About two years ago, my husband and I travelled to the Orlando area for some good old fashioned theme parking.  We went to Universal Studios and the first thing we did was get on the Incredible Hulk roller coaster.  When did roller coasters become torture devices?  Or am I just at the age of thrill ride diminishment of returns?  About four years ago we went to King's Dominion which is all about roller coasters and I recall at the end of that day I was physically sore.  My old bones had been rattled.  I had the sad realization as to why a lot of the disclaimer/warning sings on most of the rides always warned old people not to ride.  You reach a point in time when you simply can't take it physically.  Perhaps this is a sad day of revelation.  Or perhaps not: you finally have an excuse not to ride a roller coaster.  Or for me; something that flings you into the sky at high rates of speed or plunges you into a freefall at a high rate of speed.
So, while in Orlando, my request to visit the Polynesian Resort at Walt Disney World was granted.  I hadn't been there since the early 80's.  My dad was in the Marine Corps. reserves and every summer he'd hitch up a trailer and we'd head south to live in it while he did Marine stuff.  Usually in North Carolina or Virginia.  And every now and then we'd go further south and hook up the Kon-Tiki (that was the name of the trailer brand) at Fort Wilderness.  Fort Wilderness is WDW's campground.  It was also the former home of River Country, one of the first water parks in the country.  One of the most charming elements of WDW is the launch that travels between the hotels and the campground.  We used to take it over to the Polynesian and hang out there.  It had the best pool in the resort, the best beach and the best lobby.  It was just, we thought, the best part of the whole place.  Maybe even better than The Magic Kingdom.  So, on this 2019 revisit I was excited to go back to this very dear to my heart place.  Mostly what I wanted to do was drink in the atmosphere of the hotel's lobby.  Smells revive memories like nothing else and the scent in that lobby was amazing.  A two story rock fountain/waterfall covered with thousands of tropical plants.  It really was like being in the South Seas.  Oh I couldn't wait to relive it!
WWUWD?
I tell you what Uncle Walt would do.  He'd wreck it, Ralph.  
The fountain and its water and its waterfall and its plantings and its one of kind fragrance were gone.  In its place was a tacky statue of the hotel's mascot.  Some call him Tikiman (although he's officially named Maui) or Tikigod.  I always called him Trader Sam.  Now I call him Traitor Sam.  The lobby, once spectacular, was now no more special than any Super 8 with a tropical theme.  Why Uncle Walt?  Why?  My guess is that the upkeep of the water-garden was too expensive. What price joy?  I'm guessing around a half mil.
We went out to the formerly sublime swimming area with its rock slides and waterfalls and kidney shaped pools.  That too was gone.  Ripped out to make room for some cheezy, kiddie friendly mini-waterpark: crowned by a completely out of synch volcano(?).  The beach was roped off.  No more swimming in the lake.  (That however, I could understand.  I mean, when alligators that don't have alarm clocks in their stomachs, become actual threats to life, you kinda have to put up that rope.  I often wonder if I'd ever been in the presence of alligators in the many hours I'd spent in Bay Lake.  I'd certainly been in the presence of Naegleria fowleria bacteria, which had closed down River Country.  It still sits there to this day, abandoned and falling to ruin.  Why Uncle Walt?  My guess is it would be too expensive to repurpose it.  Let the alligators reclaim it). And paying for a bio-hazard clean-up?  They'd lose more money than they did on John Carter and Mars Needs Moms combined.
We got on the monorail (which I was happy (and shocked) to find was still free of charge) and did a circuit around the park.  Something though, was ineffably lost. Not just River Country--which to a twelve year-old was pretty awesome. Maybe it was my youth that had flown away like a sweet bird; but I don't think so.  It's was a fundamental change in the outlook of the Disney corporation.  Or was it?

Maybe Uncle Walt was always cheap.  Maybe he wasn't quite as nice a guy as he had us all thinking.  Always on the cutting edge of promotion; Walt was one of the first to realize the brainwashing potential of television.  He washed our brains in his faux Americana; using himself as guinea pig in a sharkskin suit. What else but parsimony could explain The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights back in the 70's when you were lucky if you got maybe a couple of Donald Duck vs. Chip and Dale shorts.  Sure kids, here's three of our most annoying and violent characters to soothe your anxiety about school tomorrow!  The best thing about that show was the opening; but it was a bait and switch.  It lured you in with clips from the feature length animated classics and exciting goings-on at the park.  But the main offering was always some dry, dusty, beige colored boredom set out West.  Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar or The Living Desert.  Or some Saturday morning matinee dreck you'd already sat through.  Usually starring Dean Jones.  Bland as Wonder bread but still somehow off-putting (which could apply to either Dean or the films; usually both).  Stuff you knew, even as a kid, was lame and made on the cheap. The Million Dollar Duck is a good example.
​I don't once recall a single Mickey Mouse cartoon being aired on the program.  I'm from an entire generation of kids who wore Mickey Mouse t-shirts without benefit of ever actually having seen one of his cartoons.  Uncle Walt was withholding.  You wanna look at the mouse kid?  Buy the t-shirt and quit bothering me.  You wanna see Sleeping Beauty?  Wake up kid! I can still squeeze a couple of million out of it in a theatrical re-release.

WWUWD? 
Well, apparently he's already done it.
So Uncle Walt now controls around 40% percent of the American entertainment industry.  Correct me if I'm wrong; but isn't that a monopoly?  Aren't they, like, illegal?  Didn't the phone company, perhaps one of the most powerful organizations in the history of the USA, have to split-up because of such goings-ons?  Didn't the movie industry itself have to divest of its own holdings in movie theaters?  Isn't Mickey Mouse supposed to be in the public domain?
Have you ever seen the executive building of Disney Corp. in Burbank?  It features the Seven Dwarfs blown up to gargantuan proportions.  Is that supposed to be ironic?  Is it supposed to be some kind of subliminal message along the lines of Mountains out of Mouseholes?  Why Uncle Walt?  Why?  It's creepy to make gigantic dwarfs.  It's perverse.  And they've been frozen into eternal subservience; having to hold up the rooflines.  Boy must their arms be tired! And why the Seven Dwarfs anyways?  Because they had a gemstone mine literally overflowing with karats: a bottomless pit of untold wealth, belching money into mine cars?  A little crass methinks.
They should tear that monstrosity down and replace it with a giant replica of The Death Star (which they now own).  It seems a much more fitting statement.  They could even put it on a turntable and affix it with a mega-laser and take out rival studios.
So, maybe we shouldn't ask the question: "WWUWD?"  We probably don't want to hear the answer.
And right now; all I want is my fountain back.

Okay, so I'm becoming addicted to this blogging thing.  I don't know if anyone is reading and I don't know how one might make money from this.  Is blogging a thing anymore?  Isn't it kind of 2005ish?  Shouldn't I, at the very least, at least be vlogging?  Or should I be pod-casting?  Isn't it weird that with all this technology we've essentially returned to radio?  I just read an article about "single topic" vs. "multi-topic" blogging.  Which can garner more income?  Single topic was the answer.  But I think I'd get bored writing only about one thing.  I'm a multi-type thinker as it is.  So, my blog (which I'm realizing is basically a personal diary or maybe an old-fashioned opinion column (without the benefit of a newspaper (which, do they even count anymore?) will be whatever it is I choose to rap about.  So, if you are reading this, be prepared for a miscellaneous mix of opinions, thoughts, reviews, insights(?) and comedic stylings.  Get ready to Live, Love, Laugh!  Also, I've figured out how to put pictures into these blogs, so get ready for some dazzling visual accompaniment too. Really, I'm so freaking bored with this pandemic is the reason I'm blogging.  I feel I need to create something a little more concrete than a load of clean dishes (not that I'm a Stepford Husband when it comes to that).
​I can't think of anything to write about, so how about a movie review?  Sounds good to me...

The Little Things was the last movie I saw.  It's not like I rushed out to see it.  Two of the lead actors I have mixed feelings about.  Jared Leto can be annoyingly showy, especially when he's playing a villain.  For example, his version of The Joker.  It was gimmicky.  Personally, I'm tired of all these modern takes on the backstory of The Joker's psychosis.  The Joker is not meant to be a person from the real world of mental hospitals.  He's a comic book villain.  I don't want to watch him suffocate his mother with a pillow.  Give me Cesar Romero or Jack Nicholson any day.  Joaquin, please, you don't have to lose fifty pounds to play a Batman villain.  And I certainly don't want to see your skeletal frame on a thirty foot movie screen.  Please don't jeopardize your health on my account.  The Joker doesn't need extreme Method Acting applied to him.  Just have fun with it.  Although, Jared did seem to be having fun with it.  However, in The Little Things, he is definitely not having fun with it.  Which is what makes his performance here kind of sublime.  We'll get back to that. 
The other actor I have issues with is Denzel Washington.  Not his acting so much (he's pretty phenomenal) but his attitude.  The persona that comes through his performances.  He has a big chip on his shoulder all the time.  Like all the time.  Every character he plays has this chip.  And maybe that's Denzel's thing: playing the chips.  But he's played his chips so often, I'm starting to feel that Denzel himself has a chip.  Maybe he should play The Joker.  I also still kinda hold a grudge about that time he advised Will Smith not to kiss another man on camera.  I mean, even though he was in Philadelphia, that still does not sit well with me.  Why did Will take on a gay role if he wasn't willing to smooch Anthony Michael Hall?  I mean, it must've been in the script.  Sorry, that was not cool.  But I'm forgiving.  Denzel, I'll lose my chip if you lose yours.  Why don't you try being in a romantic comedy?  I'd love to see you doing the Rock Hudson/Doris Day style bedroom romp!  How about a remake of Send Me No Flowers?  I think it would change all of our lives. 
​Denzel gives a fantastic performance in this.  It's almost too good.  The material is a bit on the trashy side (it's essentially a pulp/noir thriller/horror movie) so it almost doesn't deserve the full emotional treatment from the actor.  I mean, there's a scene where Denzel cries and it seems out of place in this material.  I'm glad he was willing to commit to that degree; but it isn't that kind of movie. That kind of emotion is too warm for it.  This kind of movie needs to be ice cold, like Se7ven or The Silence of the Lambs.  But even when Denzel gets emotional enough to cry, I still feel like he's not letting me all the way in.  He's got so much machismo it sort of gets in the way of his acting.  Let's face it, acting is kind of a feminine thing.  Denzel would never kiss another man on screen.  Isn't the refusal to do that the antithesis of what an actor is supposed to do?  An actor is supposed to be a conduit for catharsis.  Denzel, you have nothing to worry about.  Kissing another man is not going to put the kibosh on your career.  Maybe you should do that Pillow Talk remake with another dude.  I guarantee you'll get an Oscar nom!  On the other hand, I guess everyone has limitations.  I mean, I doubt Tom Hanks would sign on to play a serial killer any time soon.  We all have our brand, I guess.
Rami Malek is great in this too.  He plays a conflicted homicide detective (what he's conflicted about is never really made clear.  I suppose he's upset that the case he's working hasn't been solved. Makes sense to me).  What a face he has!  He's kind of like a svelte version of Peter Lorre.  Or a praying mantis wearing a rubber mask. But many of the great stars were untraditionally beautiful.  I love his swan-like neck and the way he moves his jaw when he talks.  And his voice is strange; which he uses to great advantage.  He steals scenes just by opening his mouth.  
So, the plot, in a nutshell, is a traditional police procedural/serial killer scenario.  It's set in 1990 and it has all the earmarks of a movie from that era.  Say, the above mentioned titles or stuff the studios were pumping out then: Jade, Copycat, Fallen (which starred Mr. Washington) etc.  Jared Leto is the main suspect in a string of murders of young women.  Denzel, who formerly worked similar cases in Los Angeles (he's now a cop "up north"), encounters Rami on a routine evidence pick-up.  Denzel was something of a legend on the homicide squad and Rami picks his brain for insight that might help him solve the case (is Jared the perp or isn't he?).  They bond and soon have a mentor/mentee thing happening.  As the story unfolds we see that everyone is involved in the case on deeper and deeper levels.  Denzel wants to take out Leto on a personal level.  Malek wants to stop him for more straightforward reasons (or does he?).  The story is an excuse to take us on a film noir tour of Los Angeles, more often than not, at night.  Los Angeles at night is truly a creepy place.  Never truly dark or entirely lit.  It's literally The Edge of Night (half dark/half light) there when it's dark.  The cinematographer, John Schwartzman (total pro) ratchets up that creepiness, making it slightly darker and infusing it with a ghastly glow of greenish light.  He deserves an Oscar for it.
Speaking of Oscars...which brings us to Jared Leto's performance.  I have to say he's pretty amazing here.  He takes what has become one of the most cliched roles (cliched because it's been done so many times now by so many actors): the creepy serial killer; and brings it to some weird other level.  It's like he removed his own head and replaced it with that wax head he brought to the Met Gala, killed himself and became an actual ghost and then went before the camera.  He is the person you do not ever want to run into on a dark road at night or in an alley or when he comes to repair the fridge.  He's haunting.
The movie leaves you questioning the motivations of the characters long after the movie is over.  When you think about the events in the film, you start saying, "Hey, wait a second..." pondering some of the mystery you weren't aware of when you were watching it.  That's the mark of a good movie for me.  The film does, however, suffer from a preponderance of Hollywood moments: a California freeway being devoid of vehicles except for the two being driven by the stars.  A field of hard earth having a dozen six foot holes dug into it by one person in the course of an evening.  Physically impossible.  And a choice one of the characters makes that almost ruins the entire film: the decision that no one ever, would ever make.  Even when one is that conflicted.
So, thank you writer/director (and fellow Sagittarian) John Lee Hancock for entertaining me without any of the gratuitous ultra-violence.

I can't say I was a huge fan of Cicely Tyson. Or rather, the movies she was in.  I've always admired her.  Been fascinated by her for some reason. Tremendous presence. Amazing actress. But her penchant for ultra-serious roles in movies that were, more often than not, set in hot (dry and/or muggy), hot, hot places; I found off putting.  Perhaps it's more that particular milieu.  Westerns are my least favorite genre (hot, dry, dusty) followed pretty closely by films with rural settings (often in the Southern U.S.: hot and wet).  Why are movies that are set in the South so often glacially paced?  Do the filmmakers equate drawn out speech and movement with sultriness?  I spent a lot of time in the South as a kid so I know sultry.  Perhaps I experience sense memories when viewing films set in these locales.  To wit: Cicely's movies usually made me hot, bothered, tired and sticky (not necessarily in that order).  I remember watching Sounder on TV as a child.  I don't recall much about it.  Was Sounder a dog?  Was the story about Cicely's missing husband?  Did either both the dog and the husband die.  I remember it was depressing and extremely sultry.  However, I can easily close my eyes and picture Ms. Tyson from the movie.  She's in a beige V-necked dress and straw hat, joyfully tromping through green grass.  Is she running to her husband?  I don't know; but I do remember that image.  I have another image of Cicely from another film seen during childhood.  The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.  I don't remember anything of the movie; but Cicely leaning down to drink from that water fountain is etched in my brain.  The drinking of the water was palpable...you could taste it.  Feel the coldness.  Experience her thirst and it being quenched both literally and metaphorically.
There was a time, however, when she wasn't in some hot environment crying her eyes out.  She was on Saturday Night Live the evening of February 10th, 1979.  I suppose, in its way, SNL was a hot environment.  Hot as in popular and also hot as in "the heat is on."  I lived for that show.  I remember the first time I saw it.  It was the first season and we were at my grandparent's house in Boston.  My siblings and I were up late (waiting for the adults to wrap up their looooong good-bye) and flipping through all six TV channels.  A commercial came on for a K-Tel product.  A personal price tagging gun.  A blowsy woman uses it on a melon and proclaims, "I got this melon for a penny!" I was hooked.  I credit that show for getting me through junior high school. During the opening of Cicely's episode, she is introduced by Don Pardo.  Garrett Morris comes out in drag, pretending to be Cicely.  She marches on stage from the audience and proceeds to gently admonish Garrett for essentially being a token and implying worse.  She tells him he's better than that.  And she has a point.  It's funny; but it's not funny.  Morris had in a way been reduced to playing almost nothing but maids.  You can sense a kind of change in him as he interacts with Cicely.  He seems to become empowered in her presence.  Later in the show there's a sketch called "Black Perspective" and it's a talk show spoof, hosted by Garrett.  He's interviewing Cicely, as herself, and asking her about being a black role model (something which she consciously strived to be).  The interview backfires on Garrett when she admonishes (far less gently this time) that the only thing keeping black women down, is black men.  I don't know why, but this moment imprinted into my long term memory bank.  Looking back and wondering why, I think it was the honesty of it, courtesy of Cicely.  It seemed I was hearing an authentic black voice on TV for maybe the first time.  Interesting to note that the show aired in February.  And the musical guests however, couldn't have been whiter: The Talking Heads; again, interesting to note that this was just before they released ​Remain in Light which was famously influenced by African "polyrhythms."  Maybe perhaps by the shows host that night as well.  If anyone was giving out a polyrhythmic performance that night, it was Cicely.  She was even in a Widettes sketch (remember the family with the huge rear ends?) where she had a speech about Ho-Ho's.  

I think another thing about Cicely Tyson and my vibe with her is that she is a fellow Sagittarius.  Not only that, we share the same birthday, December 19th.  Also Edith Piaf, Jean Genet, Alyssa Milano, Jennifer Beals and Mike Lookinland: trailblazers all!  I believe in all that stuff (to varying degrees).  I remember the day myself and my three best friends in high school realized we were all Sagittarians.  I mean, what were the odds?
So, Cicely, thank you for the memories and the sensations.  And yes, you were a trailblazer and yes, you most certainly were a role model; for all of us. I hope I live as long and graciously as you did.

I watched some movie recently, I forget what it was; but in reading a review the writer mentioned sourly that the screenplay was written thirty years ago.  When ​The Bodyguard came out in 1992 it was filmed with a screenplay that had originally been written in 1975.  The critics took note of that fact as well; as a point of criticism.  As though, that because the script was old, automatically the movie deserved demerits.  Who cares?  Apparently snotty critics.  But not audiences.  The Bodyguard made something like 400 million dollars at the box office.  Does our culture despise oldness that much?  I think, sadly, it does.  I recall when I first got to Hollywood.  I was working as a receptionist for Robinson, Weintraub and Gross, a boutique literary agency on snazzy Melrose Place in a building that was once the home of Adrian and Janet Gaynor.  I had little to do other than answer the phone, except pore over the show business periodicals: Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.  This was the very early 90's.  In reading the articles, it became clear that the industry was obsessed with young screenwriters.  At the time, an aspiring screenwriter myself, I was 26 years old.  According to the papers, I was already over the hill.  Obsolete.  At my age I had no chance of ever selling a screenplay.  I was 26!  This attitude so incensed me that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Reporter decrying this ingrained but patently stupid viewpoint.  They actually published the letter.  Now I'm 55.  Methuselah's great grand-father by Hollywood screenwriter standards.  But I still find it laughable.  Good storytelling has nothing to do with youthfulness.  In fact, it's rather the opposite.  
Which brings me to the above comic strip.  Among the numerous artistic endeavors I've endeavored to pursue, comic strip artist was once a fancy.  When I was a page at Paramount Studios, I remember Herman the Ermin popped into my head one day when myself and some fellow pages were undertaking some busy work.  Some mundane task like boxing files.  Of course, I was doing everything I could to avoid this work and started doodling the little Ermin.  I showed it to a wry fellow named Eric and he drew a poop with "stinky lines" next to the character.  I thought this was genius.  I started imagining Herman's world.  Who his friends were.  What his world was and what happened in it. Looking back, I suppose I took a lot of inspiration from "Pogo" (a comic strip I always felt cheated by as a child--I never understood it after having been lured in by the cute drawings) and of course, "Peanuts."  The first strip I attempted, many years after the invention of Herman, is pretty much a recreation (homage!) of the first Schulz strip.  It was a good ten years between inspiration and execution.  Then I drew a second strip, seen here (this one inspired by the famous Tootsie Pop commercial):

And that was it.  It was incredibly time consuming to execute these drawings, which you can see aren't finished.  I was also struggling to find Herman's "look" which is still pending.  The amount of detail that the rendering of the forest and the animals would take for me to be satisfied was (to me) mind-boggling.  And this was after only eight drawings.  My fancy to be the next Bill Watterson went the way of a Members Only jacket.
So I guess this is about equating art with "old-age."  Herman first popped into my head when I was in my mid-20's.  Now I'm in my mid 50's and Herman decided to fall out of a file folder the other day to remind me of his existence; one, which--who knows--still may happen.  Maybe I'll be happily turning out Herman the Ermin and his Forest Friends when I'm in my mid 80's.  God willing! 
​I guess the ultimate point is: "F" ageism.  If I'd hung up my keyboard because I bought into the myth that only young people can write, I wouldn't have two novels under my belt.  Is some Hollywood executive really going to send his Vermeer to Valhalla because it's nearly four hundred years old?  I think not.  If Lawrence Kasdan had decided to put the kibosh on The Bodyguard being green-lit because someone scoffed that the script was long in the tooth, where would we be?  Well, regardless of what you think of the film; we'd certainly be without Whitney Houston's sublime cover of Chaka Khan's I'm Every Woman, now wouldn't we?  And I don't think anybody wants a world without that!
Here was as far as I got with the conception and development of Herman's world.  Don't ask me why there's a lady platypus.  Maybe I was channeling Olivia Newton-John in Grease​?  Also, I've just realized that "ermin" has an "e" on the end of it.  I don't know, I kind of like my misspelling.