Wednesday, April 27

Born in the USA




As Ronald Reagan used to say,"Well," he finally did it. President Obama citing the totally unnecessary distraction from the country's real problems among TV talking heads, wannabe presidential contenders, and the simply stupid (my phrase, not the President's)put a copy of Certificate of Live Birth on the White House web site today. This certificate is certified by the State Registrar in Hawaii and shows the President being born on August 4, 1961, in a Honolulu hospital.

Tuesday, April 19

Light a candle in the fight against AZ


Please consider going to this web site and take Option 2 to light a candle in memory of someone who suffers from or died from Alzheimer's. Option 1 offers the opportunity to make a donation in the fight against AZ and light a candle. I am proud to have joined more than 4100 people who have lighted candles as of midnight 4/18/2011...a tribute to Mary C. Archibald is there. You can reach it by scrolling through the pages under the letter "A".
Thank you.

Sunday, April 17

Tough Without a Gun - Review




Hanging on the wall at the end of the brown leather sofa in the living room of my small apartment in the active lifestyle community on the Franke at Seaside campus in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, is a black and white print of Rick Blaine seated at a table wearing a white dinner jacket and black bow tie holding a drink in his hands and muttering to no one in particular, “of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”

This, of course, is the classic image of Humphrey Bogart, star of the still widely acclaimed greatest picture of all time, Casablanca. Bogart was in 75 movies and did his journeyman work on Broadway in dozens of plays, but he is best remembered in my mind for five films: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen (he won the Oscar) and The Caine Mutiny.

Stefan Kanfer has written Tough Without a Gun, The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart, for people like me and millions of others around the world who remember the man The American Film Institute ranked as the greatest male star in cinema history. Entertainment Weekly designated Bogart the Number One Movie Legend of all Time and the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp bearing his likeness in 1997. In 2006, a portion of 103rd street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York City was designated Humphrey Bogart Place to commemorate his birth and early life in that city.

This biography is a taut telling of Bogart’s life and career. In his life, as in his films, Bogart was not one to kneel obsequiously to authority. He respected it in his own way but always there lingered the suspicion that man was not on this earth to be told what to do all the days of his life.

In Bogart’s life, there were two kinds of people who acted in Hollywood: the professionals, who came to the job every day, knew their lines and were ready to work. The rest were bums. He was the ultimate professional in the judgment of his peers.

Bogart was a somewhat of a straight moralist, despite four marriages. When he was married, he did not stray, and in his private and public life, he did not do drugs or lay on the psychiatrist couch. He consumed a lot of whiskey (the story is he, and director John Huston – another big imbiber, were the only members of the cast and crew making The African Queen on location in the Congo who did not get sick.)

Tough Without a Gun is replete with tidbits of information about the making of Humphrey Bogart’s greatest films, the ones he was proudest of, and the ones over which he despaired. This 239-page tribute lists all of his Broadway performances and movies and includes a collection of black and white photos designed to recall these classic moments in film history. It will resurrect memories of a golden era in American filmmaking. More than that, it will delight Bogie fans around the world.

(If you received this twice, please excuse. Computer and I having a bit of conflict tonight.)

Monday, April 4

A morning walk on the beach


I was on the beach at "Isle of Palms SC" at 5:35 this morning. It was a solid black morning. The sky was devoid of any clouds and it seemed there were thousands of stars. The tide was low and I walked up the beach for 35 minutes before I met anyone. I kept the same distance between the incoming tide and my path to stay on a straight line. I encountered a woman and her dog. We chatted for a few minutes and she used the light on her cell phone to let me read the time on my watch. I then turned and headed back the way I came. When I reached the point where I had entered the beach I stopped and looked back to the East. The sun was not visible but its rays were lighting the horizon and I knew it would be soon be daylight.