|
DATELINE.. Monday, November 18, 2013
MORE NUDES THAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE. I got a link from Brad Cava….thank him!!!
OUR HARD FOUGHT SIGN ORDINANCE & HOTEL DENSITY. Santa Cruz County has many reasons to be proud of some of our unique laws, ordinances and legal stuff. One of those accomplishments was the banning of billboards and relatively tight control over signage relating to commercial buildings. Now word on the street has it that our Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is working on easing standards to allow for more hotels and motels to be built around the county. For starters they want to allow four stories and decrease the amount of parking spaces. We need to watch that tricky all male quintet. They are pushing for zoning code changes that will make it easier to build hotels/motels in Santa Cruz than in almost all other Pacific Coastal towns. Has anybody brought up the source of drinking water for all these dreamed of high risers??
LITTLE LOCAL HISTORY NOTE. Last Friday afternoon Candy Coonerty Protti, dad Neal Coonerty and I were discussing the big booksale and our Hot Damn String Band performance that would happen that night.(It went great!!!) One of the Bookstore employees came up and said a customer was phoning asking if anybody knew about a bookstore owned by someone named Depp. Luckily I could and did, help out. It was Johnny Depp’s brother who did indeed have a book store here. It was out on Mission Street between the Omei Restaurant and Shen’s Gallery. Katherine Beiers told me about it. Probably about 10 years ago..it’s long gone now, and I don’t know if Bro Johnny ever did visit the store.
| THE NICHOLAS BROTHERS AND CAB CALLOWAY… |
A LATE VETERANS DAY THOUGHT. I first met David McReynolds in Pasadena in 1953, he was brilliant and sensitive back then too. This is one of his EdgeLeft columns.
EdgeLeft: We Are All Wounded Veterans by David McReynolds
There is something infinitely sad and even repellent about the current celebration of Veterans Day. This was once Armistice Day, the observation of the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day in November, 1918 when the guns fell silent and the great war ended. The war to end all wars. There is certainly a difference between those veterans who survived a war in defense of their country, and those who took part in a war of aggression. Whatever pacifists may feel about war, there was a purpose for those in the Allied forces in World War II who were defending their countries after they had been attacked. Sadly, this cannot be said about the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.The whole veteran thing is complex. War, for those who actually experienced it – who didn’t serve their time at a supply base – is hell. I remember, as a child, wondering how any man could get out of the trenches and walk through a field of death with sounds beyond thunder bursting all around. I still don’t know. I only know I would never have the courage to do it.
My father, when a visiting pastor at our church assured the men in the congregation who had served in the military that they need not feel burdened by a sense of guilt over what they might have done, since they had only carried out orders from the State, took the pastor aside after the service and, with barely controlled fury, said “Don’t you dare tell me that I am not guilty for what I did. I did it because I didn’t know what else to do, and only the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ can redeem me for the sins of violence”. Even in the best of good wars what of the men on the losing side, who suffered the same horrors but had no brass bands to welcome them home, no mayors and pastors to bless them? The Nazi side was criminal, but the soldiers in their army – and in the Japanese army – fought with courage and returned home to ruins. What can we say of those wars in which we had no real national interest? The Vietnamese did not attack us, Iraq posed no national threat, nor did the Afghans. Our men and women fought because they were ordered to. Some – a very small handful of them – enjoyed the violence. Most were terrified or brutalized by it. Most of all, what I think of on this day, is that, with the miracle of modern medicine, the men and women who, in other wars would have died from their wounds, now survive, and return without all of their limbs, missing parts of their faces, or brains, facing a life ahead of them of physical therapy.
It is one thing for me, at 84, to remind myself that, if I want to ease the pains of walking, I need to do prescribed exercises. But how unfair that these youth, who should be returning home to run, to play baseball with their children, to make love with vigor, must instead adjust to artificial arms and legs, to endless painful hours of physical therapy. Those who saw combat do not return whole. Their dreams reek of death, of comrades torn apart, of foreign children shot by accident.
And we do nothing at all to bring to justice those who sent these men and women into wars which were, in a fundamental sense, unjust. And even in the good wars there is still the memory of an enemy who, in death, turned out to be only an adolescent. In the bad wars – which are the only wars we have fought for some time now – there is the terrible knowledge that the enemy was never really the enemy. That if there is an enemy it is the government that asks us to celebrate the service of the veterans. Let us honor the veterans – all of them, of any nationality. But remember also that in these wars there are other veterans whose fate is not mentioned by Obama, the mothers in Iraq, the wives in Vietnam, the children in Afghanistan, and all the wounded in distant lands, for whom there is no modern medical science. Only dust, blood and pain.
So our goal, and a goal I suspect I share with a great many veterans, is to work for a world where there are no new veterans and where, perhaps to diminish the chance of such wars, we bring to justice those who so lightly send our young into foreign lands”.(Edgeleft is an occassional column written by David McReynolds, who was on the staff of War Resisters League for many years, and was twice the Socialist Party’s candidate for President. He is retired, and lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side with his two cats. He can be reached at: davidmcreynolds7@gmail.com. His writings can be found on his website: Edgeleft.org)
APTOS RANCHO DEL MAR – SAFEWAY EXPANSION
Safeway’s development spokesperson, Deborah Karbo continues on her mission to convince Aptos residents that they need a larger Safeway store, plus an “upgrade” to Rancho Del Mar Center. Her reasons certainly benefit Safeway, but do Aptos residents really need:
· An 18 – pump gas station on the corner of State Pak and Soquel, making it the largest in Santa Cruz County?
· An “upgrade” to the Center with some stores built within 5 feet of Soquel Drive?
· A mega-Safeway?
· More traffic and more traffic signals between State Park and Trout Gulch, along with more signals when the Aptos Village Plan comes online?
· An outdoor “gathering place” for shoppers to view the traffic on Soquel Drive?
The strategy Safeway appears to be using is to continue to fawn over “stakeholders”. What is a stakeholder? The only stakeholders I recognize are my friends and neighbors who don’t support Safeway’s expansion. Whenever Safeway actually submits a plan for review by the county (and the public), we’ll get a chance to comment. The part we’ll find most interesting is their traffic study and congestion mitigation plan. (Paul Elerick is co-chair, along with Peter Scott, of the Campaign for Sensible Transportation, http://sensibletransportation.org , and is a member of Nisene 2 Sea, a group of open space advocates).
| VIRGIN AMERICA SAFETY FILM. |
PATTON’S PROGRAM. Gary’s KUSP Land Use Reports this week cover…growing marijuana legally or not, and the neighborly impacts. Read all about DOGGR and fracking and the Sierra Club. He goes on to talk about CPUC and a PG&E project in Santa Cruz County (a main power line in Aptos-Watsonville). He warns of a Capitola City General Plan Update on Thursday 11/21. He closes by telling how Verizon backed down on a plan/plot to build a cell phone tower!!! He adds that we should all get involved, and stay involved in our community, because we can make a difference. Read all of above scripts at Gary Patton’s KUSP Land Use site http://blogs.kusp.org/landuse. Gary is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor, and an attorney who represents individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. Gary has his own website, “Two Worlds / 365? – www.gapatton.net
CLASSICAL DE CINZO. Arms and the man…like it or not !!! Scroll lower.
EAGANS DEEP COVER. Tim illustrates what it means to be « in arms way ». see below some more.
LISA JENSEN LINKS. Lisa writes: “This week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com ) I bring you news from the publishing front re: National Novel Writing Month (don’t hit Send until you read this), and wonder where the magic went in the latest—possibly last—Shakespeare Santa Cruz holiday show.” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.
THAT IS THE QUESTION
……In order of perfection……
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. No doubt about it Mathew McConaughey stars in and steals most, but not all of this film. What’s odd is that I ended up thinking more about and reacting to Jared Leto’s superb job in playing the transvestite role. Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn are perfect in their roles too. It’s a fine film, but it is such a tour de force , so completely laid out, so perfectly designed that I never “got into” the film. It’s a spectacle, so in your face, no subtlety. And it’s an award winner for sure.
KILL YOUR DARLINGS. A very wordy attempt to capture the Beat literary scene at Columbia University in NYC in the mid 1940’s. Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) is in love with Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) and William Burroughs (Ben Foster) just sort of goofs around, stoned and drugged a lot. Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) is in a few scenes. There’s a stabbing, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyra Sedgwick and Michael C. Hall are in it too, but I’m not sure why. The film drags on and we aren’t given any reason to care much about anybody. Very disappointing.
STILL PLAYING AT A THEATRE NEAR US
(from BEST 2 worst)
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR. This film is in a class by itself. One hundred years from now it’ll still be talked about as a classic. It’s a three hour long masterpiece about a young girl coming of sexual age. The acting, the plot, the sensitivity will take you places no other film has ever achieved. Yes, lots of bold and beautiful lesbian sex scenes and it’s in French with subtitles.
12 YEARS AS A SLAVE. This is a hard hitting, brutal, honest, surprising film. It’ is also beautifully acted, well cast, and a film you won’t forget for a very long time. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a magnificient actor and carries the film.Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, and Paul Giamatti do good jobs but it’s Ejiofor you’ll think about a lot. It’s a true story written by the central character in the pre-civil war days. Just see this film…now.
ALL IS LOST. Robert Redford (5’9″) is absolutely perfect in this non speaking role. Tense, lost at sea, survival, passing merchant ships (who, by the way, rarely tie down their top most cargo freight containers and lose them constantly!!). Just see this film. Thrilling, believable, better than Gravity by far, and it will be a presence at Oscar time for sure.
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. A much better film than Gravity. More tension, better acting and like Gravity it deals with the dangers dealing with the elements.( water not space)Tom Hanks has always been an excellent actor but he’s even better in this « true story ». One of the most multi focused films I’ve seen in years. Give Hanks some more Oscars. See my new « Gravity II » script below.
ENOUGH SAID. Julia Louis Dreyfus and James Gandolfini create a perfectly complex and brilliant relationship movie. There are some genuine laughs in it, but the truth is you’ll be deeply touched by the tenderness and the pain they go through. Gandolfini does an excellent acting job here. Far better than I ever thought he could….we’ll miss him. See this grand film asap.
GRAVITY. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rare 98%, and many of my favorite reviewers went crazy over Gravity. George Clooney (5’10”) and Sandra Bullock (5’7″) are the astronauts in trouble and they float around in great 3D trying to fix everything and then battle to survive. Lots of Hollywood muck in this one in spite of director Guillermo Del Toro’s enormous talent.. He’s done some excellent films, Pan’s Labyrinth, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men but Gravity is not in my list of his best works. It’s about like a Saturday matinee war movie where you wonder if so and so will get home alive. BUT go see it in 3D, it’s probably just me.
ENDERS GAME. I enjoyed this film very much and no I’d never even opened any of the 6 Enders Game books. It’s sort of a Harry Potter goes Sci-fi idea. Except that Ender is a subtle and even mean kid. In the future young boys and a few girls are trained to lead military battles against the dreaded Formics. Great effects, Harrison Ford and Viola Davis are in it and a Maori-type tattoed Ben Kingsley have good roles and if you like sci-fi, this is a good one. Go for it. If you care, Orson Scott Card the author of the series is a Mormon, teaches at Southern Virginia University and has serious problems with homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Is idiotic, beneath dumb, and of course was the biggest box office smash over the opening weekend…which proves my point. It’s another Marvel Comic Book Hero movie made by The Disney Studios. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, plus Natalie Portman, Idris Elba and Stellan Skarsgard are all fine actors, but good gods… the plot!!!! Oops I forgot that Anthony Hopkins (Odin) and Rene Russo (Frigga) are in it too. It’ s a mess of science fiction, Norse Gods and Natalie Portman running around saying things like “wow” and “gee” to a slew of Gods who don’t know their Asgards from a hole in the earth.
LAST VEGAS. It is pitiful to see such stars-icons-great actors such as Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, and Kevin Kline lower themselves to act in this kind of crap.Somehow, I’m guessing due to her ego Mary Steenburgen is great in her role as singer/temptress. You’ve seen 100 Las Vegas films, and they are all better than this one. Don’t go.
MACBETH “LIVE FROM LONDON” STARRING KENNETH BRANAGH.
National Theatre Live will broadcast Manchester International Festival’s electrifying production of Macbeth, with Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn, Hamlet) in his first Shakespeare performance in over a decade as Macbeth, and Alex Kingston (Doctor Who, ER) as Lady Macbeth. Directed by Olivier and Tony Award-winner Rob Ashford (Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse, Thoroughly Modern Millie on Broadway) and BAFTA Award-winner Kenneth Branagh, this unique production of Shakespeare’s tragic tale of ambition and treachery unfolds within the walls of an intimate deconsecrated Manchester church.
Running Time: 131. Thursday, Nov. 21 @ 7:30pm and Sunday 11/24 @ 11am. Del Mar Theatre.
| KOKO THE CLOWN (Cab Calloway) SINGS ST. JAMES INFIRMARY. Very early and great animation….and music !!!
|
| DISNEY’S STORY OF MENSTRUATION (seriously!!) I can’t find a date on this 10 minute film but it’s well done.
|
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE. Each and every Tuesday from 7:00-8:00 p.m. I host Universal Grapevine on KZSC 88.1 fm. or on your computer (live only or sometimes old programs are archived… (See next paragraph) and go to WWW.KZSC.ORG. The winners fom this year’s Bookshop Santa Cruz’s Young Writers contest will read their works on the Nov. 19th program. Alcohol Policy Consultant Jim Mosher guests on Nov. 26, after which Cynthia Chase, program director of GEMMA tells us about their program. Steven Bignell & Susan Bruijnes talk about their brand new book, “228 Things to See in Santa Cruz County, after which former Santa Cruz Supreme Court Judge Bill Kelsey relates his time on the bench.Dr. Alfred Petrocelli discusses osteoporosis and Don Grube talks about theatre at Cabrilho College on Dec. 10. Stephen Slade from The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County tells us of their latest plans and projects on Dec. 17. Do remember, any and all suggestions for future programs are more than welcome so tune in, and keep listening. Email me always at bratton@cruzio.com
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE ARCHIVES. In case you missed some of the great people I’ve interviewed in the last 5 years here’s a chronological list of just this year’s podcasts. Click here http://kzsc.org/blog/tag/universal-grapevine then tap on “listen here” to hear any or all of them… all over again. The update includes Nikki Silva, Michael Warren, Tom Noddy, Anita Monga, Mark Wainer, Judy Johnson-Darrow, Wendy Mayer-Lochtefeld, Rachel Goodman, George Newell, Tubten Pende, Gina Marie Hayes, Rebecca Ronay-Hazleton, Miriam Ellis, Deb Mc Arthur, The Great Morgani on Street performing, and Paul Whitworth on Krapps Last Tape. Jodi McGraw on Sandhills, Bruce Daniels on area water problems. Mike Pappas on the Olive Connection, Sandy Lydon on County History. Paul Johnston on political organizing, Rick Longinotti on De-Sal. Dan Haifley on Monterey Bay Sanctuary, Dan Harder on Santa Cruz City Museum. Sara Wilbourne on Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre. Brian Spencer on SEE Theatre Co. Paula Kenyon and Karen Massaro on MAH and Big Creek Pottery. Carolyn Burke on Edith Piaf. Peggy Dolgenos on Cruzio. Julie James on Jewel Theatre Company. Then there’s Pat Matejcek on environment, Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack on the Universe plus Nina Simon from MAH, Rob Slawinski, Gary Bascou, Judge Paul Burdick, John Brown Childs, Ellen Kimmel, Don Williams, Kinan Valdez, Ellen Murtha, John Leopold, Karen Kefauver, Chip Lord, Judy Bouley, Rob Sean Wilson, Ann Simonton, Lori Rivera, Sayaka Yabuki, Chris Kinney, Celia and Peter Scott, Chris Krohn, David Swanger, Chelsea Juarez…and that’s just since January 2011. Hear them all!!!
QUOTES. “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations,” Oscar Wilde. “I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land,” Jon Stewart. “I always think it’s funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during the first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I’m never quite sure why we eat Turkey like everybody else”, Sherman Alexie.
Subscriptions: Click and enter the box in the upper right hand corner of each Column. You’ll get a weekly email notice the instant the column goes online. (Anywhere from Monday afternoon through Thursday or sometimes as late as Friday!) Always free and confidential. Even I don’t know who subscribes!!
Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ gunilla@thegoldenfleece.com
Deep Cover by Tim Eagan.
