To Have And Have Not

Last night I saw To Have And Have Not at the Brattle. It wasn't the first time I've seen this film, but it was the first time I'd seen it on the big screen. In a balcony no less - I love the fact that the Brattle has balcony seats.

Anyhoo, To Have And Have Not is definitely my favorite Bogart flick. Easily. Yes, I know there's Casablanca which is also a superlative film. I wouldn't - and couldn't really - argue with anyone who chose Casablanca as their favorite or 'the best' Bogart film. When two films are both that great I think it just comes down to a matter of personal preference. And I prefer Lauren Bacall over Ingrid Bergman.

I love this exchange between Bacall (as Slim) and Bogart (as Steve): she is one step ahead of him the entire time - completely self-possessed:
Slim: You're sore, aren't ya?
Steve: Why should I be?
Slim: I didn't behave very well, did I?
Steve: You did all right. You got the bottle, didn't you?
Slim: You're sore, aren't ya?
Steve: Now look, get this straight. I don't care...
Slim: I know, I know. You don't give a 'whoop' what I do, but when I do it, you get sore. After all, you told me to, you know.
Steve: I told you?
Slim: You said 'go ahead,' didn't ya?
Steve: Oh yeah, that's right, I-I guess I did. You were pretty good at it too.
Slim: Thanks! Would you rather I wouldn't?
Steve: Wouldn't what?
Slim: Do things like that.
Steve: Why ask me?
Slim: I'd like to know.
Steve: Well, of all the screwy...
Slim: All right, all right, I won't do it anymore.
Steve: Look, I didn't ask you...
Slim: I know you didn't. Don't worry. I'm not giving up anything I care about.

Of course the dialogue is not quite the same lying all flat up here on your monitor, not even close. Seeing it on the big screen was a delight.

Thanksgiving Five

I thought it only appropriate to note the coming holiday with a special and particular post. A post about being thankful, not only for the presence of certain things in your life, but for the absence of certain things in your life. So, for your illumination and consideration dear readers....

Five Songs So Overplayed You Should Be Thankful If You Never Hear Any Of Them Again. Ever.
5. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
An overwrought song with absurd lyrics, Stairway to Heaven is a blot on the canon of Zep. There's really no need for this song to exist within your musical purview once you leave the confines of high school. Kindly cue up Good Times Bad Times as an antidote.
4. You Shook Me - AC/DC
I likes me some AC/DC. But I cannot - not even a little - abide this song. AC/DC makes hard-rockin' ass-kickin' music. Music for drivin' fast, binge drinking, breaking furniture and simply lighting yourself on fire. The music of AC/DC was not intended - not even in the band's worst imaginings - to be an anthem and rallying call for flipperheads.
3. The Joker - The Steve Miller Band
Wow, was this a tough entry to figure. You could pretty much put down the entire contents of Greatest Hits 1974-1978 and call it a day, but that seemed a little too easy, a little too much like cheating. As it was, The Joker edged out Rock N' Me by a hair, largely due to the fact that after The Joker turned up on an episode of The Simpsons it took on a zombie-like quality of simply refusing to die a decent death. The song has become the kind of nightmarish standard that bar bands feel obliged to cover, while Rock N' Me remains safely confined to the dusty tomb of classic rock radio stations where it can do little or no harm.
2. Old Time Rock & Roll - Bob Seger
This entry involved another decision that was very difficult for me to make. Simply put, there any number of Bob Seger songs I need never hear again. Turn The Page? All set with that. Night Moves? Ditto. But in the end it simply had to be Old Time Rock & Roll. How many times has this song been inflicted on me at a wedding? How many times did the video for this song - with those terrible images of the early model Tom Cruise Android prancing about - coming jumping out at me during the long ago days of MTV? Why, I ask you all, why? What was it all for?

And the number one entry....

1. Hotel California - The Eagles
This song is the Chief Devil of Overplayed songs. This song is my Beelzebub. I hate and fear Hotel California. Just the opening notes of this song start me to twitching violently and I will immediately seek to turn the station, unplug the stereo or otherwise terminate the source of 'the bad sound.' If forced to suffer all the way through to the first chorus, I'm generally ready to club Don Henley like a baby seal.

It has been over ten years since I listened to Hotel California from start to finish. Never again.

So there you go. Now go be thankful and have a lovely holiday.

It's That Time Again

Heather delivers her annual admonishment on the proper way to observe Thanksgiving Eve.

Here I deliver my annual repsonse of Fuck. Yes.

Love and Baseball

Yes, I know this site has been a bag of suck lately, about as exciting as soccer on television. I've been too busy too write or post anything of quality and I'm not sure when that will change.

But by way of providing something of interest for my remaining five readers, here's a link that's well worth your while:

Otis Redding Was Right

I've been reading Alex Belth at Bronx Banter for about two years now. I'd come to think him of guy who mainly wrote on the historic and statistic side of baseball but the above, posted as a guest piece at Baseball Analysts, shows a different, more personal aspect of his love for the Yankees. Check it out.

Going Down the Road

New York New York, big city of dreams
And everything in New York ain't always what it seems
You might get fooled if you come from out of town
But I'm down by law and I know my way around
-Grandmaster Flash

In a mere two and a half weeks I'll be heading down to New York, my first visit to the big city in two years (I think).

There are many phone calls to make, for there will be many people to see. But despite what is sure to be a busy and social schedule, you can bet I'll make the time go here. Eighteen miles of book? Yes please. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe there's a Forbidden Planet in Manhattan as well.

Here's Looking At You

Starting Thanksgiving and running through December 1st, the Brattle Theatre will be running a Give Thanks For Bogie series, featuring Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, and the Maltese Falcon.

Even if like me you've already seen all the above films, it's still a joy to see them up on the big screen, as opposed to a tiny box in your living room. I saw Casablanca a couple of years ago (this Bogie fest is an annual occurrence) - I think this year I might try and catch To Have and Have Not.

We Were Soldiers Once...

Forty years ago elements of the 1st Cavalry Division encountered the People's Army of Vietnam in the Ia Drang Valley, in what developed into the first major battle between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. This battle was dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers, which was in turn based on the book We Were Soldiers Once... And Young, by Lt. Gen Harold G. Moore (RET.) and Joseph L. Galloway.

Two Boston veterans of that battle were recently profiled in the Boston Herald by Jules Crittenden. Apparently Mr. Crittenden had a great deal of material that did not make into the Herald article, presumably due to space constraints. That material is now available here.

The Year in Books II: 2005

More short reviews from this year's reading...

28. The Lone Samurai - William Scott Wilson
A biography of famed swordsman and martial artist Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings. Musashi is famous in Japan (hundreds of movies have been made about his life and career) but remains largely unknown in the west. This is not a lengthy biography, but it's a sound introduction to the man and his times.
29. The Man Who Was Thursday - G.K. Chesterton
Part comedy, part spy novel, part Christian allegory and all rather dry and dull. The reader should be able to see the ending coming from the middle on - the rest is just work to get there.
30. Chicago Confidential - Max Allan Collins
Yet another Nathan Heller mystery makes the list - I told you I got hooked on these things. This time it's 1950 and Nathan Heller is doing his best to avoid a subpoena to testify in front of the Kefauver Committee about the Chicago underworld.
31. The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty - Buster Olney
The narrative is structured around Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, but Olney covers the rise of the Yankee Dynasty from 1995 through the final out of the 2001 Series. I doubt there is anything new and startling in here to the dedicated Yankee fan or the kind of baseball fan who knows everything about every team, but I enjoyed this book for the same reason I enjoyed Harper's portions of A Tale of Two Cities - it was full of stories and details I missed the first time around.
32. The Final Country - James Crumley
James Crumley is the best mystery writer you've never heard of. With authors like George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly writing, one can argue that we're enjoying a 'golden age' of crime fiction. All of the above cite Crumley as a primary influence. So what are you waiting for?
33. Mirror, Mirror - Gregory Maguire
Way back when Maguire shook the world of Frank L. Baum's Oz upside down and produced the highly entertaining Wicked. Since then, he's 're-imagined' a other fairy tales, such as Cinderella. Mirror, Mirror takes the tale of Snow White and drops it in the Italy of the Borgias. Not a bad read, but not up to the caliber of Wicked.
34. Angel in Black - Max Allan Collins
This installment of the Memoirs of Nathan Heller finds him working in Los Angeles - investigating the Black Dahlia murder.
35. Blood and Thunder - Max Allan Collins
Heller leaves the chilly streets of Chicago for the heat of Louisiana, to serve as Huey Long's bodyguard and protect him from assassination.
36. The Family Trade - Charles Stross
Two fairly common story elements in fantasy fiction are: another dimension/world that is parallel to but connected with our world; during the story the protagonist learns he (or she) possesses a previously unknown power(s) or heritage. Stross combines both of these in a solid novel that come out like a cross between The Godfather and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I'll be following with the sequel to this one.
37. The Mating Season - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) in the post below. Bertie fucks up; Jeeves comes to the rescue; there is much hilarity.
38. Defending Middle Earth - Patrick Curry
A fascinating book - if you're a serious Tolkien geek.
39. The Polysyllabic Spree - Nick Hornby
I have been an unabashed fan of Nick Hornby since I read High Fidelity. Rather than fiction, The Polysyllabic Spree is a series of essays on what Hornby himself read over the course of a year.
40. The Way to Glory - David Drake
David Drake continues his space opera take on the Aubrey/Mathurin stories.
41. Shakespeare's Kings - John Julius Norwich
Norwich compares the plots of Shakespeare's works about English monarchs, to the actual historical events. He notes where Shakespeare altered events and historical personages, speculates on why this was done, and also looks at the Bard's own historical sources.
42. China Marine - E.B. Sledge
A sequel to With The Old Breed (Sledge's first-hand account of the horrific fighting on Peleliu and Okinawa), China Marine deals with Sledge's post-war garrison duty in China, his return home, and his difficulty re-integrating into civil society.
43. Crown of Slaves - David Weber & Eric Flint
A stand-alone novel set in Weber's 'Honorverse.' Good stuff, but then for me space opera/science fiction of this sort is the written equivalent of comfort food.

Still more to come...

The Year in Books I: 2005

A belated account of what I've read so far this year.

1. Wasteland of Flint - Thomas Harlan
Old-fashioned space opera that would not have been out of place in Amazing Stories c. 1950. The author takes familiar ingredients - galactic empires, space marines, ancient alien civilizations - and fashions them into a fresh story.
2. The Shadow of Saganami - David Weber
More space opera, set in Weber's Honor Harrington universe, which in turn borrows heavily on the tales of Horatio Hornblower and the history of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. Solid but not outstanding.
3. Dark Voyage - Alan Furst
The latest offering from the master of the 'historical espionage thriller.' I've recommended Furst before, and really can't do so enough. Like Patrick O'Brian, Furst has the uncanny knack of transporting readers back to his chosen period, in this case Europe of the 1930s and 1940s.
4. Flights of Passage - Samuel Hynes
The author's account of his training and time as a dive-bomber pilot during the Second World War, this book would mostly appeal to aviation buffs and the like.
5. Banewreaker - Jacqueline Carey
The first volume of a new fantasy from the author of the Kushiel's Legacy trilogy. I enjoyed Banewreaker, and will read the sequel, but didn't find the setting or characters as compelling as her Kushiel books.
6. The Million Dollar Wound - Max Alan Collins
Collins writes what could be called historical detective novels. He sends his protagonist, Nathan Heller, into the midst of real-life cases where the detective runs shoulders with all manner of historical figures on both sides of the law. In this the third volume of the series, Heller returns from service on Guadalcanal and becomes mixed up with Frank Nitti's Chicago mob and an attempt to infiltrate Hollywood. Fast-paced and based on solid research, this one hooked me (as you'll see).
7. Flying Blind - Max Alan Collins
Out of all the Heller books I've read this year, this one might be my favorite. Collins' Chicago detective becomes tangled up in the life, then disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The author's theory about the famous aviatrix's fate makes for compelling reading - this was an 'up-to-3AM' book.
8. The Final Solution - Michael Chabon
I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and Chabon clearly has a love for 'genre' stories, so I was delighted to hear he'd written a novel about Conan Doyle's immortal detective Sherlock Holmes. I wasn't exactly disappointed, but I wasn't exactly thrilled either.
9. Ripples of Battle - Victor David Hansen
This is basically a book-long argument for the importance and primacy of military history, which probably sounds a lot drier than it really is - Hansen's style of writing history is very accessible to readers with only a casual interest in the subject.
10. Rainstorm - Barry Eisler
Eisler's conflicted assassin is pretty much the best thing going in the thriller business these days. Exotic locales, believable characters and plenty of action.
11. True Detective - Max Alan Collins
The first volume in the 'The Memoirs of Nathan Heller', True Detective takes readers from the end Heller's career as a detective on the Chicago P.D. pick pocket squad through the beginning of his friendships with both Eliot Ness and Frank Nitti.
12. Jeeves in the Morning - P.G. Wodehouse
It takes an extremely talented writer to write the same story repeatedly and make it fresh and funny each time; Wodehouse is the master of this trick. His Jeeves/Wooster stories all have the same plot: as a result of some (or several) misunderstandings amiable dolt Bertie Wooster finds himself in danger of becoming married or otherwise domesticated; his faithful and wise servant Jeeves must extricate him.
13. Moneyball - Michael Lewis
Do I even need to say anything about this book? If you're a baseball fan, you've no doubt heard of it. If you're not a baseball fan, you probably won't be interested.
14. True Crime - Max Alan Collins
Nathan Heller finds himself mixed up with outlaws Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger, as well as Federal Agent Melvin Purvis. Contains an interesting theory on the final fate of John Dillinger. (Most of the Heller novels contain an alternate theory on the crime the book centers around.)
15. The Reckoning - Charles Nichol
According to history's reckoning, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe was murdered - stabbed in the eye - in a brawl over a tavern bill. According to Nichol's reckoning, Marlowe was murdered as a result of his involvement in the dark world of espionage and intrigue. The Reckoning is a careful and scholarly reconstruction of the events and circumstances leading to Marlowe's demise that reads like a LeCarre novel.
16. Why Not Us - Leigh Montville
Why Not Us is less an account of the 2004 season than it is a love letter to the experience of being a life-long Red Sox fan. An infinitely more satisfying read than the lackluster Faithful (see below), and an ideal way to introduce an outsider to the passion, drama, and loyalty that make up Boston fandom.
17. Last Citadel - David L. Robbins
A boiler plate historical novel set amidst the Battle of Kursk during WWII. Decent enough company for a plane ride or the like.
18. A Tale of Two Cities - Massarotti & Harper
Two beat reporters, one from Boston, one from New York, combine to pen an account of the season-long struggle in 2004 between the Red Sox and the Yankees. The authors alternate chapters and points of view, and oddly enough I found the New York side more interesting - probably because much of that material was new to me (whereas I read Massarotti throughout 2004).
19. Bodyguard of Lies - Anthony Cave Brown
This book is extraordinarily and long and dense with facts - the kind of book that keeps the reader constantly referring to the index. That being said Bodyguard of Lies is a riveting book, detailing the espionage and counter-espionage efforts surrounding the Allied invasion of Normandy.
20. Faithful - King & O'Nan
Prior to reading this book I would have thought it impossible to write a dull book about the 2004 Red Sox and their march to the title. I failed to take into account Stewart O'Nan, his dry-as-dirt game recaps, and his never ending quest for more foul balls. I'm sure O'Nan is a fine fellow, and he may indeed be, as the jacket copy proclaims, a 'promising young novelist,' but he should stay the hell away from sportswriting.

Stephen King, on the other hand, could probably write his grocery list and make it a thriller.
21. The Game - Laurie R. King
Sherlock Holmes turns up again in my reading. Laurie King has written a series of novels featuring the aged detective - and his (much) younger and (equally) brilliant wife, Mary Russell. The Game features another famous fictional character borrowed by King - Holmes and Russell go in search of one Kimball O'Hara.
22. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) above.
23. The Lessons of Terror - Caleb Carr
Though better known as the author of The Alienist Caleb Carr is also active teaching and writing as a military historian. This slim volume presents his views on the use of terror to achieve military and political ends.
24. Jeeves and the Tie that Binds - P.G. Wodehouse
See (12) above.
25. Hero - Joel Rosenberg
Passable science fiction - reminded me of The Four Feathers in it's themes of cowardice and duty.
26. The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester
This was a best seller a few years back I think. A popular history of how a lunatic and convicted murderer contributed to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.
27. The Thirty Nine Steps - John Buchan
More famous as a film (adapted by Hitchcock among others) this is the most famous of Buchan's Richard Hannay stories - all of them spy novels of the British Empire adventure type. Good fireside reading, if you can get past the many dated aspect. Like the British Empire, for starters.


More short reviews to come later...

Grazing the Open Pages: All That We Have

Towards the end of Nick Tosches' biography of Arnold Rothstein, King of the Jews, there is a brief rumination on death and writing, which concludes thusly:

"But something else also occurred to me. It occurred to me that everything I knew and loved seemed to be drifting away: a whole way of living, loving and being. It occurred to me that anyone who wastes one single breath is a fool. Life is all the we have, and we must live it, for real: like leopards, like beautiful creatures, like stars that pass through the nighttime sky over the wildest, darkest, deepest sea."

Crazy Train

Even when things look their darkest, and there's sorrow all around, life does have a way of throwing you some comic relief, usually in the form of some unanticipated weirdness.

Take yesterday, for example. I'm driving home from work and surfing through the radio stations, when I come across the voice of Ozzy Osborne. I know it's Ozzy because he sounds like he's talking to the interviewer from the bottom of a well with his mouth full of sweat socks and whiskey nips. And he's going on about... his musical.

Yes, his musical, which he wouldn't mind seeing on Broadway. Ozzy on Broadway? The sheer absurdity of that thought nearly caused me to drive into incoming traffic. His musical about - get this - the life of Grigori Rasputin.

I can't help but wonder if Ozzy has seen Spinal Tap.

Derek Smalls: Remember at Luton Palace we were talking about writing a rock musical based on the life of Jack the Ripper.
David St. Hubbins: Yeah!
[singing]
David St. Hubbins: You're a naughty one...
Derek Smalls, David St. Hubbins: Saucy Jack...
David St. Hubbins: You're a haughty one, saucy Jack.

Gone Baby Gone

Theo has left the Boston Red Sox. If your reaction to that is 'Theo who?' then feel free to skip the rest of this post.

Since the news broke on Monday, plenty of folks in the internetoblogisplace have put down some very pointed copy, analyzing and digging into the situation. Rather than duplicate their efforts, let me simply recommend the following pieces:

A Few Bad Men

Losers All Around

The Boston Phoenix Sox Blog

Prodigal son, departs

There's plenty more out there - you can check BSMW and Media Nation for a vast collection of links - but the above four are an excellent place to start.

My own thoughts and feelings on the L'Affaire de Theo have been all over the place, to the point where, like some others, I've had a difficult time getting anything remotely coherent into print. Trying to trace these thoughts is the mental equivalent of following a convoluted roadmap of shock, bitterness, cynicism and disappointment.

All of this - Theo's departure, the leaks and smears, the rumors of behind the scenes acrimony - is all too familiar to me. And being familiar, is also comfortable, in a sick sort of way. Like when your girlfriend breaks up with you seemingly out of the blue - you get that awful kicked-in-the-stomach-feeling but at the same time a tiny voice in your head is saying 'Well now, we've been down this road before, haven't we? Ain't no thing.'

Or maybe that's just me.

That being said, the loss of Theo is horribly, horribly dismaying to me. I had allowed myself to believe that the dysfunctional Red Sox franchise was a thing of the past, dead as the unlamented Harrington regime and as relevant as Haywood Sullivan. I allowed myself to believe that the new ownership had made a permanent change to the culture on Yawkey Way, that Tom Werner, John Henry and their compatriots had made a permanent break with the bad old days and would always steer the fortunes of the Red Sox in a rational, businesslike and efficient manner.

I was disabused of this notion yesterday morning. The first thing I heard when my alarm went off was a voice from the radio telling me Theo had declined the Red Sox offer. I pulled the sheets over my head and thought 'Wow. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet and already this day has fucked the dog.'

So I am disappointed, extremely disappointed. But I can't in all honesty see this disappointment as some sort of loss of innocence, or as some sort of betrayal of childhood memories. What the Red Sox ownership did over the past few days, well, that pretty much was the Red Sox of my childhood. From Pudge through Mo this sort of ownership gaffe was the Red Sox modus operandi. Even the sudden return to such idiocy shouldn't surprise me in hindsight, given what happened with Nomar and Pedro. It was the same old tactics - slime 'em on the way out the door.

However, where I do feel a great sense of betrayal and loss is in the role of the Boston Globe sports department in all this mess. Allow me to digress a moment...

In the late 80s and early 90s I lived in Baltimore, first attending school and then working (or looking for work as was often the case in those days.) For you youngsters out there, this was before the days of the internet, when if you lived beyond the borders of Red Sox Nation there was a palpable sense of being cut off from home and behind enemy lines. There were no message boards, blogs, streaming audio and the like to keep you in touch with the latest and greatest news on your team.

This was also a time when you could make a legitimate argument that the Boston Globe had the best spots section in the country. You had Bob Ryan, pre-Curse flogging Shaughnessy and of course, Gammons. And all that talent for baseball coverage, let alone Bruins, Celts and Patriots.

Well my dad, God bless him, took it upon himself to start sending me dispatches from home. Every Sunday he'd go through the Globe sports section, cut out anything baseball-related, and mail me a big fat envelope full of Red Sox news. And every Wednesday and Thursday I'd eagerly check the mail, anxious to get my monkey hands on all that baseball goodness. I'd rip open the envelope, sort out all the articles and then dive in, starting with Gammons' famous Diamond Notes column.

So suffice it to say I once had some very fond memories and a special affection for the Boston Globe sports section. But in the wake of this weekend's events all that is gone. Entirely.