CHINA IS MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER COUNTRY

Blog number 208                                                             23 August 2008

When Americans mortared in WW 2, they would drop the mortar in the tube, then turn around and cover their ears.  I saw yesterday, Germans firing mortars and what they did, they would drop the round in the tube and then all three men would run like hell up and out of the hole.  That must have been some powerful explosions going off in that tube.

I finished the book on General Stilwell's experience in Burma during WW 2.  I liked it a lot, but I think you would have to have lived through WW 2 to really appreciate the nuances.  Maybe not, but I think so. 

I remember the way we were presented to Generalisimo Chiang K'ai-Shek in newspaper articles.  Great hero.  Savior of China.  Turns out he was really an ignorant uneducated pompous manipulative greedy back-stabbing bullheaded asshole.  At least that's the way General Stilwell sees him.

I'm reading a new book about Stilwell.  This one goes into his background all the way to before his entry into West Point.

After WW 1, Stilwell was sent to UC Berkley to study Chinese, but he said that it wasn't going to work.  He asked for duty in China so that he could hear the language being spoken.  He got the assignment.

The founder and director of the school, one Dr. Pettus, told Stilwell and his partner that they had picked up a bad accent in California which could lead to confusion, "for even the most fluent foreigner could encounter difficulties."

Dr. Pettus then told of Dr. Hume, who spoke perfect Chinese and had lived in the country many years, coming across two farmers by the side of the road.  He asked them the road to Changsha.  They looked blank.  He asked them the question several times, and receiving no answer, he gave up and walked on.  As he was leaving, he heard one of the farmers telling the other,  "it sounds just as if the foreigner were asking, 'is this the road to  Changsha?' "

MORE ENDS THAN ODDS

Blog number 207                                                             21 August 2008

The Daily Show has been reruns all week.  They are setting up for the Democratic Convention.  I got turned on to the Daily Show by one night happening to see them covering the Democratic Convention.

One of their "roving reporters" was at a speech by some Democrat and He asked a guy standing on a chair what the speaker was saying.  The guy was distracted and mumbled something.  The "reporter" asked him again, "What is he saying now?"  The guy replied, "I don't know.  You were talking."  "What's he saying now?"  I DON'T KNOW!  YOU KEEP TALKING!  I CAN'T HEAR HIM!"  What''d he say just then?"  "WILL YOU SHUT UP SO I CAN HEAR HIM?"

That guy got so furious and I couldn't stop laughing.  I've been watching the Daily Show ever since.

I was at a party one night, sitting in an easy chair, just people-watching and Larry, a guy I knew from Weatherstone's Coffee House kneeled down beside the left arm of my chair and mumbled something.  I said, "What?"

He mumbled again, I asked him what he said again, and the third time I just let him kneel there mumbling away.  I didn't respond to him at all, just tried to ignore his mumblings and after about an hour of this, the party was starting to break up so I got up to leave and he told me he sure appreciated our long discussion.

I told a friend of his about that incident the next day and he told me that Larry does that as a power play.  He figures if he can get you to lean in real close and ask what he was saying, he would somehow have you in his power.  He would be controlling you.  His friend told me that Larry did that to him a lot. 

What an idiot.

MORE ODDS THAN ENDS

Blog number 206                                                             20 August 2008

I'm reading an autobiography by Ernest Borgnine.  I like it.  He once asked Spencer Tracy if it was true that Tracy's Oscar for "Boy's Town" had been erroneously inscribed, "Dick Tracy." It was true.

Used to be a TV program that showed clips from shows that had a mess up.  I forget its name - it didn't last long.  When I was in my movie, the extras kept yelling at the director when something went wrong, and one time the star - John Ritter, didn't have his hat on like he had before and someone yelled out about that and the director said, "They can use that in, (and here he named that show I mentioned that I forget the name of.) "  The point of this is that they didn't care.  Not artists you see, just workers doing a job.

In the Borgnine book, when he was in a movie about a football player, the director, who was from Hungary, said there wasn't enough actors on the field.  They told him that in American football, there are eleven players on each side.  He said, "I don't care.  Not enough actors.  Double the number.  Nobody will notice."  So, there were forty-four football players on the field instead of twenty-two, and nobody noticed.

We bought a new coffee grinder.  $99.95.  Instead of a cutting tool, it has a grinding tool.  Lots quieter, and I can grind Turkish.  I have read about Turkish coffee and it is always described as looking like black syrup.  Yummers.

We had a Cuisinart coffee grinder. The motor quit after about two months.  Took it back, got another one, it quit also after about two months.  The salesman suggested we buy another brand.  I replied that as long as we could bring if back if it broke, I didn't mind.  He says, "Well, but if they are going to break every two months, it's like if you bought some clothes and brought them back after two months."  I couldn't get my head around that reasoning.

Usually someone like that  makes me laugh, but if I run into too much of it too soon, it kinda pisses me off.  I get tired of living in the midst of idiots.  It's like using a computer that messes up every once in a while and does something illogical.  Sometimes I just can't deal with it.

And then today a guy got behind me - I saw him move in from the left lane, and honked at me.  I got around the corner and stopped to see what his problem was, but he whizzed on by.  Could have been something, could have been nothing.  Could have been an inadvertent honk, I dunno.

I DON'T WANT SECONDS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Blog number 204                                                             15 August 2008

I saw a movie last night.  It was called, "Seconds" and starred Rock Hudson.  Doris Day was nowhere to be seen.  Rock seemed different somehow.  Did he miss Doris?  We don't know.

The first inkling that something was amiss with the script was when a meat packing company had the logo, "Honest Arnie's Meats" above a circle on one of its trucks, and below that circle read, "Used Cow Company."

Two things.  First, this was not a comedy.  It was a drama.  Kinda of a Sci-fi drama, kinda of a horror drama, yet neither.  That was the only bit of comedy in the whole movie, which makes it seem so out of place - like somebody's idea of a bad inside joke.

They dealt in meat, not cows.  "Used cows" would be proper wording if you were selling cows.

Second, I had seen this movie twice before and was very confused both times, but I didn't know why.  I also did not notice the "Used Cow Company" either of those times, which seems very weird, since it was very obvious - right in the middle of a scene.  I attribute both the confusion and the not noticing the sign to my early life of sleepwalking through life. I just did not pay attention in those days.  I make up for it now. 

It was a revelation to me to get visual evidence of something I only conjectured before, using the fact that I couldn't remember much of events.  I could see clearly just how asleep I was in those days.

I debated all day long as to writing about this movie, at one time deciding not to, since it is way too involved, but just now I decided to give it a shot.  To get the full effect, you would have to see the picture and pay attention!

First off, this guy, a banker who is expecting to become bank president in a short time, who has a seemingly nice wife who obviously cares for him, a daughter, and a boat. 

An organization offers to change his appearance and fake his death so that he can start life anew.  They drug him and fake a rape scene with him as the perp, and film it.  They use this film to blackmail him into signing a contract.

He accepts the organization's offer, signs the contract which evidently leaves his wife and daughter well cared for, as well as himself, and enough is left for the organization's business expenses which turn out to be pretty, pretty extensive.  All of this money evidently comes from his insurance policy, his real estate (although the wife is later found to be doing very well living in the same house, so it must not have been sold) and stocks and bonds.  The guy must have been a billionaire.

He gets ALL of his teeth pulled, and new "permanent" ones put in.  The guy doing the job actually tells him he now has all new permanent teeth.  He has his fingerprints removed and replaced with others, he has his voice box modified so his voice is different, the ligaments on his hands adjusted so that his handwriting is different, and as Teresa noticed, "What I don't get is how did they make him taller?" 

Only his appearance is changed, he is as old as he was, he is as strong as an old man, all that is different is that he looks different.  And oh, yeah - they burn a body disguised as him in a hotel room fire.  Figuring, I guess, that his wife and daughter wouldn't be as upset that he died in a fire a they would if he just up and left.  I can't come up with any other reason to do that.

His wife doesn't wonder what he was doing in a hotel room, and how much of the hotel had to get burned along with the room is never mentioned.

This guy is not running from the police.  If he wanted to make a new life for himself, why didn't he just take off?  Why go through all this torture?  The process must have taken bucketloads of money, and he also gets two full time helpers employed by the organization that does these things for people, and he is set up as a painter, with legit diplomas from a couple of prestige colleges, one in Europe,  He is given a house on the beach, food, clothing, a butler to take care of him, paintings, Buddha knows how much they cost, and as time  goes on, he will be given more paintings - as if he is painting them.  And nobody is going to say, "Hey, wait - my uncle painted that!" ?

As if all that is not bad enough, he decides he wants to get another identity because he says, like a two year old, that the organization told him what he had to do and he wants his freedom to do as he wants, so if they change his appearance again, this time he will do what he wants.  Why he can't do that now, I haven't a clue.  Makes no sense at all.

At least I found out why I was so confused the first two times I saw this movie.  It's a confusing movie.

MYSTERY NUMBER FIVE

Blog number 203                                                             13 August 2008

The city of Casa Grande is getting a brand new L.A. Fitness Center. Teresa and I plan on working out there when it is finished, in order for me to get buff and for her to get hot.

We've been waiting for it to be finished, and yesterday, while coming back from a mall shopping trip, we noticed several young men in identical outfits standing around a stand under an umbrella with an "L.A. Fitness" logo on it.  "Good," we thought, "let's go sign up."

We pulled up to the stand and noticed that there was no place to stop.  There was one car there, and it was parked over a right turn arrow in the street!  We parked next to it, motor running, and a young man came over.  We asked where we could park and he pointed down the street a ways and said we could come in there.  No, we couldn't.  Unless we wanted to go over the curb, and besides, why wasn't any of them parked anywhere but out in the street if that was an entry way?  Where were their cars anyhow?  In the parking lot across the street?  Why wasn't the stand in the parking lot anyway, where these young men would be available for information gathering?

I asked for a pamphlet while Teresa explained to him that he should tell his boss that they should pick some other place to have their stand.  The young man finally said they had no pamphlets - that if we wanted to know anything, we should go on the Internet website. 

No place to park, no pamphlets, no information, six worker bees standing around shooting bull - did they get paid for this?  Who picked their site?  Why were they there?  Where are my shoes?

HYPOCRITE IN A POUFFY WHITE DRESS *

Blog number 202                                                             05 August 2008

* Excerpt from

My teacher, Celeste, was herself a genuine sadist.  This was made clear to me the very first day of nursery school, when she led our class in a game of "Simon Says" designed to inflict flesh wounds:  "Simon says : Poke yourself in the eye!  Simon says: Hit yourself on the head with a Lincoln log!  Stick a crayon up your nose!  Whoops.  I didn't say Simon says, now did I, Juan?"

MY HERO!

Blog number 201                                                             02 August 2008
Years ago, when I was a freshman in High School, I ran across the novel, "Penrod" by Booth Tarkington in the school library.  I loved it.  I then found "Penrod and Sam," and Penrod Jasber," all thee excellent books except for the last chapter in either "Penrod and Sam" or "Penrod Jasber," I don't remember which.

When I was a senior in another High School, I found "Seventeen," and before I got a chance to read it, my English teacher saw it and told me it wasn't any good.  I read it anyhow (what does an English teacher know, right?), and I found it terrible.  That book ended my reading of Booth.  I thought his Penrod series a fluke, but that he was actually a bad novelist.

Then a few weeks ago I found a book called, "Rare and Used."  This book was about old books, and in it some of Booth's other books were mentioned, along with a short synopsis of some of them, and the fact that two of them won a Pulitzer Prize and not only that, but he and Upton Sinclair were thought to be the foremost American authors at the time.  Both have now gone out of favor.  "Hmmmmm," I thought.

My caretaker, Teresa order a bunch of Booth's books for me on the Internet and I've been reading them ever since.  One thing I noticed early on was that every time I started a new one, several pages in, I thought, "This is his best one yet."  Except for the Penrod books, of course.

This morning, in Starbucks, I was reading "Kate Fennigate" and Teresa began reading, "The Flirt."  Three pages in, she put it down and said, "Too much detail." 

Now, I had been ruminating just what it was that I loved so much about Booth's books, and this made me realize it was exactly the same thing that Teresa found so off-putting.  I started reading what she had just read, and I found that I could visualize Booth's description of what the man walking down the street was seeing.  To me it was akin to watching the beginning of a movie as the credits rolled.  I love his descriptions.  Especially when he is describing a person's thoughts.

I had noticed that I would read a few pages and then I would have to stop and ruminate over them.  It's not so much I am thinking about what he says - although there is that, especially when he says something rather clever or humorous.  It is more like when you are eating a delicious steak and you have to stop and take a bite of mashed potatoes or candied yams.  I wish I could think of a better simile but I can't.  But it is somewhat like that.  It's just too much and I have to stop and rest.  There!  That's it.

It will be a sad day when I have read all of his books.