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Experiencing life in Iowa.

Director William Friedkin

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TCM was profiling director William Friedkin last night. I found that out after the closing credits rolled on the The French Connection (1971). Not being a particularly knowledgeable film buff, I’d had no idea who the director was, or that it had won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. I don’t know “good movies”, I just know what I like.

So when Ben Mankiewicz got through with that segment’s chat with Friedkin and the opening credits began to roll for To Live and Die in LA, I sat straight up. I have a pretty good eye for talent. Don’t know why. But I had just left The French Connection, a film that had always given me the vibe of “this is a serious film”. Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, the streets of New York, they can give you that impression.

The opening credits for this movie gave me the same impression. I had never heard of To Live and Die in LA back in ’85. I suppose a lot of that was I was overseas in the service at the time. It might be ‘one world’ now, but it certainly wasn’t back then. I just love a location film, and I could see it was going to be one of those. 80’s super villain Willem Dafoe was in it, I’ve always liked him. The star was William Petersen, who for me is one of those guys who you go “I know him, where is he from?”

The first thought I had was this is Miami Vice in LA! Turns out the creator of Miami Vice (Michael Mann) had thought so too and had sued Friedkin (he lost the case). I checked the IMDB ranking for both films (Connection & Die in LA), 7.7 & 7.3 respectively. That makes sense. I started noticing some holes in this new movie. It would never win the ‘big three’ Academy Awards that French Connection would. Friedkin made that one when he was a young and hungry 35. He made LA when he was 50.

The counterfeiting sequences in To Live and Die in LA are amazing. The old school artistry was incredible. Friedkin shot it in such a way that made a boring subject just fascinating. Dafoe as the master counterfeiter really helps create the aura. William Petersen as Secret Service agent ‘Richard Chance’ does a good job, but its clear after awhile why Gene Hackman’s name is a household word, and his isn’t. Its interesting Friedkin worked with Petersen numerous times, but had to be convinced about Hackman.

But this post is about the director’s career, not just one movie. Which is funny because I generally say directors have just one movie in them, they just keep remaking it in different ways. Much like authors and their one book. 3 repeating themes with Friedkin are a morally compromised ‘hero’, obsession, and a really great car chase scene. The first and last embody Friedkin in his real life. IMDB says Friedkin did parts of the car chase in French Connection on the streets of New York amongst regular drivers and pedestrians.

If true, that’s just criminal. Just like its said he would fire a gun near an actors head or slap them to get the reaction he wanted. That’s sick. You’re just playacting here, there’s absolutely no reason to harm or put people at risk. The other is the middle theme, his heroes obsession with “getting their man”. Obsession also plays a role in Friedkin’s formative movie growing up, Citizen Kane. I noticed during the interview with Ben Mankiewicz that Friedkin liked to “put on airs”. I’ve noticed that a lot with artistic people, I suppose that is necessary to create the persona of ‘genius’ or whatever.

It reminded me of a contemporary of his that TCM also profiled, director Peter Bogdanovich, who also seemed more likable as a person. Part of that I’m sure is I’m much more a fan of The Last Picture Show (Cybill Shepherd naked), What’s Up, Doc? (funny as hell) and Paper Moon (Ryan and Tatum O’Neill), than I am of serious murder death stuff. But to be fair, Friedkin in his personal life is said to have a wonderful sense of humor, it just doesn’t show up in his movies. I thought this closing little story from Forward dot com was illustrative:

If his sense of humor comes as a surprise, so does his apparent lack of sentimentality. I ask if he’s ever nostalgic. “Not really, no,” he begins. “Only for certain restaurant I used to like. There was a particular hamburger that I used to love that I used to get in a drugstore when I was a kid. Never found that taste of that hamburger since. And I still remember it. I don’t know how they did it.”

[I guess I’m a sucker for film and television that has a surface “cool factor”. Maybe everyone has a different idea what that is. For me its shows like Miami Vice, La Femme Nikita and to a lesser degree CSI Miami. Which is why I really wanted to like To Live and Die in LA, even if it turned out to be fairly cheesy. It explains why even though I watch the old movie channels, it doesn’t get played. Just kind of interesting how the same guy can go from making The Exorcist and The French Connection, to some of his later stuff, and employing Dean Stockwell.]

Danged if I know why

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Phoenix Arms Raven Model 25 from Ontario, California. Not mine. I would never have rust on a gun, but mine is like this as it is nickel with black grips.

The .25 acp Raven cost a whopping $159 or so when new. Its often derided as a “Saturday night special”, when in fact its one of the most reliable and useful guns around. Generally they are unreliable because some want to be gunsmith has screwed it up. Or its been left to rust. Or it never gets cleaned and oiled. Or its recoil spring has never been replaced. Or its firing pin spring has never been replaced. But as to the design? Its flawless. And a ton of fun to shoot. Highly concealable. I happened to get mine from a little old lady who had never shot it, so it was mint. Because I clean and lube religiously, I’ve never had a failure to feed or eject. I think a lot of it is the makers who couldn’t design a reliable gun if their life depended on it, and want to charge a mint for crap, don’t want it getting around how cheap and easy it is to build a good gun.

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Taurus PT22 Poly

Then there’s the Taurus PT22 Poly. What a mixed bag. I watched Richard at Small Caliber Arms Review take a look at one today. It ran for him like it sometimes does for me: like shit. When he used cheap Remington ‘Thunderbolt‘ (for God’s sake) it ran perfect! When he ran premium Federal Punch or Winchester Silvertip it clogged up like a gas station toilet. I put 120 rounds through mine today with bulk Winchester M-22, and it ran flawlessly! There are other times I can’t make it through an 8 round magazine without 3 jams. Generally if your .22 LR won’t run on CCI Mini Mags, it ain’t gonna run. I literally do not understand it. How one day it can run like a Glock, and the next day like a Taurus. Just do not understand it. I clean it the same, I lube it the same, I load the magazines the same way. And one day its the gun from hell, and the next I want to keep it forever. Which gun is going to show up on the day you might someday need it?

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The gold standard by which all other .22 LR ammo is judged

“I caught you a delicious bass”

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Napoleon Dynamite

17 years ago history (and a fairly entertaining movie) was made. Like a lot of formulaic movies that put you through 2 hours (1:36:00) of hell so that the climax will be… climactic. Kind of like putting a horse down, it ends the suffering. It all comes together in the end though. What really impressed me was that it was made for around $400,000, and it grossed around $90,000,000. That’s what impressed me (and Napoleon’s dance scene at the end).

Originality stands out. 23 nominations and 10 wins worth. And it was pretty much ‘G’ Rated. The director Jared Hess was only 24 when he made it. The star John Heder was 2 years older than the director! (John Heder drew all the drawings in the movie except the unicorn) Having just seen the ending, it reminded me of how all the dysfunction merges into a happy ending. “Sorry I’m late, I just got done taming a wild honeymoon stallion for you guys.”

The appeal seemed more to men then women. I keep coming back to when Nap dangles the action figure from the moving school bus. But then there’s that scene from the picture above when Napoleon and Deb fight through all the relationship roadblocks, and look like they are going to be an item. If like me though, you’re really hoping they don’t have kids.

I just realized yesterday looking through the IMDB pages for the director and the stars, most of them seemed to be ‘one hit wonders’. Basing this on absolutely nothing, I can’t help but wonder if a lot of it isn’t Hollywood’s animosity to indies? Independent productions often turn out to be wildly successful, thereby making the big studios look stupid.

pronounced “shPAH-chek” 

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poster art of Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in ‘Badlands’

Badlands is set in 1959, based loosely on real events (The story is fictional but is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958 – Wikipedia). Which is interesting as another real life event made into a movie was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which took place the next year, 1959. The murder of the Kansas family the Clutter’s, by Richard Hickok and Perry Smith. You don’t think of 1950’s America as having psychopathic coldblooded killers, but they most certainly did.

Badlands came out in 1973. Sheen of course does a nice job as the son of a bitch ‘Kit‘. But neither the story or the movie is particularly noteworthy. I’ve never been into Tarantino type butchery on the big screen. But I have always been fascinated with Sissy Spacek. She would have been 23 when this was made in 1972. Her character ‘Holly’ was 15, so its a bit of a stretch there. Sissy would most likely never show up on anyone’s “most beautiful” lists (that came out wrong), but undoubtedly would appear on any man’s sexiest woman list. She wasn’t even photographed particularly well in Badlands, but she still comes through.

Much in the same way three years later in Carrie. Its hard to look ravishing when a bucket of pig’s blood is dumped on your head, but she pulls it off. Right before Badlands she did a couple of Waltons, I still remember those. She’s just very memorable. Something about a coquettish strawberry blonde with freckles. Born Christmas Day of 1949 in Quitman, Texas, she has that wonderful southern accent. That doesn’t hurt. 20 years old in 1969, she was just the quintessential slender blonde hippy girl. That stood out.

“The art director on Badlands was Jack Fisk, with whom she would marry in 1974 and ultimately collaborate on eight films. Sissy followed this landmark film with a star-making and Oscar nominated performance in Carrie (1976), in which she played a humiliated prom queen who goes postal with her telekinesis.” – IMDB

“Was Homecoming Queen of her Senior Class in High School.”

“When I started out in independent films in the early 70s, we did everything for the love of art. It wasn’t about money and stardom. That was what we were reacting against. You’d die before you’d be bought.”

from Badlands

Gotta give them credit

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Italian primers

Gotta love it, Warhorse Munitions out of Green Bay, Wisconsin is charging .20 cents a primer (they should be about .08 cents) for small pistol primers. I sent them a nasty gram via postcard today. Then I realized, give them their due, at least they went to Italy and got some. MidwayUSA and Brownells sit there like a bump on a log waiting for what crumbs CCI throws them. Midsouth Shooters Supply doesn’t even do that much.

By checking Midway and Brownells 3 times a day the past month like some sort of possessed madman, I’ve been able to pick up 6,000 primers, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on them. The whole thing is such a shock as I’m old enough to remember when you could walk into a store and buy anything you wanted. But when I saw Warhorse was charging even more than Zincpoint, I blew a gasket! .20 cents is about what you should pay for an entire round, not for a primer!

And to Zincpoint’s credit, they went down to Argentina and got primers. The rest of the ammunition industry just sits there and lets the Second Amendment blow away.

WARHORSE MUNITIONS COMPANY INC
5293 Edgewater Beach Road
Green Bay, WI 54311
Telephone: 920-680-7263

“Its going to get bad, but not the way you think”

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The City Prepping channel strikes me as a good one. Its not one of those ‘hair on fire’, run screaming out the door and shooting at everything that moves channels. Being all tactical and that. ‘Range Rider’ had a great comment: “You can’t do everything, but do what you can with what you have.” My thought was a good one, know Jesus as chances are good you’ll die, so don’t miss out on the ultimate prep. ‘Kris’ (the host) had a good point. God forbid we do face a severe crisis, much of it could be a physical challenge. Essentially he was saying that there are no fat survivalists. You better be in shape. This is going to be Darwin’s finest hour (that takes me out).

There are a handful of key items that without which, everything else falls apart. Linch pins if you will. Generator. Without electricity, your gas stove, gas water heater, gas furnace, none of it works. And refrigerator obviously. Garden. Gardens are great, but it won’t be up and running for 4 months. Security. Having a ton of ammo and being good with a gun is great, but what about when you have to leave home? Are you going to time it so someone is always home? Have neighbors on each side watch for burglars? Food & water. Obvious. Transportation. You can’t safely keep enough gas on hand to run your car for very long. But what about a moped? A bike with a good carrier?

Thinking back to the ‘Derecho‘ (severe wind storm) we experienced here 15 months ago, I was reminded how completely unprepared the city (and me) is for even a little disaster. Power was out. No gas stations. No grocery stores. No radio. No TV. No emergency broadcasts (how can a radio station not have a generator?). They had absolutely no plan to ensure any critical facilities were prepared to operate without city electricity. Nobody had a damn generator! The sum total of city preparedness was to take a generator to a park and let people charge their cell phones! I am not shitting you! A lot of people were without power for 5 days.

Remembering the Derecho last August helped solidify my thinking on a couple of fronts. 5 days is a good time frame to be prepared for absolutely no outside help. And when you’re trying to decide what size generator to buy, while a ‘whole house’ generator that would power central air, electric stoves and hairdryers would be nice ($2,000), a $750 dollar one will get you by. You can make do just powering your fans and a frig in the summertime. And if its winter and you have a gas furnace, its nothing to power a blower. Now if you have electric heat, that’s another thing.

It seemed like about everyone was without power for nearly a day. A lot for 3 days. And a few were out for 6. But a lot of the confusion was caused by not knowing who was open for critical needs (gas stations and grocery stores). There was no central information hub, and for a lot of people no electricity or internet to get there even if there was. Or radio station.

“If the L.A. riots taught me anything, it’s that the safest place to be is in a book store. I drove along Sunset Blvd. after the riots and all the stores around the local Crown Books had been looted, yet that store was intact. But apparently all night long, not one person wanted a book or knew anyone else who wanted one either.”

“We saw how people will react over toilet paper. Can you imagine when people get hungry?”

“Some will doubt what you say about who people will become. After 3 days of snow and no power or water, a normally rather pleasant neighbor came to our door crying, screaming, and cursing like an angry Marine. She demanded immediate assistance since our lights and heat ran on generator. A minor event made her crazy. I’m a believer.”

“In 1906, Alfred Henry Lewis stated, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.”

[Its easy to get caught up in the adrenaline rush of doomsday role playing. This morning City Prepper was talking about “why it might be a harsh winter!” Ya think? Yeah it generally gets cold in the winter. Now you’re into weather forecasting? Another of his was: “5 things to get before SHTF!” I got through 3; food, metals, crypto, before an ad came on and I said to hell with it. They all love to act like they know how a never before seen event is going to play out. Gimme a break.]

Boom town

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New Yorker profile on actor Mark Metcalf

The New Yorker’s politics might suck, but my gosh they know how to do a wonderful profile. Simply riveting. Like any boomer I knew Mark Metcalf (without knowing his name) as ‘Neidermeyer‘ from the film Animal House (1978). Animal House was a fairly bad film which was hugely popular with us young guys (we got to see lots of boobs you don’t see in the TV version). He was a young guy back then, now he is old (sure glad that didn’t happen to me).

Later on in the 80’s he would reprise that role in a very popular ‘Twisted Sister’ video. He likely “made” the video, without him its just another ‘meh’ video. Then that was it. He kept busy the next 40 years, but nothing earth shaking. As he puts it in the video, “The year I die, when The Academy Awards does their in ‘memoriam’, I want my picture to be up there.” Classic.

But to the video (its a 16 minute short film really), the production values are incredible. They basically turn Mark loose with that really great voice of his, and let him explain the emotions of his life. The ‘edge’ is still there. Fading perhaps, but there. Reading between the lines, and knowing Hollywood, you wonder how much of an impact his drinking had on his career? You have to figure a talent such as his could have turned down the ‘Neidermeyer’ a little bit if he’d wanted to.

But then that’s kind of the point of the film, did he want to?

What’s with all the trees?

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Ames Municipal Cemetery at east 9th and Maxwell

When I walked through the cemetery this morning at East 9th and Maxwell (in Ames), I couldn’t help but notice the hundreds of new trees being planted there right now. I confirmed when I got home that spring is the time to plant trees, not late fall. Then I wondered why a cemetery would plant so many trees, as one tree would take out a minimum of 4 potential grave sites? Assuming they realize they’re a cemetery and not a forest. Then I wondered, who authorized the purchase? Does someone in city government have a spouse with a tree farm? Or did the trees come from the State Forest Nursery? The timing and amount of trees seems suspect to me. 

It just reminded me of when the taxpayers built Ada Hayden so Friedrich could sell lakefront homes. I’ll always wonder who’s getting what money from where. (Do you have any idea how much home prices go up when you put “lakefront” in front of it?) Trees don’t grow on – well, you know what I mean. This town exists for the enrichment of housing developers.

Not to mention once you reach a certain point with tree density, grass won’t grow. Further exacerbating the erosion problem they’re already experiencing on the east boundary. Frankly, I think they forgot they’re a cemetery. They’re supposed to plant bodies not trees. By planting the ridiculous number of trees they have, they’ve eliminated hundreds (thousands) of grave sites.

[Young trees can easily cost $200 – $500 (or more) apiece.]

Harlem Globetrotters

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Great times they were. I remember them from the 70’s. They even had a Saturday morning cartoon, and a pinball machine! They were on a lot of times on Saturday afternoons on ABC’s Wide World of Sports whupping up on the Washington Generals. Meadowlark Lemon would pull the shorts down of the General at the free throw line, and Curly Neal would steal the ball and run down for a layup!

Gosh that was fun stuff. One of them would get in a pretend tiff with another Globetrotter, he’d grab the bucket of water that was for some reason beside the bench, run after him, the one being chased would duck and the confetti would fly into the audience! The crowd would be relieved. Then 30 minutes later it would happen again. The crowd where the bucket was about to thrown would think okay here comes the confetti, then this time it would be a real bucket of water!

Their basketball skills were incredible. “The Harlem Globetrotters is an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play. They have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories. The team’s signature song is Brother Bones’ whistled version of “Sweet Georgia Brown.” – Wkipedia (founded 1926)

The lineup from around the time I remember was: Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal, Hubert Ausbie, Marques Haynes, Goose Tatum, Louis Dunbar, Twiggy Sanders. Apologies for not finding all the names from the right period. Data is actually hard to find for specific periods. I imagine the act is a bit harder to put on today with the political correctness requirement.

An interesting note from their history was they played real basketball on a “barnstorming circuit” up through the 1950’s, then when the NBA started to take in black players they had to put more of the focus on the comedy routine and play for fun. “In 2000 the team returned to competitive play with a series of exhibition games against top collegiate teams.” That would have been fun to see.

The Globetrotters came to mind recently with the current political happenings in Washington. Rush a few years back started using the analogy of the Republicans as the Washington Generals, the Globetrotters hapless opponent. The GOP always loses and the Democrats make them look stupid along the way. Its a perfect analogy.

The great experiment

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Rock Island Armory 1911 GI Standard FS, Semi-automatic, 9mm, 5" Barrel, 10+1 Rounds - 721952, Semi-Automatic at Sportsman's Guide
Rock Island 1911 in 9mm is a smooth shooter. You reload some soft shooting rounds, say 850 fps, and its like shooting butter. Butter! Plus a 1911 just feels like a man gun.

A week ago rifle primers appeared on a store’s website I go to, Brownell’s. I’d heard you could use small rifle primers in place of small pistol. So I tried it. The gun blew up and my dog died! No just kidding. They worked great. The industry just won’t come out and give any guidance on the idea, so you’re reduced to chat boards on gun forums. The best I could pick up is that the primer ‘cup’ was slightly thicker on rifle primers to withstand the greater pressures. It wasn’t really clear if rifle primers had more “explosive” agent in them or not. There was a lot of talk about “backing off your load“. That seems rather silly to me as I don’t see how a primer is going to change X amount of powder and the force it delivers.

The only concern I had as I was loading them last night was what it might do to the flash hole (the hole into the case where the primer sits). But from checking spent factory cases and comparing them to the 20 test cases I’d fired with rifle primers, there was absolutely no difference in size or condition of the flash hole. So it looks like I’m good to go and didn’t waste my money buying a 1,000. The obvious question is why would you do it? Well when I haven’t seen a primer in 18 months, and you have no idea when you might see them again, you do things. Luckily this one worked out. In fact I don’t know when I’ve shot a smoother 9mm load. 3.5 grains of 244 Ball under a 124 gr FMJ for 940 fps.

Until these primers showed up at Brownell’s and Midway, I was seriously thinking of taking a gamble and ordering those Argentinian primers (Servicios) from Zinc Point outside of Houston, and paying $200 dollars for $100 dollars worth of primers. And not knowing if you would even get them! I was embarrassed for buying the amount I did. But considering you don’t know what the future holds, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. I’ve been in an ammo line outside a store before the doors open. Its not fun. Its not fun having to spend all that time making your own, but its a hell of a lot better than not having any at all. We have no idea what the situation is going to be 5 years from now. The several thousand primers I bought in 2012 after the last shortage, is what got me through this shortage. They sat on a shelf just fine for 9 years.

And the funniest thing about all this! Canada is swimming in primers! They’ll never SELL all the primers they have! What happened to all that free trade? Why aren’t they selling them to us? You know – NAFTA

[On a side note, the 9mm 115 gr FMJ, the ‘loaf of bread’ of ammo seems to have stabilized at $31.6 cents a round on Ammo Seek. Which is exactly double what best price was this time 2 years ago.]