Clarence Williams III, Dawn dolls in a playhouse

"In addition to Mod Squad, Aaron Spelling and I picked up two Walter Brennan shows, Tycoon and The Guns of Will Sonnett (a fair sized hit)." --Make Room for Danny, 262

In the stray preoccupations which wool gather at 4:20 AM eastern standard time, as if I was reverting to form to get ready for work at the defunct Institute to whose demise I contributed, catching 3/4 ths of Peggy Lipton's vulnerability, vaguely recalled, if Danny Thomas and Aaron Spelling truly knew anything about counter culture dynamics, it isn't evident in this stock formula series, with Richard Dreyfuss, fresh from his celebrity pairing with Amy Irving, or about to head into it, providing us with the most well mannered recital of a psychotic imaginable-- yes, yes, cable was in its infancy and the FCC and terms of service are staple gun muzzles wiring our jaws, but all Squad did for its audience was cater to appearances, to the point even those sorely scored could feel commiseration for Williams' afro standing at attention.

One of the best serials in the 70's might be Columbo, but that would take Levinson and Falk's morality battle out of context. Aquarius may taken great care with its time capsule authenticity, and may even be more accurate in its undercurrents, as we owe so much to the golden state, but the Manson family was its own thing, analogous to the Mormons under Joseph Smith as being not quite kosher, which it isn't. Manson's followers, being really, really out on a limb, nevertheless was a reversion to an earlier American period of denominational instability under the Protestant tent. As a reformer, Luther certainly never intended to fragment Christianity into shards, but he also didn't do it any favors when it comes to transplantation in the United States. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a series that really encapsulates my place and time as it was without going off a cliff. All in the Family turned a veteran icon into a cult hero, but Archie was a comic book exaggeration, as was the Jeffersons. Eight is Enough merely reigned in the impossible stupidity of the Brady Bunch. I'd pick The Six Million Dollar Man if I had to, but this, again, contextualizes another set of anxieties, apt, but miscued, since our fusions to technology are playing out a bit differently. We're not augmenting ourselves into a super-race, merely ensuring our essential human extinction. Then again, maybe it's Happy Days, if we take the notion of period piece nostalgia out of it.

A better ad in: The Partridge Family. As a series, it was soft folk song and dance, but it hit the right tenor for significant changes in the nuclear family

Our films, here and there, do a better job, and The Driver, though its minimalism is rigorous and circumscribed, is one of them. 

Though golden state vibes are not particularly auspicious to spastic's sentiments, she very cautiously explored Yabberz, and their no-over-the-line fury is reasonable. This doesn't mean I'm tamed, trust me. I know physically I am on thin ice, and economically I'm overwhelmed. I'm simply not a Caesar alpha with his skill set and ability to command an insurrection; to wit, Danielle Allen has an op-ed in Wapo which I'm not reading where she makes a clarion call about Trump's threat to democracy. That is an exaggeration on her part, but in truth of fact, Americans don't know what they mean by a free society. If the first amendment can't withstand what Donald is tapping into, then we aren't an attributable experiment in free exercise.

To the progressive mindset, I've freely admitted I am, within varying flavors, a homophobic bigot, without necessarily vying for a piece of Coulter's turf, since I've been too much inside of a bubble which most of you aren't, as a quadriplegic. Whether I go "too far," for Blogger or anyone else, one, it doesn't matter. Richard Spencer plays up ethnographic separation for money and I'm too old to play follow the leader for a supremacist who would no more lift a finger to get me out of here and let me enjoy my last years anymore than anyone else. I'm damned, rage or acceptance notwithstanding. For Trudy Richardson to deploy HHS to threaten me with Inglis House, after the battle for my life, is something maybe you cannot grasp. I've been 30 years under Presby and seen countless tenants forcibly placed. My intellectual acumen was supposed to withstand this. Trudy didn't scare me, trust me. All she did was make me measure death by cop against my other options.

Rectal Dilemma

"I am urban, educated--" Richard Dreyfuss, to his less well preserved romantic lead Marsha Mason, many odd years ago, with far less age spots

Head a trifle low. Spastic isn't feeling well, with unfamiliar stomach upset, perhaps the popcorn, a weakness for Trader Joe's white corn bacon flavor. Maybe I should eat plain bread for a day or two. I am fortunate not to have many problems with spasms and swallowing, but tend to allow cravings to guide me once in awhile, and wind up paying the piper. I asked the TJ crew if they use press agents, and then got a bit simpy. "Would you make a job for me?" What kind of self-pitying inquiry is that, mind? I know better and don't know why I utilized such a strategism, and you might imagine Toomey's people might find the dowager's attempted participation in his reelection a double-edged sword. We shall see. I have some ideas for his operatives, but I have to stabilize and get some laundry done before I pay his regional location a visit, and hold my brutal honesty about my character flaws in check.

Why rally around Pat Toomey? In part it is the fact his staff stroked my ego on first contact, by telephoning me. It reminded me that I'm not without the power of conviction despite how long it's been since I was salaried, not that they helped me with Presby, and only did the standard thing, sending me forms I've yet to send back. I hate HUD, however, and if I wanted national office I'd defund the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development in the blink of an eye. All HUD does is elevate cronyism to a bureaucratic art.

I stopped everything to pay attention to ABC's Madoff, and my subtext was how long Dreyfuss and his channeled mania has been in my face. Can anyone teleport Altoid's?

Period Anime

Whether I should add Joseph Merrick's life story or Finding Nemo to my list is debatable. Animation has its own subculture, and seems divided between Walt Disney's pedophiliac psyche and Japanese penile envy. We recognize in scientific terms that spiny damaged fish get eaten, not accommodated. But as to the flick that cemented Anthony Hopkins as the next Olivier, it is not easy to keep The Elephant Man in its period, not from a revisionist perspective. Animus toward clinical specification is a valid activist point of contention, which is probably why death as escape did not involve protests when it came to the earlier Victorian rendition of empowerment, compared to Clint's masterwork, but each film is about the victory and freedom of dying well. Does it make Merrick's life and exploitation a great movie, excusing artistic license? The narrative is a progressive orgasm, perfectly plotted out so the audience learns about dignity, acceptance, and the medical scientist as Frankenstein is necessary as a villainous redeemer. Ambivalence seems warranted, because we do not see Merrick in the less than gauzy terms of actually living his life as an astute capitalist.

The other film in the same time frame which I could not accurately recall was the Dreyfuss vehicle Whose Life Is It Anyway? An appropriation which leaves me ambivalent because it exploits suffering for profit. If it was Richard Corliss, the esteemed movie critic rightly chastised the casting directors for putting the vivacious Dreyfuss in Harrison's shoes. One wonders what drives extraordinary empaths like Dreyfuss to chemical dependency, and I can imagine the demands of such habitation has something to do with it.