Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Yesterday I went to the Rafael Theater again for a movie before the pandemic shutdown coming Tuesday and I'm so glad I got to see this picture , Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) since I don't steam , I have been in eager anticipation of this film for some time, and as my readers know, August Wilson is my favorite American playwright This picture met all my expectations of excellence and way beyond-...Thank you producer Denzel Washington, screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and director George C. Wolfe for this astoundingly magnificent Tour-De Force of American cinema and theatre ! Thanks also to my Lebowski pal, Skip Lievsay for the tip top sound production . I can't dish out enough superlatives for this one. Viola Davis just kills it as Ma Rainey and Chadwick Boseman's final gig as a player is one that every lover of fine acting yearns for. He left us with a performance for the ages. If only August Wilson were alive to witness his work essayed so spectacularly....

I am proud to say that I have seen every one of Wilson's so called Pittsburgh Cycle of 20th Century plays. One play for each decade always set in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania's Hill District, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom being the exception, with the action unfolding in a recording studio in Chicago in the 1920's. They are concerned with the African American experience which is bound to all of us in this country, like it or not. Wilson's play writing was spiritual in nature, letting the characters come to life through him as a vessel...he just recorded it...I first saw this play performed in San Francisco in the 1980's on Geary Street , either the Curran or The Geary with Charles S. Dutton as Levee and Theresa Merritt as Ma with Joe Seneca as Cutler the trombone man. Wilson's characters always have intense monologues on race that electrify audiences. The dialogue of his plays is often like a jazz jam of words. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom has four band members , a piano player, string bass , trombonist , and trumpeter engaging in rich verbal jamming and always coming to the point of the travails and joys of being black in America. The exploitation of black musicians by the recording industry is explored in this play , along with the deep inner turmoil, anger, pride and innate intelligence and perceptions of its characters. Ma plays hardball with her white record company people, knowing full well what is happening but essentially powerless to rectify it legally , except to fuck with them at every opportunity . Small victories.

Psychedelia : On HBO's Real Sports, the most recent edition covered the use of psychedelic drugs to deal with concussion damage and potential dementia with seemingly miraculous results. One athlete went to Central America to trip on Ayahuasca ( DMT) to "restart" his brain and it worked. There is a growing movement to legalize magic mushrooms ( psilocybin) and to micro dose LSD...I'm all for the use of psychedelics for healing. From personal experience, let me say, be cautious... these are very powerful chemicals to introduce to your brain. I experienced psychedelics extensively, mostly Owsley Stanley's LSD, getting as high as I could possibly get.... what did I find ? ...the absolute certainty of a divine intelligence, a Great Spirit... this revelation eventually allowed me to overcome alcoholism , an often fatal disease... I've smoked DMT, eaten peyote buttons, and magic mushrooms once... the time the Grateful Dead pulled two flatbed trucks onto Haight Street on a Sunday afternoon, plugged into the Straight Theater and played a guerilla gig that packed the street past Masonic Avenue ... a front page photo in the next day's San Francisco Chronicle documented the event . A girl had a bowl of mushrooms and I ate a few, climbed the truck and enjoyed Jer and the GD's...Bill Wilson, called the greatest social architect of the 20th Century by some, founded Alcoholics Anonymous with Dr. Bob Smith in the 1930's. Today millions of alkys have achieved sobriety through that program... Bill was an avowed atheist drunk who experienced a profound "white light " spiritual conversion. Out of curiosity , he tried LSD to see if it would be a tool to cure alcoholism... for Bill , the results were negligible. He had already been gifted and chosen.

Big, Big pandemic movie time ! Ammonite (2020) courtesy of the producers and my union , SAG, I streamed this movie on my PC. I really don't like sitting here and watching a film on the computer screen , but I made an exception for this one. Worth it ! Mary Anning was real life paleontologist living in Lyme Regis England and eking out a living gleaning fossils from the rocky beach and selling them to collectors and tourists. She is played here by Kate Winslett , in an intense and very serious portrayal , save for the recital of one bawdy limerick. She is charged to care for the wife of a fellow, self involved paleontologist, who while traveling, pays Mary to be a companion to Charlotte (Soirse Ronan), his young wife, overwhelmed with melancholia. A sticky, resentful, and awkward situation evolves into healing and love. This is a love story of the 1830's or so and is brilliantly conceived by Francis Lee... the photography and acting are both marvelous and spellbinding in a very subtle way...First Reformed (2017) stars the insanely prolific Ethan Hawke as a troubled preacher near Albany New York who becomes affected by the suicide of an eco-activist, who paints a doom and gloom future picture of a pollution poisoned Earth and no way of overcoming the corporate capitalism that perpetuates global warming. This is not a feel good movie ! Amanda Seyfried brightens things with her feminine , rescuing touch. The concept of two hearts beating as one, redeems this Paul Schrader picture for me... State Of Play( 2009) a star studded political thriller ( Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren, Jeff Daniels, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn) very entertaining , even 2nd time around... 'nuff said...Amistad(1997)Is Steven Spielberg's big production dealing with an actual historical event, the revolt on the high seas of African slaves abducted from Sierra Leone, turning on their Spanish captors. Spielberg's depiction of slavery is horrifically gruesome and unforgettable as intended... man's inhumanity to man for all to see. Traumatic to behold, even to witness actors bringing this evil to life...Reminded me of August Wilson's play Gem Of The Ocean, where an ancient, 285 year old Aunt Ester conjures up ghosts of dead slaves drowned, the single most dramatic moment I've ever experienced as an audience member of live theatre...that said, in Amistad, Djimon Hounsou delivers as the leader of the Mende tribesmen, forced to be tried in American courts where the slave vessel , La Amistad washed up in 1839. Matthew McConaghy does a serviceable job as a lawyer... this before he escalated his game with True Detective (HBO) and Dallas Buyers Club (2013)...but the "piece de resistance " of this film is the great Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams in the climactic Supreme Court argument... super ! ... Trump would have to climb a very tall ladder just to kiss JQA's ass... Song of the Day : As The Years Go Passing By - Fenton Robinson

Autobiography: So 1979, drifting along in Lafayette after splitting with my common law wife Janice Lee , tending bar in the Killarney House and becoming disenchanted.... my pal, the late Kevin Graunstadt bought a bar up in Amador County called the Fan Club Saloon in Sutter Creek California...Gold Rush country, the Sierra foothills at 2,500 feet. Kevin had another asshole for a partner ( who shall remain nameless) , but he wanted to make money so he hired me and provided a small apartment above the saloon , which I dubbed the Commodore Hotel , after Little Feat's tune, Dixie Chicken. I took to this gig like a duck to water... so many rich characters in this area, gold prospectors, lumberjacks, lumber mill workers and stoners who loved rock and roll. Sutter Creek was settled and populated by Slavs and Italians. I made many buddies and casual lady friends... a bartender is an important gig in a small town. I went fishing or swimming nearly every day and tended bar at night I had quit drinking alcohol for a time, but smoked weed and, ashamed to say, indulged in white powder ingested through the nostrils. I was a long way from sobriety. I had my 68 Plymouth 318 which ran strong and powerful up Route 88 into the Sierra mountains.I would go to places like Woods Lake , Caples Lake (elevation 8400 feet) , the West Carson River in Alpine County to fish for trout.. fresh air and majestic beauty. ( to be cont.)