The Re Collection

From the Trib:

Scnes from movie about ’70s drug smuggling operation to be shot in McGregor

This is kinda cool: A town a few miles from Crawford will be in a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval. The story is about the biggest marijuana smuggling operation in US history. One of the pilots, who was unaware of what he was involved in, wrote and self-published a book on the story, which made it to the NYT bestseller list (I love to see that happen).

I think I’ll try to contact Jones and Duval about doing a fundraiser for the Peace House. Jones, I’m pretty sure is liberal; he was Al Gore’s college roommate and they’ve remained friends — or so I read back during the 2000 campaign. Worth a shot.

Backlash and more…

(Which reminds me, Wendy, would you please return my copy of Backlash? — not that you read this blog, or even know where to send it to now, but just putting it out there.)

Anne Lamott is one of those rare writers that tell all the truth all the time, even when talking to nice progressive Catholics about abortion.

Dan Savage uncovers a mountain of denial in the latest conservative dustups over gays and movies:

Sometimes I wonder if evangelicals really believe that gay men can go straight. If they don’t think Chad Allen can play straight convincingly for 108 minutes, do they honestly imagine that gay men who aren’t actors can play straight for a lifetime? And if anyone reading this believes that gay men can actually become ex-gay men, I have just one question for you: Would you want your daughter to marry one?

This sounds exciting: a new movie about the McCarthy era, with Edward R. Murrow as the hero. Back when journalists were still able to be heroes, before money corrupted news from a public service into just another business enterprise.

Good Night, And, Good Luck.

BTW, I knew when I heard about Clooney’s behavior at the fundraiser after 9-11 (he organized and managed the whole thing practically single-handedly) that great things were in store from that man.

Back to Murrow. If you ever get a chance to see the documentary he did on migrant farmworkers, it’s still great and unfortunately still relevant. It’s called Harvest of Shame and shows up sometimes on Sundance and/or PBS.

Update: A great write-up on Murrow and how he inspired a generation on George Clooney’s site.

Margaret Cho was already the coolest person on the planet, and a guru of the highest order, but now she has taken up bellydancing and my head is exploding with the cosmic beauty of it all. Thankfully, she has resumed blogging (having taken a break for filming a movie and the Assassin tour) and is sharing the journey with her fans.

Her blog is not archived by month, so just start here (6/13/05), and then find subsequent posts on the subject. She’ll take you from SoCal to Cairo (her trip to an Egyptian mall is a must read), as she attends dance festivals and classes. She weaves feminism, politics, image issues and more into the picture. Speaking of pictures, “Team Cho,” her support crew, have posted a photo of Margaret dancing.

Want to see a good film? Might want to pass by the multiplex and try a more intimate venue with more thought-provoking fare. Each of these films have been highly acclaimed. For more info: http://www.okcmoa.com/programs_film_cal.htm
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CST just announced it’s 22nd Season. For this kind of theatre, with the kind of work it offers, to last that long is quite remarkable. CST seems to be comfortably funded, and housed gratis at the arts center, I think (at any rate they were funded well enough to blow off my volunteering offers when I first moved here in 2003). Which is good (the funding, not the blow-off), because they can concentrate on the work.
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As a political geek, I went to the site of the National Weather Service after hearing how Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum is sponsoring a bill to eliminate the NWS so that commercial enterprises can make you pay for their weather news instead (oh, and guess who donated a big hunk o’ dough to Santorum’s campaign?)

But my father is a total weather geek and apparently some of that has rubbed off on me. That — and the graphic design advice I always like to dispurse whether it’s asked for or not — made the forecast icon survey a total rush for me.

http://gypsyresort.com/re/images/stories/myimages/grdcentral.jpg
I lived in this neighborhood
for a while back in the early 90s, before it began the gentrifying
process that this web site embodies. St. Pete area still has tons of
Art Deco style architechture, and folks are finally beginning to
appreciate those lovely things.

{mosimage}The web designers of this site, Creative Media,  have a site with a front page that knocked me out, since I am a nut for old and/or funky doors and windows.