The two talking cats (YouTube classic from 2008!)

This one has more than 109 MILLION views. Still a classic.

Darkness at the break of noon (a meditation)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The hand made blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece, the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more
Person crying

So don't fear, if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's Alright Ma, I'm only sighing

As some warn victory some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

And though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you gotta dodge
And It's Alright Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs that con
You into thinking your the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find yougot nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy ensure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinys
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders thay can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in

But I mean no harm, nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But It's Alright Ma, if I can't please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't, talk it swears
Obscentity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They's probably put my head in a guillotine
But It's Alright Ma, it's life and life only

 

Every Hallmark Christmas Movie

It's the SAME THING EVERY YEAR!

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy Music Box Lullaby

It's a Treat instead of a Treatment! SMOKE OLD GOLD!

 

This bit of blood-chilling Madison Avenue propaganda exhorts us to "keep smoking!" Old Gold is "a treat instead of a treatment. . . made by tobacco  men, NOT medicine men!" How many deaths, I wonder - and how many could have been prevented?

Brush with Greatness: Bob Dylan signs his autograph!

 

A brush with greatness! I am sure this impromptu autograph was pre-planned, but that's OK. Since Dylan barely gives any interviews, this is like having glimpses of a rare bird (or maybe Bigfoot?). The show is totally lame, so this is a one-minute clip, just the good part.

Praise God. . .and text me some money.

                                                   

@الن-ت
10 hours ago
Oh people, we are your sisters, by God  We do not even find a loaf of bread inside the house that would satisfy you, oh nation of Muhammad. People are brothers. Oh God, make your righteous servants subservient to us. Oh God, make your righteous servants subservient to us. My appeal to every Muslim, My message to every Muslim brother or sister, God is witness, our circumstances are harsh and forced me to do this. Please forgive me, my brother, there is still a brotherhood of faith. I ask you for a bag of flour. My brother, we women cannot go out among men. There is still a woman with you, my brother, God has honored you. You are men. We are women. We cannot go out or work like you. My brother, where is the brotherhood of faith in your hearts? We are women. No brotherhood. No mercy, no compassion, no humanity. And give good tidings to the patient. It is the greatest hope in waiting for what We want''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' How many times I called and talked and tried hard but no one responds We are with you My mother ordered us food from the restaurant More Today my mother left crying She said why are you crying mom She said my daughter I ask God to grant me death. She said, “Why, my mother, are you praying against us?” Shesaid, “My daughter, today the restaurant owner left me.” I said, “What happened? What happened to the extra people?” A call My brothers, I swear to God Almighty on the Book of God, I am an orphan girl from Yemen, and with me are my young brothers. I swear to God on the Book of God that my brothers are no longer able to utter a word because of the severity of hunger. My family and I have a house rent of 15 thousand Yemeni riyals per month, and now we owe 45 thousand for 3 months. The owner of the house is one of the people who do not have mercy. By God, my brother comes every day and humiliates us and talks about us and wants to throw us out of the house and into the street because we were not able to pay him the rent until the end of the week. And if we pay him, by God, he throws us out into the street without mercy. I ask you by God and I seek your help by Muhammad, the Messenger of God. My brother, if you are a Muslim and you love good and want to help me, contact me or send me a message or WhatsApp on this number 00967776589266 and ask for my card name and send it and do not delay, by God. May Allah reward you with all good ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' My brother, you are a man. If you see your family hungry, you will dothe impossible to secure it. I am the eldest, but my eyes are clear and my hands are short. I do not have a father like you to forgive my tears and protect me from humiliation and insult. We ask you by Allah, if you are able to help us, do not delay on us. May Allah reward you with،، good. \\\.:]]]]<>]]]==]]&;;&&;&;

}}}}}}&;&;&;،،،،◇.|-;&&;&;،،،،،،،....,..,,,,,،،،،،،،،،،،.........


Blogger's note. OK then, maybe I'm being cynical, maybe this person really DOES have all these issues and travails and desperately needs help. But the cry for help came in such a strange form. This comment appeared below a YouTube video about the invention of the microwave oven. These kinds of long, long, impassioned comments never do have any relevance to the actual video, but in this case I thought the obvious scam was so blatant that "somebody" ought to report it. I won't, because I'm still kind of tiptoeing around YouTube and not wanting to get in trouble. But I hope someone does.

What strikes me as particularly low is how all this is couched in religious terms, prevailing upon devout Muslims to "do the right thing" and contact their WhatsApp number for a financial donation ("and do not delay by God"). The problem is that the potential benefactor has never even met the person in question - they might be some snivelly teenager living in their Mom's bedroom, making microwave burritos at midnight (speaking of microwave ovens!). The comment has a spammy feel to it, meaning that it could be posted in 10,000 places, and if even one person bites, it's a success. Since there is such gruesome turmoil in the Middle East, seemingly all the time and into eternity, the plea would grab at the hearts of people who really do care and want to help out of the goodness of their hearts. Such people should never be exploited, but it's always the tender-hearted who are most ruthlessly abused by the indifferent greed of fraudsters who care only about lining their pockets.

                                                             

For a while, until I just couldn't do it any more, I followed a YouTube channel about romance scams, and it was the same dynamics, the same tricks, done by text and email: "Hello lovely! I saw you beautiful smile today and I want to know you better!" Or something similar. I've even received some of these myself, and they're hilarious. I've had a run of them on my Facebook page lately, friendship requests from people with pages that were pretty much empty, and with phony-sounding names and a generic profile picture, like something that comes with a picture frame. These nasty predators concoct stories that one would think no sane person would fall for (my oil rig is on fire and you have to send me $10,000 to put it out! I need $50,000 for an operation or I will die immediately!)

But fall for it they do. When I saw more than one story about women convinced Johnny Depp was in love with them, and even one where a woman was sending lunch money to Elon Musk, I just bailed, I had to. But people "bite", they bite all the time, either out of loneliness or (I came to realize) a sort of vanity. The intial "hi, lovely!" message is always accompanied by a photo of a handsome hunk in swim trunks (or perhaps a military uniform), which the unfortunate recipient is expected to accept as the real person. Almost all of these fraudsters are located in Nigeria, in what amounts to a call centre, organized to bring in maximum profits with minimum effort. 

     

There is a pattern to these things, a scheme, even a language, certain words that seem to trigger a hormonal response all the way across the world. But the hapless ladies who fall for this ruse feel oh, so flattered that this gorgeous young man (military doctor, usually, or something else high-status) would take an interest in her. They lay on the language, the most ubiquitous term being "BABE" "Hi, Babe! How is my lovely love this morning!" Spelling and grammatical errors are overlooked. This "babe" thing doesn't just make these self-doubting women feel like a million bucks because a handsome hunk wants them, it makes it easier for the scammer to keep several (or five or six) victims dancing on a string at the same time. Quite simply, they don't have to remember their names.

So while I sit here trying to figure out just what they meant by "Book of God", I hope and pray (speaking of religion) that nobody falls for this. Dear God, save us we are dying, here's my WhatsApp!

Happy 21st Birthday to Caitlin!❤ 🧡❤🧡

 

These are images I created (my first experience with photoshop) for Caitlin's 10th birthday. She already seemed pretty grown-up to me then. Now she is an independent young woman who has no idea how beautiful she is.

It's Chop-a-nose Day (again!)

 

This was one of those accidental finds. For some reason a line from a nursery rhyme popped into my head - no, wait, it was something I read on Facebook about an author who wrote about nursery rhymes! Then I remembered an odd little Mother Goose book I had as a kid, with a bizarre rhyme in it about "chop-a-nose day". I remember my brother and I making terrible fun of it, but no one else believed such a rhyme even existed. Then. . .

This is the grand day of the Internet, that most splendid of times, when information is forever tickling your fingertips. All you have to do is grab. I'm still finding out what "chop-a-nose day" is, and I suspect it's a corruption or mispronunciation of something else. Until then. . . these are excerpts from the Gutenberg version (so it's OK to reproduce them) of a gorgeous little book by Kate Greenaway, who is responsible for these exquisite drawings. They would appear to be from the Edwardian era. 

I have excluded Little Miss Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, and all the others we already know about, leaving only the oddball ones. Many of them refer to social status in some way (not unlike the pop songs I wrote about recently), with beggars and kings appearing in the same verse. The rhythms here are irresistible, and if they haven't already been set to music, music just bursts out of them. One can hear these as skipping rhymes, or hopscotching, or perhaps even clapping. "The cat ran up the plum tree" is obviously meant to be chanted while bouncing a fat baby on your knee.

And how far back do these go? No doubt, like folk songs, they evolved over centuries. Ring Around a Rosy, which I didn't include here, is apparently medieval and was originally a chant to ward off the plague.

Hark! hark! the dogs bark,

The beggars are coming to town;

Some in rags and some in tags,

And some in a silken gown.

Some gave them white bread,

And some gave them brown,

And some gave them a good horse-whip, 

And sent them out of the town.

Diddlty, diddlty, dumpty,

The cat ran up the plum tree,

Give her a plum, and down she’ll come,

Diddlty, diddlty, dumpty.

We’re all jolly boys, and we're coming with a noise,

Our stockings shall be made

Of the finest silk,

And our tails shall trail the ground.

Elsie Marley has grown so fine,

She won’t get up to serve the swine;

But lies in bed till eight or nine,

And surely she does take her time.

There was a little boy and a little girl

Lived in an alley;

Says the little boy to the little girl,

“Shall I, oh, shall I?”

Says the little girl to the little boy,

“What shall we do?” 

Says the little boy to the little girl, 

“I will kiss you!”

 

Tell Tale Tit,

Your tongue shall be slit;

And all the dogs in the town

Shall have a little bit.

A dillar, a dollar,

A ten o’clock scholar;

What makes you come so soon?

You used to come at ten o’clock, 

But now you come at noon!

Rock-a-bye baby,

Thy cradle is green;

Father’s a nobleman,

Mother’s a queen.

And Betty’s a lady,

And wears a gold ring;

And Johnny’s a drummer,

And drums for the king.

See-Saw-Jack in the hedge,

Which is the way to London Bridge?

Little lad, little lad,

Where wast thou born?

Far off in Lancashire,

Under a thorn;

Where they sup sour milk

From a ram’s horn.

As I was going up Pippin Hill,

Pippin Hill was dirty;

There I met a sweet pretty lass,

And she dropped me a curtsey.

My mother, and your mother,

Went over the way;

Said my mother, to your mother,

“It’s chop-a-nose day.”

NEWS FLASH: yes, I did find some information about chop-a-nose day. According to the rhyme below, it's a sort of game you play wherein you pretend to chop off a child's nose.

Come to think of it, though we never called it chop-nose or chop-a-nose, my Dad used to pretend to pull off my nose, then stick his thumb through his fingers and say, "I've got your nose." Very funny.

Margery Mutton-Pie and Johnny Bo-Peep

Margery Mutton-pie and Johnny Bopeep,
They met together in Gracechurch-Street;
In and out, in and out, over the way,
Oh! says Johnny, 'tis chop-nose day.

This rhyme is very similar to My Mother and Your Mother, and I believe you play it the same way:

You play it with a child by reciting the rhyme while gently sliding your hand down his/her face. When you get to the last line, you hold the child's nose between your thumb and forefinger, with your other hand you pretend to "chop off" the nose! 

Below is a link to a long scholarly article about the socio-political significance of nose amputation. It just goes on and on. Not surprisingly, it was a particularly painful and vicious, not to mention humiliating punishment for various infractions, including adultery. It would be hard to hide the horrible wound from the world without going about constantly veiled, or not going about at all. I won't dwell on all this, because I can't, but I do wonder if this harmless child's game is an echo of something really horrendous. Well, we still have Ring Around a Rosy, its origins shrouded in the time of the Black Death, with thousands of bodies stacked up and ready to be burned or buried in mass graves. So could chop-a-nose day be a lot more literal than it first appears?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2689568/

Why is YouTube doing this to me (AGAIN)??

Something happened to me last night, and it was only this morning that I realized how bizarre and ludicrous it was.

The above gif is a small sample of a video I posted where I examined (and filmed in detail) a mushroom I found in the yard. For this, my video was removed, with a warning that I had "violated community standards" regarding "sale of regulated goods policy".

It could only mean one thing. They were accusing me of selling psychedelic mushrooms on my channel.

No, really! However else can I interpret it?

There wasn't much point in going through the same routine I've gone through umpteen times already, trying to get a human being at YouTube to pay attention, but I did it as an outlet for my anger and - yes, fear that I will be terminated. I KEEP GETTING these bizarre notices of "violation", when I have done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

The video is of an elderly lady (me!) looking at a mushroom. Just looking at it, examining it, filming it up close. No drug references. Nothing. Just a mushroom. I did say "I won't eat it", so maybe THAT was considered proof that I'm actually a drug dealer in disguise? 

Below is the totally useless and pointless letter I sent to Google through the mail (to be sure no one reads it) and to YouTube "feedback", which is equally useless. I don't know why I do these things. And WHY do they accuse me of drug dealing when all I want to do is film a mushroom?

I am once again in the unenviable position of trying to get some answers re: a YouTube issue that totally baffles me. Yesterday I posted a two-minute video in which I talked about a large wild mushroom I found in the front yard. I took closeups of it from every angle, and talked about how I found it. The thumbnail was meant to be whimsical - me holding a huge mushroom, saying, "Look what I found!" Obviously, meaning I just found it growing outside. Within hours, I received a message that it had been taken down for violating community standards. I did try to appeal, and got the message just now that my content had been "carefully reviewed" and it was deemed unacceptable:

"We have reviewed your appeal for the following:

Video: "Look what I found!" HUGE Magic Mushroom (or: a fungus among us)

We reviewed your content carefully, and have confirmed that it violates our sale of regulated goods policy. We know this is probably disappointing news, but it's our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all."

An elderly woman holding a mushroom and talking about how interesting it is, is not the "sale" of anything at all, nor was there ANY  reference whatsoever to ANY illicit substance. Yet, after "careful review", the video was removed. I must conclude nobody watched it, as they could not possibly come to that conclusion if they had.

The ONLY thing that might even begin to prompt this action is my ill-advised use in the title of the word "magic", which of course was meant to be a reference to how "magical" it can be to find these phenomena of nature. THAT IS ALL. To me, a senior citizen who is unfamiliar with drug terminology, this so-called  subtext is completely absurd. The word "magic" obviously has more than one meaning. I was showing my viewers an interesting thing I found in the yard. If anyone actually did watch this two-minute video, they could not possibly have seen any content whatsoever that had anything to do with any drug, let alone the sale of these non-existent drugs!  It just wasn't there.

So did anyone  actually review it, or were their minds made up before they even checked it out?  Far from making YouTube "safer for all", it has made me feel terribly UNSAFE, a senior citizen who loves nature, to go on posting about things she loves, including a harmless mushroom I found in the yard. YouTube keeps saying my channel will be terminated if I step outside the rules. But what sort of rule is this? What sort of restriction will I face next? 

I am convinced no actual person evaluates these videos, or they would immediately see how incomprehensible this warning is. Can I not post things on flowers, dolls, music, anything at all? If it's the "wrong" music that supposedly has a mysterious subtext, something that applies to literally millions of videos which are allowed to stand, will I be punished for posting ANY music at all? Please, please, PLEASE explain this to me before I lose a channel I value as a source of creativity and social contact. I'm a 70-year-old grandma who loves nature and wants to share  my love of it. I realize it's probably too late for this, and I was unable to send a note explaining what the specific issues were.

I did take the "training" and was told the warning would be lifted in 90 days, so I hope that is true. It should be obvious I am not out to hurt, exploit, or do anything but entertain and enlighten my subscribers. The fact that I have been accused of something like this is devastating to me personally. and I would ask that YouTube PLEASE watch the video again and evaluate it appropriately. If YouTube is a constant source of anxiety over something I have not done, it will ruin the pleasure of it after 13 years of creativity and joy.

If there is an actual human being reading this, PLEASE don't just discard it, as it is potentially an opportunity to learn what actually goes on with your creators and the unfair conditions they must accept. I would greatly appreciate it if you would send me a followup email to explain why this happened, and what I can do to prevent it happening again. If there are certain words I am not allowed to use, such as "magic", please spell out for me what those words are so I can avoid any penalties in the future. Thank you.

magunning@telus.net

Channel name  ferociousgumby

Handle  @ferocious

💗💗💗Alan Arkin Moments ('scuse me while I kiss this guy . . .)💗💗💗

 

I made this GORGEOUS compilation from a website called FYEAHMOVIES or something like that. I mucked around with clips from The Russians are Coming (ditto), then found this trove of eight fleeting moments, and strung them together. Very high quality for mere gifs. Russians aged even more poorly than the '80s movies I wrote about, with a long string of very unfunny sight gags that went on and on. It actually became dull. Arkin was his usual devastatingly charming self, and his Russian accent was to die for. The thing had a great cast, Eva Marie Saint, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, even Theodore Bikel (the only cast member who actually spoke Russian, though Arkin was pretty convincing), but even at that, it was so over the top I just couldn't enjoy it. Jokes don't have to be pounded into your skull, we get it the first time. Everyone remembers this as a classic and a screamingly funny comedy that transcends its era, but it isn't. Cute and cuddly Russians who were really nice guys under the surface. . . OK then! This was a kind of Cold War panacea, I guess, a way to reduce the fear that the Russians were going to nuke us into oblivion. Hell, Arkin could nuke ME into oblivion, and I'd love every minute of it. I find him sexy in a way I can't even describe. It just jumps out at you from the screen.  I couldn't find a clip of this, but there's a moment when Arkin kisses Eva Marie's hand, and she almost gasps, completely taken aback and taken over by his personal charm. I mean, who kisses a woman's hand, these days?  He could kiss any part of me he wanted. I mean it, he could.

Did the movie change, or did I? Thoughts on films I used to love

It’s a no-brainer, of course. The movie DOESN’T change, because it can't, but everything around it does. When I watch something out of the 1920s or ‘30s or ‘40s, the surrounding culture is so unfamiliar it’s like the Twilight Zone. But what about movies made in my own living memory, that I remember seeing in the theatres or maybe on a VHS tape?

I’m talking about the ‘80s. I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about the ‘80s lately, and people wax so nostalgic about the decade that it makes me wonder if I lived on the same planet. Of course there were sweet times, going to the Blockbuster to rent a movie, then sitting around the TV with the family, eating popcorn, laughing and crying together – when these days, most families don’t even sit down to dinner together. Everyone cobbles together a semblance of a meal, and eats it alone in their bedroom while watching something streaming on their phone. Even DVDs are considered outdated dinosaurs that no one buys.

It WAS different. There was no internet, and high-tech meant having a VCR and maybe more than one TV in the house. Computers were the villains in science fiction movies, just warm-ups for the ultimate evil computer, HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

They were foreign and mechanical and not to be trusted. They weren’t human, so to put them in charge of things was foolhardy at best. Now, you can’t get away from them. Your refrigerator talks to you, even if your mother doesn’t. But this isn’t about that. It’s about three movies  from the ‘80s that I just watched over the past 3 nights.

 

The first one was a Sherlock Holmes movie called The Seven Per Cent Solution. Right off the top, the casting immediately made me miss Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. THIS Holmes was a drug addict going through agonizing cocaine withdrawal, supervised by no less a figure than Sigmund Freud. Really, it was a completely absurd premise that didn’t quite come off (though Alan Arkin made an interesting, if highly improbable Freud. I’ll watch anything with Alan Arkin in it, he had such a knowing look and the sexiest eyes of any man born).

I guess we just kind of suspended our disbelief in these things, as the plot got more and more absurd. Back then it was seen as a sophisticated thriller. But Nicol Williamson sweating and thrashing and raving seemed almost comical, way over the top, and Robert Duvall as Watson – wait, ROBERT DUVALL as Watson?? It was ridiculous casting, and Duvall could scarcely disguise his Texan accent as he strained to look and sound like an English gentleman.

But back in the ‘80s, cocaine abuse was just coming out of the closet as a really evil thing, rather than the harmless fun it seemed to be in the ‘70s. Drug addiction in a classic literary figure was seen as something really novel and original, even daring. We were more willing to buy this far-fetched stuff due to a kind of – what, innocence? It seems like it, in retrospect. Maybe just ignorance. But even more formally-presented dramas are now kind of hard to swallow, for reasons I can’t quite comprehend.

With great anticipation, I watched  A Room with a View, a movie I absolutely adored when it first came out, loving it just as much when I saw it several more times on VHS tape. This time, well – I WAS charmed by the first half-hour or so, maybe just due to nostalgia. But the best moment in it – dashing George Emerson sweeping up prim Miss Lucy Honeychurch and giving her a ferocious kiss in a field of barley – came in the first twenty minutes or so. It was all downhill from there. Maggie Smith as Lucy’s chaperone made me want to SCREAM, her character was so over-the-top and gratingly annoying. Judi Dench as the “lady novelist” was even worse, just ridiculously overstated, a stereotype I was willing to buy before, but this time - .

And it was LONG. That was the biggest difference of all. When I first watched it an astonishing forty years ago, I didn’t want it to end. This time I kept looking at my watch. It just sort of lumbered along, and it felt stuffy, like the atmosphere in all those ornate parlours it took place in. Denholm Elliot was almost worse than the prissy, twittering ladies we were supposed to find funny. His “yes, and yes, and YES” line embarrassed me. Of course we knew the whole thing was careening towards a highly-unlikely happy ending, but this time I was kind of grateful for that last scene of George and Lucy making out  like bandits in their magical pensione in Florence.

All in all, the best part by far was Kiri te Kanawa singing a glorious aria by Puccini while the lovers kissed in the field of barley.  But even at that, Renee Fleming did it better. 

But the third one. Oh, God, the third one. It was called Lovesick, and I do remember seeing it on TV, feeling it was amusing at least. It had the then-wildly-popular Dudley Moore in it (playing a psychiatrist who was, of course, far more disturbed than his patients), and like a lot of women I found him appealing in a bringing-out-the-maternal-urge way. Speaking of Sigmund Freud, this time he was played by Alec Guinness, and he was just awful, stiff, boring, contrived, spewing horribly dated psychoanalytic cliches.

Like Humphrey Bogart materializing to Woody Allan in Play it Again, Sam, Siggy kept appearing to the Dudley Moore character, who was of course called an “analyst” (and whatever happened to analysts? Now they’re called therapists, I guess). This ersatz Freud spouted intellectual theories about why Dr. Dudley had sexually engulfed a vulnerable young patient, treating it more as an amusing mid-life crisis than something that should rightly be against the law.

 And all this was supposed to be funny.

It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. Why didn’t it occur to me before how disgusting and even disturbing his behaviour was, skulking around behind the scenes at the theatre where she worked, following her home, breaking into her apartment when she was out so he could read her diary, and generally acting like a disgusting creep. And, of course, she fell for him. Hard.

The first time I saw it, I remember loving Elizabeth McGovern for some reason. I found her sweet and appealing and had a little girl crush on her, thinking she was adorable. This time I could not even imagine how I ever reacted that way. She just wasn’t any good. Her gawkiness fell flat, and her innocent routine didn’t hold up at all. She had strange eyes that looked almost feral. When the two of them were walking together, McGovern TOWERED over Dudley in a way that was disturbingly like watching a mother and child.

The thing just did not play. Is it because we’re far less tolerant of creepiness in men, in trying to find comedy in a situation like hiding in the woman’s shower while she made out with another man in the next room? (Ewwwwwwww!)

Then, of course, she turns on the shower, and he turns it off, and she turns it on. . . then she discovers him crouching like a criminal in her bathtub, and goes all smiles and gooey affection. Then, of course, they immediately have sex. I barely got through this one, nearly shut it off several times, but had the thought that this was the third ‘80s film I had watched in 3 nights, and that this might Mean Something. Not sure what, except that what was charming and romantic then was just kind of offensive, weak, even dull. 

The eighties just don’t play well for so many reasons. Maybe acting has changed. I don’t know, because acting doesn’t exist any more – it’s all superhero garbage, Lord of the Rings 9 and stuff like that. In the 1990s, I actually went to the movies once a week, and most of them were watchable, enough, if not always worth the price. I have to confess I can’t think of too many examples. It was just something I did, usually alone, part of my weekly routine. Sometimes the popcorn was the best part.

So the options are: the films changed; the culture changed; I changed. The latter two are pretty obvious. I’m no longer entertained by caricatures and people woodenly trying to bring historic figures to life. Alan Arkin was cute and appealing, as always, but bore no resemblance whatsoever to Sigmund Freud. Nicol Williamson shouldn’t have bothered, and Robert Duvall. . . But it seems that movies in the’80s were trying to sell us something, something that now seems so unpalatable that I can’t even imagine why I loved them to begin with. What was it? Caricature over character? Cliché over reality? Contrivance that we can’t get past?

 I just wasn’t buying it. All three of them were disappointing, and oddly confusing. Was I watching the same movie?  It’s funny, because I can watch something from literally 100 years ago (Harold Lloyd, anyone?) and love it every bit as much as the first time. But I didn’t live through those times.

Simpler times, or just more blinkered times? Why did people think an emotionally screwed-up psychiatrist having steamy sex with a vulnerable young patient was charming and fun? I’m beginning to think of the ‘80s as a cultural Dark Ages rather than the warm and cozy time people keep talking about. We seem to be missing something we never had in the first place.

More on the Myths of AA: did I leave just in time?

Getting deeper into the thorny haunted woods of the anti-AA literature which seems to abound these days, I found a thousands-of-words-long manifesto online ripping into just about every aspect of 12-step programs. For some reason this document is called The Orange Papers, though I don't think it has anything to do with the NDP.

Looking back, I was both helped and hurt by AA and, almost in tandem, by the Christian church, both of whom claimed acceptance and broadmindedness while practicing the exact opposite. My life revolved around both of those religious institutions, and while I felt constant underlying stress and tension about aspects of the program that I was not allowed to criticize, I kept on. And on. And on.

Recently, in one of my mini-binges of rearrangement (of my trolls and shelves and all that stuff), I discovered a bagful of AA medallions and chips. There were just so MANY of them! I decided to display them on my bookshelf with a Buddha, and the little basket of multicolored coins looks quite attractive. But it's hard to believe what I went through, and for how long, to get them. 

Now they're claiming I was indoctrinated, and that AA's success rate is only 5% - 10% on a good day. They're also saying I can probably drink safely if I put my mind to it. The fact I'm terrified to do so just means I drank the alcohol-free Kool-aid (or was it Flavor-aid?) and now can't get away from 15 years of brainwashing.

But what might it cost me if I decided to find out?

I found this list of what looks like live links, and wondered: if I posted them, would they link me to something else? More diatribes, perhaps? I have to admit I find the angry tirades fascinating, if a bit extreme. I have ordered a copy of The Sober Truth, in which an addictions specialist analyzes the death-grip 12-step groups have not just on individuals, but on the rehab industry and the courts system, which sentences violent criminals to attend meetings as part of their punishment. Many of them have found that a little sexual predation sweetens the penalty. 

When I posted Why I Quit AA on Salon.com back in about 2006, I was deluged with mean-spirited, nasty and even threatening comments, none of which even attempted to pay heed to what I was actually saying. Most of them were from men.  I had broken an entrenched taboo: I had dared to publicly criticize the Mob, and this was my punishment. I wanted to scream: don't you see you're PROVING the points I am trying to make, that AA is a closed system and you dare not speak out or deviate from the rules? The irony of the fact did not cross their minds because their minds were already closed to anything but pure AA doctrine.

I just realized that if I click on the links listed below, it takes me directly to that Orange Papers thing with its rantings and tirades, which makes for some entertaining if exhausting reading.  Proceed with caution!

The A.A. founder Bill Wilson declared that alcoholism is a "spiritual disease" that is caused by

1. sins,
2. moral shortcomings,
3. wrongs,
4. defects of character,
5. resentments,
6. instincts run wild,
7. character defects, representing instincts gone astray,
8. self,
9. self-will run riot,
10. desires that have far exceeded their intended purpose,
11. The Seven Deadly Sins
12. a willful and irresponsible ego,
13. failure to practice religious precepts properly,
14. failure to practice Step Five properly,
15. selfishness,
16. self-seeking,
17. self-centeredness,
18. more selfishness
19. defective relations,
20. nagging wives,
21. nagging wives again, "throwing her husband into a fit of anger"
22. serious character flaws,
23. faith that isn't accompanied by "self-sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action",
24. personal secrets that we have not confessed,
25. inherited genes or inherited sins,
26. conditions that we couldn't correct to our entire satisfaction, and
27. another unconfessed personal secret... 

ADDENDUM: This is another interesting chunk from the Orange Papers. Whoever wrote it REALLY doesn't like AA! But I must admit, one of the more popular of the thousands of AA slogans is, "Check your brain at the door." 

"Quit your stinkin' thinkin'."
"Don't drink, don't think, and go to meetings.
"You have a thinking problem, not a drinking problem."
"Your best thinking got you here."
"The three most dangerous words for an alcoholic — 'I've been thinking'"
"Don't go into your mind alone; it's not a safe neighborhood."
"Don't go in your head alone. It's a dangerous neighborhood."
"Just do things the tried and true way."
"Look for the similarities, not the differences."
"People who think they know it all are very irritating to those of us who do."
"You can act yourself into thinking right easier than you can think yourself into acting right."
"I know I'm in trouble when I start thinking I can run my own life."

THE GODFATHER CONTEST: Who can sound MOST like Don Corleone?😳

This one is even more hilarous than the troll unboxing! We haven't played  this Godfather game in years and years. It's just a delight for me to have this in my life again. If no one watches it, it breaks my heart, and it has nothing to do with me or my subs or anything but GRB and her minions getting me shadowbanned. I am trying to salvage what I can of the joy of this, but I can't pretend it doesn't bother me. It does. It's completely baffling and unfair, except I do know who is doing it and "why" (for no good reason). 

BUT, I broke the ice after several weeks of hanging back. There's that. I will continue on, but even posting links elsewhere does no good, as the views of it don't show up in my view count. So it doesn't matter if a million people watch it. I cannot send any more feedback, as it only seems to make matters worse.

After 13 years and 21,000 subscribers, it's heartbreaking. BUT, this is a hilarious video and I have it and I posted it, and it means much more than just "a video". I have a few hundred of those. I can at least send it around to people and share it here and on Facebook. But that's all.