I Gotta Get Out of This Place!

Four more days of work to go before I can head off into the high country. Yeah, I'm gettin' really agitated to get the hell out of Dodge. (Dodge bein' Charlotte, North Carolina.)

I can only take so much of the urban landscape before I can't stands no more. It's reached that point. If I can just make it through the work week, then it's off for five days of camping and hiking and relaxing in the high country.

Until then, I've been gazing at old waterfall photos from past trips.

Along the Virginia Creeper Trail. That's Cindi Aiken and her daughter, Emily beside the falls. Roy and their son, James are in the vegetation higher up.

Emily Aiken at Backbone Rock Falls.

Me, at Backbone Rock Falls, in Tennessee, but very close to Damascus, Virginia . This is pretty much my all-time favorite waterfall.

This waterfall is beside the highway near Beartree Recreation Area near Damascus Virginia. It has a name, but I've forgotten it.

Mouse Creek Falls in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Midnight Hole, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is my all-time favorite swimming hole. There's not a better place to go swimming in a mountain stream.

COLA

For those of you too unfortunate to have a non-union job, a "COLA" is a Cost of Living Adjustment. None of my friends who work non-union jobs get those. Instead, they get the shaft. My wife has a non-union job. She's lucky if she gets a very tiny raise of a few cents per hour once or twice per year.

Because I have a union working to negotiate contracts for the rank and file, we are treated far better than folk who work non-union jobs. Whenever I read articles about various places voting to not have a union brought in, and then see photos or video of the workers celebrating, I am always horrified. What are they celebrating? That they will continued to get shafted? It's insane.


At any rate, my pay just went up almost $1500 per year. In one quarter. All because of the inflation wrought by the morons who currently run this madhouse of a nation. None of my friends who have non-union jobs got squat. They have to pay these ever-inflating prices with no way to moderate the negative costs to them and their families. But given the chance, they'd still likely vote to discount collective bargaining in their own workplaces. I reckon the citizens of the USA won't be happy until we're all eking out poverty wages while living in toxic communities packed with fouled water and unbreathable air.

I got on the Internet to read the news this morning. I don't watch or read any mass media USA so-called "news". This nation's corporate-owned news organizations disgust me beyond description.

At any rate, the headline on BBC was this.

The headline at CNN was this.

The USA is a nation of religious morons. It sickens me more every day.

A Rare Lazy Day

It was very hot today, but I had the day off and the wind was kicking up pretty good. Perhaps some residual effect from Tropical Depression Ike. Who knows?

We drove out to my wife's mom's place. She hasn't seen Carole since before Carole's recent surgery, and I wanted to muck about a bit with my Casita travel trailer. I installed the digital tuner on the flatscreen TV in the trailer, but pretty much took it easy just walking around the property and watching some football on the TV.

We figure that, eventually, we'll retire there. Carole grew up in the house, it's still basically out in the country (or at least at the edge of the Charlotte area urban sprawl). The lot's rather large, the house is nice, and we'd be comfortable out there. We'll see.

At any rate, I even took a day off from working on the new novel. It was that lazy a day. I need more of those.

The side yard, driveway, parking area. The huge grassy area was once the location of the vast gardens Carole's dad would plant and harvest every year. We'll do the same when (if) we move there one of these days.

The house from the front. Carole lived here from the age of 18 months until we married.

Part of the vast back yard which is quite striking in Spring when the azaleas and dogwoods are in full bloom.

This is one of the big hemlocks Carole's dad planted as a seedling. Now well over forty feet tall.

Pancho & Lefty

Pancho & Lefty
with apologies to Wayne Sallee

My wife works in a hospital where she's a surgical tech. One night, a couple of years ago, this guy STAGGERS in quite literally writhing in pain. Seems he was suffering from something of which I'd never heard before that moment, and hope never to hear of again. TWISTED TESTICLE SYNDROME (aka Testicular torsion). They had to make an incision in his abdomen and go in and untwist it (or remove it or whatever).

While she was trying to explain this malady to me and my then-teenaged son, we were howling with laughter as she labored to explain how such things happen by way of hand motions. Andy and I could NOT stop laughing. Finally, we started riffing on the whole TWISTED TESTICLE term. Between howls of laughter, I stated that it sounded like a heavy metal rock band name.

Then Andy, veteran of many a rock concert, suddenly goes into a high pitched rock 'n' roll voice and says, "WHOA! HEY, CLEVELAND! IT'S GREAT TO BE HERE!"

And it took me about fifteen minutes to stop laughing.

That's Claghorn, Son!

"That's...I say, that's Claghorn, son! Not Leghorn! Look at me when I'm talkin' to ya, boy!"

The entertainment and publishing world is packed floor to ceiling with sad tales of creative folk who were cheated out of their works by those less talented, but far more ruthless.

By now everyone knows how comics creators such as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Superman), Jack Kirby (Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Hulk, Avengers, X-Men, etc.), Steve Ditko (Spider-Man, Dr. Strange) were cheated out of the comic book characters they concocted while others turned unimaginable profits from the sweat of their brows.

And, of course, the film industry has its share of these kinds of stories, too. One such tale is that of Kenny Delmar. Delmar was principally known in the late 40s and early 50s as a radio actor and announcer, working mainly for the Fred Allen Show. And Delmar's stroke of genius as an actor and performer was his creation of the bombastic southern gentleman, Senator Beauregard Claghorn.

Delmar, performing as Claghorn came up with a signal accent, voice, demeanor, and repertoire which made him imminently identifiable and irresistably imitable. Anyone and everyone had to do their own versions of Delmar's Senator Claghorn. In fact, the character was so popular and so easy to do that Warner Brothers soon purloined the Senator in rooster's clothing with voice by Mel Blanc and reintroduced him as Foghorn Leghorn, which is the way most of the public today knows the voice and mannerisms of Delmar's wacky southern senator.


The moral crime in all of this is that, after a time, Warner Brothers trademarked the Foghorn Leghorn character, mannerisms and all, and when Delmar tried to do his Claghorn character thereafter, he was barred from doing so without the express permission of Warner Brothers!

This went on for a number of years. Here was the actor Kenny Delmar who had created the character, and yet he was not allowed to use it. This had to be a major disappointment for Kenny Delmar in the years after radio comedy faded away and he found himself unable to cash in on his most well-known creation. Delmar struggled with the big corporation for a long time before he was finally able to start using that voice and character again.

When, in 1960, he was allowed to cash in on the persona, he was heard as the voice of the hound dog, The Hunter in the cartoon series of that name which appeared on the cartoon show King Leonardo and Friends.

So the next time you hear the Foghorn Leghorn voice, or anyone imitating it, be aware that its creator was not a major motion picture studio, that it was not Mel Blanc. It was, in fact, a fine performer whose name was Kenny Delmar.

Funniest Cartoon. Ever.

I'm a sucker for cartoons. I love 'em. Always have. Of course I grew up sitting in front of the "glass teat" (as Harlan Ellison so perfectly said it) since I was a wee bairn. And it was cartoons and dinosaurs and famous monsters that shaped me into the critter I yam today.


I like lots of cartoons. Some directors were better than others. Avery, Clampett, McKimson. Very funny guys who knew how to make an entertaining toon. And there are some cartoons today that I quite enjoy. The first couple of seasons of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS were loads of fun and I unashamedly watch them often.


But the funniest cartoon I ever watched in my entire life was an episode of REN & STIMPY called "Space Madness". I'm not big on dissecting stuff. I'm a blunt instrument kind of guy. If you ask me why BLADE RUNNER is my favorite movie, I will probably say something like, "It was perfectly logical." If you ask me why I don't like (you name the movie), I will say something like "It sucked monkey turds!"


I just don't like to investigate stuff too thoroughly. It ain't in my nature.


I've watched SPACE MADNESS a number of times trying to figure out why it makes me laugh. And when push comes to shove, I have to say something very simple:


It's the illustrations.


Well, that makes sense, because it's a cartoon. Just about the most visual medium there is or ever was. It has to have great illustrations to be funny. But this cartoon just goes over every freaking ledge. It punches every button and closes every circuit. Yeah, the voices are great, and the delivery is excellent, and the script kicked ass, but it's those images that smack the funny bone, big time. When I first saw the script for it, I was floored by its simplicity. Not much dialogue at all, which surprised me because every time I'd seen the cartoon with friends I was generally laughing too hard to examine the spoken lines.


I see that SPACE MADNESS is available for free all over the Internet. Sometimes sites are taken quickly down, but, virus-like, they pop up somewhere else. But go ahead and buy the DVDs and get it over with. There's never been a cartoon show quite like the original run of REN & STIMPY, and there was never a better episode than SPACE MADNESS.


As if the comic book industry wasn't already stupid enough.


Here's something that has bothered me for a long time. The great Daffy Duck cartoons of the World War II years were fantastic. They are funny and amazing and totally entertaining. And Daffy is just that: daffy.

Fast forward to the late 50s and early 60s, and suddenly Daffy is no longer daffy, but has become a schmuck. Some of those are still great cartoons, but he's pretty much a loser in the later cartoons, rather than the crazed critter who got away with everything. At any rate, it's something that has always bothered me, and I've wondered why the change in the character was made.

Daffy Duck as a daffy duck:

Baby Bottleneck Scene by voiceman91

Daffy Duck & Porky Pig - Baby Bottleneck

Daffy Duck as a schmucky duck:

Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck - Rabbit Fire

Prior Claim

Cat Watching

Lilly, trying to inch toward Sophie's food dish.

Sophie is our oldest cat. Ten years old, and no matter how much love and attention we give her...well...she's crazy as shit.

Any little thing bugs her. If you feed her and make an unintentional motion, or push a chair with your foot, or cough...she runs away and hides. If she squeaks for attention and you bend down to pet her, you have to do it very slowly. Too quick and she runs away and hides. If anyone knocks on the door, she runs away and hides. No casual visitor to our house has ever seen her.

She hates Marley, the male cat whom we adopted. If Marley comes into the house, she will hiss at him and then run away and hide. If Marley enters her last redoubt in my office, she will scream at him so loud that you can hear her from outside the house. If she's in a position to get past Marley in such a situation, she will run away and hide.

However, she does seem to tolerate Lilly. We suspect that it's for two reasons. Because Lilly is a female and she came into the house as a very tiny kitten and Lilly has never appeared as a physical threat to Sophie. Sophie never runs from Lilly (except on rare occasions when they play), but she does hiss at her quite a lot and slap her from time to time. I have never seen her run away and hide from Lilly, although she will hop down from the bed in a huff if Lilly comes in the bedroom and invades Sophie's space with us.
Marley, on the other hand, enjoys Lilly's company. He puts up with Lilly jumping on him and throwing her arms around his neck and generally bugging the shit out of him. He lets her eat out of his food dish.

Sophie will not allow anyone to share her food dish with her. If Lilly tries to do this, she will hiss at Lilly and slap the crap out of her. But Lilly will often inch up to the feasting Sophie and lie on the floor beside the food dish and pretend that she's not really interested. Of course if she persists, Sophie will hiss at her and slap her silly and chase her away (as she does in this series of photographs).

"I thought she'd never leave."

Next Year...

When I was a little kid--from about eight years old until around twelve or so--I used to beg my parents to take me to Yellowstone National Park. I didn't care if the rest of the family went, or not. I just wanted my parents to take me there. Leave the rest of the brood at home, for all I cared.

When I was in the third grade I lived in a really nice working class neighborhood in Decatur, Georgia. At school, sometimes the other kids would bring photo albums to show in class. Routinely, I would meet up with kids whose parents took a long driving vacation every summer, and quite a few of them had toured out west to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park and Yosemite National Park. Those seemed to be the big three that I kept encountering in the photo albums.

But it was Yellowstone that had captured my kid's imagination. I'd see photographs of Old Faithful. I'd see pictures of amazing mountains about five times bigger than any mountain I'd ever seen in Georgia.

These other kids would show off images of bison wandering around in open fields; of elk walking through their campsites; of grizzly bears ambling up to their cars! I had to go!

So I'd head home after school and just kind of mention it to my mom or dad. "Hey. Have you guys ever seen Yellowstone National Park? No? Don't you think we should drive out there some time?"

A Dennis the Menace issue that I found in my dad's stock of old comics only exacerbated the problem. One Vacation Special dealt with Dennis and his family traveling to all of the great western National Parks, including Yellowstone. Oh, how I wanted to ride along!

Alas. Despite bugging them about it year after year, it never happened.

I never walked around thinking we were poor, but we obviously didn't have what it took to head west for weeks at a time. I stopped mentioning the whole Yellowstone deal to them around the seventh grade or so. There it has remained for me all this time. Just a dream. Just something to think about doing some day in the future.


When I was self-employed it was just plain impossible to get away long enough to go to a National Park more than 1,000 miles away. Even if I'd flown I'd have had to return to my shop in quick order. Then, when I closed down my retail store I was just too gotdamned poor to so much as think about going such a distance.

Well, we've decided it must be done. We're going to go. We ain't gettin' any younger. In 2009 it's going to happen. All that we're debating now is whether we're going to hook up the Casita and drive out for a four-week tour of Yellowstone/Grand Tetons and some other parks, or whether we'll fly in to some airport, rent a car, and stay in several National Park lodges while we go roaming around the park lands.

At any rate, I'll finally get to share space with grizzlies.

"Yeah, Bob. Head on out. Go for a long hike in a meadow. Heh."

Sometimes Sad is Good

I mentioned the film SORCERER yesterday here on my blog. It's an intensely sad and depressing film,but no less worthwhile for all that. Sometimes the impact of sadness is what's needed.

Along with SORCERER I include a couple of other movies as my favorite "sad" films. These are movies which, through plot, and story, and performance, leave the viewer with a feeling of overwhelming sadness and depression, but which are so powerful and so well wrought that it's impossible to forget them or dismiss them.

First in this realm of sad movies is the Lee Marvin film, MONTE WALSH. I've been told that this was remade for television, but I have no desire to see a secondary attempt at what was already a work of art. This is something that has always been a mystery to me. Why would you want to remake a film that's already been done; and perfectly, at that.



In MONTE WALSH, Lee Marvin plays a character that was pretty much the perfect foil for him. There is something about Marvin's personality and voice and movements that made this role a priceless one in his career. We meet and know this old-time cowboy and his fellows as the world grows far too small for them. In addition to Marvin as the title character, the movie was additionally well cast with all of the other roles, and with tremendously evocative performances from Jeanne Moreau, Jack Palance, Mitch Ryan, Bo Hopkins, and others. While the film involves itself in the extinction of a way of life and in the dissolution of one man, it remains so powerful an experience that it's worth the time. This would be the #1 film on my all-time list of sad movies.

Second on this list is a more recent film and one which remains largely unknown when I mention it to other film fans. HOMEBOY was written by the star of the movie, Mickey Rourke. In this movie, he plays a club fighter, Johnny Walker, who's at the end of a brutal career moving from bout to bout. He's punch drunk and adrift, but in this later part of his life he's given a chance at actual training and physical conditioning for the first time, and has found friendship and a love along the way. Rourke's performance as the aging boxer is probably the best of his own career. I reckon he knew enough of these brain damaged athletes to write about them convincingly and to portray one of them so perfectly.


Once again, if you're feeling depressed or can't handle a major downer, I would avoid this movie. But if you want to watch a supremely human experience on film, then HOMEBOY is definitely a must-see priority.

Unfortunately, I don't think that either of these films is currently available on DVD here in the USA. We'll just have to wait.


Speaking of sad, Alex Ness recently requested that I take part in an interview of former comic book retailers. He asked me some pertinent questions which I was quite happy to answer. If you're so inclined, you can read them here.

Roy Scheider, Lost Sorcerer

Roy Scheider, Lost Sorcerer

It's sad, sometimes, to see the career of a fine actor sidelined by influences far beyond his control. Roy Scheider was one such actor. He turned in amazing performances in a number of great films, and then I watched him basically fade from the silver screen, and for reasons which I can hardly claim to know or understand. He did take on a rather harsh physical aspect as he aged, so perhaps that had something to do with the scarcity of starring roles in his later years. Scheider also had the extreme misfortune to get wrapped up in some truly awful projects, but whether that was because of poor judgment on his part, or out of desperation, or the luck of the draw I can't say.

What I can say is that he was an extremely fine actor.

My favorite single performance would have to be his turn as Henry "Doc" Levy, the totally freaking scary Jewish secret agent in the Dustin Hoffman/Laurence Olivier vehicle MARATHON MAN. He was a supporting character in that film, but he was absolutely believable as a canny badass intelligence officer. This role came in 1976. This was five years after THE FRENCH CONNECTION and three years before ALL THAT JAZZ. The 70s, I reckon, were the best years for this formidable actor.

But the best Roy Scheider movie that I ever saw was SORCERER, directed by William Friedkin who had, of course, directed THE FRENCH CONNECTION. I've been told that the movie was supposed to have starred Steve McQueen, who would, I'm sure, have been quite effective in the role. But I'm glad the part ended up in the hands of Roy Scheider.

SORCERER is easily one of the most depressing films I've ever witnessed. One can believe that the inhabitants of the South American jungle village in which the movie takes place are, in fact, lost souls trapped in the lowest dungeon of Hell. Scheider is there because he was stupid enough to try to rip off the Mob. His fellow damned are all there for various, if similar, reasons. All rotting away in this hideously filthy, wet, tropical hole.

In fact, the environment around the actors is pretty much a character itself. The drenching skies loom constantly over the scenes. The jungle presses in everywhere and throws down, big time, every chance it gets. Trees block the road. Vines inhibit movement. Rain washes away the route. Rot is a constant and overbearing menace.

One of the more striking images from the movie involves the crossing by one of the large trucks used in the film (to move desperately needed dynamite) on a rope bridge over a raving whitewater jungle river. How this scene was shot is beyond me. It certainly wasn't classic special effects, and I can't figure out how it was done unless...well, unless the director had someone actually drive a multi-ton truck on a rotting rope suspension bridge over a raging whitewater river in the middle of a monstrous jungle. It remains one of the most tension-bound film experiences that I can recommend.

Some truly scary shit.

If you've never seen SORCERER, starring Roy Scheider, do yourself a favor and nab a copy. One of Friedkin's finest efforts, and certainly (for me) the best movie Roy Scheider ever made (and that's a hell of a statement).

The Watchmen Graphic Novel: the revisionist superhero model at its finest. Buy a copy. Join the folk who have made it a comeback best seller. Give Alan Moore more royalties so that he never has to accept movie money.

Breakin' Da Roolz

What can I say? I had the entire gorge to myself. It was kind of scary as night fell.

Sometimes I break my own self-imposed rules when I go backpacking. One of these rules, which I interpret as part of the "leave no trace" ethic, is to not build campfires.

Generally, I do a good job of abstaining from building fires. Most of the time I can't stand to be around campfires when I'm backpacking. On a trip a couple of years ago I set up my tent in Deep Gap along the Black Mountain Crest Trail. Having been the first person to arrive in the gap, I set up my tent in what was, arguably, the best spot there. By late afternoon about half a dozen other hikers arrived and set up their tents. A pair of couples decided to build a campfire just upwind from me. So I had to suffer through about two hours of their attempts to start a fire. While they were ultimately unsuccessful, for quite a while I had to breathe their freaking smoke while they tried to get the damp wood to ignite (it had just rained rather hard just before their arrival). I could have showed them how to build a proper fire, but I didn't want one in the gap. I wanted total darkness. I did not want the trappings of fires and such ruining the wilderness experience for me.

However, this past year, I broke my own rule not to build a campfire. I had hiked down into the Linville Gorge Wilderness Area. Once at the bottom of the gorge, I searched for a decent campsite and found quite a good one. Level, forested, and adjacent to the Linville River. It not only had a tremendous pre-existing fire ring, someone had built a nice bench out of stones and driftwood. So I set up there.

Pretty soon I began to realize that I seemed to have the entire gorge to myself. Not only hadn't I seen any other humans, I hadn't heard any other people. For whatever reason, I began to feel lonely. I looked at the fire ring and figured I couldn't do any more harm to the ground than had already been done, and decided to build a campfire. As I was beside the river, there was absolutely no shortage at all of tinder-dry driftwood.

In short order I had collected up huge piles of fire wood and the stuff with which to start a blaze. A few minutes later I had a good fire going, and soon I was tossing in larger and larger logs. There are times when a good fire almost seems like company.

Looking Glass Falls

There are signs ALL AROUND THIS WATERFALL telling you NOT to climb on it and FOR GOD'S SAKE NOT TO JUMP OFF OF IT! However...

A Fucking Moron Fucking Dies

Here's one of our all-time favorite campgrounds. In addition to this being a kickass campground, you are smack in the middle of the Mount Rogers Recreation Area, which is packed bottom to top with outdoor recreation. You could spend an entire summer here and still not do everything worth doing in this tiny corner of southwestern Virginia.

As if I needed one more reason.

Talents...

Is it just me, or do Harlan Ellison...

and Frankie Valli...

look alike?

Doing Like Mister Bear

A Bob Underwood by Any Other Name is Still a Bob Underwood

When I was a kid and first hiking and backpacking in the southern Appalachians, it was routine for me to dip my metal cup into the nearest spring or mountain stream and drink the fresh water I'd find there. I never got sick from that, and neither did any of my hiking companions who also did the same. These days, it's just not worth the risk. The reason is, I think, because so many people go hiking and backpacking, and like the proverbial bear, you have to poop in the woods. These days, you have to filter or chemically treat all the water you encounter, no matter how safe it may seem.

Yes, even I have to take a BobUnderwood when I go backpacking.

Unfortunately, all of that poop can create problems. But the responsible hiker/backpacker can help to keep the wilderness as clean as possible. Here's what I do when I have to take a BobUnderwood in the wilderness.

First of all I always have a little hand shovel that I use to dig a shallow trench, preferably in good dark soil, and as far away from any water source as possible. Try to make sure that you're a good 100 yards or so from water. Using the hand shovel, I lift up a chunk of forest loam about ten inches by ten inches and try to keep a large section of loam intact to use to refill the trench when I've finished taking my BobUnderwood.

After digging my BobUnderwood trench, I take a big BobUnderwood in it. When I'm done, I always use my biodegradable BobUnderwood paper. I toss the used BobUnderwood paper down into the BobUnderwood trench. Then I put the soil back in and carefully tamp it down. Tamping it down, which sounds gross, is supposed to speed the breakdown of the big, smelly BobUnderwood.

Another thing I carry with me is a squeeze bottle of waterless soap which has a very high alcohol content and is a great disinfectant, just in case you may have gotten a speck of BobUnderwood on your hands.

Yes, like the bears, we all have to BobUnderwood in the woods.