It’s only Saturday morning and already this weekend, I am struck by the assortment of friends and acquaintances I have in my life and the different world we all live in.
First and foremost because of the gravity of the situation, there’s my friend, Josh. Josh called me (actually woke me up) this morning with a phone call and one sentence, “Turn on CNN and call me at the office!”. Groggily I went into the den, and tried to remember what channel CNN was on. OMG what a horrible shock – an MAJOR earthquake in Santiago, Chile. Josh’s partner and my friend, Ricardo lives in Santiago. Josh had spent the holidays there and was expecting to meet Ricardo in Prague on this coming Tuesday. Thank God, Ricardo called Josh’s cell phone at 3:00 am and had left a message that he was safe as was his father who lived even closer to the heart of the city. No further communication from Chile; you can’t get through on the phone, you can’t reach LAN airlines, the airports are closed and since Ricardo is a chief resident at the hospital, we can only assume he is there. Please keep Chile in your prayers, it is so upsetting that this event is following so closely on the heels of Haiti.
ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE – My nephew Justin, lives in Japan and I have just tried to reach him thru Facebook because I’m not sure how close he is to the epicenter of the earthquake that struck there. Apparently that quake hit offshore and the major concern is a tsunami – I know he surfs so he must be somewhat close the shoreline. As I type this and listen to the CNN minute by minute coverage in Chile, I am learning how quickly a tsunami can spread from shore to shore, country to
The volcanic Ring of Fire
country and even continent to continent – especially if the country is in the Ring of Fire (see photo). Do I have to worry about my own surfer son, Joel, who lives in San Diego and lives well within tsunami wave range?
Closer to home, several of my friends are clearly living in worlds apart. Last night I took Peter and his lifelong friend Murray out to celebrate their joint birthdays. After a delightful dinner at Compass, a restaurant on the Uppper West Side, we went to see the show, BAWDY at the Triad. BAWDY is an old time burlesque show; complete with bumps, grinds and tasteful striptease. The show is headlined by Jesse Lutrell, a very talented, very energetic and very gay performer. He is a gifted young song and dance man and he sings in a story-centric style, so reminiscent of the cabaret and nightclub acts dating back to the American birth of vaudeville. SO how did we happen to be at this show? In two words; Grace Gotham. It so happens that Grace Gotham a/k/a Sarah Liston is a friend of ours. We hadn’t seen Sarah and her husband, Dave in quite a while and were we ever surprised to learn that our friend, wife of an Episcopalian Deacon and member of our local Community Board, was actually performing burlesque!!! Well why not? Sarah is a published writer and you can read all about her journey into burlesque in an article published in the magazine, Marie Clare which I have published on this blog. She’s a hoot and very good I must add – and yes she really can make her tassles twirl.
Then this is the weekend that The Glen Beck show airs where my sister-in-law, Juanita is in the front row of the audience. She sent an email blast to all of us with the air times. I told you she wasn’t a blood relative!! So I am DVR’ing this program (with explicit promises to Peter that we will only just see her and shut it off) at a time when I’m sure it won’t interrupt another really important show I might be watching like Grey’s Antatomy!! LOL Now we know she is in another world.
Next, my dear friend and mentor, Joyce is in the hospital recovering from knee replacement surgery. She is in her mid-seventies and has the body and muscle tone of the someone 20 years younger but any surgery as you get older is serious. I’m happy to report that she seems to have come through it very well and may even be home tomorrow. And then rehab starts.
Lastly, we are leaving in an hour to get out to Port Jefferson, LI to attend a surprise birthday party for my daughter’s mother-in-law. Because of the misery of the snow, our car is snowed in and this being Manhattan, even if we dug it out (good thing we bought that extra shovel last week!), we would never find a parking place when we got home. The streets in Manhattan are very messy because when they plow, all the snow builds up around the cars. We have to take the LIRR and to board that train, we have to go diagonally across town to Penn Station. Believe it or not, we will be leaving our apartment at about 1:55pm and should arrive in Port Jefferson Long Island at 4:40pm. In that amount of time, I could have driven to the Jersey Shore and back or to Connecticut. And then we have to come home again. It’s going to be a long day….
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Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
Politics and Greed – The OSCARS
Posted in BY THE WAY, Friends, From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged Academy Awards, Oscars, politically correct on March 7, 2010| 1 Comment »
As promised I am going to make my predictions for the winners of tonight’s Academy Awards. So so much has been written about who will win, why they will win and who will lose. There are predictions in every major newspaper, every Oscar and Academy Award website, every “social” website, all the Twitterers are ready to tweet; Perez Hilton, The Daily Beast and dozens and dozens more. But before I add my predictions for the winners and wishes for those who won’t but in my opinion should….
I just want to quote my friend Gail who said as we were discussing how we were going to watch tonight’s show: “Greed is good “ . Peter and I were planning on going to a friend’s house along with another couple and the six of us would gather around Jim and Susan’s 40″ screen to see the show. That was of course if ABC didn’t pull out of Cablevision because they weren’t receiving enough money or any at all – who knows? All I know is we just may hosting the party with the 20″ TV without the flat screen and with a remote that can’t mute or lower the sound. Fun fun fun. Susan and Jim have come up with a couple of creative ideas – all of which are occupying most of this glorious sunny day in the Grove. They’re inside, I’m inside and the other woman is working in her shop. Later on I’m going to send Peter up the road to see if there really is a beach here. So here’s the thing; ABC must be on skids (yeah right!), the Mouse must be as poor as his cousin, the churchmouse and Cablevision must be David to the Goliaths of Verizon and Time Warner but this time David is too poor to buy any stones. Greed is Good or maybe Greed is God.
Now on the lighter more frivolous side, there is the politics of the Oscar game. We have the two Exes battling for Best Director but they have conducted themselves just way to politely to make anybody’s gossip web site. BUT maybe it would be very politically correct to have a woman win this year. Just maybe. Then there’s the politics of war itself. Unusual to have a movie made about an ongoing war isn’t it? Is it politically correct? Meryl Streep up for Best Actress in what seems to be a by a nose horse race with Sandra Bullock – Sandra Bullock?! NOT to be mean or catty but really now-she’s is just not in the same class as Meryl – BUT is the Academy getting tired of giving this grand dame of the screen yet another Oscar? Hasn’t she won enough? We’ve all been in a class, a race, a group where one person always wins and even though we know they are the best, we eventually begin to resent them. Poor Meryl- she may lose tonight because politically it would be so correct to bring Sandra Bullock into the Winner’s Circle and get some fresh new blood, uh wouldn’t it? Meryl Streep gave an outstanding performance is Julia and Julia further proving (and she doesn’t have to prove anything) that as an actress she can stretch herself across the lines to a Jewess during the Holocaust, a middle-aged woman in a torrid love affair and a hard-driving female editor and each time she totally embodies her character as she recently did as the affable and lovable Julia Child. We’ll see just how far politics goes tonight. And in the same vein, Jeff Bridges seems to have already wrapped up Best Actor although I haven’t seen it yet, the reviews all say he was marvelous in the role and hopefully he will win it because of his performance and NOT because it’s his time. When you look at the other nominees and their roles, I think he should win easily. Best Supporting Actor may have some political overtones too. Word is that Christophe Waltz will walk away with the Oscar and politically you know how easy it is to hate Nazis and he played on mean Nazi bastard – not to be confused with being a Basterd. However, it is also easy to hate a child molester, and God knows Stanley Tucci’s performance was chillingly brilliant. Personally I think that role was much harder than playing the all too familiar (almost predictable character) Nazi SS Colonel. Not sure if there is any politics involved here but I think Tucci should win but he won’t. Of course the most political of all the moves the Academy made this year was in nominating 10 movies. Not going there, already did (read a previous blog). Populist Politics seemed rampant this year – let’s see what happens tonight. The newbies in the races are there to appease the public who pays to go see movies and be entertained, however they don’t get to vote.
Here are my predictions: Best Picture – The Hurt Locker – I didn’t think any of them were Best Picture caliber except maybe Avatar with its new technology. Best Actor – Jeff Bridges – the others, no big stretch. Best Actress – Meryl Streep – I think Sandra might win after all. Best Supporting Actor – Christophe Waltz– I wish Stanley would win.Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique. Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow. Costume Design – Young Victoria– at first I thought Coco Before Channel should win but there is no denying the scope and magnificence of the designer’s period work, even though period films often do win. Cinematography- Inglourious Basterds – I’m not knowledgeable enough to really understand the requirements for this award so Avatar may win but I didn’t pick it because so much of it was computer generated. Best Original Screenplay -A Serious Man –this won’t win but to me the others were stories just waiting to be told again in film. Best Adapted Screenplay–Precious – I think it should win something (now who’s being political?) and believe the actors brought the story to life. “That’s all folks” “See you at the movies”
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