Hey, Mephisto!!! The two of us together talking about movies is like the blind leading the blind or something!!! You don't remember the titles and I cannot spell actors' names correctly--the actor I have actually been raving about from that very disturbing movie, "A Time to Kill" is actually Matthew Mc Gonaughey, I think, incidentally. The Christian Slater movie I loved might have been "Wild at Heart"--who really knows without some sort of reference book from the video store, anyway? It was a movie about a very marginalized young man who was dying of, I believe, a heart condition, but fell in love with a young girl, who might have been played by Marissa Tomei. I think we must be losing brain cells at about the same rate!! Anyway, he made her very happy, and the movie was very romantic, and he lived in a basement apartment, and I believe he had dogs. Does this sound familiar to you?
I plan to rent "The English Patient". I will let you know what I think about it. I can tell you I am VERY disappointed with Elvis Presley at the moment. There is a documentary coming out about his interest in being a U.S. drug agent. Did you know that his trip to the White House to see President Nixon was not preplanned? He just drove up in his limo, and asked to be seen. Nixon was starting a new assault on drugs, and Presley had this idea that rock and roll and drugs (recreational drugs, not the ones he took and was in denial about) and hippies and Communists were ruining this country, so Nixon agreed to give him a badge and everything. When Nixon saw him, decked out in one of those hideous jumpsuits and a cape and sunglasses, he said "You dress pretty wild, don't you?" Elvis answered, "Mr. President, you got your show to run and I got mine." How true that turned out to be!!
It seems Elvis was politically conservative and a patriot. After he got his badge he used to put a police light in his dark blue Mercedes and cruise the highways of the South after dark, pulling people over, giving them lectures about their driving, and actually flashing the badge at them.
It sounds like he was really bored. I was a little surprised to read that near the end of his life, he was musing "I'm just so tired of being Elvis Presley." In any event, since I was definitely an admirer of the Beatles--whom he actually enjoyed but told Nixon at that meeting were a menace to America--and sort of a hippie and an anti-war protester in college as well, it is all coming back to me why I didn't really like Elvis all that much, although from a musical history perspective, he was very important in the development of rock and roll.
Of course, I believe that John Lennon's death was the result of a CIA plot, so I am a little on the other side of the fence here! It seems like a long time ago now, but Lennon had the attention of millions of young Americans, was holding huge concerts for peace, and was in the process of being deported as a security threat. There are allegations his assassin, who was a fan, was reprogrammed through powerful brain-washing techniques and was under the control of government agents.
Mephisto, if you think the weather is hot right now in Washington state, wait for disturbances El Nino brings this year. I think you will be wishing you only have to go to Dairy Queen and eat an ice cream cone to feel normal again!!! I am reading that it will be the worst winter weather pattern in fifteen years. I know that two years ago the storms were so bad right here in San Francisco that Golden Gate Park lost over a thousand trees. The steeple cross blew down from St. Ignatius Church, electricity was out all over town--for over a week just blocks away from here in the beautiful huge houses at Forest Hill--and whenever we would try to drive anywhere, there were trees blocking the roads. And this is a big city, with fast disaster responses. It is hard to imagine storms far worse than that!!!
I remember that when we lived on the island we were also building a new trail down to our house on the beach, and there was a horrible summer storm. My daughter and I were coming back from a movie in town, which we had gone to so we could cool off, and couldn't see more than a foot in front of us in the dark, and had to slide down about a hundred feet from the road to our house because we couldn't see the well-worn path we had been using. We got stuck by blackberry brambles, among other indignities!! Anyway, I think we may both soon be wishing for the simple discomforts of summer weather!! |
