Determinants 2

Sigmund Freud, when a child, happened upon his parents while they were making love. He wrote later, and others joined him in writing about what he had written, that the experience had an effect on his life. So there's an example from my 'Determinants' previous post of "accident" playing a role in how we respond in childhood to our sexuality; because it's obvious to most parents that childhood sexuality begins almost immediately. A comic example mentioned by Anthropologist Clyde Kluckholn in my Humanities 5 undergraduate college class, was the spectacle of Navajo, young Indian boys (members of a peaceful Native American tribe) breast feeding with an erection; A fact which might for most suggest earlier weaning.

Freud's confession was used in an attack on Freud's psychoanalytic postulates by a Medical doctor, Nat Morris, in his 1974 book A Man Possessed. The whole scheme of the attack was repeated in 2004 by another Medical Doctor, from Northern Ontario, Canada, Medical School. Medicine wants the psyche for IT'S province. So far it's failed miserably.

Earlier than the firewood-gathering saga, in which I repeatedly mentioned I simply did not know, and do not know now what happened, where we lived some miles from my Grandmother when my family first returned from America, there was at the end of our tennis court, behind the house, a neighbor's carpentry workplace. On a gorgeous sunny day, early in the morning, the neighbor choreographed a scene in which I stood on the stairs to his workshop and watched him masturbate. I now know that some child abusers are clever at directing very young children and come from a place where they consider what they are doing is completely normal, sane and ordinary. I was three or four at the time.  So young that I was still in what must have been the traditional anal stage of childhood development. After the scene watched from the steps, some days later, I took a cricket stump, speared a large human turd in the tennis court outhouse, and flung it in the direction of the carpenter's workplace.  Later still, when a cousin visited, I led a pantomime in which we would hammer nails into the head of the carpenter. From this I deduce that the scene I watched was later interpreted by me as having been a violation.Even, or especially, children know what is right, and what is not so right.

There is one other memory from about the time we lived with my Grandmother that I have told very few people. My impression, now vague, is that the very few I told it too failed to convey they knew what I'd said. So, I'll try again. A neighbor child, a girl my age, played with me in the empty garage at the end of the front yard. In the garage there was a oil can with a long, thick spout. I couldn't have been older than five. I put a few drops of oil in the depression of her navel, while she was lying on the oil-slicked floor, on her back. I then sealed the oil, or tried to, with a piece of plastercene (playdough). Is it too much of a stretch to posit that at age five boys sometimes symbolically impregnate?

Unlike Freud not only did I never see my parents making love I have not one single memory of them even touching, or even sitting near each other. Yet, they were nearly always together for more than fourteen years when my mother died of polio. By huge contrast, while my father was away in the war my mother was so lonely she had me sleep in her bed. On one occasion she had me put my arm around her while she slept on her side with her back to me. It was awkward, a long way to reach up. Not long after, days later, I asked her if I could see her breasts. She quietly declined. When we returned from the surf we would stand in our swim suits at the hall mirror, shoulder to shoulder, looking back into the mirror, to see who had the best tan.

So, when I read 'Medical' books pooh-poohing Freud's theory of childhood sexuality I'm certain from experience that they are wrong, and worse, probably in denial. Similarly, not finding anything Oedipal in Hamlet, and making too much of the fact the Greek didn't know he was marrying his mother, I just laugh. Little boys get their cues to adult sexuality from their mothers, period!

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Determinants

Factors which may or may not, sometimes for some people, or never, have an effect on our orientation to love and sex include the attitudes and behaviour of our parents, and/or parent figures, chance life occurences, the actions of our siblings, what we're exposed to in movies, plays, books, art works and schools.

For now I'd like to dwell on only those things which happened in fairly early childhood, say up to about age six or seven. My life was idyllic, yet in retrospect it seems now most probable that my parents, grandmother (who had all the money) and myself  had no inkling of just how lucky we all were. We lived in a huge, eccentric version of what later became known as the 'California Bungalow' a sort of Pasadena Gamble House, but twice the size, and funny looking, only half a mile from the ocean north of Sydney, Australia. Architectual styles spread all over the world, even back then, with speed. The movie theater built at the time, nearby, for which my father was the architect copied German, 'poured conrete' Bauhaus (sp?) concepts which allowed curved surfaces. My grandmother's house however probably had no architect; the builder must have simply copied something Californian from a magazine. It looked like the home of characters from a fairy tale by the time he got through. It was still being modified when my immediate family moved closer to the city of Sydney.

Yet even in that Eden there was a snake in the grass, and of course in the guise of sex.  That should not have been a surprise to my mother. Young mothers in their happiness and naivete tend to think well of everyone and miss the sound of rustling in the grass. The grandfather of my female playmate, Muriel aka "Moo-Moo" asked my mother if he could take me in his little truck to find firewood up and over the hill. She gave permission. When I was later home alone with my mother she found that my clothes must have been removed and put back on different from how she put on my clothes. I had then, and have now, no memory of anything having to do with my clothes. But, my mother was adamant, and called the police. I remember the flashing lights of the patrol car at the foot of the garden in the dark, and my father, home from work, shouting what he was going to do to the grandfather of my friend. I was queried over and over but I told nothing because I could remember nothing, and in spite of many attempts at recreating the scenes of the day I still could remember nothing. Even today I still have hopes of being able to catch some wisp of an elusive memory.

Moo-Moo's family never forgave my parents. Later, around age 13 I visited mother and daughter while I was in boarding school; they were friendly but aloof, unsmiling, almost grim.

See? Nothing happens in this narrative from life experience because I don't know what happened. But, the impact of "nothing" was huge. Quite early, in 'Paradise' I accidently learned that the world was not a safe place.

Barry

(To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

Preamble 2

Before I continue with my 'threat' to talk about sex and the sex act caution warns me to put what I'm going to say even further into a context. That is, my intent is always to have as context sex in marriage for the purpose of procreation, or later to celebrate the children that have already arrived. That doesn't mean sex can't be a heck of a lot of fun, to say nothing of thrilling, exhilarating, astounding, bonding, and even transformational.

As I go along I'll probably blurt out things better left silent, but I'm not going to worry too much about that because I'll admit up front that in my life I've been bad, even wicked. Perhaps it's having recovered from irresponsibility that motivates me to write about this subject. I notice, btw, that nobody from AOL Journals has shown up at my door with a warning or suggestion on what to say and what to not say.

It's inherently invasive, I fear, to talk about something as private as the sex act(s) in a public place; sex is obviously experienced differently by different people, and even more differently by people at various times in their life, and with various partners. I want to share my gratitude (to the Creator) for sex, by extolling the benefits and comfort bestowed by sex. I couldn't even dream of offering instruction. There are a zillion books on the subject good for that.

When I was seventeen, living alone in San Francisco, living behind an 11 storey apartment building at 947 Green Street (an address which looked down on Alcatraz in the Bay) in what had been intended as servants quarters, I attended Lowell High School, which at that time was on Hayes Street, but since then has been rebuilt at another address.

One of the books I took out of the school library was the first sex study book written by Kinsey. The librarian at Lowell told me on the phone the other day that the book was out of print, and was no longer in the library. I asked her if she'd give it out to a student these days. Yes, she said, and said with emphasis. The cheap, vulgar movie made about Kinsey released not long ago obscures the good that book contributed to the world. I read the book avidly. I needed to know, I was lonely. I needed the book. It made me laugh and laugh, and made me feel a whole lot better about myself. It caused me to relax, that's what it did, relax and not worry too much: made me certain that in good time sex would eventually become a part of my life.

Gotta run right now. Talk to you later.

Barry

 

 

Warming up for Sex Entries

Some writer I greatly admire but strangely can't remember at this precise moment said, in effect, that the end of fiction writing is to describe the sex act, "...but how do you get there?"** What's amazing about whoever it was that wrote that - the name might come to me before I finish writing this entry - is that you'd think he, of all people, would just dive in. But no, even he was scared. I'm scared. And not just about the act, but love in all its guises and expressions. My summary: It's smart to be scared, but cowardly not to dive in - if I may be so crude - when the prize is nearly won. One steps into the unkown, with prayers of thanks. 

My very favorite book on love and sex is titled On The Way To The Wedding, by Linda Schierse Leonard, Pub: Shambhala, 1986. Here's the table of contents:

The Wandering

1. Through the woods

2. Prince Charming and the Special Princess

3. The Ghostly Lover

4. The Bewitchment

5. The Demon Lover

6. The Ring of Power

The Loving

7. Into the Clearing

8. The Missing Bridegroom and the Woman in Black

9. Beauty and the Beast

The Wondering

10. The Devine wedding

11. The Veil

12. The Vow

13. The Ring of Love

So, there's the menu. Enjoy.

The best nuts and bolts book I've ever read, which probably should be read together by the lovers, but in cold hard practice read separately is probably best, except perhaps by teenage married couples, is titled The Art of Sexual Ecstasy, by Margo Anand. Hot! Handle with care: For adults only. (Teenagers, some, can certainly be "adult.")

The single biggest and most surprising conclusion I've come to about sex, beside the obvious that everything goes best in marriage, is that the bond ultimately is fueled by the senses, but is maintained by somewhat frightening psychological connections. Marriages fail, obviously, at least obvious to me now, when these intricate psychological connections are not in place.

The Leonard book given first above, treats those connections in a sweet, poetic way; they can also be discussed bluntly in the manner of Freud, but in today's climate of anti-psychoanalysis I'll probably avoid that angle until I simply can no longer resist. May I leave you hanging with a promise to return?

Love,

Barry

** Norman Mailer (Give the guy a break!)

 

 

Competition / Gamesmanship

"When you play Bobby, it's not a question
  of whether you win or lose, it's a question
  of whether you survive."

                - Boris Spassky
             Soviet Russia: World Champion
             chess player up to 1972 when he
             lost to Fischer in a famous match in
                   Iceland.

Robert J Fischer is now a citizen of Iceland. The
United States government took away his passport
when, in 1992, he entered the former Yugoslavia
to play another match with Boris Spassky for a purse
of five million dollars. Fischer ignored the US Government's
order and for a while lived in Japan where he married a
Japanese woman chess champion.

The match in the former Yugoslavia was virtually an
exhibition. Fischer won, but the purse was split
3 million for Fischer, and two million for Spassky.
You wouldn't be too far off to conclude they were friends,
and are still friends. Boris Spassky is an admirable man,
educated, sophisticated, and humane. I met him at
a chess tournament at a hotel near LAX, Los Angeles.
He is witty, urbane, has lived in Paris, and does
what educated people do: attend the opera, the theater,
and seek culture and Peace.

If any chess players read this, and are curious about
precisely what Spassky means when he talks about
"surviving" Bobby's chess skill, take a look at game one
from the 1971 Interzonal match Fischer vs Bent Larsen.
played in Denver. In that game Fischer sacrificed his Queen,
early in the game, in the center of the board, yet won
handily against a world class Grandmaster. Additionally
Fischer won the next five games as well, winning the
match 6-0. Bent Larsen suffered a psychological collapse.

Barry

Hunting Rabbits

Rabbits are beloved in America, correct? I mean there's Bugs Bunny, a charming, humorous do-gooder who knows full well how clever he is when he opens, "What's up Doc?" Such poise, such self-assurance, even insouciance. Only a monster would ever dream of harming a rabbit. Then there's dear, sweet, adventurous Peter Rabbit, who unwisely disobeys his mother and almost gets caught by the farmer.  

Not a shred of shame surfaces when I freely admit that I have killed thousands of rabbits: I've dug them out of their warren, sent ferrets down their holes to chase them out into nets, caught them with dogs, shot them with rifles, trapped them with buried steel jaws that grab them, and, most efficient, poisoned them with strychnine sprinkled on thistle roots.

All of that carnage was perpetrated before I was sixteen years old, quite willingly, while on vacation, and for a while living on my Uncle Hugh's sheep station in Australia. Rabbits, you see, destroy sheep grazing land.

Rabbits even in the semi-wild have communal meeting places where they all defecate their small pellets of what looks like finely ground grass turned brown. Their droppings form mounds about the length of their bodies.  A good place to leave a root pellet of poison is near one of those mounds dropped into a strike of a mattuck which leaves freshly turned soil. The next morning the dead can be found, white belly up, next to the disturbed earth. In one night we brought home for skinning nearly 400 rabbits whose skins brought in about 40 Pounds, Aust. All of that was so long ago it would be impossible to translate that amount into present day dollars. (Well, I do remember my Uncle buying a used motorcycle for 150 pounds.) For us children it was a fortune. One time the money was taken from us, because the amount was too large for "children." The manager of one of the properties bought his own place, using what he'd saved from salary and earned from rabbit skins.

Rabbits caught in traps, or pulled out of burrows, have to be killed. It's done by stretching the rabbits neck while holding both legs with the other hand. Little boys, I swear, think nothing of it.

I believe this truth about young boys is capitalized on by MS Rowling in her six books about children. Oh, it's covered over, but just beneath the surface the motor of the fiction is softly humming.

Barry

 

 

Star Gazing

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0204/CenA_wfpc2_big.jpg

Via Nasa of course, and the Hubble telescope, but more immediately from spearsJD a most admirable gentleman on a writer's message board. The object is 10 million light years away. The blue stuff is new stars, suns, in the making. The material for this may come from a Black Hole. Andromeda, a nearby Galaxie to our Milky Way is only 2.2 million light years away. 

Barry

(More on space later. Maybe tomorrow) 

Riding a Horse

Riding a wave was fun to write about so I thought I'd try writing about riding a horse.

Of course I'm not talking about riding a race horse. Those are huge, and I am now, and have been since adolescence, twice the weight, or more, of a jockey. I'm talking about riding a pony. Comfortable-to-ride work horses are ponies. Cowboys rode ponies in the movies, and most likely in real life. I never rode a horse in Texas, and I don't want to run afoul of Texas horse mores and fashion. I'm talking simply ol' Australia, the South of France, where, believe it or not there are, or used to be recently, wild horses, protected, and California. Tall horses are beautiful, but absolutely no fun to ride.

I believe horses were not native to the Americas, nor to Australia. The Spaniards introduced horses to the Americas, beginning in 1521 or a bit earlier, and the British introduced horses to Australia. The North American, Native Americans rode descendents of those Spanish military ponies. Even in Australia there was a Spanish influence; commonly used, even today, is the 'Spanish bit' a typically cruel mouth piece that tortures the horse with a bend in the mouth piece, and a small chain under the bottom jaw. Purpose: to deal with a horse that learns to hold the bit between it's teeth as a way to resist rider commands.

The only time I can remember being thrown by a horse was off a Shetland Pony, an almost miniature horse, when I was about ten, or younger. That animal was mean! Acquired for children's use but soon gotten rid of. How I hurt! both in pride and butt. The little beast ran straight for home and was found standing, waiting to be fed again.

The Australian work horses I rode, Taffy, Tommy, and Donny, and others, ponies all, were a pure joy to ride: soft moving, going to a canter right off avoiding an annoying trot, they had incredible endurance even in blazing noonday sun, and a friendly disposition. With what great joy I remember one or another of those horses rubbing their nose up and down my front or back to both relieve an itch, and to be affectionate. Horses talk. Out of respect, and love, and from practicality, I was taught to walk, leading the horse, to give the animal a rest. The land on which I mostly rode was hilly. Marino sheep are raised for wool in Australia on land that surprisingly resembles land in Spain where the Marino sheep originated. The rocky hills grew grass ideal for sheep, and the sheep had to walk long distances to find the grass, another factor which favored the growth of the best wool. The sheep had to be protected from crows (who pecked out the eyes of lambs) and from grass destroying rabbits which (Americans fascinated by bunny rabbits don't like to hear this part) have to be destroyed to protect not only the sheep's source of food, but the land itself. Australia has been deeply scarred by too eager poisoning of trees to allow grass to grow, but at the cost of allowing hideous soil erosion made possible by the absence of soil-binding properties of tree roots.

So, you can see how imperative it has been to breed ponies for Graziers, the men and women who grow the wool for our fine suits and sweaters and other clothing, and for military uniforms. Without that imperative I'd never have been so blessed with many thousands of hours in the company of fine riding horses, soft moving, stong ponies who are so smart, and pretty, and loving.

Barry

  

 

 

 

 

 

Body Surfing

A good surf, like a good woman, is hard to find. You've probably seen documentaries about professional surfers waiting around, even in surf glamor places, for good waves. Well, I'm not a board rider, I just ride on my tummy, arms beside me, head down most of the time riding the 'lady' to the beach: Heaven, delicious, voluptuous pleasure, and heathful too.

Without bragging I've body surfed in Santa Monica Bay Will Rogers State Park Beach, A long stretch of beaches just North of Sydney harbor Australia, Hawaii, and 'Mexpipe' in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico where every year in November the surf is big enough to attract big name board surfers for competitions. The name Mexpipe is meant to bring to mind "The Pipe" in Hawaii.

My next surfing adventure will be with my son, age 10, when we bike, wearing our swim suits underneath our shorts in lieu of underwear, on the Santa Monica bike path from Venice to Will Rogers State Park. We'll chain our bikes to a fence, and surf just a few yards from the path. I've done it before. The surf isn't much, but when you're an addict you can turn the plainest wave into a worthwhile date.

I watched a professional surf board competition at Playa Zicatella, the beach at Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. It was sponsored by a French clothing manufacturer who complained to me about the lack of support from local merchants. He didn't know the score. Puerto Escondido is on the edge of what is virtually an Indian reservation in a Mexican State that is 58% Native Mexicans. If truth be told the surfing is taken as an affront. Mexican tourists from Mexico City swarm to Puerto Escondido every summer and many of them drown in the quick moving Pacific Ocean. They'd never seen the ocean before. There are plaques commemorating the dead cemented into the sides of huge rocks half in the water at high tide.  But generally the drownings, an annual event, is denied.

Playa Zicatela, three miles long, from Christmas to New Year, is densely populated. Every year a casual walk, and back, will reward one with sight of some of the most splendid and inspiring nudes you will ever see, and yes, in very Catholic Mexico. Women,and men, nude. Takes your breath away, partly because it is so unexpected.

But, of course, it's the health benefits that count, right? Good clean air, exercize, vitamins from the sun, resulting in pure thoughts and god-fearing ways. Summertime... and the swimin' is easssssy...

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

Language Music, Music Language

Does instrumental music 'talk'? Does language on the page make music? Music plus language, opera for example, enrolls lifelong adherents, supporters and practictioners.

The latter used to embarrass me because secretly I thought opera was kinda silly, even weird. Well, I still think it's a bit weird, but then if I were single I'd think nothing of having a weird girl friend. Weird can be exciting. When Tito Gobi, as the tough policeman in Tosca, alone onstage 'speaks' "Tosca, you make me forget God," I'm thoroughly involved.

Music, all kinds, and writing, all kinds, I can handle, variously like, love, or despise, with confidence that intelligent discussion is quite possible on all of that. But how about painting? I've just acquired a five inch by six inch book - from Daedalus Catalogue - devoted to reproductions of, and commentary on, Van Gogh. Although very small the reproductions are sublime. The graphic arts, the wildly various works of 'Vincent,' as he signed his works, resist analysis and purposeful discussion far more than do writing and music. Why? All those swirls made by Vincent were to bind the world together so we'd love it, and love him too? Why didn't more people love Vincent? Do you love Vincent? I love Vincent, but he'd probably scare me too. What more can be said? Plenty, but not by me, unhappily.

Someone's gonna have to help me stop decrying music that doesn't last any longer than about six minutes. Yet, that's apparently about the average attention span of the world's music listeners. Anything longer doesn't sell. Ipod, is that how it's spelled? Right now that item is saving Mac, or whoever makes the million song-holding recorder/player. Why do you need a million different songs immediately available? How many operas would an Ipod hold? I'll wait while you Google.

Aesthetics

Main Entry: [2]aesthetic
Function: noun
Date: 1822
1 : plural but singular or plural in construction : a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty
2 : a particular theory or conception of beauty or art : a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses and especially sight <modernist aesthetics> <staging new ballets which reflected the aesthetic of the new nation —Mary Clarke & Clement Crisp>
3 : plural : a pleasing appearance or effect : BEAUTY <appreciated the aesthetics of the gemstones>

That might be what we're going over here. I'd settle for the abstraction that there's plenty of room in our brains to store and savor all art forms, and mingling of art forms.  But, just the same, we can reserve the right to have special favorites.

Barry

   

Cell Phones

News today, picked up by our sterling editor John S. has it that hand-free cell phone use while driving cause as many accidents as any other cell phone usage. While on the fastest freeways catching sight of cell phones in action I have a baby. One day soon my auto will self-destruct from excessive horn use, or I'll get a whopping great ticket from 'screaming' with the horn about cell phone useage. I've seen drivers on the phone, reading from a sheet of paper while putting on lipstick. I HAVE!!

After avoiding cell phone ownership for years I recently buckled and got three, three different numbers: Wife, Son, Me. Astonishingly I found that, for example, the audio quality is excellent, better than two of our cordless phones. Not so long ago 2 meters Amateur Radio was a forerunner of cell phones. I admire Verizon for many things, one of which is their retaining use of the word "Wireless," which echoes radio history. I admire their, "For English stay on the line," and for hiring James Earle Jones whom I actually love, even though I've never met him. He played Jack Johnson on the stage, and in the movie. I'm wandering aren't I? It's late at night. Late at night I wander. What do you do? Talk on your cell phone? Way to go! Ha!

Barry

 

 

 

 

The other 'Disneyland'

Our many recent family outings climaxed yesterday, Saturday, with an afternoon and evening at Knott's Berry Farm, a rival of geographically nearby, Disneyland.  I don't know how well each is doing in their competition, but it sure got more and more crowded at Knott's as the day wore on, so that by 10 pm navigating through the crowds became a chore. My personal preference, based only on experience not at all on research, everything about Knott's is superior, especially safety. People have been killed and maimed on Disneyland rides in the past couple of years, and to my knowledge nothing similar has occurred at Knott's, and that in spite of the fact that the rides at Knotts are far more ambitious, higher, faster, and theoretically more dangerous. Plus, patrons are not harrassed anywhere near as much about safety at Knott's, as they are at Disney.

There is live entertainment at Knott's, and has been for many years. At Disney there are robots, animated Abe Lincoln, for example,  jerky-moving dummies. The contrast in mind-sets is most fascinating and revealing. On one of several cave-mine rides, in an 1800s passenger train, armed robbers leaped into our carriage, pistols drawn, yelling, "Put your hands up." To encourage our children to enter the spirit of the action I raised my hands in mock horror exclaiming, "Oh my God!" The robber-actor, in character, stared down the long barrel of his weapon and said, as if to amuse his 'terrified' captive audience,"If I'm your god you better get another religion." No such comic play acting, in fact no play acting of any kind, takes place at Disneyland (endless board meetings would have to be held regarding any mention of god) except by far removed cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse and equivalent, figures who are seen as lonely pedestrians 'mingling' with the crowds but without interaction. They'll condescend to pose with you, and that's it. Patrons are treated as invited guests asked to pay for every dish, and to pay plenty, while having advertising stuffed at all one's senses, loud, blaring, repetitious, condescending and insulting. No wonder the French won't buy it.

Dancing, dancing by the ordinary patrons takes place at Knott's, recruited by a genuinely down home, perhaps carnival-trained country dance performer, former, who was so relaxed, humorous, kind and funny, fifty people were following his comic directions called out loudly to the delight of everyone, 'dancers' and audience. Later there was a cowboy lasso (lariat) act worthy of Cirque de Soleil! Ha! Such fun!

It's been a long time. Never have I seen, way back when, such dangerous looking rides. One soars into the sky like a Saint Louis arch gone crooked, and higher! I set out to prove to my children I was no coward. 'What if I burst a blood vessel and have to wait for the completion of the ride before I could be taken to the hospital?' I asked myself. Sure, I can easily withstand strain I inflict on myself, running and swimming distances, but what about a machine subjecting my body to enormous pressures? I did, yes I did, I chickened out. Quickly I compromised and went off to the boat that gets taken up high, then 'dropped' in a waterfall shute and 'crashed' into a mini-lake sending up huge waves of spray. I was totally soaked, and loved it: I could look my watching children in the eye.

We drove home dead tired and full of 'carnival' food, with many a tall tale to tell, tales of fright and happiness, with only the latter true.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worst Movie I Love

Why do we love some movies we tend to be ashamed of admitting we love? Because sitting in the dark with our popcorn, so to speak, the movie touches some truth about us we'd just as soon keep private.

My private such secret movie I reveal here for the first time is Howard Hughes' vanity indulgence production, first released in 1943, but shot in 1941, partly directed by Howard Hughes, but also directed by superb director Howard Hawks, The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell, Howard Hughes' heart throb of the moment, the incomparable, very great, much honored stage and film star Walter Huston (father of movie great John Huston, director) and disappeared, good actor, Jack Buetel.

If, perchance, the making of this movie is tangentially mentioned in the recent biopic The Aviator directed by Scorsese, forget it, Scorsese I judge to be totally irrelevant, his opinions and his work. In my opinion what almost saves the movie is the evident direction by Howard Hawks. Hawks had a knack for getting performances of a lifetime out of an actress who in other movies was so-so. Jane Russell made her debut in this movie. She gave the movie a curiously appealing, if too obvious, sexy ambience. She never again came close to giving such a performance.  When I was an adolescent I could hardly believe my own eyes, and when she climbed into bed to warm Billy The Kid I was a voyeur, and I bet so was Howard Hughes, during the shooting.  Ostensibly she provided heat 'cause Billy was shivering from 'illness.'

Howard Hughes may have been rich, but this vanity flick was made on a very low budget. The sound track features portions of Tchaikovsky's symphony, the one from which the tune for the corny song, "Story of a Starry Night," was taken. (6th? 5th?) The full symphony orchestra version, Hollywood lush, sounds quite out of place as sound track over scenes from a Western movie with galloping horses and desert landscapes.  But it doesn't matter, the swelling music is keyed to the ever-so-alluring undulations of Jane Russell's breasts.

The core of the movie is the quite curious bond between Doc Holliday, Walter Huston, and Billy The Kid playedby Jack Buetel.  It's sort of father and son. When I saw this movie for the first time I virtually had no father, so for a spell I could indulge in a fantasy, pretend father, played magnificently by Walter Huston. 

During the course of writing this remembrance it has abruptly occurred to me why I have 'stupidly' avoided seeing Walter Huston in his academy award performance in an entirely different role in the movie version of the Sinclair Lewis novel, Dodsworth. He wouldn't be my 'father' in a suit in Paris with a woman, his 'wife,' who he can no longer love. My father was grossly lax as a parent, but he never wavered in his love for my mother.

The movies have a way of getting at our secrets and that's why we love them so.

Barry
 

 

 

Our Lives

There is, or used to be, a popular soap opera called 'Days of Our Lives.' I might have been on it. Small role. In The Young and the Restless (CBS on Fairfax just down the street from Canter's restaurant) I played a chaufeur, also a small role. It'd have been bigger but the actress with whom I appeared, and who in the story paid my salary, died, so that was the end of that gig. The days of our lives pass and often, at least for me, I can't make head or tail out of what happened. I can't be alone in that, surely.

My fiction is based on what happened to me in life, so I think a lot about what happened in life. Yet, the more I dwell on what little I can remember, the more I realize I do not know, not really, what happened. The good part of that phenomena is that fiction can then logically be what you remember, or choose to remember, and not on what actually happened; how could it be what happened if one can't remember what happened? I think we remember selectively out of self defense.  On that basis I have sworn on the Good Book(s) to never, ever, allow anyone to say I write autobiographical fiction. In fantasy I'm being interviewed about my novel on TV and cut down the interviewer when she asks me (well of course it's a 'She'!) if the book is "autobiographical."

Here's an example. Riding on the back of my Uncle's motorcycle, hanging on to my Uncle, I wondered about his scent. I was about 14. In my distressed state - my mother had died - I feverishly imagined that he smelled good because rich and privileged people had a better smell. Now, to that, I say 'balderdash,' he was wearing cologne.

Who on earth was it who said, or wrote, "The unexamined life is not worth living"? That's a famous saying but heck that too is a crock. Even the examination, in real life, ends up being a fiction. For example, my Uncle, a notorious swordsman, might simply have spent the afternoon (the illicit happens in the afternoon quite often) with one of his many conquests, and it was she, mingled with him, that I was smelling.

Today's soap operas, daytime variety, are cranked so high I can't see 'em anymore. They used to pretend to be about 'Our Lives.' I like that better even though it is a pretense. The people who played those roles, the same roles for years, were, and might still be, lovely people. A famous director, German I think, once said that audiences make an unconscious appraisal of the actor's real life character. In the case of much loved soap opera actors I can say with some certainty they are, were, lovely people. I know because I was married to one.

Barry

 

 

Patriotism

Love of country, I suppose, is an extension of love of family. Hence, by the way, the title of the long ago traveling photography show, The Family of Man. Our soldiers abroad, men and women, risking their lives, giving their lives, in the past and in the present, demonstrate our collective familial love. Today we celebrate that glorious human characteristic, something I pray will never, ever, be taken for granted or in any way undervalued. Let us pray for our soldiers at Home and away.  Today, also, would be a fine time to honor the French, for example, and others, who though not colonists, helped us achieve Independence.

Barry

 

CLASSIC ARTS SHOWCASE (PBS TV)

Classic Arts Showcase plays every morning on PBS before Sesame Street shows up.

My so far favorite, brief segment - they are all brief - aired via satelite 'SKY' when I lived in Puerto Escondido in the Mexican state of Oaxaca:  At the Verdi home for elderly opera stars, in Italy of course, an old woman, still quite pretty and lithe, wearing a bathrobe, is slowly panned up to from a record label playing a fantastically beautiful aria. The old woman sits in an ordinary chair and silently listens attentively. We watch her face as the music continues uninterrupted. Very slowly she relaxes and listens uncritically.

At the conclusion of the aria the woman says with sincere, open-hearted glee and pleasure, "How beautiful!"

Of course it was herself she was listening to when she sang in performance many decades earlier.

Barry

Incendiary Writing Vs Lovable Writing

When I started out as a writer at age ten this is what I came up with.

Dear Peanut-butter, / hullo Pete how are you rascal, your going to cop a few insults my young lanky leded bandy coot. now I've fogotten a few names. If you must now I'm in fifth class any obos spit em of your chest. / oh! gee I'm wanted just a tick. / He I am you lopy eard weesel. I love Peanut-butter escpechly when it's chapman brand I'm only started. / Peter you asked me if I would give you a account of the fights I'v had. One lunch time I got my gang together and started throwing stones at a high school kid that kept on wagging school, he couldn't tell on us because we could tell on him for not going to school. We kept on throwing them every day until one time when he got a lot of other High school fellows to attack us but we ran to our head quarters were we had amunishin and gave them the verks. Gee I'm tired but I'll tell you a bit of news first. / to-day I was playing with a boy I now and I had a piece of rope around me and the other boy had the other end of it around him and we had back to back and pulling as showen. I pulled out my knife and cut the roap and he went head over turkey (pitty it wasn't you) and got up and started to bully me around natualy I hopped in to him and made him see that I as only playing. I don't want to skite but that's the only thing I could do.

I'v got a bute headquters it well camafaged ecuped with stones and bier bottle bombs and light-gloub bombs.

The boy I play with is a paper boy and he delivers Manly Dailys at 3oclock in the morning I went with him once and boy do I have some fun. We are going pasted a place and I fire a catapult inthrough somebody's windows and all the lights go on and a lady comes out and we hide and a cop comes around the corner and says, give me a dailie son and I say y y y  y - yes sir. Later the silly kid picks up a milk bottle and lets fly and busted in the middle of the street. We go into a big block of plates and ring the door bells as hard as posable.  and have some snooker fun. / golly I wish I could come up to muggee. It drives me silly to think I'm missing out on all the fun. / I'd do any thing to be able to come up. good-nigh, / good-nigh love from Barry (Absent Goat Catcher)

So, at age ten I was unconsciously using writing to assert my will, soft-talk my cousin Peter into persuading his parents to let me visit them again in the country, all the while hiding my loneliness and envy. All the violence is lying. "Skite" was Aussie for bragging. I insist I'm not bragging, but of course that is exactly what I was doing.

The only reason I'm in possession of photocopies of my letters to my cousins is that their mother kept them. Long after shedied, in old age, my cousin Michael was kind enough to send me copies. AuntHelen was so meekly Irish/Australian Catholic I'm still quite cheered, and proud she was my beloved Aunt. A country woman of that period might very well have thought my letter was wicked. She was wise, had eleven children, and totally understood each and every one of them, even to knowing how importanmt it was for them to keep alive their friendshipswith their cousins.

Aggressionis a part of the act of writing. I'm embarrassed reading this letter written by a ten year old, a young man not crazy about going to school, but I love owningthis proof, at least proof to me, that aggression and violence is a natural and useful attribute of all writing. Difficult to 'sell'this plain and obvious truth, but I keep trying; knowledge of that truth can be quite useful, and guilt absolving.

Barry