having a sit-down at the Bing

 

They've got the faces, on The Sopranos.

What an excellent, atmospheric, engaging show it is.  When the elements come together -- directing, writing, acting...it's like "lightning in a bottle."  

When Anthony Junior goes to visit Tony Soprano's psychotic mother, and he mentions that he's going to counseling and she says psychology is "nonsense," and, indignantly,  "That's just a racket for the Jews!"

     Oh! That makes me laugh so hard, I'm not sure why.  Just so inappropriate to say in front of a child, particularly your own grandson.  Setting that kind of an example...  Then again, what do we expect, the woman is crazy...

All the music they used for episodes of that show is so good:  David Chase has great taste.  Exception:  when one of their kids gets onstage at school and sings...

     It's like, another option to threaten people when they don't pay up:  I beat the hell out of you, or make you listen to my kid sing!  What's it gonna be...??!

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don't look down

 

My hairstylist was telling me that she saw A Star Is Born, and she thought it was good.  

She was referring to the 2018 film starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.

     Interestingly, that movie has been made three times before, in Hollywood:

1937 version starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor

1954 version starring James Mason and Judy Garland

and

1976 version, with Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand.

There's a video on You Tube showing a concert scene from the 1976 one:  singing "Watch Closely Now," Kristofferson looks kind of like Jim Morrison, or Jesus.  

     I saw that movie when it came out, and I really liked that song.  (Rock and Rolllllll!!!!!)

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painting the town

 

It was just one of those things

Just one of those crazy flings

One of those bells -- that now and then rings

Just - one of those things

It was just one of those nights

Just one of those fabulous flights

A trip to the moon, on gossamer wings

Just one of those things

If we'd thought a bit

Of the end of it

When we started painting the town

We'd have been aware

That our love affair

Was too hot - not - to cool down

So good-bye, dear, and amen

Here's hoping we meet now and then

It was great fun

But it was just one of those things

____________________________

"Just One of Those Things"

by Cole Porter

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a distinct accent and phraseology

 

Morley Safer

 "There are two kinds of people who are opposed to pornography--those who don't know what they're talking about, and those who don't know what they're missing."

     So begins Larry Flynt's interview with 60 Minutes' Morley Safer, back in 1977.

I thought Flynt's pivotal remark in the conversation was this:

"The sooner we bring pornography out in the open, the sooner people are gonna see it for what it really is--and there's nothing more boring.  And repression just makes it popular!"

     Safer followed with, "...and Larry Flynt a rich fella."

     Flynt:  "Well now if you were talking to the publisher of the New York Times, you wouldn't be talking about how much money he  makes...

     "What you've got to remember is, the newsstand is the poor man's art museum.  The rich and the privileged have the erotic art museums -- Hustler appeals to Blue Collar America.

          ...Look, now see--Moses freed the Jews.  Lincoln freed the slaves.  And Larry Flynt, with Hustler magazine, would like to free a lotta neurotics.  I know a copy of our magazine is a lot cheaper than a psychoanalyst."

The interview finishes with Flynt saying:

-------------------------- " "  Many of the individual liberties we now enjoy because of the very liberal Warren Court have been placed in jeopardy by recent rulings by the conservative Supreme Court that we now have.

     They have literally sown dragon's teeth in the fertile soil of the First Amendment, and we have to do something about it!  Ya-hafta remember, freedom is not always recognizable.  

It is not limited to 60 Minutes, or the New York Times.  

Sometimes it's Hustler magazine, or an X-rated movie in a nice neighborhood.  A few years back, freedom was a young man sayin' "Hell no, I won't go."  And then it was some hard-ass ridin' down Main Street sayin' "Love it or leave it."

     And it's beyond me to understand, how a country founded on the printed word, at our 200th birthday, is questioning what kind of book that you can read, and what kind of movie that you can see.  When government interferes in this, they're interfering with our thought process.  No one has a right to do that!

     And if I have to go to jail to prove my point, then I will do just that.

_____________________________

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anything for the First Amendment...

 

Flynt makes his way through a crowd at a rally in Cincinnati in 1977  (AP)

--------------------- [excerpt from Larry Flynt obituary in the Washington Post, written by Paul W. Valentine]

February 10, 2021.

Larry Flynt, one of America's most notorious pornographers and self-proclaimed champions of First Amendment freedoms, who built his business interests on the hardcore raunch and grotesque parody of Hustler magazine, died Feb. 10 at his home in Los Angeles.  He was 78.

His brother Jimmy Flynt confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause.

Repeatedly sued, prosecuted, jailed for contempt, gagged for obscene outbursts in court and, in 1978, shot and paralyzed by a would-be assassin, Mr. Flynt thrived on controversy....

In a grit-to-glitter saga like few others, the ninth-grade dropout from the hills of east Kentucky used street smarts, gutsy business instincts and, when necessary, his fists to parlay a string of shabby Ohio bars into a $100 million nationwide porn empire of magazines, private clubs, a swank casino in suburban Los Angeles, an online sex-toy store and other ventures.

Hustler, whose circulation peaked above 2 million in the late 1970s, thumbed its nose at sleeker skin publications such as Playboy and Penthouse.  Mr. Flynt proudly offered Hustler as a blue-collar and taboo-smashing alternative....

[end / excerpt] --------------------------

I don't really understand why it's supposed to be "blue-collar"...

Anyway -- during my growing-up years -- from junior high on through high school, I acquired an impression, from peers I think, that there were "dirty magazines" --

Playboy - which was not that "dirty"

Penthouse - which was more explicit, and maybe not very nice

and Hustler - which "went further" and was Really not-very-nice.

I remember hearing it in the news somehow, somewhere, when someone shot Larry Flynt, in an attempt to kill him.  Though he survived, he was unable to walk and had to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  

That was so weird, I thought, because it was the same thing that happened to southern politician George Wallace -- a would-be assassin shot him with a gun, in Maryland (I think), and Wallace did not die, but had to use a wheelchair to get around, from then on.

I thought it was a terrible thing to do to someone:  took away their ability to walk.  Awful.

Of course George Wallace himself was somewhat awful, and Flynt specialized in being awful, but that doesn't give anyone a right to kill them or cripple them:  it was horrible, I thought.

May 15, 1972 - George Wallace shot in Laurel, Maryland.

March 6, 1978 - Larry Flynt shot in Gwinnett County, Georgia

     The "seventies"...

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our third century of freedom and democracy

 

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and magazine publishers Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt:  if you type the name, then "First Amendment," the Internet gives some interesting recent history about free speech in America.

(How did these people get into my blog?! lol -- The stuff they purvey is not exactly my thing [although Ferlinghetti's poem that he recited in The Last Waltz was very good] ... 

I guess the point of much of the First-Amendment-"Drama" that took place during the last century is, If "the man" can outlaw what I write (or draw, or paint, or film) -- he can be coming for you next.  It's like -- proving ... or--living up to the ideal and principle of free speech.)

On You Tube there's an interesting video, it's under 4 minutes, I think...

From The  60 Minutes Archive:  Larry Flynt

uploader:  60 Minutes

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cash in large sums

 

"There's nothing that will change someone's moral outlook quicker than cash in large sums."

~ Larry Flynt

     They send out the e-mail suggesting that people fly their American flag at half staff to signify respect or mourning for someone who died, or something that happened.

     They do it too much, now.  I think it got out of control after the World Trade Center 9-11 attack.  Our government dudes want to do something, and proclaiming that flags should be lowered doesn't cost them anything and, I'm guessing, isn't politically controversial, so it doesn't take much time or effort.

It's something you can do.  The do-able thing.

     It's just too much, in my opinion -- I mean, the flags are up, down, up, down, up-down-up-down, updownupdownupdown...

     Someone told me, "You know, we're going to have to purchase a new mechanism to replace the old one that moves the flag up and down, because it's literally wearing out."

And -- to me-- the gesture loses some of its meaning because instead of once in a while when it's something really important, it's all-the-flippin'-time....

     It's stressful -- when I notice a flag at half-staff and I 

Don't.  Know.  Why.

I'm like--My God, what happened now?

       *       *

Three weeks ago Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt died, at the age of 78.  Some days later I was on my way to work and going by the post office, I saw the flag at half-mast, and I said, "Oh, not again!" -- and the thought crossed my mind, "All right--if that flag is at half-staff because of Larry Flynt, I'm--going to have to talk to somebody!"

(...my 'inner Karen' coming out:  "I would like to speak to the manager!")

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