Author Archives: Iowa Life

About Iowa Life

Experiencing life in Iowa.

The Jazz Singer

Not one of the numerous remakes, but the Jazz Singer (1927). I had never seen it. I was aware of it from cultural references, and the fact TCM loves to talk about it. From the discussions on TCM my only take away was that the jazz singer as part of his schtick was to dress up in blackface and make fun of black people. That wasn’t the impression I got at all. To me it was more about having to hide himself from his repressive and domineering Father, who was an Orthodox zealot that wanted his son to follow in his footsteps as a ‘cantor’ (synagogue singer).

The movie shows part of his childhood, how young Jakie Rabinowitz was born to sing and had show business in his blood. I actually found the 13 year old Jakie played by Robert Gordon to be much more appealing, talented and innovative. His dance moves and singing voice were quite interesting (he was doing a Michael Jackson thing with his shoulders and a kind of ‘moon’ walking). The movie was groundbreaking in that sense as the first “talkie”. Much of it was still a silent film, but the singing parts at least had sound (I didn’t watch every second as a rapt student of the film). Gordon is someone you actually want to know more about. About the only blurb in his bio was about his affair while married with Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50 Foot Tall Woman). Which is ironic as its her character in the movie who goes on a 5 story rampage against her philandering husband.

A character in the film was played by Warner Oland, who played either Charlie Chan or another Chinese character in “oriental” makeup over a dozen times! That’s an aspect of Hollywood that doesn’t get talked about near as much as the blackface history! But like I say, one of the few good things that can be said of Al Jolson’s portrayal of his character in blackface was that he did not seem to using it as a punchline or as an opportunity to make fun or demean black people at all.

I just didn’t like the film because I don’t like Al Jolson. He just strikes me as a self aggrandizing ham. In his IMDB bio they mention every other line that he ” ‘The World’s Greatest Entertainer’ for well over 40 years”. The popular phase of his movie career was about 5 years. And his stage performances couldn’t have been seen by more than 3 percent of the countries population, so it seems a bit of a stretch to call him “the world’s greatest for over 40 years”, to me anyway.

Dillon XL-750 with Mark 7 Autodrive

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Aye, ’tis a glorious piece of machinery. This puppy will do 1,800 rounds an hour. That’ll make your mouth water in the middle of an ammo shortage won’t it? As opposed to maybe 100 rounds an hour on a Lee Turret Press! (and that’s optimistic) You could do a years worth of ammo in like what, an hour? Maybe two? Switch calibers and do another years worth? $2,094.95 will put the autodrive in your basement. Another $593.00 for the XL-750 press. Bullet feeder $249.00. Another $1,000 for “options” that you have to have and should have been included. So for a mere $4,000 dollars you can be making ammo out the wazoo! Well, you could if the components were actually available, like primers, brass, powder and bullets. The horrible thing is its all available in Canada, but they won’t ship to us Yanks!

How does Ames Parks & Recs do so little with so much?

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Carr Park on East 13th Street in Ames

They can’t empty a damn trash can. I’ve been running or walking in this park for over 8 years. The story is always the same. Below are some more examples. Just lazy. I’ve been trying to find the budget, you’d think that would be a pretty simple thing. Nope. I’m guessing around $5 million. They run a sloppy park. About half of it has been off limits for 4 or 5 years as they had contractors work on dam improvements of the river that runs through it. They write these contractor friendly contracts that say, “We’ll overpay you millions of dollars, and you just get it done whenever!” So they take 5 summers for a 1 summer job. So what if the taxpayers are inconvenienced, we got our kickback. Dog shit all over, just like at Ada Hayden. It never occurs to them, “Hey let’s get one of the bike Cops out here and write some citations!”

The odd thing is, as a percentage they have about 5 times the plow resources than the city crews do. It takes the city a good 24 hours to get things plowed after an 8 inch snow. Parks and Recs get’s it done within 90 minutes after the snow stops. Every Park parking lot (of baseball fields and soccer fields that won’t be used for months), every bike trail, every cemetery, every obscure piece of pavement that won’t be used that day, let alone weeks. They have these baseball fields at Brookside that are not used anymore, but by gawd the lot gets plowed! That’s the other thing about this city, they cannot abide 2 of anything. They completely rebuild in place, rather than have say an eastside library, and a westside library. They end up spending the money to have 2, but they tear down the old one.

Whether its swimming pools, hospitals, baseball fields, high schools, libraries, you name it. The most egregious was about 25 years ago when the school board makes the claim, “Declining enrollment, we’ll have to close schools.” Yeah? On the other hand they’re trying to tell the 2000 census that the city has now grown to 50,000 people. Well which is it? Are you growing or shrinking? Sure enough 10 years later they’re building schools out the wazoo. I guess the problem with Parks and Recs is the same as the school workers, they’re good at sitting on their ass plowing a lot on evening or weekend overtime, but getting off their ass to empty a trashcan is too much.

Half the park closed for 5 years because they make sweetheart deals instead of contracts with time constraints

Flawless

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Claudia Cardinale answers the question: Are French or Italian women the most beautiful? Yes. She’s both. Italian father, French mother. I put her IMDB bio at the end of her pictures. As noted by one of the more famous cinematographers to have filmed her, “There is not much you can do wrong in photographing her.” Understatement of the year. I find her fascinating for a couple of reasons. From what I can tell, she never made a “Hollywood” movie. I couldn’t have told you what she looked like until recently when TCM showed the 1963 classic 8 1/2. Looking through her credits the only other thing I might have seen her in was Pink Panther or Once Upon A Time In the West. She made both Pink Panther and 8 1/2 in 1963 (released that year, probably made in 1962) when she was 25. Why on God’s green earth hadn’t Hollywood moved heaven and earth to get her here in 1956 when she was 18? At 2 films a year she could have made 12 films by the time she was 25. I have to assume Hollywood is run by the dumbest people on earth. The other thing I’d like to know/not know: Is she as screwed up as a lot of beautiful women? My guess is no. Europeans on average don’t seem to be as screwed up about sex as Americans.

My favorite. Not so heavily made-up, not the ‘bod’ shot. Just “CC”

Normally I despise celebrity “event” photos, but this works

A horrible shot in most respects, I like the background

Yeah…

She was born in 1938 thank God, when photographers still knew what they were doing

I mean look at that

Looks like an honest expression

The glamour goddess

Like many other female Italian film stars, Claudia Cardinale’s entry into the business was by way of a beauty pageant. She was 17 years old and studying at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome when she entered a beauty contest, which resulted in her getting a succession of small film roles. Her earthy interpretations of Sicilian women got her noticed by Italian producers, and the combination of her beauty, dark, flashing eyes, explosive sexuality and genuine acting talent virtually guaranteed her stardom. After Careless (1962) she rose to the front ranks of Italian cinema, and became an international star in Federico Fellini‘s classic 8½ (1963) with Marcello Mastroianni. American audiences may best remember her from her starring role in Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

At the Italian Embassy in Tunis, she was voted the most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisia. Her prize was a trip to Venice during the Venice Film Festival. After the festival she was offered movie roles, but refused them and returned to Tunis. However, six months later, a producer sold her on a career in movies, and she went to Rome with her parents, two brothers and a sister, taking a home in Castel Giubileo, a small town outside the city (1957). – IMDB

[There are 3.2 million other great photos of her, feel free to look them up. Flawless.]

I had the perfect 10 photos, then I saw this one. A completely unscientific observation is that she is photographed mostly from her left side or head on. Which is strange as her right side is every bit as wonderful as her left. And to be fair, from what little I’ve seen, Italy churns out women like this without even trying.

God called in the loan

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Rush always used to say, “With talent on loan from God!” I guess God called in the loan. I started listening to him around ’93 or ’94. He did a lot of outrageous stuff back then simply for the press (the free advertising), as liberals got their panties in a wad about this or that. The way it was supposed to work (in their minds at least) was that they would make fun of conservatives and we were supposed to take it silently in a dignified manner. Rush just slapped ’em upside the head and made their liberal ass cry! Cry baby! Cry! And their bowels would let loose and they’d try to gin up a boycott on one of his advertisers, or file an FCC complaint, and he’d just slap them upside the head the next day.

I suppose that’s why he and Trump were such good buds. Trump slaps GD liberals upside the head too. But like I say a lot of the early stuff was just showmanship. Putting himself on the map. You don’t revolutionize an entire industry by being Marty Milquetoast. AM radio had pretty much been declared dead in the ’80s. Rush made it the place to be. Regrettably he made it so big, it became ripe for corporate takeover. It became big business and all the eccentric independent operators and family owned stations disappeared. Now its just various branches of the same corporation parroting, “iHeart radio app! iHeart radio app!” all day long.

But back to Rush. His positions evolved over 33 years (mine did too). When he started in ’88 he was pure establishment. GHW Bush had him stay overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom for Pete’s sake. He was a country clubber plain and simple. He had no use for Buchanan when he challenged Bush in ’92 and Dole in ’96. No use. And later Limbaugh had no use for Ron Paul either. I mention this because Buchanan and Trump’s platforms were identical. A lot of people made note in 2015 that Buchanan paved the way for Trump. Plowed the field. So when Trump started his run in 2015, it was surprising that Rush was his biggest supporter.

Rush provided me with many hours of enjoyment, and many hours of aggravation. Aside from the political trivialities, my main beef with him didn’t come about till later. He was a “cigar aficionado”. It gave him the cancer that killed him at only 70. That’s his choice. But from that amazing platform he had, how many other men did he entice into smoking them? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many other men might never of smoked a cigar? Got lung cancer? Esophageal cancer? Tongue, mouth? His advertising for cigars helped the delay of my own kicking the habit for 10 years. He promoted the smoking of cigars for 30 years. And if he ever went back and apologized for that, I didn’t hear it.

Gone shootin’!

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Other than the merciless (pre-release model) review from ‘Hop’ at the TFB Channel, the KelTec P17 has been receiving rave reviews. 17 rounds, 3 magazines, threaded barrel for a sound suppressor, ambidextrous controls, 2 pound trigger, decent reliability, $169 bucks, not a whole lot not to like. The production model actually came out some 6 months after Hop’s famous review. What KelTec did was pull the pants down on Glock, S&W, Ruger and even Taurus. 3 of those makers were only ever able to put 10 rounds of the smallest cartridge on the market in a magazine at 3 times the cost. Competition is a good thing.

And even though the touted reliability is mixed with a lot of hyperbole, it ain’t bad. While a number of manufacturers can make a 99.9% reliable centerfire handgun, making a perfectly reliable rimfire is beyond the capability of engineers in the year 2021. Admittedly much of that could be the ammunition makers.

Funny guy, good vid

Target for groceries

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I like milk. Therefore I know what the price of a gallon of milk was when I shopped at Hy-Vee and Fareway: $4.49. Guess what I’m paying at the Target? Yeah, $2.29. I save over two dollars a gallon. Boom! Off the top. Big box of Rice Chex: $2.50. A tub of Kraft Philly Cream Cheese: $3.49. Body Armor 12 oz.: $1.39. Nutri Grain Bars: $2.69. Everyone of those prices better than Hy-Vee and Fareway. Progresso Soup: $1.59. That’s what I’m talking.

Geoff Love and his Orchestra

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Moonlight Serenade really kicks in at :48 seconds

You reach a certain age and you just really appreciate the beauty of some things. Music of the current age I don’t believe will ever be played on the “oldies station”. Whereas the music like Geoff Love and his orchestra will play forever. Many studies have been done on music and how it affects you. Listening to something as beautiful as this will make a believer out of you.

For the uninitiated, some of the more memorable tracks for me were Moonlight Serenade, Clare De Lune, Misty, Theme From A Summer Place, Autumn Leaves, Annie’s Song, The Blue Danube and on and on. They’re mostly all wonderful and refreshing for the soul. The one playing right now is String of Pearls, just a jazzy little ditty that makes you appreciate the piano (and horns and violins and cellos…). Simply beautiful.

Geoff Love bio

Shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now!

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Great rendition of the Beatle’s classic ‘Twist & Shout’ from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

This year will be the 35th anniversary of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (spellcheck doesn’t like ‘Bueller’). It taught the important lesson that if you are a spoiled brat and you want to do something, you should. Director John Hughes made fun movies, even if they didn’t make a lot of sense. AMC is playing it repeatedly, evidently its one of their “movies of the month”. But that’s all it is, a fun movie. The hip, cool kids putting one over on the evil principal. Yet we are told its a “great” movie by the industry, yeah? I don’t see it myself.

In 2010 a British movie called The King’s Speech came out. Quite popular. But was it worth 12 Oscar nominations? And 8 wins? I don’t know about that. I have the theory that mediocrity is being heralded as greatness to cover-up for the shortcomings of the movie industry (its interesting we say ‘industry’ and not ‘art world’). I often use the example of the classic 1971 song American Pie. Its a good song, but is it a ‘great’ song? Does it really deserve the reverent mysticism it receives with critics? I question that.

I’ll try to put this diplomatically, I think there’s a lot of lame shit out there. I guess I see a lot of overpaid people of limited talent and creativity. They seem to think because of this they have a soapbox from which to tell us how to run the country and our lives. I suppose I resist that. They can’t run Hollywood right, and they want to run the world? I apologize for this oft repeated lament. But as I think back over the past 20 years I cannot think of 1 memorable U.S. made movie. Can you?

[I stand corrected, The Passion of the Christ, 2004. The Patriot is now over 21 years old, 2000, so I was right there. As was Saving Private Ryan, 1998. Okay, 1 memorable movie in 20 years.]

The also ran’s!

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My incredibly insightful 10 Most Beautiful Women of various decades series of posts has turned out to be surprisingly popular. Who knew men liked to look at beautiful women eh? It occurred to me how odd it was some of the women I didn’t choose. And I don’t regret my choices either. Although I did experience a twinge of self doubt (for a moment anyway) the other day when I saw a news clip on Barbi Benton. She was a “big deal” back in the seventies, I tell you what. She did Playboy, Love Boat, and probably Hugh Hefner too. Its that blurry line confusing beauty with sexiness. I had titled all the posts “The 10 Most Beautiful”, I realized later that wasn’t it at all. What I had chosen were the women I considered the sexiest or the nicest. That’s a little more abstract than the “most beautiful”.

Then I started thinking of some of the others. My memory goes back to the late sixties on this. A friend and I were quite taken with his dad’s poster of Raquel Welch in a fur bikini from 1,000,000 Years B.C.! We weren’t real sure why we liked her, we just did. Then there was Loni Anderson, Suzanne Sommers, and others. Ones I found out later were popular with some guys that left me scratching my head like Karen Valentine. Tina Louise was another one. Donna Douglas. The hillbilly version of Lawrence Welk, Hee Haw, had some very beautiful women.

Going back a few years before that era were a bunch that left me going, “What?” Audrey Hepburn, Kim Novak, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Sophia Loren, they had all the right parts in all the right places, there was just something else missing. A lot of it was you knew you were being manipulated by the studios. They held their contracts so it was in their interest to create this aura of attractiveness, whether it was really there or not. Another one from more modern times that was just huge, was Vanna White. Looking back on it now you’re going what was that all about? I can’t explain it, but I know it happened.

[Case in point: 5 time Playboy model Carmen Electra. Absolutely no sex appeal. Then it hit me, I’ve never known of a Playboy model who was.]