Joe McDoakes

I've been trying to think of anything good that came of my recent hospital stay. After some commiseration I would say that I learned to appreciate cable TV, especially TCM. And thanks to TCM I have discovered Joe McDoakes. How wonderful it must have been in the 40's and 50's to encounter this series. Settled in your seats ready for the feature, a special treat before Cary or William came on the screen. Joe McDoakes. Each featured a booming announcer describing a modern day problem and the situation being acted out by Joe McDoakes, who later became the voice for George Jetson. And to think they made 63 of them. Classics.

Hospital gowns

Some of you may have heard from the grapevine that I was in the hospital for a spell. The

hardest thing I had to learn was how to tie a hospital gown. That took me half an hour the first time, only to be told by the nurse I had put it on backwards. I also learned how to use a portable urinal, sleep through noise, and choose from a menu. Navigating the menu is difficult at first, as the knowledge of pain avoidance in bad food is more relevant than choosing appetizing selections.

Sickness has been so overdone in blogs and magazine articles that this blogger will probably avoid the topic in the future. Just like every baby boomer has their sixties coming of age stories, now they are all coming up with their heart-by-pass and cancer stories.

The nursing home had a plethora of events. Bingo, movie night, wheelchair relay night, but one thing that caught my eye was happy hour. Here people drink non alcoholic beer and juice shooters. I was thinking this country needs a place where people would be taught how to drink, smoke, have affairs, play cards, and taught the pleasures of recreational drugs. But, alas, we already have such places. They're called colleges.

Jean Luc Goddard

If there was one word that defined hipness in high school and freshman year in college it was Jean Luc Goddard. I first encountered the name being mentioned on WBAI. Apparently, the callers were objecting to the change of the name of the film "One Plus One.
It was being changed to the name "Sympathy for the Devil."
"It is nothing but a sellout from art to commercialism," the caller ranted.
Being a big Stones fan, naturally this caught my eye. Apparently, there was a Rolling Stones movie out directed by a French arteur.

Two weeks later I was on the bus with some friends and we were headed for the movie, "One Plus One", then playing in New York. To be fair, the Stones footage is interesting. The Stones didn't look like they were having too much fun though, and the stuff outside or in the junk yard was preposterous, I thought.

Later at Rutgers, I took the class, "The French Film" (my mother used to get laughs at parties reciting the classes I was taking) and it showed "Breathless". In 1972, Jean Luc Goddard, spoke at school and I got to see him. Jane Fonda had appeared around that time too. Apparently they were both in New Brunswick, tied to the movie "Letter to Jane". Goddard's film criticized Jane Fonda and perhaps she was on the heels of Goddard to stand up for her dignity, according to one story.

"Breathless" I chiefly remember for Jean Seberg selling Herald Tribunes. Saw it again on TCM and I actually enjoyed it and understood it for the first time. I guess there are advantages in age.

I never saw "Weekend" until recently although I told a white lie about it many years ago. The teacher had said in class that we could see any film in the library collection if we needed to for a paper. The next day, however, I was turned down flat by the staff of the library. There I was informed that they never set up a projector for one student. Luckily the library had a book of the screenplay with pictures. I implied in the paper that I had seen the movie when actually I was stretching the truth.

It's hard to say that Jean Luc Goddard was a great filmaker, but he was definitely of his time. In the year 2020 when the class at high school is assigned "movies of the sixties", his films will be introduced as relics of the madness of that decade.

A night in Tunisia

A blog that is written in Tunisia and is following the excitement in that country.

Where's your tie

I wrote a new post on the Sixties blog. I think it's great our Congressman are going to do Outward Bound together. I wonder if their valets and butlers can come along.

January grumpiness

In December snow makes us nostalgic and happy about snow at Christmas. Especially if we get a day off. In January snow just makes us grumpy. More shoveling. More lousy roads.

Employers use different methods to tell their staff they have a snow day. One place I used to work used to call workers an hour before they would not normally get up to tell them not to come in the next day. Another job would send the calls out at midnight the night before. Recently I was called for a delayed opening and when I got to work the security guard told me that, in fact, the delayed opening had been changed to closed.

Early January is when most of us de-Christmas our homes. When I was a kid we used to sing Christmas songs backwards while taking ornaments off the tree.

This is also the time when we finally have to deal with our presents that have been sitting under around the living room. A few tips for gift givers. Never give large gifts to people with small apartments. Never think that you can start someone with a new hobby. If they didn't scrapbook before, they're not going to start now, even if they have a huge scrapbooking kit. Most apartments have a shortage of electical plugs and finding a new one for an unwanted gift can make people testy. And if you buy a shirt for someone to wear at work, make sure it has a pocket and is wash and wear. People aren't going to start ironing for the sake of a Christmas gift.

And why oh why don't they clean the snow at doctor's offices and drugstores! Well, enough grumpiness. At least in January you can be grumpy and not be called a Scrooge.

Life

Almost finished Keith Richards' biography "Life". Actually surprisingly literary work from the Stone with nine lives. Anita Pallenberg doesn't come off too well. Mick comes off better than advertised. Of course, the author comes off as an angel with a dirty face.

The part about growing up in England is good reading. The book has gotten good reviews and will now be part of the Stone's literary pantheon. The big dissapointment is at the end. Yes he fell on the beach at Fiji but he never climbed a coconut tree.

Editor's note: An earlier blog on the Rolling Stones. For a more literal story of the early Rolling Stones, try Bill Wyman's A Stone Alone, a good companion piece to Life.