Crossing Guard

#156-For Archive: Https://oaklanddupree@substack.com

Nope !… not the Sean Penn directed Jack Nicholson movie but my newest “ career ” in semi-retirement, an opportunity to be of service to the community and make gas money…hope I can cut the mustard…BTW the Sean Penn picture The Crossing Guard  (1995) was also written by Penn and was an artistic success, though it died miserably at the Box Office, even with Jack starring…a  tale of revenge on a drunken driver who took a life …Nicholson and Penn and Robin Wright  later teamed again  on The Pledge (2001 ) an excellent movie that achieved  cinematic art and was also  not  a Hollywood  moneymaker.

My old friend,  Nora  Barr  passed the other day at 76 from a brain tumor, shocking me,  as we had just reconnected after 38 years or so. We worked together at Petar’s in Lafayette California…. tending bar and Nora was my cocktail waitress, the very best I ever worked with… I trained many cocktail waitresses over my  20  years in this profession  and their first instinct was to put a cherry in every drink…. heh heh heh heh heh…in those days,  drink garnishes were important…today it’ s a free for all of fruits and juices as far as cocktails go…little do I care,  as I quit drinking and bars in 1991…anyway Nora had a sharp sense of humor and a toughness that a good cocktail waitress needed to handle drinkers and get tipped well…She saved her dough and bought  a condo in Walnut Creek and in her later years, after being a restaurant  bookkeeper (Izzy’s Steakhouse SF)  Nora decided to work as a school crossing guard and she just loved the job . We  shared some hour long phone conversations before she was struck down by the Big C … Nora had lost her only son some years ago, so  motherhood might have factored into her working with kids…we had plans to meet for a meal, in fact I was bringing over a platter of New Mecca Mexican food from  Mike Greene’s party when she relapsed  and  I never saw her again as weeks later she was gone…in our conversations , Nora implored me and encouraged me to investigate being a crossing guard, and how rewarding it is… The hoops to jump through for this job are myriad;  i.e fingerprinting and background checks;  maximum intrusiveness,  but worth it I think … I will  begin the gig this week here in Marin…high hopes.

Screwed, blewed,  and tattooed  : (something a WWII sailor might recollect after a wild drunken night in port) …never hear that expression anymore… pardon my hyperbole !… last time out,  I wrote about  a journey of 10,000 miles while the distance from Mexico City to New York City is really  only  about 3000… my whole 1971/72 odyssey was about 10,000 miles ( Alamo- Mexico - NYC- Alamo)  and it began with a single step…Tony Bennett on 60 Minutes last week was a wonderment…at 95  Alzheimer’s is closing in on him but his musical muscle memory is completely intact…with a cue and piano accompaniment he can perfectly perform an hour’s set of songs…a great, great  legendary singer !…This Matt Imodium motherfucker has ruined my fave  network show:  Jeopardy!  … now turn it off when he has a mathematical runaway…I despise this Cheshire grinning phony so much it is becoming unbearable to even watch the opening and the weak competition …the producers are milking him for ratings,  manipulating  the show with softball Daily Doubles and lesser players trotted out…in normal times,  Jeopardy!  brings on  aggressive lawyers to compete once or twice a week, but with Imodium , not  hide nor hair of any legal eagles…I dig  host Mayim, but she has already mispronounced Vaclav Havel ( S/B - VOTTS-lov) and Nevada ( S/B ne-VADD-uh), something Alex Trebek would never do… her garish costumes are  wildly cool and ample enough  to obscure her prodigious stern… Bialik gets Pulitzer right though ( PULL-itzer)… these are  tiny quibbles,  as she is so much better than Richards,  her disgraced and cancelled predecessor … think I’ll just  boycott Jeopardy!  til Imodium AD is gone…will watch his  final game on my DVR, and relish his defeat…

Byron Allred : …my old pal Byron,  a wizard of keyboards…. Hammond B-3 and all kinds of synthesizers went to Rock and Roll Heaven yesterday and I am sad to report this news relayed to me by Johnny Stallion …Byron had onset dementia and suffered a fall from a ladder a while back…I first met Byron in the early seventies when some musicians went to his parents house in Creektown to rehearse for a gig…later he played in Joker with Johnny Stallion, Jack King, Dave Denny, Terry Ratza, Duane Temme and others…He even schlepped his B-3 and Leslie speakers to the Roundup Saloon in Lafayette to gig with my one-time only band Oakland Dupree and the Dictators of Love, Sunday December 7th 1975 ( a day that will live in infamy)…Byron went on to play in the Steve Miller Band ( Abracadabra), Todd Rundgren,  and Dave Martin’s House Party…in 1980 I managed him in  the avant garde punk jazz  band Surface  Music, a Gary King brainchild (we had twin synthesizers in that act with Tom Suczek on the other keyboards and Mike Greene on drums)…his pals had a hell of a  great birthday party for Byron at Armando’s in Martinez when he turned 60 ( organized by   Byron’s  wife Nancy Rowe) ...we all jammed and had a  natural ball and he was an annual participant in our January OD birthday dinner gatherings …Byron was a very low key  and shy personality ,  a loyal friend,  and a  gifted  musician… Rest In Peace , brother!  catch up to ya later.

Varied  Variant Viewing: Scenes From A  Marriage ( 2021  HBO) -Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in a five part series based on an Ingmar Bergman film. It’s intense and deftly written and directed by Israeli master Hagai Levi…hard to stop watching a marriage’s destruction and a husband and  wife alternately  fighting  and copulating,   while completely  messing  each other’s minds…this show makes me appreciate the joy of bachelorhood…The Card Counter (2021) Oscar Isaac, again,  as a math wizard  poker player and  blackjack gamer whose back story  is of 9 years in   prison after being convicted of torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. He  has made complete  peace with Leavenworth incarceration and isolation ...Heavy handed writer/director Paul Schrader ( a Pauline Kael disciple), slapped the comedy out of Tiffany Haddish , metaphorically speaking , to get a serviceable dramatic performance from her ( based on  a recent interview with Haddish)...I have problems with the  the props and the writing…the prop cocktails are all wrong for authenticity , Isaac’s character never tips or even produces cash while demanding drinks and service and never shows any class as a supposed casino gambler ( tipping the dealer or cashier)…worst of all,  Haddish performs a sex scene with her brassiere on, a recurring trend these days,  apparently because the  actress does not wish to bare her breasts…a recent  interview with the wonderful  Kate Winslett  mocks that notion...no woman keeps their bra on during intercourse…so directors today must solve that problem differently i.e. a body double in a glass shower stall , bed sheets placement  to cover nipples , with shadows and lighting, or even going the  Film Noir route (Hayes Code ) and just  implying the sex…to me anything is better than  an obvious fake  scene with an actress  pretend  screwing with her bra on... how about some fucking creativity ,  directors ? … please!.. I am pissed at Schrader , anyway , for his  dumping on Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho,  in print , a movie I enjoyed…what kind of asshole director shits on another director’s  work ? …apparently Schrader is that kind of asshole, even if he did create Travis Bickle…Mojave (2016) a self indulgent desert/Hollywood thriller by William Monahan starring Garret Hedlund with Oscar Isaac as a psycho, a  desert rat stalker…no this blog post is  not an Oscar Isaac festival ! …it’s  just that he’s ubiquitous these days … Mojave  is a serviceable , somewhat enjoyable waste of time …Here Today (2021 ) Billy Crystal can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned, always  loved his comedy and he provides some laughs here, Billy playing an aging  NY comedy writer who gets involved   in a goofy  friendship  with street  chanteuse Tiffany Haddish , well in her comedic element here...entertaining picture…Muhammad Ali (2021) An 8 hour PBS four part documentary by Ken Burns on the greatest boxer of them all that does justice to the  extraordinary life of Louisville born Cassius Clay.  Superb! …Thomas Jefferson (1998) another Burns doc, that is merely just  OK,  not  really revelatory…I had a bad DVD disc and it was not worth the aggravation to exchange it with Netflix… Shiva Baby (2020) A comedy about a young woman , who has a sugar daddy and recently broke up with her girlfriend…what happens when the the protagonist,the sugar daddy and his wife and baby, the ex girlfriend , and her  parents ( Jewish mother kibbitzing her diet) are all mixed into a crowded Jewish house gathering  , replete with noshing and drinking , to remember a dearly departed family friend ?...this is a  potentially wicked recipe for humor and it delivers a little  bit,  while trying extremely  hard for the  chuckles …to me it’s kinda like  a claustro nightmare…Fred Melamed shines as the mensch Dad… sorry readers, half a dozen more movies for capsule review  next time…ran outta space!

Songs Of The Day : Abracadabra- Steve Miller Band  &  I Am A Janitor-Surface Music

Autobiography: So early Aughts…driving Luxor Cabs and transferred to San Francisco State..the tuition was much less than today …now  they really sock it to students...mine cost about  $1500. a year for two semesters and I went to the University for two years four semesters total.  Above my modest means, I got my old man,  George Nixon,  to pay the first year and after he passed  on  to the great golf course in the sky , Herbie and Maya were my generous benefactors/sponsors…I  was  to create a Special  Major to encompass three disciplines,  Theatre,  Film ,and Creative Writing…had to get the Dean to sign off on it as well as the heads of each department...check !.. I dubbed the major  Playwriting And Directing Film And Theatre  and that’s what it says on my sheepskin… set about scheduling classes and going to instructors of  filled classes to sit in until enough students dropped the course for me to enroll…the beauty of this curriculum was that   the subjects were in my wheelhouse as a trained professional  actor ,  and I could take a full load of courses 18  units or more and still get mostly A’s while working full time  ...Math, Science, History and English were behind me now  heh heh heh  !  my only requirements were to fulfill  the  “Cluster”  a requirement of the California University system, which is  to complete three  socially conscious courses…easy enough  ! I took Art appreciation, Theatre appreciation  and  a Humanities class taught by a Reed College Grad , yep… Reed style  concepts and all  of the philosophy of education  that  Reed  represents  , intriguingly odd but  ultimately enlightening  (to be cont.)