Newsletter originally published 2009.12.07

On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsized. The attack sank three other ships and damaged many additional vessels. More than 180 aircraft were destroyed.

A hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Commander in Chief Pacific, to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL.

Here it for yourself: The following day President Franklin Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress , called December 7 “a date which will live in infamy.” Declaring war against Japan, Congress ushered the United States into World War II and forced a nation, already close to war, to abandon isolationism. Within days, Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, and the country began a rapid transition to a war-time economy in building up armaments in support of military campaigns in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe.

Also on the day following Pearl Harbor Alan Lomax, head of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song, sent a telegram to colleagues around the U.S. asking them to collect people’s immediate reactions to the bombing. Over the next few days prominent folklorists such as John Lomax, John Henry Faulk, Charles Todd, Robert Sonkin, and Lewis Jones responded by recording “man on the street” interviews in New York, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. They interviewed salesmen, electricians, janitors, oilmen, cabdrivers, housewives, students, soldiers, physicians, and others regarding the events of December 7. Among the interviewees was a California woman then visiting her family in Dallas, Texas.

“My first thought was, what a great pity that another nation should be added to those aggressors who choose to limit our freedom…I find myself at the age of eighty, an old woman, hanging on to the tail of the world, trying to keep up. I do not want the driver’s seat but the eternal verities. There are certain things that I wish to express: one thing that I am very sure of is that hatred is death, but love is light. I want to contribute to the civilization of the world but…When I look at the holocaust that is going on in the world today, I’m almost ready to let go…”

Lena Jamison, “What A Great Pity,” December 9, 1941 John Lomax, interviewer After the Day of Infamy: “Man-on-the-Street” Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

Image Credit: Naval Dispatch from the Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Words and Deeds in American History This dispatch is one of five thousand items in The Papers of Adm. John J. Ballentine (1896-1970). The collection was deposited in the Manuscript Division by the Naval Historical Foundation.

Le clan des néo-conservateurs, cette faction d’idéologie militariste pour l’imposition d’une hégémonie américaine mondiale, tel que décrit et illustré par dans leurs propres documents et projet comme le PNAC, réuni l’extrême droite, le complexe militaro-industriel, évangélistes chrétiens, sionistes, banquiers internationaux, et des gens de descendance idéologique nazie comme George H.W. Bush et de factions de la CIA.

Ce sont ces gens qui ont voulu prendre avantage du momentum de la configuration stratégique américaine présente à la fin Seconde guerre mondiale, cristallisée ensuite durant la guerre froide, pour imposer leur nouvel ordre mondial. Ils se retrouvaient avec l’armée la plus puissante de l’histoire et beaucoup pensaient qu’il était insensé de ne pas s’en servir pour assurer leur contrôle sur le monde. Pour ce faire, on devait utiliser cette puissance militaire qui selon eux était d’une tristesse à posséder sans pouvoir s’en servir réellement pour imposer cet ordre, en combinaison avec la sphère financière et bancaire à travers lesquelles ils dominaient et dominent encore le reste du monde. Ces nouveaux maîtres du monde ne pouvait se servir de cette incroyable machine de guerre parce que le peuple américain et la Constitution des États-Unis ne leur permettraient jamais.

Il fallait donc miner et éventuellement anéantir ce dernier bastion de la liberté et de la souveraineté du peuple et des individus, en finir avec cette expérience unique de quelques centaines d’années à peine où pour la première fois de l’Histoire, le Peuple est souverain et donc pas soumis, esclave, serf, sujet d’un quelconque tyran, dictateur, leader religieux ou d’une monarchie.

Alors, pour imposer une telle politique étrangère agressive et criminelle à tendance eugénique, ils comprenaient que la démocratie, ou en fait, la République des États-Unis, était pour les en empêcher. La souveraineté du peuple et la liberté sont le véritable ennemi de l’élite, de l’establishment, de l’ordre établi. Elles sont l’antithèse du darwinisme social.
C’est ce qui explique la motivation derrière le coup d’État avorté de justesse dans l’affaire Smedley Butler impliquant la famille Bush ainsi que de grands industriels et banquiers.

Il s’agit du même dessein en ce qui concerne le 9/11 et la descente rapide dans un état policier fasciste qu’on peut observer en Amérique. Nous sommes témoins de l’érosion brutale – et dans plusieurs cas la perte – de nos droits et libertés ainsi que la protection de notre vie privée, sans compter les multiples transgressions de la Constitution des É-U.

Il y a longtemps que les multinationales et le secteur bancaire ont opéré un coup d’État silencieux prenant contrôle de nos institutions civiles et gouvernementales. Les gens qu’on nomme nos « représentants » ne le sont plus en grande majorité, surtout aux plus hauts échelons. Les créditeurs et les multinationales dictent la loi, font la pluie et le beau temps. Ils sont le gouvernement de facto. Ils organisent les choses en leur faveur, pour leurs intérêts. Par exemple, ils sont le moteur qui propulse le Partenariat pour la Sécurité et la Prospérité (PSP), ou plus simplement, l’Union nord-américaine. Une refonte du Canada, des États-Unis et du Mexique en un espace commun commercial favorable au secteur privé et financier, opéré via un nivellement vers le bas des conditions de travail, des salaires, des réglementations et protections des gens et de l’environnement.

Nous payons des impôts et des taxes, mais nous ne sommes plus représentés. Nous avons perdu $40 milliards de notre Caisse de dépôt et de placement et l’État de droit au Québec est en train de basculer vers la loi du plus fort et du crime organisé, mais les « autorités » refusent toute enquête publique! Ils parlent de monter la taxe de vente et votre compte d’électricité pour combler les déficits causés par leurs « erreurs », de dépenser des milliards de dollars pour investir dans la centrale nucléaire de Gentilly-2 et la remettre en marche avec tout ce que cela implique en terme de risque nucléaire et des matières radioactives, mais ne nous consultent jamais et ne font qu’à leur tête.

Le partenariat entre les compagnies et les forces armées/complexe militaro-industriel est l’axe essentiel par lequel l’élite anglo-saxonne pensait organiser leur collaboration pour créer une super-puissance dans le but d’imposer leur contrôle sur le monde et poursuivre l’expansion de l’emprise de l’empire anglo-saxon sur les ressources du monde et ainsi remplacer le colonialisme européen. La guerre contre le terrorisme est le parfait outil puisqu’elle est sans fin et permet de créer sans cesse de nouveaux ennemis qui eux sont là que pour justifier l’expansion de la plus grande économie militarisée que le monde est connu.

Il est un fait qui semble se dégager de plus en plus de l’histoire du régime nazi : ils avaient été appuyés en puissance par les banquiers de Londres et de Wall Street, et le 3e Reich de Hitler fut construit par les corporations des États-Unis et d’Angleterre dans le but de contrer la menace Communiste de l’Union Soviétique (financée et maintenue en place par les mêmes banquiers internationaux). Hitler s’est avéré un homme hors de contrôle et c’est les Soviétiques qui ont dû perdre entre de 20 à 40 millions d’hommes pour le défaire. Suite à la défaite du régime nazi, nous avons appris grâce à des documents américains déclassifiés, que sous le projet « Paperclip », des milliers de têtes nazis, dont des scientifiques, propagandistes, stratèges, hauts-gradés militaires, etc, furent rapatriés aux États-Unis, sous un chapeau nommé la CIA, nouvellement crée à cet effet.

George H.W. Bush est un des grand responsable de cette affaire, avec son père Prescott Bush qui amassa une fortune en aidant et finançant Hitler, blanchissant l’argent nazi et en investissant dans la machine de guerre nazie. Étaient aussi de fervents supporteurs: Henry Ford, IBM, JP Morgan, Rockefeller et la Standard Oil. Il est de plus en plus compris que la famille Bush et les gens qui leur sont reliés constituent la montée d’un 4e Reich aux États-Unis. Les nazis ont perdu une bataille en 1945, mais pas la guerre puisque les vrais architectes, constructeurs et profiteurs de la machine nazie et son idéologie n’ont jamais été publiquement identifiés, exposés et jugés pour leurs crimes.

Les médias sont lourdement concentrés entre les mains de quelques entités seulement. Il se trouve beaucoup d’actionnaires importants et propriétaires qui sont aussi investis et liés à des fabricants d’armement et des financiers de Wall Street. Ils répondent uniquement aux impératifs du marché et de la rentabilité, mais ils ont l’immense pouvoir de façonner notre perception de la réalité. Les médias n’accomplissent pas leur mission de chercher et rapporter la vérité, d’être les gardiens de la liberté et démocratie, de surveiller les gouvernements et les gens au pouvoir.

Nous savons maintenant que des milliards de dollars furent et sont dépensés par des gouvernements tels que celui des États-Unis ainsi que par des corporations pour produire de fausses nouvelles ayant toutes les apparences de nouvelles indépendantes produites par les médias. Il n’y a pas moyen de savoir si elles sont authentiques ou pas, ainsi que de connaître leur source de financement. Elles nous sont présentées dans les journaux ainsi qu’à la télévision comme si elles étaient authentiques, rapportées par de véritables journalistes.

Bien sûr qu’il ne s’agit pas de la totalité des nouvelles qui nous parviennent, ni probablement pas de la majorité, mais il est certain que cela s’est produit des centaines de fois seulement que dans la période avant le début de l’agression de l’Irak en mars 2003. On peut aussi penser à l’affaire des couveuses Koweït en 1991 alors que le gouvernement des États-Unis avaient engagé une firme de relation publique pour créer une fausse histoire de bébés jetés sur le sol froid par les soldats irakiens pour voler les couveuses des hôpitaux du Koweït. Cette campagne de désinformation avait pour but créer une indignation et un soutient chez les Américains et ainsi servir de justification pour attaquer l’Irak pour la première fois en 1991.

On peut penser au 11 septembre 2001, un domaine où les mensonges et fantaisies de la version officielle rapportés joyeusement par les médias sont si épais qu’ils n’arrivent plus à s’emboîter et former un tout compréhensible et logique, défiant les lois de la physique et de la nature.

Nous savons par les documents officiels maintenant déclassifiés aux États-Unis que les attaques de Pearl Harbor et du golfe de Tonkin qui ont mené les Américains à la Deuxième guerre mondiale et dans la guerre du Vietnam respectivement, ont été des évènements basés sur des mensonges: les États-Unis avaient délibérément provoqué les Japonais et savaient qu’ils étaient pour attaquer Pearl Harbor et n’ont rien fait pour les arrêter et prévenir leurs hommes en place; et dans l’autre cas, les Vietnamiens n’ont jamais attaqué la flotte américaine (qui elle se trouvait carrément dans leurs eaux territoriales), il s’agissait en fait d’un coup monté, une fausse attaque simulée par l’armée américaine.

Et ainsi de suite…

Il faut aussi comprendre le passé pour comprendre le présent: ceux qui ne connaissent pas ce que fut le programme Mockingbird de la CIA qui comptait plus de 3000 agents et journalistes sur leur liste de paye, et travaillant à travers tous les médias d’Amérique, auront du mal à comprendre à quel point l’information et la perception de la réalité peuvent être contrôlées et manipulées.

L’objectif étant de mener une guerre informationnelle et psychologique, de contrôler les informations transmises et pour la propagation de propagande. Les événements du 11 septembre 2001 ainsi que la version officielle du gouvernement américain de George Bush n’ont jamais fait l’objet d’enquête sérieuse de la part des médias. Ceci est d’autant plus grave que la guerre contre le terrorisme qui s’en est suivi, découle de ces tristes événements.

Cui bono?

Autour de mille architectes et ingénieurs demandent au Congrès américain une vraie enquête indépendante sur le 9/11, car les faits, la physique et les évidences dans le domaine de la chimie ne correspondent pas avec la version officielle; sans compter que les responsables mêmes de la Commission sur le 9/11 ont publiquement déclaré que leur enquête et analyse sont loin d’avoir révélé la vérité et qu’il y avait beaucoup d’inexactitudes et de mensonges dû à un « cover up » politique, un refus de coopérer de la part des autorités qui étaient responsables ce jour-là.

N’oublions pas ces deux faits plus que cocasses:

- Des enquêtes sur des fraudes fiscales majeures menant vers des poursuites judiciaires importantes concernant des compagnies comme Enron furent détruites lors de l’écroulement du Salomon Brother Building (WTC7), qui lui, ne fut jamais frappé par un avion et n’était la proie que de trois feux mineurs étant sous contrôle.

- Donald Rumsfeld avait annoncé la journée précédente au 11 septembre que le Pentagone avait perdu, écarté des livres de comptabilité, plus de $2.3 trillions ($2 300 000 000 000), un scandale de proportion historique. Le lendemain, un avion venait s’écraser en plein dans les bureaux du Pentagone où les enquêtes à ce sujet se déroulaient, après avoir pris le risque de faire une acrobatie sans pareil pour aller percuter ce côté précis du Pentagone.

Le Nouvel Ordre Mondial est composé principalement de deux clans: les socialistes/Société Fabienne d’Europe et les fascistes/capitalistes d’Amérique. Mais dans cette dernière, il y a une division Zbigniew Brzezinski/CFR/Commission Trilatérale/CIA/NED/Ford Foundation qui lui est en train de devenir spécialiste des révolutions colorées qu’on a pu observer dans différentes régions du monde. Ils se drapent d’une apparente révolution populaire/étudiante. Il semble que les derniers coups sont ceux qui nous ont apporté Barack Obama et le coup manqué contre l’Iran lors des dernières élections.

Il existe une sorte de continuum traversant les décennies et les générations, d’une idéologie interventionniste, colonialiste et de domination qui persiste jusqu’à nos jours. Elle vise l’imposition d’un ordre mondial à travers différentes crises pour faire émerger une solution commune: une gouvernance globale entre les mains de non élus. Que ce soit la crise du réchauffement climatique, la crise financière, la crise alimentaire, la crise A/H1N1, tous les chemins mènent à Rome, on nous dit que nous avons besoin d’une gouvernance mondiale pour nous sauver et sauver la planète.

Cela étant dit, ces autorités et leaders du monde ont l’air tout-puissants – et ils le sont dans une certaine mesure, tant il y a de gens qui acceptent de vivre leur vie à genoux – mais ils sont en fait extrêmement vulnérables, en petit nombre et complètement terrorisés face au peuple. La révolution de la façon dont circule l’information dans nos sociétés qu’a engendré la venue d’Internet et ensuite du mouvement pour la vérité qui y est né, animé par des millions de chercheurs de la vérité partout à travers la planète, est un facteur que l’élite n’a pas su prévoir et bien contrôler. Les menaces auxquels  l’Internet libre et neutre fait face s’intensifieront en nombres et en gravité. Nous serons de plus en plus sollicités, mais ultimement, la vérité et la vie triompheront. Il y a une lutte, une guerre pour contrôler et soumettre l’esprit humain, une guerre de l’information qui fait rage.

Nous sommes en train de développer des mécanismes de protection, tel qu’un « firewall » mental, un instinct pour détecter les mensonges et les manipulations. Les révolutions et les grandes avancées humaines ont toujours été le fait de quelques individus ou petits groupes d’individus. Il y a présentement des millions de personnes connectées ensemble, faisant circuler l’information instantanément et l’enregistrant partout. Nous sommes devenus une immense agence du renseignement civile. En l’espace d’une heure seulement, une information ou des images vidéo peuvent faire le tour du monde et être vues, enregistrées et copiées des millions de fois avant même que les médias n’aient eu le temps de réagir. Le contrôle de l’information est devenu beaucoup plus difficile. Avec le recul historique, cette révolution sera certainement perçue comme étant un évènement clef de la libération du savoir et de l’information, et ultimement, de la sagesse humaine qui sera notre seul salut, la seule solution pour éviter que l’humanité s’autodétruise.

Il ne faut pas tomber hypnotisé et paralysé par les évènements du passé et les horreurs de présent, il faut les interpréter comme étant des symptômes d’un mal de société, d’une maladie de civilisation, qui a pour origine le cœur des hommes et femmes, l’individu qui est psychologiquement malade de par ses valeurs fausses découlant d’une grave incompréhension du sens profond et essentiel de la vie, ou simplement de son oubli. Mais les défauts et les fausses motivations ne sont que des qualités et saines motivations perverties. Il est impératif que nous retrouvions une vision du futur, que nous ayons un projet de société réel pour et par le peuple.

« La lutte de l’homme contre le pouvoir est la lutte de la mémoire contre l’oubli. » – Milan Kundera

« Celui qui ignore son passé est condamné à le revivre. » – Marc Bloch

François Marginean

I graduated from Brentwood High School in June of 1939. The outcome of my interview with the president of Bethany College and the plugging by Sammy Mc­Donald was an offer of a four-year schol­arship to Bethany. It covered the full tuition of $150 a year for four years. But it didn’t include room and board. And that proved to be a problem for my dad. He said we couldn’t afford to put out that kind of money. And besides, “college was a waste of time because all they taught you there was dumb stuff.” So, he wouldn’t go for the cost of the room and board.

My mother argued the case for me but my dad held firm. Maybe we couldn’t af­ford it. The country was just barely out of the big Depres­sion of the 1930’s and it could be that he was just beginning to feel secure about his income. In any case, I never accepted the scholarship from Bethany. But, as it turned out, I would have probably turned it down for other reasons of my own.

Besides the Bethany of­fer, I also had some other chances at a college schol­ar­ship. Just before grad­uation from high school, I had taken a county-wide competi­tive test given by an organization that had a bag of scholar­ships to hand out. As a re­sult, I was invited to go for an interview with somebody from the University of Pitts­burgh. A scholarship to Pitt would have meant that I could live at home with­out the ex­pense of room and board. But I didn’t even bother to go to the interview. I had other plans.

My best friend at the time was a kid named Kip Brown. He was a year older than I was. After he gradu­at­ed from high school, he got a job working in a gas station. But Kip and I had much more exciting things in mind. Kip was going to quit his job at the end of the summer and we were going to be hobos. We were going to hop freights and travel all over the coun­try living off the land. King of the Road stuff. I could hardly wait.

So I spent my first sum­mer after high school only half-heartedly looking for a job. I was waiting for the summer to be over when Kip would quit his job and we would take off to see the world. But when the summer ended, Kip decided he could­n’t do it. His family needed his in­come. At least, that was the reason he gave me. That may have been part of the reason. But I think his real reason was a case of acute cold feet when it came time to actually break away. In place of an exciting trip around the world, he offered to get me a job pumping gas at the gas station where he worked. By that time, it was too late to pick up on any of the scholarship offers. So I took the job in the gas sta­tion.

The gas station job turned out to be so terrible that, on looking back, I can’t imagine why I ever put up with it. It was a 24-hour-a-day oper­a­tion owned by an old, mean-tempered, penny-squeezing bastard named Al Dower. He was a re­tired river boat cap­tain. Kip Brown and I were the only em­ploy­ees. Kip had the day shift and I had the night shift. I worked twelve hours a day, from eight at night till eight in the morn­ing, seven days a week. Al Dow­er paid us each seven dollars a week. That’s about eight cents an hour. I still have trou­ble believing it.

Al Dower’s gas station was located in a section of the city called Beck’s Run. Beck’s Run was like some backward West Virginia moun­tain hillbilly village that had been trans­planted right next to Al Dower’s gas sta­tion. It was out of place in Pitts­burgh. In fact, it was probably out of place any­where. I’m sure that if they ever had to give the city of Pittsburgh an enema, Beck’s Run is where they would ad­minister it.

The work itself at the gas sta­tion was easy enough. At first, we only sold gas and oil. Then Al Dower start­ed selling candy and soft drinks inside the station. Then he opened a lunch coun­ter inside. You’d think that with these extra duties Kip and I had to handle, old Al would have raised our sala­ries to maybe eight dollars a week. But he didn’t.

Even so, the job wasn’t too demanding, especially on the night shift. We didn’t get many customers late at night. And the local stump-jumpers who hung around the station were always good for a few laughs. Most of the guys who lived in Beck’s Run worked in the neighboring steel mills. They worked varying shifts, so there was always somebody hanging around even in the middle of the night. In fact, Willie Hatfield was asleep on a bench in the station one night when a gunman came in, stuck me up, and got away with the night’s take. Willie didn’t even wake up. Willie Hatfield. Is that a hillbilly name or what?

But the most fun Kip and I had on that job was fooling old Al Dower. Each of our two gas pumps had a little coun­ter inside that recorded the number of gallons pumped. At the beginning and end of each shift, we had to read the counter and com­pare it with the money taken in. And old Al Dower used to check it every day. Some days, for one reason or another, the money and the number of gallons sold wouldn’t match up. Gaso­line only sold for about fourteen cents a gallon, so the differ­ence never amounted to more than a few cents. If the money came out over what the counter said, Kip and I would pocket it. But if the money came out short, old Al would jump on us for being incompetent and not paying attention to business.

One day when the money came up short by a couple of gallons, the old man decided he would take over handling the money on the day shift and teach us both a good les­son. Only old Al had weak eyes and couldn’t make out the tiny numbers on the pump counters. So Kip and I had to read them for him. The first day that old Al was handling the money, Kip relieved me in the morning and read the counters for him. Only he read them a couple of gallons under. And when I relieved Kip at the end of the shift, I read the counters a couple of gallons over. Then we hung around to watch old Al count the money.

It was funny to watch. Old Al looked puzzled when he counted the mon­ey the first time. But he was stubborn. He must have counted the money and checked his figures three or four times before he finally gave up. Then he very quietly reached in his pocket and sneaked some change into the cash register. After several days of the same routine, old Al turned the money handling back to Kip and me. He never did admit to coming up short but he stopped bug­ging us when we did.

The gas station job turned out to be a trap for me. The economy was still recovering from the Depression and good jobs were not easy to come by. But I was living at home free and the seven dollars a week provided spend money.  So I didn’t have a lot of incentive to look for a better job. And I didn’t try very hard.

I had a lot to learn.

I even managed to buy my first car on my seven-dollar-a-week salary. It was a 1932 Chevy sedan. It cost thirty-five dollars. I bought it from a junkyard. It had four doors, a trunk on the back and a spare tire on each front fender. I needed those two spare tires. It seemed I was getting more miles to a gallon than I was to a tire. After a few months, I traded up to a 1934 Chevy that I bought from the same junkyard. That cost forty-five dollars.

I held the gas station job from September of 1939 until sometime around late 1940. By that time, World War II was underway in Eu­rope and the draft law in the United States was in effect. When the law first went in, you didn’t have to regis­ter for the draft until you were twen­ty-one. I was only nineteen, so I did­n’t have to register.

But the draft provided me with a new job. The Federal government came up with a program to make jobs for young people and I got in on it. I don’t remember what the program was called. My job was helping out at the Army Induction Center in Pitts­burgh. It was pretty much of a flunky job and it was only part-time. But it paid thirty-five cents an hour and I ended up making more per week than I did at Al Dower’s gas station.

At some time during my post-high school life, I decided that since I couldn’t afford to go to college I would try to get the federal government to finance it.  I applied for the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. At that time, appointments were made by the local Congressman. Our Congressman was a guy named Matt Dunne. He had a very fair way of choosing who got appointed. He had the civil service give an exam to everyone who applied and then gave the appointments to the top scorers.

That year, Matt Dunne had three appointments to give out. I took the exam with about 50 other guys looking for an appointment. I finished fourth in the rankings. The top three scorers got the appointments. As the first runner-up, I got named as the First Alternate. That meant that if any of the first three canceled out or flunked the physical, I would be first in line to get the appointment. So, just in case, the Navy gave me a physical too. I flunked. My old broken elbow had left me with limited range of motion in my left arm. I guess they figured that, as a Navy ensign, I would be at a disadvantage if I ever got into hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.  Fat chance. But that’s the way it was.

So I didn’t get the appointment to Annapolis. But, as it turned out, it worked out better for me that I didn’t. At that time in my life, I’m not sure I could have withstood the discipline and regimentation of such a clean-cut life. And besides, I would have missed out on some less sanitary but more colorful adventures.

By early 1941, World War II was getting hot in Europe and the United States was edging its way into it. We were calling ourselves the Arsenal of Democracy and our econo­my was heating up. I applied for a job at a local steel mill and got hired. The pay was fifty-five dollars a month for a forty-hour week.

The name of the mill was Oli­ver Iron and Steel. It was on the South Side of Pittsburgh about three miles from our house on Locust Street. Oliver’s was one of the smaller mills in the area. We didn’t make any of the heavier steel products. We made nuts and bolts, small forgings and hardware for utility poles.

My job title was Expediter. We didn’t keep much of an inventory in stock. Usually, when an order came in to the plant, it had to be manufac­tured from scratch. That meant that it had to go through several processes in different parts of the plant. An order for bolts might go from bar stock to cutting to heading to thread­ing to plating to inspection to ship­ping before it got out the door. Some­times, an order would get delayed, or even lost,  going through the plant. My job was to roam through the plant to find those orders and get them moving. That usually meant getting a crane operator or fork lift driver to take it to the next station, or talking some foreman into moving it to the top of his list.

The Expediter job at Oliver’s wasn’t a bad job and certainly a lot better than the gas station job. But I still had the itch to get out of Pitts­burgh and travel. The fifty-five dol­lars a month pay didn’t exactly put me in the high-income tax bracket. But it was pretty good for spend mon­ey. Back in those times, some guys were supporting families on a pay of less than twenty-five dollars a week. I think I even managed to pay my parents something for room and board. Sometimes, that is. I don’t remember being too regular about it and they never pressured me for it. They were always pretty easy about taking money from me. And, lucky for me, they never seemed to need any from me.

After several months working at Oliver’s, I could even afford a new­er car. My 1934 Chevy was giving me a lot of trouble but, on its last gasp, I managed to limp into a used car lot and trade it in on a 1937 Willys. I don’t know for sure but the 1937 Willys was probably the small­est American car ever built. I don’t re­member what it cost but it must have been under a hundred dollars. I had to borrow about seventy dollars from my older brother, Bill, in order to swing it. He wasn’t too keen about lending me the money until I offered to pay him interest.

In September of 1941, my grandfather, my father’s dad, died. He was 86 years old. That left my grandmother, who was 76 at the time, alone in their house at 173 Penn Avenue in Mt. Oliver where they had lived for some 27 years. Someone decided, probably my dad, that we should move in with her and we did.

The house on Penn Avenue was much bigger than our house on Lo­cust Street. It was a yellow brick house with three stories and a full basement. Downstairs had a kitchen, a pantry, a dining room, a living room, and a big entry hall. On the second floor, it had three bedrooms, a linen room and a big bathroom. The third floor was one big room that we used as a fourth bedroom.

We even had two sets of stairs between the first and second floors although one was more like a narrow secret pas­sage and we never used it. We had a big front porch as well as a back porch that looked out over several square miles of the city to the south of us. The house sounds bigger than it really was because houses were built with smaller rooms in those days.

My social life was disgustingly celi­bate in my late teens. Not because I wanted it that way. But I was still very self-conscious around girls. I guess I felt that none of them would have me. And I was probably right.  So I spent most of my lei­sure time hang­ing out with the guys. We spent a lot of time talk­ing about girls but none of us hardly ever did any­thing about it. I don’t remem­ber ever hav­ing a real date back then.

But somewhere along the line, I learned how to dance. I still wasn’t too good on the slow dances but I got to be a hot jitterbugger. It was the swing era of the big bands and jitter­bugging was in. And there was never any problem finding a dance some­where. Somebody would hire a hall and set up a phonograph and there was a dance. The usual charge was fifteen cents. I went to a lot of those.

Even in my late teens, I was never exposed to any illegal drugs. We guys had heard about marijuana but none of us ever had the slightest idea how you would go about getting any. As for any of the other stuff, we never even knew it existed. It’s a good thing. I was goofy enough.

During those days, when Eu­rope was at war and the United States was not, we Americans were pretty much divided on whether we should get into it or not. And there were strong sentiments on both sides. On the one hand, we were being bombarded with a lot of propaganda, most of it factual, about how poor England was being brutalized by the Nazi beasts. So, many people felt that we should get in there and rescue them.

On the other hand, some peo­ple felt that old Adolf Hitler was only fighting to preserve Germany and that some of the lands that he had taken over in the last few years had been Germany’s to begin with. And besides, who was England to chal­lenge Germany for occupying some­body else’s country?  Wasn’t the Brit­ish Empire the all-time undisputed champion of country occupiers? Of course, nobody at that time had any idea of Hitler’s “master race” bullshit or the atrocities being committed against the Jews and other nationali­ties.

As for me, I was on the side of those who thought we should stay out of that particular war. It wasn’t so much that I was pro-Hitler or against war. In fact, for me, a war would have been a welcome break. I was just anti-England. I didn’t think we should have to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. I would argue that they were against us in the Revolu­tionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War. In spite of that, we had let ourselves get dragged into World War I to save them. And now they were asking us to come over and get killed to save them again. I was eloquent. It’s a good thing nobody listened to me.

The year of 1941 A.D. was coming to an end, and I was getting very discouraged. It looked like I was stuck in Pittsburgh. And with every day that went by, I was getting  stucker. There was no break in sight. Was I going to spend the rest of my life living in a lousy city, working at a lousy job in a lousy mill and driving around in a lousy 1937 Willys?

And then it happened. On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and we were at war. My way out was in sight.

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts…
To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,

I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.
So that your family can sleep without fright.
It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers”

My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘Nam’,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..

Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.”
“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”

“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”
PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. Service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities.

Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Now I know many both want and expect me to just post three Michael Bay or Brett Ratner movies and leave it like that but, though both Pearl Harbor and Transformers 2 came very close to being added to this list, they do (and I feel I’m betraying myself here) have slight redeeming qualities: the cinematography and effects are simply amazing.  Fucking terrible films yes… but not without some minor, unrelated to their director, qualities.

Also I’ve not chosen utter tripe that I watch on Zone Horror on a weekly basis (fuck you Day of the Dead 2) as I find it unfair to compare a movie made for a few grand with one that could possibly buy you a small country in the Caribbean. Nor have I mentioned Indiana Jones for raping movies in this decade in the way The Phantom Menace did in the last (not sure why that didn’t make the list actually)…

And so I’ve chosen films that really offended me on every level instead of just the ‘racist robots, stick a camera up Megan Fox’s vagina‘ type levels:

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

I hated the book but not for the reasons people expect. I found Dan Brown’s supposedly shocking novel dull, predictable and, above all, offensively patronising.  However I thought, with a good screenwriter involved and a solid director, that it could be transformed into an Indiana Jones style mystery adventure.  How astoundingly wrong I was.  Appalling performances from some of the best actors in the world, dull as shit scripting and direction from a helmsman that can’t have turned up on set, The Da Vinci Code was so hard to get through that by the time the end finally dragged along all I wanted was to get the fuck out of the cinema and get thoroughly drunk.  You’ll be glad, dear readers, that I did exactly that

The Wickerman (Remake) (2006)

Was there ever any doubt that this was going to be terrible?  Lucky for me I was working in a video rental store at the time this little gem came out and I felt it my duty to take one for the team and watch it so I could, with all sincerity, tell customers that i couldn’t possibly rent them such a title.  Well it is indeed THAT BAD.  They seem to take moments from the classic original and just throw them in a film that doesn’t make any sense.  The original was about a bigoted policeman whose, vital to the plot, characteristic traits were that he was a Christian, a virgin and a complete dick. In the remake he’s still a cop but he’s not clearly religious, has a child and seems to be a rather nice fellow.  So when he gets burned at the end and tortured by bees (yup bees) it just seems a little harsh (though I have to say I was grateful as it heralded the end of a terrible movie).  The acting is notoriously bad (see the YouTube clips for hilarious proof “arrggh the beeeeeeeess, etc”) and the directions seems to be ‘Ok Nic – run over there and then run over there’… and that’s pretty much it.  To conclude DO NOT watch… ever.

An American Haunting (2005)

OK first off I can’t see how anybody, especially critcs, could recommend this film to anyone as it is both extremely predictable and an exceptionally boring movie.  As many of you know I’m one of those people who gets scared very easily (vivid imagination and Nam flashbacks most likely the cause) and for the first twenty minutes I was really pretty terrified.  And then I got bored.  And then the ‘twist’ occurred and I groaned.  Then it ended.

The direction was appalling (unnecessary changes from colour to black and white confuse me, not scare me) and the theory of the more jumps the better wears very thin very quickly… but the major problem was definitely the actual story telling.  By the time the first act is over they’ve pretty much done everything they can to scare (and torture the protagonists) leaving the next two acts nothing new to offer.  The awesomely exciting twist is obvious to anyone who has seen the, much better, funnier and scarier, Twin Peaks from about ten minutes into the plot and the prologue/epilogue contemporary scenes are just stupid. Really stupid.  Damn just remembering that I paid money to see this has got me all angry again.  I seem to remember reviewing it back in 2005 thus: ‘PLEASE DO NOT WATCH. EVER’.

December 7, 2009

The day began in a shroud of fog.  A chilly drizzle fell on the crowd as they  assembled in Fredericksburg, Texas.  Special seating was designated for aging veterans, some of which sported caps bearing the names of ships.  Others wore envelope hats and VFW vests.  They were there for the grand re-opening of the George H. W. Bush Gallery of the National Museum of the Pacific War.

The Bush Gallery had recently undergone a $15.3 million expansion, which increased its exhibit space to 33,000 square feet and implemented high tech interactive displays.  Because Fredericksburg is the home town of Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, the museum is located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, far away from the Pacific.  In the beginning, its artifacts resided in a 150 year old hotel, owned by Nimitz’s grandfather.  Now it covers more than six acres.

While the facility is a credit to the work of the Admiral Nimitz Foundation, this day was clearly about more than the building or the exhibits inside.  Rather, it was about the men and women who gave up a part of their young lives to defend our nation, and especially the ones who made the supreme sacrifice.  The survivors turned out, in spite of the abysmal weather, to commemorate the date which will live in infamy, remember those who didn’t come back, and hear one of their own:  former WWII Navy pilot George H.W. Bush, who would eventually become the nation’s Commander-in-chief. Follow this link for a video of the former president’s remarks:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZHCu-krZsM .

My husband and I attended the event, part of a crowd that numbered 4,000 strong.  Though neither one of us are veterans, we grew up hearing about THE WAR.  No other conflict commanded that all-caps designation.   Our parents instilled a strong sense of patriotism in us as they talked about how the nation pulled together for the inevitable victory.  I proudly wore my dad’s dog tags that day, and thought how he turned twenty-one in the Philippines, far from Texas and home.

But the atmosphere was not all sad and somber.  Pearl Harbor survivor, Arnhold Schwitchtenberg, livened up the commemoration by heartily greeting a young female Marine in the audience.  Then he regaled us with a lively and graphic account of his experiences during the Japanese attack.  That afternoon we were treated to  some WWII era music by the Sentimental Journey Orchestra, a regional swing band.  One couple even braved the rain to dance.

At 4pm, we toured the expanded museum.  Though we couldn’t use the interactive displays, because of time constraints, we were impressed with the numerous artifacts and layout of the collection.  My husband and I can’t wait to return and take full advantage of the audiovisual effects.

All told, the day proved to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, full of emotion and patriotism.  The event left me with a renewed sense of the sacrifices made by our veterans of WWII, as well as those who served in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the personnel serving today in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I am going to make a renewed effort to thank those who have defended our freedom, especially the ones who might not be here tomorrow.

On Dec. 8, 1941, a war that has long been brewing on both sides of the hemisphere sundered the world apart. Cities have been ruined, some of them like Warsaw turned into ashes, cultures and histories lost forever like Intramuros, the old Manila. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the United States was drawn actively into a war already raging in Europe and Asia, and with it albeit reluctantly and innocently, the Philippines. Life for most families in the Philippines changed forever—like my family, my mother’s family—as neighbors and friends, too, switched loyalties.

My grandfather Ceferino R. Acosta, was arrested by the Japanese in a hidden barrio in Bacarra, where he evacuated his family from Laoag; he was then a US army lieutenant (reserve).  Forced to reveal the guerilla roster led by then Roque Ablan, Sr. of which my grandfather refused, he was incarcerated and later executed. The circumstances of his death were not confirmed as was Ablan’s whereabouts after he disappeared. No corpus of my grandfather was ever found.

The youngest of his 9 children had hardly turned a year old. One of his sons saw him shaved on a last visit to his prison cell at the provincial capitol in Laoag—he and his grandmother, my grandfather’s mother, had walked all the way from Bacarra. This son had witnessed how the prison guard turned over my grandfather’s sleeping mat, blanket, and the book he was reading, Thomas a Kempis” “Imitation of Christ”. Another son, the eldest of four boys, had claimed to have seen him wave from a truck where prisoners were packed for transfer.

Both sons although they hardly talked about it could hardly amount to anything and seemed to have been lost forever. For the first time before he died, the elder son one day took out a story written in a national magazine, which he had kept without ever mentioning it, and told his daughter that she must let her son, read it someday.

To this day, my aunt who was then only 14 years old, at 83 still bawls like a baby remembering that fateful morning when at breakfast, Japanese soldiers came for my grandfather’s arrest. “They kicked and turned the dulang over and our food scattered on the basar. Inay was breastfeeding and sensing fear, perhaps, my brother started crying.”

I grew up under a heavy pall of sadness around the family that dissipated as the children, my mother, my aunts and uncles, scrambled for survival even attaining peace, but the shadow of an absence that hovered around in their lives didn’t completely fade. From snatches of their stories, I composed this poem.

Their War: And the Tale Hangs There

(To my grandfather)

Still muddled

in their minds, tangling

their speech and regressing

their talk, dribbling

even, like

the digit-year olds they were

that morning

Pearl Harbor blossomed into

some giant hydrangea,

which at first

seemed a magical  moment

—the blossom that

in pictures spurted silken petals

then kept transforming

into a vaporous bulbous genie

and never kept still before

it should curtsy and ask

for a child’s command—

only one thing flashes

in cavities of  their minds

yet un-befogged: An endless

unnamed incomprehensible void

not grief—

for how could they vent

sorrow on someone

of which the dark marrow of their bones

and all else they are made of but

excluding perhaps

this scarred-over

but unhealed wound

his departure, or better yet,

vanishing inflicted?

For a corpus never came up no matter the asking around.

They woke

one morning to an August sun as stark

as the motes which fretful

dreamless sleep littered their taut

young faces, wondering

why Tatang had not

reappeared since the evening

before last, when men—so gruff

their high commands grated

on the bamboo steps—dragged him

by the cuff though he stood with

the noble lines he always had,

drawing his soldier’s body

like a silver saber. That morning

they had counted

on a feast of dinardaraan

and dudul with uncertain fingers

a day to celebrate a bony brother’s, the ninth

and youngest, second year of birth, a feast long missed

since they scrambled one midnight after

phantom boats

swarmed the salty coast lines, spewing out

slit-eyed men

who trampled into town

boots scissoring

with the beat of their insidious hearts

that ruined placid  lives

like theirs.

Like thieves they crept out

that night, edging polished walls and shelves

Tatang had stacked with canned ham,

toys, books and records for

the Victrola that his job with

the American-run Norlutran

as reservist of a quiescent US Army

nourished in a stone house they thought

theirs but which that midnight

like thwarted thieves

they abandoned, scurrying

with not a single plate or set of silver for

feasting if ever they could find

food or any toy should the next town

they were to flee had

grander rooms to lay train tracks on to race.

And the nightmare that stunned them would not end, not even

on that birthday morning

—they  

had imagined

Tatang would reappear

on the bamboo gate, his high

dark forehead tilted

to the moon or the sun or

whichever time he would choose

and call in that baritone

of a voice the youngest son who

whimpered on waking

that morning of his birthday

in a house not theirs, the house

they had fled to in the dark,

ducking damp and sharp tips of 

banana trees that blossomed

fat hearts said to drip dew

in the moonlight, dew that turns

into a stone talisman,  yet also said

to breed needle-armed insects

insects that buzzed

deep in the blossoming hearts, then

bursting out swiped faces

bare, droning heartless

insect dreams in hapless ears, feeding

the dark with foreboding, which

the sister who strapped

the birthday boy to her hips

early that birthday morning realized

caused the whining.

But Tatang failed to reappear. The waiting

pushed them

to retrace their steps over and over

on a patch of the riverbank they carried

as if it were

a sandbox

they could set anywhere the sun  grandly

threw its weight—on the river

perhaps or the porch of that house

they were never to enter again.

One evening

among tales which men wearing

pain on floppy hats passed around,

they, mere children

weighted down from waiting,

gathered from snippets

this picture so muddled

it regressed

their talk:

a man

was made

to kneel

was kneeling,

facing that porch

the sun had

splattered gold—and

on the banks cast

indistinct shadows—

kneeling and

stripped of everything else,

shaven head

bowed, kissing the

sand and stones

on the banks of the

capricious river they,

his children, romped around

on blinding sunsets

waiting for his baritone call

—he has arrived!—but

the tale hangs there. Even after the skies Far East blossomed with yet another giant hydrangea, the tale hangs unfinished. Even much later—

again piecing together, groping

for words, catching words from

each other as in a game of tag, racing

to recount a morning risen

six decades since

to this day hazed over, they still stutter

regressed in speech, drooling

even, struggling to understand why

why Tatang never reappeared.

Letters of Note is Strange Maps for correspondence. Recent entries include Robert Heinlein’s form letter for his fans, the telegram announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor, a letter warning of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a turn-of-the-century letter from Nikola Tesla announcing contact with another world.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a few days. We’re still close enough to December 7 that I think it is still pertinent.

We had a student come in this past week looking for newspapers, particularly front pages from December 7, 1941. In searching the Internet, I ran across the website of the USS Arizona Reunion Association. (more after the picture)

There is quite a bit of information at the site, including a newspaper archive that has quite a few newspaper front pages, in PDF format, from December 7 and December 8, 1941. Stop by the site and check it out.

-Tony L.

Genre: Indie Pop, Psychedelic
Year: 2009
Location: LA, CA
Label: Mexican Summer
MySpace

01. Sunburn
02. Luv Goon
03. High Road
04. M.L.O.

Here comes some more “chillwave”, and it couldn’t come at better time. When I walk outside into the negative degree windchills, I need to be listening to warm music. So Neon Indian, Surfer Blood, and now Pearl Harbor, have been in heavy rotation for me. Pearl Harbor is the Cali-project of two sisters and a bassist. Their warm indie pop is summer joy, hazy harmonies and watery guitars all around. Big thanks to Violent Tango for this one, a young blog but some real good stuff.

Back in 2001, a couple of local filmmakers named Todd Norris and John McGrath decided to make fun of Transformers director Michael Bay for making shallow action movies that were more loud and annoying than fun.

Bay’s last outing only proved that these guys were still right about him and his frequently cruddy films. Norris and McGrath shot this in the West Bottoms and at the former Fine Arts theater on Johnson Drive. The cut available here is the sanitized version. The raunchier original runs about 15 minutes.

Full Disclosure: At 9:27, you can spot me playing a paparazzo.

Actually, a lot. Writers are often told to write that page turning opening scene to hook the reader, because that is the first thing they read in your script. Prior to reading the ubiquitous “fade in”, the title is actually the first thing a reader sets their eyes on. How does it make them feel? Do they want to read past the title page? What does it say about the content of your film? Consider your movie poster. Your potential audience will see a title combined with an image to help them decide if they will watch it or not. Given that a title is an integral part of the marketing, make sure it sands out.

Marketing departments spend a handsome budget devising titles to evoke a particular mood in target audiences. Never submit a script titled “Untitled Project” or “Working Title” even if you’re really established. It’s lazy and unpolished. A bad title at least shows you’ve made an effort. You spend considerable time to name your baby, so why not your script? How would your child be perceived if he was called Thaddeus? John? Dayton? Same kid, very different perceptions.

There are a number of approaches you can use to find the right title for your script. Above all, make it memorable and neatly compliment your story.

MAIN CHARACTER: This is probably the easiest. “Jerry Maguire”, “Milk”, “E.T.”, “Spiderman”,  “Shrek” and “Amelie” are common examples. You can even add a twist to further bait the audience. Examples include “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” or “Malcolm X”.

MAIN CHARACTER’S ROLE: An alternative to using the main character’s name, is their occupation. An example of this is “The Machinist” rather than the Trevor Reznik story. “The Queen” can be arguably more powerful than “Elizabeth Windsor”. “The Wrestler” says something more about the film than “Ram”.

PLOT/ THEME: A good title should give the audience and indication of the plot or themes covered “A Few Good Men” and “Atonement” give a  hint of the theme, although we’re not clear it’s about the military or Victorian England, respectively. “Escape From New York”, ‘Kill Bill”, “Dead Poets’ Society”  or “Toy Story” encapsulate the plot in the title.

MAJOR EVENT: This relates to the plot, but a major event can also act as a powerful title. Examples include “Independence Day” and “World Trade Center” (place and event).

PLACE: Peter Weir’s “Picnic At Hanging Rock”, “Australia”, “Sunset Boulevard”, ‘District 9″, “Fargo” and “Pearl Harbor” are examples. The first example depicts a plot and place, while “District 9″ is more elusive.

SIGNIFICANT DIALOGUE: A seemingly innocuous piece of dialogue that makes sense once the movie has been seen. An example includes “First Blood”.

GENRE: A title should also relate to a film’s genre. Consider “Jaws”. It wasn’t called “The Shark” because “Jaws” was more immediate and better conveyed the action genre. A comedy should have a funny title such as “40 Year Old Virgin” or “Knocked Up”. In these cases the entire plot is also conveyed. “I, Robot” suggests a science fiction movie, while “Paranormal Activity” indicates a supernatural thriller.

A PLAY ON WORDS: The only examples I can think of are “Preaching To The Perverted”, “Shaun Of The Dead” and “Legally Blonde”. Catchy and all help sell the films. They may indicate a parody to the original.

SOURCE MATERIAL: Often the film adaptation carries the same name as it’s source for continuity. It’s a powerful tool of the branding process to create familiarity, awareness and mental relationships. “Harry Potter” is a prime example as is “Closer” which originated as a stage play of the same name by Patrick Marber. A notable deviation is “There Will Be Blood”. This title is more obscure than the bolder title of Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil”. The film title adds an element of mystery, death and saga, whereas “Oil” could be a story about acne.

OBSCURE TITLES: These are generally reserved for non-studio films to create an air of exclusivity to perhaps more high brow audiences who love to be challenged by what a film’s title actually meets. Consider the recently released film “Invictus” about Nelson Mandela’s shepherding of the Springboks to World Cup Rugby victory. Invictus is a Latin word meaning “unconquered”. Imagine if it was simply called “Mandela” or “Springboks Rule”? The Latin title adds prestige and so much depth to the film because South Africa winning the World Cup in 1995 was meant to unify South Africa. In 1995, rugby was more than a game. It was meant to conquer the evil ghosts of apartheid.

PARADOXICAL TITLES: Consider this year’s multi Academy award winning film “Slumdog Millionaire”. It’s diametrically opposed imagery causes instant intrigue.

NONSENSICAL TITLES: Examples include “Like Water For Chocolate” which doesn’t mean anything per se, but relates to the content of the film.

Since first impressions are critical, make your title puts your script’s best foot forward. Make your title have multiple layered meanings. Make it work hard like every other aspect of your script. Don’t consider it an afterthought.

The communist, socialist, fascist New York Times has a store where they sell New York and Times memorabilia.

One of the items is a photogravure taken by Edward S. Curtis in 1904 of Navajo Indians, seven of them, riding across a northeastern Arizona valley viewed against a backdrop of enormous cliffs.

For reasons only a Viennese psychiatrist would understand the sepia print seems to say a great deal – to me.

It reveals how small we are in comparison to the surrounding natural world and how little of it we comprehend.

That begins my basic script. You, of course, can write your own.

The Canyon de Chelly might tell you what Mrs. Palin sees when she observes Russia from her Wasilla home. Or where Congressman Boehner gets his tan. Or why the dog ate the Salahi’s invitation to the White House.

In any event a print is my extravagant Christmas present from my Art History teacher wife. In our 50 years of togetherness she has absorbed more than her share of punishment and this is an undeserved but wonderful gift.  

My version will be 11” x 14” and unframed. It will replace the Lionel Trains that appear, off and on, in my head.

At 82 you take things as they come.

Canyon de Chelly, Edward S. Curtis, 1904

Since we’ve already blogged on the anniversary of the famous  Bermuda Triangle incident (December 5) and internally recalled Pearl Harbor  I suppose I can move on to the mythical cartoonist Carl Rose festival.

On December 8, 1928 the New Yorker ran the famous cartoon indicating a daughter’s rejection of broccoli. “I say its spinach and I say the hell with it.”

As to the Canyon and other natural wonders of our country I realize how important they are to our national heritage. I’ve been to many places but never to a National Park; a distinct personal loss.

Years ago I went to the National Parks Printing Office in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The signs, brochures and displays of the National Parks are designed and printed at this location and I was suitably impressed. I have always assumed the location was due to the influence of Senator Byrd, the state’s senior Senator who maintains mountains of clout in many governmental areas.

I was the new business guy of a substantial ad agency and was there to garner more. I didn’t get any but was offered an endless variety of posters and brochures to take home. Many of them involved Depression Era writers and artists and years later may have been worth their weight in precious metals. Over time they have – somehow – disappeared.

On another subject William Rhoden, a columnist of the New York Times, today discusses the greatest moments in Madison Square Garden history. The Garden, in case you’re a non-New Yorker (there are several) was once the church, choir and orchestra of college basketball.

In March 1950 City College of New York (CCNY) won – not only the National Invitational Basketball Tournament but the NCAA title as well. Per Rhoden those victories are the Holy Grail of the bouncing ball.

Never again; the rules have been changed and you can no longer be in both tournaments.

CCNY was also, regretfully, a team that shaved points, made gamblers enormously happy and put others in the criminal docket.

It was a tough school to enter and insisted on rigorous academic standards. Colin Powell made the grade, my brother didn’t.

He became a general; my brother rose to corporal during The war and saw a substantial amount of action.

Times change. A daughter of a friend of 70+ years has jut been promoted to Major General and heads INSCOM our national intelligence focal point at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

It is another world we now occupy.

Another friend from grade school played for that famed CCNY team as a second stringer. He was not part of the problem and frankly I know little of the remainder of his life.

The Rhoden article celebrates the strength and resilience of the surviving players.

Basketball was important in The Bronx of my time. I played – but not as well as I did in my head. Let’s let it go at that.

Today President Obama graciously received the Nobel Peace Prize but more importantly (to ESPN) the Heisman winner will be named Saturday.

The first Heisman winner, Jay Berwanger, attended the University of Chicago which hasn’t played football in a long, long time. CCNY now barely plays what could be termed small time basketball.

Tiger, tiger burning bright” has greatly dimmed star power.

Brave New World?

 http://warrenlanger.wordpress.com

With another year coming to a close, what better way to bid adieu to these past 12 months than to create a useless list meant to garner website hits? Most of your favorite sites are swept up in list mania, herding together cultural and entertainment nuggets that were previously beaten to death.

In the spirit of the season, Diary of a Genial Black Man (or DogBM — the acronym that the kids will soon be texting) is cashing in; website hits sound awfully nice. Forget the “best” or “worst”: some items combine the two qualities into something I like to call “Blurst.”

So without further adieu (callback!), here is  DogBM’s Annual Blurst of the Year List!

Blurst Album Cover: Chris Brown “Graffiti”

2009 was a volatile year for R&B artist Chris Brown. He was charged for felony assault against girlfriend (and singer) Rihanna, embarked on a poorly thought-out “fan appreciation” tour and wore a Louis Farrakhan-follower-like ensemble on TV to apologize for his actions.

Still, if the cover for his new album, “Graffiti,” is any indication, everyone involved in creating the art made similarly bad errors in judgment. Giving Chris Brown a guitar to wield is like giving comedian Gallagher a mallet at a watermelon party — not a good choice for one trying NOT to convince the public that he’s a monster. The space-age theme is nearly as bizarre, but not as much as the return of MC Skat Kat’s gang from Paula Abdul’s music videos. It is truly horrifying. And HILARIOUS.

In light of Christopher Maurice Brown’s turbulent year, this album cover proves that there is a Blurst lining to every cloud.

Blurst Television Network: VH1

VH1’s schedule reads like the exasperated shrieks of mothers trying to romantically match their celebrity children: For the Love of Ray J; My Antonio; Brooke Knows Best — all titles of shows for people who are unable to form thoughts beyond “I’M HUNGRY!” and “SEX NOW!”

VH1 has long been mired in a syphilis-like outbreak of reality shows — heck, most of their “reality” “stars” have probably fought off a few STD outbreaks — and viewers are knee-deep in crap. The people on these “shows” are no better: R&B wannabe Ray J is a lewd Lothario; one of the contestants on the now-shelved I Love Money 3 allegedly killed his girlfriend; and Real (of Real Chance of Love) loves his weave.

While some of the shows are mindless and harmless enough to poke fun at, others (Ray J, Real Chance of Love) shove enough racial and gender stereotypes to choke a Klu Klux Klan member. Even when shows like Tough Love attempt to help women find love, their efforts appear to undermine their worth as equals by reinforcing stereotypes to attract men.

A reintroduction of past VH1 hits shows like Behind the Music and Divas Live aren’t enough to reform the image of a has-been video music network, once considered a mature alternative to MTV. It is now the Blurst television network.

Blurst Profession: President of the United States

Before 2008, the position of the President of the United States was known as the most powerful in the world; the leader of the free world; the Commander in Chief ideal that parents ingrained in their children. That was until THIS guy showed up:

So what happened? Well, there are rumors about his citizenship, staunch complainers about proposed middle-class tax cuts, a damn Nobel Peace Prize award, opposition to his health care plans to give millions of uninsured Americans a basic health care plan and he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay. Oh, and he’s of African and Muslim descent.

If anything can flip ignorant, ill-rationed people on their heads, it is their racism. And a black man like Barack Obama being elected president has freaked people out more than Pearl Harbor and Michael Bay’s movie Pearl Harbor combined. While the election of a qualified minority can be seen as progress for many, the hatred and irrationality of a fringe few paints their rants and perceptions in a negative light. Political powers and pundits have used passive-aggressive and not-so-subtle means to show their dislike for President black man.

Transforming the most powerful position in the world through the lens of hate and derisiveness: This screams Blurst to me.

Blurst Nutritionists: KFC

KFC created an inescapable failure pile of ridicule with their Famous Bowls ploppings of mashed potatoes, corn, gravy and chicken, but they have sealed their containment in a sadness bowl of health-killing, juvenile-looking food like the KFC Double Down. This monstrosity of fried meat, cheese, bacon and Colonel’s sauce (don’t ask) will clog the arteries faster than a Taco Bell toilet. Also sad: needing a napkin to hold onto the greasy chicken fillets acting as the bread.

This type of concoction is the dream of 12-year-old boys and garbage eaters alike. And for that, KFC is the Blurst.

Blurst Entertainment Trend: Twilight

I am happy that females have a book series and movie franchise to geek out to with the Twilight saga, giving them their Star Wars to wait for each installment with bated breath. With that said, I am frightened and intrigued that such an influential and money-grossing series is so irresponsible regarding women and relationships. Written by Stephanie Meyer, the books have an interesting point of view of a socially-repressed woman (Bella) written by a culturally-repressed woman (Meyer) that equate Bella’s worth with her scent to other vampires. In other words, make sure you smell good, little girls!

And while bashing Twilight may be deemed sexist based on intent, it’s hard not to bash other geek magnets like Star Wars, many comic books or fantasy football: they all have their inferior qualities, crazed fans and stupid cash-ins. I’m all for finding female geeks to meet and bond in nerdiness; nerds need love, too.

The beastiality nods are just as interesting, though nothing will be as awesomely bad and freaky as the potential final movie version of Breaking Dawn (contains book spoilers!). For the possibility of this final movie — or movies, as some are speculating — to be made, I wholeheartedly support this franchise — if only to witness the ever-increasing Blurstiness of it all.

If you made it to the end of this list, congratulations! You can now rest up for next year’s possible installment of the Blursties (I call dibs on trademark rights). Until then, soak up those pop culture drippings with your newspapers! They need to be used for something.

I noticed the bumper sticker on the Chevy Impala in front of me as I was driving home today. It had the Toyota logo with a line through it. It boldly proclaimed: “Toyota! From the same people who brought you Pearl Harbor.” I stared incredulously. Suddenly, I had a epiphany.

Such logic is undeniable!

Heretofore, I shall boycott Toyota. But I’m not stopping there. I’ve compiled the following list of other boycotts in which I plan to participate. Thank god for that bumper sticker! Join me in my boycotts:

• BMW! From the same people who brought you the Holocaust.
• Tobacco! From the same people who brought you slavery.
• Nobel Peace Price! From the same person who brought you dynamite.
• Jesus! From the same people who brought you the Crusades.
• Women! From the same people who brought you the fall of man.

All pacifists, all that oppose war should think long and hard or crawl into a hole, slither under a rock. Slither back out when they assure your freedom. Thanks to Billy Ray for posting this. Peace comes from strength not weakness and appeasement.

So, Nicolas Cage and Jerry Bruckheimer may not be my favorite people in the world (see The Wicker Man and Pearl Harbor for explanation enough), but this trailer for Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has visual effects going for it, though what dialogue is present seems…well, kinda Disney. Enough of the jibba-jabba, here’s the clip.

With a decent cast not-withstanding, including Cage, Jay Baruchel, Monica Belluci, and Alfred Molina; the thing looks like it promises to be an action-packed, visual-effects-laden, romp through Manhattan that will not disappoint as long as you don’t go in there looking for story.

2010 looks like it’s going to be a big year for Baruchel, who you’ll remember from Tropic Thunder (Kevin Sandusky – Hot LZ) and Knocked Up (Jay), what with him also being the lead in Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon.

Wait a minute – Baruchel’s playing both sides of the animation field? How did he get away with this? Did he make a metaphorical deal with the Devil? And by Devil, I mean Jerry Bruckheimer, “and by metaphorical, I mean, get your coat.”  -Bender, Futurama, The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings.

Also, gratuituous link.

Cat Ladies Of The Internet – - They’re out there guys!

Once or twice a month, a viral video seems to capture the hearts and bandwidths of people across the world and all too often it is a video featuring animals, particularly cats. Hundred of thousands of people email links to these videos from one cubicle to the next and then forward it to the folks living in their mothers basement where they too can experience the cute, silly and pointless videos of cats being cats.

I started this week with an inbox full of links to a video titled “Surprised Kitty” that friends, family and colleagues wanted to share with me. I have to admit this viral video is best viewed when the sound is turned all the way down and you look away from the screen. CUE SURPRISED KITTY:

Aww, that’s cute isn’t it? We’ll here is something that isn’t: this video has over 10-million views!

I feel as though 10-million people didn’t even realize that Monday was the 68th anniversary of  the attack on Pearl Harbor, but they’d be crazy not to have seen Surprised Kitty. Cat Ladies everywhere must believe that this would melt the heart of even the staunchest cat-haters. But that is where they would be incorrect.

They are overlooking the fact that people will watch just about anything to procrastinate while clocked in at their miserable jobs, even if it is only for 17-seconds.

Nice try Cat Ladies.