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores for a few hundred bucks a week) and constant pointless but violent arguments, the timbre of DONNIE BRASCO reflects Mean Streets more than The Godfather. There's no romance in DONNIE BRASCO's Mafia. Depp plays Federal Agent Joe Pistone, who is tasked with infiltrating the Bonnanno Family in late 1970s New York City. Using the alias "Donnie Brasco," Pistone befriends low-level torpedo Lefty Ruggerio (Al Pacino), who is permanently rooted near the bottom of the Family food chain. The dynamic "Brasco" however, soon attracts the attention of crew boss Sonny "Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), who begins moving Brasco (and himself) up through the ranks. A disappointed Lefty is left behind, although Brasco/Pistone tries mightily to maintain his links with Lefty if for no other reason than they've become friends. The strain of leading his double life puts Pistone at terrible risk. His marriage collapses and his personal family life becomes a shambles. He begins to adopt street talk, to hit his wife, and to put his Family before his family. He is forced into committing minor crimes as part of his cover, and assists in chopping up and burying the bodies after a hit. He's recognized by a law-and-order colleague whom he punches out in order to protect himself. Still, there is much in the camaraderie of the Family that Pistone appreciates. Eventually, as he tells his wife, "I'm not like them---I am them." Just as he's about to become a made guy, the FBI swoops in and arrests everyone, shutting down his undercover operation. Pistone's activities send roughly one hundred mobsters to jail, and earn him a medal, a commendation, and a $500.00 bonus check, and a deep ambivalence toward his work and his life. After watching DONNIE BRASCO, I found myself questioning whether, given the crummy quality of the mob as portrayed, the risk and expense of breaking up "organized crime" was at all worth it. It seems like a lot of effort for a few dozen yards of chintz. | ||
 | Donnie Brasco (Special Edition) | |
| ""I'm not like them---I am them."" | 2009-06-24 |
| How did I miss this film for twelve years? As a Pacino fan, a Johnny Depp fan, and a mobster movie addict, it's nothing short of amazing that I only watched DONNIE BRASCO for the first time this week. My only complaint about DONNIE BRASCO is that it's too short and light. Another fifteen minutes of screen time would have deepened the characters immensely. DONNIE BRASCO doesn't do a great job of capturing the ambience of the late 70s, but it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise impressive picture. Overall, with its renditions of petty thievery, (breaking open parking meters for change), cheap shot extortion (putting muscle on Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores for a few hundred bucks a week) and constant pointless but violent arguments, the timbre of DONNIE BRASCO reflects Mean Streets more than The Godfather. There's no romance in DONNIE BRASCO's Mafia. Depp plays Federal Agent Joe Pistone, who is tasked with infiltrating the Bonnanno Family in late 1970s New York City. Using the alias "Donnie Brasco," Pistone befriends low-level torpedo Lefty Ruggerio (Al Pacino), who is permanently rooted near the bottom of the Family food chain. The dynamic "Brasco" however, soon attracts the attention of crew boss Sonny "Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), who begins moving Brasco (and himself) up through the ranks. A disappointed Lefty is left behind, although Brasco/Pistone tries mightily to maintain his links with Lefty if for no other reason than they've become friends. The strain of leading his double life puts Pistone at terrible risk. His marriage collapses and his personal family life becomes a shambles. He begins to adopt street talk, to hit his wife, and to put his Family before his family. He is forced into committing minor crimes as part of his cover, and assists in chopping up and burying the bodies after a hit. He's recognized by a law-and-order colleague whom he punches out in order to protect himself. Still, there is much in the camaraderie of the Family that Pistone appreciates. Eventually, as he tells his wife, "I'm not like them---I am them." Just as he's about to become a made guy, the FBI swoops in and arrests everyone, shutting down his undercover operation. Pistone's activities send roughly one hundred mobsters to jail, and earn him a medal, a commendation, and a $500.00 bonus check, and a deep ambivalence toward his work and his life. After watching DONNIE BRASCO, I found myself questioning whether, given the crummy quality of the mob as portrayed, the risk and expense of breaking up "organized crime" was at all worth it. It seems like a lot of effort for a few dozen yards of chintz. | ||
 | Donnie Brasco (Extended Cut) | |
| ""I'm not like them---I am them."" | 2009-06-24 |
| How did I miss this film for twelve years? As a Pacino fan, a Johnny Depp fan, and a mobster movie addict, it's nothing short of amazing that I only watched DONNIE BRASCO for the first time this week. My only complaint about DONNIE BRASCO is that it's too short and light. Another fifteen minutes of screen time would have deepened the characters immensely. DONNIE BRASCO doesn't do a great job of capturing the ambience of the late 70s, but it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise impressive picture. Overall, with its renditions of petty thievery, (breaking open parking meters for change), cheap shot extortion (putting muscle on Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores for a few hundred bucks a week) and constant pointless but violent arguments, the timbre of DONNIE BRASCO reflects Mean Streets more than The Godfather. There's no romance in DONNIE BRASCO's Mafia. Depp plays Federal Agent Joe Pistone, who is tasked with infiltrating the Bonnanno Family in late 1970s New York City. Using the alias "Donnie Brasco," Pistone befriends low-level torpedo Lefty Ruggerio (Al Pacino), who is permanently rooted near the bottom of the Family food chain. The dynamic "Brasco" however, soon attracts the attention of crew boss Sonny "Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), who begins moving Brasco (and himself) up through the ranks. A disappointed Lefty is left behind, although Brasco/Pistone tries mightily to maintain his links with Lefty if for no other reason than they've become friends. The strain of leading his double life puts Pistone at terrible risk. His marriage collapses and his personal family life becomes a shambles. He begins to adopt street talk, to hit his wife, and to put his Family before his family. He is forced into committing minor crimes as part of his cover, and assists in chopping up and burying the bodies after a hit. He's recognized by a law-and-order colleague whom he punches out in order to protect himself. Still, there is much in the camaraderie of the Family that Pistone appreciates. Eventually, as he tells his wife, "I'm not like them---I am them." Just as he's about to become a made guy, the FBI swoops in and arrests everyone, shutting down his undercover operation. Pistone's activities send roughly one hundred mobsters to jail, and earn him a medal, a commendation, and a $500.00 bonus check, and a deep ambivalence toward his work and his life. After watching DONNIE BRASCO, I found myself questioning whether, given the crummy quality of the mob as portrayed, the risk and expense of breaking up "organized crime" was at all worth it. It seems like a lot of effort for a few dozen yards of chintz. | ||
 | Donnie Brasco | |
| ""I'm not like them---I am them."" | 2009-06-24 |
| How did I miss this film for twelve years? As a Pacino fan, a Johnny Depp fan, and a mobster movie addict, it's nothing short of amazing that I only watched DONNIE BRASCO for the first time this week. My only complaint about DONNIE BRASCO is that it's too short and light. Another fifteen minutes of screen time would have deepened the characters immensely. DONNIE BRASCO doesn't do a great job of capturing the ambience of the late 70s, but it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise impressive picture. Overall, with its renditions of petty thievery, (breaking open parking meters for change), cheap shot extortion (putting muscle on Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores for a few hundred bucks a week) and constant pointless but violent arguments, the timbre of DONNIE BRASCO reflects Mean Streets more than The Godfather. There's no romance in DONNIE BRASCO's Mafia. Depp plays Federal Agent Joe Pistone, who is tasked with infiltrating the Bonnanno Family in late 1970s New York City. Using the alias "Donnie Brasco," Pistone befriends low-level torpedo Lefty Ruggerio (Al Pacino), who is permanently rooted near the bottom of the Family food chain. The dynamic "Brasco" however, soon attracts the attention of crew boss Sonny "Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), who begins moving Brasco (and himself) up through the ranks. A disappointed Lefty is left behind, although Brasco/Pistone tries mightily to maintain his links with Lefty if for no other reason than they've become friends. The strain of leading his double life puts Pistone at terrible risk. His marriage collapses and his personal family life becomes a shambles. He begins to adopt street talk, to hit his wife, and to put his Family before his family. He is forced into committing minor crimes as part of his cover, and assists in chopping up and burying the bodies after a hit. He's recognized by a law-and-order colleague whom he punches out in order to protect himself. Still, there is much in the camaraderie of the Family that Pistone appreciates. Eventually, as he tells his wife, "I'm not like them---I am them." Just as he's about to become a made guy, the FBI swoops in and arrests everyone, shutting down his undercover operation. Pistone's activities send roughly one hundred mobsters to jail, and earn him a medal, a commendation, and a $500.00 bonus check, and a deep ambivalence toward his work and his life. After watching DONNIE BRASCO, I found myself questioning whether, given the crummy quality of the mob as portrayed, the risk and expense of breaking up "organized crime" was at all worth it. It seems like a lot of effort for a few dozen yards of chintz. | ||
 | Donnie Brasco | |
| ""I'm not like them---I am them."" | 2009-06-24 |
| How did I miss this film for twelve years? As a Pacino fan, a Johnny Depp fan, and a mobster movie addict, it's nothing short of amazing that I only watched DONNIE BRASCO for the first time this week. My only complaint about DONNIE BRASCO is that it's too short and light. Another fifteen minutes of screen time would have deepened the characters immensely. DONNIE BRASCO doesn't do a great job of capturing the ambience of the late 70s, but it's a relatively minor flaw in an otherwise impressive picture. Overall, with its renditions of petty thievery, (breaking open parking meters for change), cheap shot extortion (putting muscle on Mom-and-Pop corner grocery stores for a few hundred bucks a week) and constant pointless but violent arguments, the timbre of DONNIE BRASCO reflects Mean Streets more than The Godfather. There's no romance in DONNIE BRASCO's Mafia. Depp plays Federal Agent Joe Pistone, who is tasked with infiltrating the Bonnanno Family in late 1970s New York City. Using the alias "Donnie Brasco," Pistone befriends low-level torpedo Lefty Ruggerio (Al Pacino), who is permanently rooted near the bottom of the Family food chain. The dynamic "Brasco" however, soon attracts the attention of crew boss Sonny "Black" Napolitano (Michael Madsen), who begins moving Brasco (and himself) up through the ranks. A disappointed Lefty is left behind, although Brasco/Pistone tries mightily to maintain his links with Lefty if for no other reason than they've become friends. The strain of leading his double life puts Pistone at terrible risk. His marriage collapses and his personal family life becomes a shambles. He begins to adopt street talk, to hit his wife, and to put his Family before his family. He is forced into committing minor crimes as part of his cover, and assists in chopping up and burying the bodies after a hit. He's recognized by a law-and-order colleague whom he punches out in order to protect himself. Still, there is much in the camaraderie of the Family that Pistone appreciates. Eventually, as he tells his wife, "I'm not like them---I am them." Just as he's about to become a made guy, the FBI swoops in and arrests everyone, shutting down his undercover operation. Pistone's activities send roughly one hundred mobsters to jail, and earn him a medal, a commendation, and a $500.00 bonus check, and a deep ambivalence toward his work and his life. After watching DONNIE BRASCO, I found myself questioning whether, given the crummy quality of the mob as portrayed, the risk and expense of breaking up "organized crime" was at all worth it. It seems like a lot of effort for a few dozen yards of chintz. | ||
 | The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration 5-Disc DVD Gift Set | |
| ""The Godfather" reclaimed" | 2009-06-22 |
| I've reviewed the three GODFATHER films in depth elsewhere on Amazon.com, so I am going to limit this review to the merely technical aspects of "The Coppolla Restoration." First of all, it's important to watch the two "Extras" discs first, as they provide a lot of information about the restoration process, particularly the short named "Emulsional Rescue." THE GODFATHER's original master negative was created on particularly "thin" photo stock, meaning that fewer top quality prints could be created from it. Ironically, THE GODFATHER ended up having a vast number of prints made from this thin stock. The quality of these prints deteriorated fast---much faster than with an average movie made on standard stock. The master negative was in such poor shape when the restoration team began working that they inadvertently destroyed about thirty feet of it trying to save it. This meant that the restoration team had to find the best quality prints from all around the world and laboriously splice them together, often individual frame by frame, to reconstruct what they called their "hero" negative from which the restoration was made. As a result, the restoration is not as good as a pristine master negative would be, even a "restored" one. This is as good as it will ever be, barring some new as-yet unimagined process. Many reviewers have commented on the "poor" color quality of the restoration. I was fascinated (and a little befuddled) to discover that the "tangerine hell" one reviewer described in certain color scenes was intentional on the part of the cinematographer, as was the darkness of much of the film---there are scenes in which the blackness is so utterly black that it swallows the set. No, we're not losing our eyesight. I missed the point, too, until I thought it through. It makes a certain "artsy-fartsy" sense when the viewer recognizes that The Godfather lives in hell. Evil is pure darkness, and joy (such as Connie's wedding) is lit by fiery reds and golds---literally a "tangerine hell." For a more intense example, look at the Sollozzo murder scene: Just before the shootings Michael is dark, while the out-of-focus red neon light on the Louis' Family Restaurant sign burns brightly over his right shoulder. That this is not bad filmmaking can be seen in the fact that less crucial scenes (such as the Don's funeral scene) have no such color distortion. It's subtle, and it is artsy, but mute the color extremes and THE GODFATHER would probably lose much of its visual impact. On a more normative note, the restoration brings out a hundred little details: A sign announcing Jake LaMotta's defense of his title pops out of nowhere, presaging Raging Bull; the appearance of oranges (always a harbinger of death in THE GODFATHER films) is more obvious; the dissolution evident on the face of the Black Hand extortionist Fanucci is highlighted; the sepia-tint quality of the early Twentieth Century DeNiro scenes in GODFATHER PART TWO is emphasized; and the intricacy of the sets is evident everywhere. Fortunately, THE COPPOLLA RESTORATION is just that, a restoration, and Francis Ford Coppolla does not do what he has done before, re-edit, add, subtract, and meld these movies together. This is a purely "technical" restoration of the films (or at least The Godfather and The Godfather Part II; the less-worthy Godfather Part III gets no such treatment). THE GODFATHER becomes more enjoyable as a result of the restoration, though you may not be consciously aware of the changes at first. | ||
 | Normal Life | |
| "What happens in your life stays in your life" | 2009-03-24 |
| This is a very solid "little" film in which Ashley Judd and Luke Perry play Pam and Chris, two very outwardly normal looking people. But Pam is very much a borderline personality and bipolar to boot. Chris is a young cop who is willing to sacrifice everything due to his codependency with Pam. While Chris is at work, Pam drugs and drinks and plays with Chris' gun collection in her panties, and cuts herself. She can't deal with Chris' normal family and runs away from them whenever she's forced to be social. Chris is willing to do anything---ANYTHING---to help Pam, and so he ends up with a mountain of debt, no friends, and no job. In desperation, he turns to robbing banks. When Pam finds out, she wants to play too, and that's literally how she sees it---as a game. All they really both want is a house with a white picket fence and the requisite middle-class toys, a normal life, but there's nothing "normal" to build on. NORMAL LIFE questions modern American values and it questions the viewer. What do you want? How badly do you want it? What are you willing to do to get it? Will you sacrifice? | ||
 | Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity | |
| "The Idiot's Guide To Being An Idiot" | 2009-02-23 |
| I love the subtitle of this book, which sums up Morinaga's (and my) (and your own) journey through life. Morinaga is the real deal as he discusses, without sentiment and without rancor, the highly regimented life of a Zen priest in training, and of all the lessons he had to learn in every moment of his monastic life. I would have enjoyed knowing more about Morinaga's life as a Master, particularly as he became more itinerant as a Zen teacher and moved between Eastern and Western Zen, but NOVICE TO MASTER doesn't much address that. What it does address is lesson after lesson in mindful thinking. An outsider to Zen might well ask what, if any, point there is in obsessively meditating without doing more in life, but the "more" and the ability to accept it comes through Zazen practice. Few Westerners would have a taste for the intensity of Morinaga's experience, but it does make fascinating---enlightening---reading. | ||
 | Boys Don't Cry | |
| "The Short, Tragic Life of Brandon Teena" | 2009-02-17 |
| Brandon Teena (born Teena Brandon) was a young transgendered female-to-male. Brandon was brutally murdered in 1993. Hilary Swank does a phenomenal and Oscar-winning job of recreating the end of Brandon's life. This is a dark, and profoundly distressing film. Even if Brandon's life story were not known, it could be surmised by this brief recitation of facts: A young transgendered girl is born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and upon leaving home sets out for---an insular rural town. The real tragedy of Brandon's life is that Brandon might have found far more acceptance in an anonymous large city, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, or even Chicago. Instead, Brandon exhibited a tendency toward poor choices (including busts for check fraud); settling in a one-stoplight town whose younger inhabitants had the limited horizons brought on by chronic unemployment, heavy drinking, petty crime, meth addiction, and violent boredom, was a fatal mistake. Brandon suffered from the same myopia. At one point, Brandon discusses with friends the ambition of owning a trailer park. Despite Brandon's very unorthodox identity, Brandon's imaginative worldview was dreary. Instead of seeking out similar peers, Brandon chose friends whose natural tendency was to have the narrowest outlook. Truly benighted, two of Brandon's friends raped and beat Brandon when they discovered Brandon's physical identity. After Brandon reported the attack, the two men were brought in for questioning, but were not charged (the local Sheriff referred to Brandon in death several times as "It"). After their release, they killed Brandon. Swank plays Brandon sympathetically, but not without acknowledging some serious flaws of character. The miserable atmosphere of this film is its own indictment. It is truly troubling that anyone would choose to kill a person like Brandon "just because" Brandon was who Brandon was. As sad as the unneccessary death of Brandon was, the environment that spawned such an event is even more sorrowful, especially since it simply doesn't have to be so. | ||
 | Boys Don't Cry | |
| "The Short, Tragic Life of Brandon Teena" | 2009-02-17 |
| Brandon Teena (born Teena Brandon) was a young transgendered female-to-male. Brandon was brutally murdered in 1993. Hilary Swank does a phenomenal and Oscar-winning job of recreating the end of Brandon's life. This is a dark, and profoundly distressing film. Even if Brandon's life story were not known, it could be surmised by this brief recitation of facts: A young transgendered girl is born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and upon leaving home sets out for---an insular rural town. The real tragedy of Brandon's life is that Brandon might have found far more acceptance in an anonymous large city, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, or even Chicago. Instead, Brandon exhibited a tendency toward poor choices (including busts for check fraud); settling in a one-stoplight town whose younger inhabitants had the limited horizons brought on by chronic unemployment, heavy drinking, petty crime, meth addiction, and violent boredom, was a fatal mistake. Brandon suffered from the same myopia. At one point, Brandon discusses with friends the ambition of owning a trailer park. Despite Brandon's very unorthodox identity, Brandon's imaginative worldview was dreary. Instead of seeking out similar peers, Brandon chose friends whose natural tendency was to have the narrowest outlook. Truly benighted, two of Brandon's friends raped and beat Brandon when they discovered Brandon's physical identity. After Brandon reported the attack, the two men were brought in for questioning, but were not charged (the local Sheriff referred to Brandon in death several times as "It"). After their release, they killed Brandon. Swank plays Brandon sympathetically, but not without acknowledging some serious flaws of character. The miserable atmosphere of this film is its own indictment. It is truly troubling that anyone would choose to kill a person like Brandon "just because" Brandon was who Brandon was. As sad as the unneccessary death of Brandon was, the environment that spawned such an event is even more sorrowful, especially since it simply doesn't have to be so. | ||
 | Learning to Fall : The Blessings of an Imperfect Life | |
| "The Perfection of Being Imperfect" | 2009-01-06 |
| Philip Simmons (1958-2002) was a professor of Humanities at Lake Forest College. When he was diagnosed with Amylotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, usually known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease") Simmons left his teaching position and retired to his small New Hampshire hometown, where he wrote this book of twelve essays, reflections on life, living, death, and dying. Simmons' reflections sample everyone from Snoopy to Marcus Aurelius, a good, deep, calm, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes defiant, and sometimes wistful philippic on the universe and finding oneself in the midst of loss. Simmons revels in free ranging thoughts. He is never hortatory. He consciously crafted LEARNING TO FALL so as to avoid a "bullet point" self-help approach to "life's lessons," and this book is at once poetic, spiritual and mystic, but never above life. Simmons' religion---and he is universalist, finding inspiration in Jesus, Buddha, Rumi and Rebbe Nachmann of Bratslav---is about toe fungus, mud, rusty tin cans, his own progressive loss of functioning, and the very human moment. There are lessons here we all can learn as we join Simmons in his sunset time, a kosmos contemplating itself. | ||
 | Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H. H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-Of-The -Century Chicago | |
| "The Curious Case Of Mr. Herman Webster Mudgett" | 2008-12-29 |
| Author Harold Schechter has made a successful career of writing books with titles like Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho, Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster, Fatal : The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer, Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer and so on, all about American serial killers. In Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, he takes us to visit the bustling, largely newly-rebuilt Chicago of the 1880s, the trolling grounds of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known to history as Dr. H. H. Holmes. Holmes, like his contemporary Jack The Ripper became nefarious. Holmes is known as "America's First Serial Killer." Doubtless, he was not the first true American serial killer, but he was both grotesque and gothic, and became famous in part due to the reflected fame of Jack The Ripper. Like The Ripper, it could be said that he gave birth to the twentieth century. Holmes was exhaustively covered in the contemporary press. This highly cultured, well-dressed Victorian gentleman of impeccable manners and seemingly independent means was a con man, thief, bigamist, rapist and killer. Unsurprisingly, he was not a doctor, though he amassed and kept a collection of skeletons in his closet (literally) that he donated to medical schools around the Midwest. No one is really certain how many people Holmes killed. His lair, near downtown Chicago, was a large building with crenellated corner towers, known colloquially as "The Castle." Holmes turned The Castle into a true house of horrors with heremetically sealed gassing rooms, greased body chutes, hidden trapdoors and secret passages, and a large furnace in the basement for burning bodies. Chicago, being what it was at the time, attracted transients, ne'er-do-wells, working girls, itinerant laborers, immigrants, country folk relocating to the city, the unemployed seeking jobs, and pinch-penny tourists. Seeking cheap accommodations near the heart of the city, these people were attracted to the available space in The Castle. How many guests Holmes entertained over the years is anyone's guess, but for certain, far fewer checked out than had checked in. Holmes' murderous career might have continued indefinitely, had he not overreached himself in an insurance scam called the "Dead Man's Shuffle," in which a nameless corpse is presented in place of a still-living insured who then collects his own life insurance proceeds. Holmes became greedy. Not only did he kill the living insured, Benjamin Pietzel, and steal his share, he killed several of Pietzel's children. Mrs. Pietzel, hearing nothing from her family, but plenty of excuses from Holmes, went to the police. Although initially unwilling to prosecute the well-known and respected doctor, Holmes' own inconsistent alibis alerted the police that not all was well. Holmes was arrested for murder, The Castle was "tossed," and evidence of multiple murders came to light. It was after his arrest that Holmes wrote a lurid book, claiming that demonic possession was the cause of his crimes. These stories made him more famous. He even wrote undeliverable letters to The Ripper. Holmes was eventually executed, but his bizarre career was fodder for the tabloid press and a template for serial killers of the 20th Century. | ||
 | Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer | |
| "The Curious Case Of Mr. Herman Webster Mudgett" | 2008-12-29 |
| Author Harold Schechter has made a successful career of writing books with titles like Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho, Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster, Fatal : The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer, Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer and so on, all about American serial killers. In Depraved: The Definitive True Story of H.H. Holmes, Whose Grotesque Crimes Shattered Turn-of-the-Century Chicago, he takes us to visit the bustling, largely newly-rebuilt Chicago of the 1880s, the trolling grounds of Herman Webster Mudgett, better known to history as Dr. H. H. Holmes. Holmes, like his contemporary Jack The Ripper became nefarious. Holmes is known as "America's First Serial Killer." Doubtless, he was not the first true American serial killer, but he was both grotesque and gothic, and became famous in part due to the reflected fame of Jack The Ripper. Like The Ripper, it could be said that he gave birth to the twentieth century. Holmes was exhaustively covered in the contemporary press. This highly cultured, well-dressed Victorian gentleman of impeccable manners and seemingly independent means was a con man, thief, bigamist, rapist and killer. Unsurprisingly, he was not a doctor, though he amassed and kept a collection of skeletons in his closet (literally) that he donated to medical schools around the Midwest. No one is really certain how many people Holmes killed. His lair, near downtown Chicago, was a large building with crenellated corner towers, known colloquially as "The Castle." Holmes turned The Castle into a true house of horrors with heremetically sealed gassing rooms, greased body chutes, hidden trapdoors and secret passages, and a large furnace in the basement for burning bodies. Chicago, being what it was at the time, attracted transients, ne'er-do-wells, working girls, itinerant laborers, immigrants, country folk relocating to the city, the unemployed seeking jobs, and pinch-penny tourists. Seeking cheap accommodations near the heart of the city, these people were attracted to the available space in The Castle. How many guests Holmes entertained over the years is anyone's guess, but for certain, far fewer checked out than had checked in. Holmes' murderous career might have continued indefinitely, had he not overreached himself in an insurance scam called the "Dead Man's Shuffle," in which a nameless corpse is presented in place of a still-living insured who then collects his own life insurance proceeds. Holmes became greedy. Not only did he kill the living insured, Benjamin Pietzel, and steal his share, he killed several of Pietzel's children. Mrs. Pietzel, hearing nothing from her family, but plenty of excuses from Holmes, went to the police. Although initially unwilling to prosecute the well-known and respected doctor, Holmes' own inconsistent alibis alerted the police that not all was well. Holmes was arrested for murder, The Castle was "tossed," and evidence of multiple murders came to light. It was after his arrest that Holmes wrote a lurid book, claiming that demonic possession was the cause of his crimes. These stories made him more famous. He even wrote undeliverable letters to The Ripper. Holmes was eventually executed, but his bizarre career was fodder for the tabloid press and a template for serial killers of the 20th Century. | ||
 | The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea | |
| "The Last War of The Ancient Order" | 2008-12-03 |
| Orwellianly, the Korean War was termed a "Police Action" by President Harry S Truman, thereby obviating the need for a Congressional Declaration of War. The Korean War began at the precise midpoint of the Twentieth Century, but in many ways it was a Nineteenth Century war fought for most of its time along static battle lines and in trenches. It was also, in many ways, the last classical war ever fought, with a clearly defined enemy (North Korea), opposing ideologies (Capitalism versus Communism and Democracy versus Totalitarianism), and a clearly defined rationale (the capture of enemy land and the reunification of Korea). Unlike Vietnam, where the Vietcong enemy existed sub rosa in the midst of the allied population, Korea had a front line, the distance from which could be measured in feet, yards, or miles. It was fought with conventional, even outmoded weapons, leftovers from the Second World War. The Korean War was an outgrowth of World War II, and was the first major hot war of the Cold War. Korea had been an unknown hermit kingdom until being taken by the Japanese in 1910. Japan alternately neglected and brutalized the Korean populace. The Soviet Union, which had been neutral in the Pacific War until its very end, was rewarded for its brief contribution by being given that portion of Korea north of the 38th Parallel as booty in 1945. The U.S. occupied the south. Although the Allies agreed to hold all-Korea elections, Cold War politics meant that both sides held their own elections, each fatuously claiming to speak for all of Korea. Communist North Korea quickly reestablished itself as a hermit state, but held revanchist views on unifying the peninsula. In June 1950, the North Koreans crossed the border in force. The position of the Soviets and of Red China were equivocal at that point in time. It was in all respects, "a sour little war," in which 53,000 Americans lost their lives, a three year killing field which claimed almost as many American lives as Vietnam (56,000), a war which lasted ten years. It was a war whose major battles, at Inchon, at Pusan, and at the Chosin Reservoir, warrant only footnotes in history books. The offensives and counteroffensives of the Korean War took place all within the first few months of the conflict, when North Korea crossed the country's artificial dividing line at the 38th Parallel, and seized 90% of the peninsula, trapping United Nations forces in a small perimeter around the city of Pusan; the U.N. pushed back hard, taking 85% of the country, splitting North Korea in two, and reaching the Chinese frontier at the Yalu River, an act which newly-communist China saw as a prelude to invasion. A million Chinese crossed the Yalu and drove the Americans and South Koreans back far down south. An American counteroffensive shoved the Chinese to the 38th Parallel, and there both sides dug in for more than two years. A draw, neither won nor lost by the powers that be, Korea indeed became "The Forgotten War." It was at this point that a newly minted second lieutenant named James Brady joined the First Marine Division in the winter mountains of Korea, a brutal and frozen environment where cold, frostbite, accident and injury caused far more casualties than the enemy. (My father, a frontline Korean War veteran almost never speaks of the war except for his Japanese furloughs, and his having suffered a mildly frostbitten nose in combat). Brady writes with a journalist's eye and a precise, cinematic memory. The dreary trench-and-bunker life of a twenty-three year old line soldier is recounted in some detail. Cold air literally drops from the turning pages (even in summer) as Brady describes the static conflict that was Korea, a stalemate in black and white, in which combat deaths were counted in the single digits in a thousand anonymous dozen man recon patrols and five minute firefights that went on day by day and night by night, never ending, but never really exploding into real attacks. It was a war of small arms potshots, traded mortar fire, and momentary flaring small unit violence, a war in which nothing would ever be resolved. And so it wasn't. At its end, Korea was very much like Korea at its beginning, except for the deaths and dislocations. The border no longer followed the Parallel precisely, but snaked across it in a SW to NE line which gave the South a little more of the North and the North a little more of the South, but left both sides as they had been, essentially equal. James Brady had changed. Once fearful and callow, he had conquered, if not banished, his fears, and the ugliness of war in a cold place had taken him far along the path to manhood. War is hell, not only for what it does to land and innocent folk, but for its soul-battering forced effect on the young men who dwell within it for a time. They ever come home as they left, and not just the dead. | ||
 | The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea | |
| "The Last War of The Ancient Order" | 2008-12-03 |
| Orwellianly, the Korean War was termed a "Police Action" by President Harry S Truman, thereby obviating the need for a Congressional Declaration of War. The Korean War began at the precise midpoint of the Twentieth Century, but in many ways it was a Nineteenth Century war fought for most of its time along static battle lines and in trenches. It was also, in many ways, the last classical war ever fought, with a clearly defined enemy (North Korea), opposing ideologies (Capitalism versus Communism and Democracy versus Totalitarianism), and a clearly defined rationale (the capture of enemy land and the reunification of Korea). Unlike Vietnam, where the Vietcong enemy existed sub rosa in the midst of the allied population, Korea had a front line, the distance from which could be measured in feet, yards, or miles. It was fought with conventional, even outmoded weapons, leftovers from the Second World War. The Korean War was an outgrowth of World War II, and was the first major hot war of the Cold War. Korea had been an unknown hermit kingdom until being taken by the Japanese in 1910. Japan alternately neglected and brutalized the Korean populace. The Soviet Union, which had been neutral in the Pacific War until its very end, was rewarded for its brief contribution by being given that portion of Korea north of the 38th Parallel as booty in 1945. The U.S. occupied the south. Although the Allies agreed to hold all-Korea elections, Cold War politics meant that both sides held their own elections, each fatuously claiming to speak for all of Korea. Communist North Korea quickly reestablished itself as a hermit state, but held revanchist views on unifying the peninsula. In June 1950, the North Koreans crossed the border in force. The position of the Soviets and of Red China were equivocal at that point in time. It was in all respects, "a sour little war," in which 53,000 Americans lost their lives, a three year killing field which claimed almost as many American lives as Vietnam (56,000), a war which lasted ten years. It was a war whose major battles, at Inchon, at Pusan, and at the Chosin Reservoir, warrant only footnotes in history books. The offensives and counteroffensives of the Korean War took place all within the first few months of the conflict, when North Korea crossed the country's artificial dividing line at the 38th Parallel, and seized 90% of the peninsula, trapping United Nations forces in a small perimeter around the city of Pusan; the U.N. pushed back hard, taking 85% of the country, splitting North Korea in two, and reaching the Chinese frontier at the Yalu River, an act which newly-communist China saw as a prelude to invasion. A million Chinese crossed the Yalu and drove the Americans and South Koreans back far down south. An American counteroffensive shoved the Chinese to the 38th Parallel, and there both sides dug in for more than two years. A draw, neither won nor lost by the powers that be, Korea indeed became "The Forgotten War." It was at this point that a newly minted second lieutenant named James Brady joined the First Marine Division in the winter mountains of Korea, a brutal and frozen environment where cold, frostbite, accident and injury caused far more casualties than the enemy. (My father, a frontline Korean War veteran almost never speaks of the war except for his Japanese furloughs, and his having suffered a mildly frostbitten nose in combat). Brady writes with a journalist's eye and a precise, cinematic memory. The dreary trench-and-bunker life of a twenty-three year old line soldier is recounted in some detail. Cold air literally drops from the turning pages (even in summer) as Brady describes the static conflict that was Korea, a stalemate in black and white, in which combat deaths were counted in the single digits in a thousand anonymous dozen man recon patrols and five minute firefights that went on day by day and night by night, never ending, but never really exploding into real attacks. It was a war of small arms potshots, traded mortar fire, and momentary flaring small unit violence, a war in which nothing would ever be resolved. And so it wasn't. At its end, Korea was very much like Korea at its beginning, except for the deaths and dislocations. The border no longer followed the Parallel precisely, but snaked across it in a SW to NE line which gave the South a little more of the North and the North a little more of the South, but left both sides as they had been, essentially equal. James Brady had changed. Once fearful and callow, he had conquered, if not banished, his fears, and the ugliness of war in a cold place had taken him far along the path to manhood. War is hell, not only for what it does to land and innocent folk, but for its soul-battering forced effect on the young men who dwell within it for a time. They ever come home as they left, and not just the dead. | ||
 | Lorenza Ponce - Imago | |
| "Ideal" | 2008-11-13 |
| Lorenza Ponce's debut album is haunting and mystical. The term "Imago" has two meanings---in biology, it refers to the sexually mature adult that emerges after insect metamorphosis. In psychology, it refers to the idealized mental portrait each of us keeps of a significant other, whether parent or partner or self. Ponce's album is both about maturity and idealization. Since the release of IMAGO, the classically-trained Ponce, a violinist and vocalist, has toured with some big name acts and appeared on some hit albums, but this first album of hers, both simple and symbolic, introduces us to Ponce just as she leaves the chrysalis, remembering innocence but moving forcefully into the world. Few instrumentals are as emotional as "Night on Ontake Mountain." | ||
 | The Duke of Flatbush | |
| ""Willie, Mickey, and The Ed."" | 2008-10-20 |
| Having read more than my share of books and seen more than my share of videos about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and having heard how "temperamental" Edwin Donald Snider is, I expected THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH to be a study in ego. I misjudged The Duke completely. Duke Snider was and still is my father's favorite Brooklyn Dodger. Even today, suffering from Alzheimer's, my Dad can recognize Snider in an old group photograph. For my Dad, there is something memorable and likeable about the man. After reading THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH, I'd have to agree. Snider is a consummate raconteur on these pages, sharing baseball stories and a lifetime's worth of insights about the game with his readers. THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH is never an exercise in character assassination masquerading as memoir. Rather, this is a genuine Hall of Fame player's reminiscence of the game in the good old fashioned sense of the word. Duke never snipes at anyone, and is rarely, and then only mildly, critical of others. He does say that Roger Kahn (The Boys of Summer) makes several errors in that book and paints too bleak a picture of most former Dodgers' post-baseball lives. He also calls sportswriters to task for selling papers through lurid misquotes and invention---though he admits, ruefully, that sometimes they were TOO accurate. Duke seems less temperamental than simply impulsive at times. His stories of being fined $25.00 for complaining about a $1.00 meal allowance, or getting into an argument with a Manager over a $0.75 dish of creamed cauliflower, point up the fact that he often couldn't shut his yap when yap-shutting was warranted, and also underscore the starvation wages that many ballplayers earned in his time ($5,000.00 per season was the rookie minimum in 1947). The Duke says that the money is infinitely better nowadays (which it is), but that ballplayers lack the sense of fun, the camaraderie, and the sense of bond with their teams and teammates that came from traveling on trains with and playing with most of the same men on the same team for sixteen years each summer, developing an almost psychic sense of rhythm and timing with them, a sense that propelled the Dodgers to the top of the league every year. Duke had a host of friends on the field and in the stands, or so it seems. The California native has an easygoing quality, but he describes himself as an "overworrier," and that indeed does seem to be the case. Surprisingly, Snider, a noted power hitter and topnotch center fielder, considered one of the best ever in either category, seems to have obsessed on his strikeout record, and flagellated himself unmercifully over a poor showing in the 1947 World Series (his first). The Duke has nothing but love for the intimate and shabby Brooklyn home of the Dodgers, and nothing but love for the army of characters that populated the place both on the field and in the stands. His best stories always involve his fellow Dodgers and their insanely dedicated fans, who would sometimes fistfight with their own fathers over disputes about who was a better player, Snider or Mickey Mantle. Brooklyn fans were fickle. They loved to cheer their Bums, but booed them just as often. With the insouciance of proprietors, Brooklyn fans might criticize the Dodgers, but let an outsider do so and he just might taste shoe leather. Duke tells stories of a world steeped in male friendship, both in its finest aspect, such as his relationship with Carl Erskine, and in its sophomoric aspect, a string of silly practical jokes between members of the Dodger team. There is the joyous World Series win in 1955, and the glorious contests of 1952 and 1953, when the Dodgers fielded what may have been the finest teams in baseball history. There is the heartbreak of 1951, when Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round The World" caused the Dodgers to lose the NL pennant to the despised New York Giants in the bottom of the Ninth with two out. There are the seemingly-endless annual near wins of the World Series, going to seven squeak games, always against the Yankees. He regales us with the tale of a smart-aleck exchange between Roy Campanella (the Dodgers' catcher), Big Don Newcombe (the Dodgers' pitcher), and Willie Mays, (at bat for the Giants), all three men of color. After two pitches that practically scraped his cheek, Mays asked Campy to ask Newcombe to stop throwing at him. Campy hustled out to the mound, only to come back with the explanation that Newcombe "didn't care for black people." All three men were good friends off the field. Or, listen to the Duke's story about umpire Jocko Conlon, who once threw a rude couple out of a restaurant by paying their dinner check and bellowing, "Yer outta here!" Or, on a more serious note, the fact that the famously stoic Gil Hodges' hands trembled sometimes so violently that he couldn't light his own cigarette. Duke was plainly unhappy to leave Brooklyn, where he lived in the neighborhood of Bay Ridge, knew his fans personally, and had many good friends. Even after the move to Los Angeles, Duke Snider keeps bringing the story back to Brooklyn, which is where it belongs. When he wrote THE DUKE OF FLATBUSH in 1986, Duke Snider was only just beginning to grasp the visceral relationship had between the Borough of Brooklyn and their beloved baseball team. There are verbal snapshots---a man, met at random in the 1980s, who was carrying a 1950s Duke Snider baseball card in his wallet, and asked his childhood hero to sign it. An old woman in Los Angeles who bent his ear remembering Ebbets Field. Yelling and stomping fans who greeted the Duke when he came back to New York in his swansong days to play for the Mets. This is Duke's book and yours, guys, a conversation had propped on barstools, beer nuts and brews at your fingertips. Maybe it wasn't really always the case, but it seems The Duke had very few rainy days in Flatbush. Read this book. Enjoy a sunshiny day with my father's favorite ballplayer. | ||
 | Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life | |
| ""Five Strike" Greenberg" | 2008-10-12 |
| Play "Fill In The Blanks" and say, "Hammerin' Hank ___________," and many baseball fans will answer (correctly) "Aaron." Others will answer (just as correctly) "Greenberg," for before there was Hammerin' Hank Aaron of the Braves there was Hammerin' Hank Greenberg (1911-1986) of the Tigers. Greenberg played baseball for the Tigers in the mid-1930s to mid-1940s, and is considered by many pundits to be the third greatest hitter in baseball history, after Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. With 58 homers in 1938, he nearly matched the Babe's single season home run record of 60; with 182 RBIs in 1937, he nearly matched the Iron Horse's record of 183. A target of vicious abuse because of his ethnicity, he has been compared to Jackie Robinson as well. To call Greenberg "the Jewish Jackie Robinson" however, is not entirely accurate. Although baseball could never have been identified as a "Jewish" sport (as were basketball and boxing at various times), Jews have played baseball professionally since the inception of the game. Baseball has always been dominated by men with rural backgrounds. Many Jewish players changed their names in the era of Restriction---Johnny Cooney was Jacob Cohen off the field---but Jews did take a small but active role in our National Pastime, nonetheless. Few Jewish players were as conspicuous as Greenberg, however, and none had yet made the Hall of Fame. A prodigious hitter, the 6-4, 215 lb. Greenberg was hard to miss. In an era of unrestrained "bench jockeying," Greenberg was a favored target. Bench jockeys played a nasty but effective role in keeping opposing players off-balance by yelling all kinds of obscenities and epithets from the dugout. Nothing was out-of-bounds, and this was particularly true with Greenberg, who was called everything from "Moses" to "Hook Nose," and far worse. Much to Greenberg's credit, he does not dwell overlong on anti-Semitism in this autobiography. Unfinished at the time of his death, the book was edited by Greenberg's friend Ira Berkow, who relied on the record books, newspapers and reminiscences of Greenberg's friends, relatives, and professional colleagues to provide missing background material and a sense of continuity to Greenberg's story. The result is an interesting amalgam: For example, Greenberg gives little credence to the idea that he was foiled in breaking the Babe's home run record because opposing pitchers did not want a Jew (in particular) to hit 61; however, others admit that this was at least a partial motivation amongst some pitchers. Greenberg modestly describes his success as due to very hard work, saying that he was "not a natural player." Other voices disagree. His two American League MVP elections might be due to either or both. His elevation to the Hall of Fame was especially well-deserved. Still, Greenberg says that had the NBA existed in his youth he would have chosen to play basketball instead. Sandy Koufax, the Brooklyn Dodger pitcher, and the only other Jewish player elected to the Hall of Fame, was once asked if Greenberg had been his inspiration. Koufax admitted that he had hardly heard of Greenberg before entering baseball, and that he had initially been less interested in playing professional baseball than in playing pro basketball! Both Greenberg and Koufax made headlines by refusing to play in World Series games on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish year. Greenberg was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1956. Koufax was elected in 1972. Greenberg and Koufax are the first two Jewish players so honored. Like many physically imposing men, Greenberg was a quiet man, who got into few altercations, although he occasionally does admit to "wanting to beat the [ahem]" out of mouthy players. He greeted Jackie Robinson's debut enthusiastically, and was one of the few players in baseball to openly befriend Jackie in 1947 (Greenberg's last year on the field). Both men had problems with Ben Chapman, a player/manager who once released a black cat onto the field while Robinson was playing and openly admitted he hated Robinson for his color. Greenberg is uncharacteristically sharp about Chapman, calling him a "Jew-baiter" who "hated" him as well. Such is Mr. Chapman's legacy. Greenberg became a team owner/manager after his retirement. His career-long observations on the business of baseball are enlightening: "Branch Rickey would have rather had a second place team since he didn't have to pay his players as much, but could still rely on a good gate," in describing the foibles of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The business of baseball as Greenberg sees it, is cutthroat, owners have "no integrity" and players have little value except as commodities. Greenberg admits candidly that his opinions come partly from his disgust with the manner in which he was treated by Tigers management after sixteen seasons. That may be why Greenberg helped establish the Players Pension Plan, and why he supported Free Agency. In his earliest years, Greenberg held out for decent pay, and his contract negotiation letters to Tigers owner Frank Navin are overly cocky. Fortunately, Navin saw talent in the young Greenberg, and compensated him well, though not as well as Greenberg would have liked. Still, he was making $35,000.00 a year during the Depression, not chicken feed. Years later, with new management, Greenberg left the Tigers over a salary dispute, although the Tigers put the onus on Greenberg for wearing Yankee pinstripes during an Armed Services morale-building exhibition game in 1945 (no Detriot Tigers uniform was available for Greenberg). Hank Greenberg lost four solid seasons during the war years. It is open to speculation what he would have accomplished in those years, as he was still in the prime of his career. In 1946, Greenberg held the season record for home runs; in 1947, he was unceremoniously sent from the first place AL Tigers to the last place NL Pirates, where he played desultory baseball. Then he retired to become a club owner and an investment banker. Having left NYU to play ball, he never got his Baccalaureate Degree, but he accomplished so much else. A memorable player whose accomplishments have been dimmed by time, Greenberg "should have been Commissioner of Baseball," according to Ralph Kiner. "No one was better qualified." As for himself, Greenberg says self-deprecatingly that he is the "bum" of Mr. and Mrs. Greenberg's children. Had Hank Greenberg been ten years younger he probably would have played for his hometown, been a Brooklyn Bum, and an outstanding addition to The Boys of Summer. A fine story, by and about a fine human being, HANK GREENBERG: THE STORY OF MY LIFE is VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. | ||
 | A Lawyer's Journey : The Morris Dees Story (ABA Biography Series) | |
| "A Personal Fight For Justice" | 2008-10-05 |
| Morris Dees was born to a sharecropper family. Rising from white Southern poverty, Mr. Dees went to law school and became a fighter for justice on behalf of the poor. I have met Mr. Dees. He was the keynote speaker at my law school graduation. His Southern Poverty Law Center once assisted my Firm on a case when it turned out that one of our opponents was an active Klansman. Mr. Dees is passionate about his work with the SPLC, and its "Klanwatch" which has expanded to monitor all domestic hate groups. This book discusses several of Mr. Dees' more high-profile and more personally meaningful cases. It's an important document that sheds light on an aspect of our national character that brings out the worst in many and the best in some like Mr. Dees and his associates. | ||
 | Mr. 3000 (Widescreen Edition) | |
 | "Mr. 2,997" | 2008-10-04 |
| The late lamented Bernie Mac plays Stan Ross, a Milwaukee Brewer who quits the team midseason after attaining his 3000th hit. Ross retires on the strength of his reputation, marketing himself shamelessly as "Mr. 3000." Years later, the stats gods discover that Stan is actually 3 hits short of the coveted goal, and the out-of-shape baseball jock returns to the game to hit just one more and one more and one more. Mac is perfectly cast in his role. This is a mildly funny, though entirely formulaic film that doesn't really leave much of an aftertaste, except for its probably unintended critique of how utterly mercenary the present-day game of baseball has become. MR. 3000 is worth watching every now and again just to get a die-hard fan's dander up on that account. | ||
 | Mr. 3000 (Full Screen Edition) | |
| "Mr. 2,997" | 2008-10-04 |
| The late lamented Bernie Mac plays Stan Ross, a Milwaukee Brewer who quits the team midseason after attaining his 3000th hit. Ross retires on the strength of his reputation, marketing himself shamelessly as "Mr. 3000." Years later, the stats gods discover that Stan is actually 3 hits short of the coveted goal, and the out-of-shape baseball jock returns to the game to hit just one more and one more and one more. Mac is perfectly cast in his role. This is a mildly funny, though entirely formulaic film that doesn't really leave much of an aftertaste, except for its probably unintended critique of how utterly mercenary the present-day game of baseball has become. MR. 3000 is worth watching every now and again just to get a die-hard fan's dander up on that account. | ||
 | Jackie Robinson Story | |
| ""I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."---Jackie Robinson " | 2008-09-30 |
| THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY stars Jackie Robinson himself. Ruby Dee plays his wife Rachel. This 1950 film is a very bowdlerized account of Robinson's life and the struggles he faced integrating Major League Baseball. Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1956 (their halcyon years), and was one of the most creative players on the field. The baseball diamond, however, was simply the stage where Jackie played out, in complete isolation at first, one of the most dramatic social transformations in American history. By stepping onto the grass at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, Jackie singlehandedly thrust the issue of civil rights into the forefront of the American consciousness. He paid a terrible price in verbal and psychological abuse, injuries inflicted by other players, death threats, and more. He prevailed, and America is a better place because of it, but Jackie's life was undoubtedly shortened by the ordeal. He died in 1972, blind and halt from diabetes, white haired and aged far beyond his 52 years. This film is crucially important because it is a document of Robinson's struggle, no matter how gentrified for a film audience. It is unique, because Robinson portrays himself. It is timely, as Robinson's field debut occurred only three years before the film's release, and virtually everyone represented in the film was still directly involved with Robinson. This is Hollywood's sincere attempt to come to grips with the impending Civil Rights Movement, a Movement spearheaded by Robinson. Robinson is an unpolished actor whose great talent is his intensity. Even though this is a film, and even though this illuminates past events, Robinson is living through every minute of every experience, not acting at all. The film has an air of having been hastily thrown together, but despite the roughnesses of its 8mm home movie feel, this film is compelling to watch. No one can really understand what Jackie Robinson, "the loneliest man in baseball" felt in his gut, but we can honor him, and have. He was a trailblazer. His talent was legendary. His number, 42, has been retired throughout the Major Leagues. He was the first Rookie of the Year, a Most Valuable Player, a Hall of Famer, and posted impressive statistics even in his rookie year when the possibility of his being shot from the stands was an ugly, very real, possibility. He may have been the loneliest man in baseball, but he was also the bravest man in America for the longest stretch of time. | ||
 | Jackie Robinson Story | |
| ""I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."---Jackie Robinson " | 2008-09-30 |
| THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY stars Jackie Robinson himself. Ruby Dee plays his wife Rachel. This 1950 film is a very bowdlerized account of Robinson's life and the struggles he faced integrating Major League Baseball. Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1956 (their halcyon years), and was one of the most creative players on the field. The baseball diamond, however, was simply the stage where Jackie played out, in complete isolation at first, one of the most dramatic social transformations in American history. By stepping onto the grass at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, Jackie singlehandedly thrust the issue of civil rights into the forefront of the American consciousness. He paid a terrible price in verbal and psychological abuse, injuries inflicted by other players, death threats, and more. He prevailed, and America is a better place because of it, but Jackie's life was undoubtedly shortened by the ordeal. He died in 1972, blind and halt from diabetes, white haired and aged far beyond his 52 years. This film is crucially important because it is a document of Robinson's struggle, no matter how gentrified for a film audience. It is unique, because Robinson portrays himself. It is timely, as Robinson's field debut occurred only three years before the film's release, and virtually everyone represented in the film was still directly involved with Robinson. This is Hollywood's sincere attempt to come to grips with the impending Civil Rights Movement, a Movement spearheaded by Robinson. Robinson is an unpolished actor whose great talent is his intensity. Even though this is a film, and even though this illuminates past events, Robinson is living through every minute of every experience, not acting at all. The film has an air of having been hastily thrown together, but despite the roughnesses of its 8mm home movie feel, this film is compelling to watch. No one can really understand what Jackie Robinson, "the loneliest man in baseball" felt in his gut, but we can honor him, and have. He was a trailblazer. His talent was legendary. His number, 42, has been retired throughout the Major Leagues. He was the first Rookie of the Year, a Most Valuable Player, a Hall of Famer, and posted impressive statistics even in his rookie year when the possibility of his being shot from the stands was an ugly, very real, possibility. He may have been the loneliest man in baseball, but he was also the bravest man in America for the longest stretch of time. | ||
 | The Jackie Robinson Story | |
| ""I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."---Jackie Robinson " | 2008-09-30 |
| THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY stars Jackie Robinson himself. Ruby Dee plays his wife Rachel. This 1950 film is a very bowdlerized account of Robinson's life and the struggles he faced integrating Major League Baseball. Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1956 (their halcyon years), and was one of the most creative players on the field. The baseball diamond, however, was simply the stage where Jackie played out, in complete isolation at first, one of the most dramatic social transformations in American history. By stepping onto the grass at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, Jackie singlehandedly thrust the issue of civil rights into the forefront of the American consciousness. He paid a terrible price in verbal and psychological abuse, injuries inflicted by other players, death threats, and more. He prevailed, and America is a better place because of it, but Jackie's life was undoubtedly shortened by the ordeal. He died in 1972, blind and halt from diabetes, white haired and aged far beyond his 52 years. This film is crucially important because it is a document of Robinson's struggle, no matter how gentrified for a film audience. It is unique, because Robinson portrays himself. It is timely, as Robinson's field debut occurred only three years before the film's release, and virtually everyone represented in the film was still directly involved with Robinson. This is Hollywood's sincere attempt to come to grips with the impending Civil Rights Movement, a Movement spearheaded by Robinson. Robinson is an unpolished actor whose great talent is his intensity. Even though this is a film, and even though this illuminates past events, Robinson is living through every minute of every experience, not acting at all. The film has an air of having been hastily thrown together, but despite the roughnesses of its 8mm home movie feel, this film is compelling to watch. No one can really understand what Jackie Robinson, "the loneliest man in baseball" felt in his gut, but we can honor him, and have. He was a trailblazer. His talent was legendary. His number, 42, has been retired throughout the Major Leagues. He was the first Rookie of the Year, a Most Valuable Player, a Hall of Famer, and posted impressive statistics even in his rookie year when the possibility of his being shot from the stands was an ugly, very real, possibility. He may have been the loneliest man in baseball, but he was also the bravest man in America for the longest stretch of time. | ||
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