Book Reviews: The Devil's Red Nickel, The Sinatra Club, The Savage Sword of Conan

The Devil's Red Nickel 
by Robert Greer

In some very minor respects this mystery novel walks the same side of the street as similar works by Walter Mosley and Gar Anthony Haywood in that it imagines a black hero in a genre which still has very few such characters. But aside from the fact that the three authors share chromosomes and similar melanin levels and take black humanity for granted there's not too much else in common. The writing styles are utterly different. C.J. Floyd is a middle aged bail bondsman/private detective who lives in Denver, Colorado. He's definitely and defiantly old school. He drives around town in his 1957 Bel Air convertible. He's a man who loves listening to doo-wop and classic R&B. Think Esther Phillips and not Beyonce. Floyd is not exactly a wealthy man. In fact he's under some financial constraints because he's having some issues with people skipping their bond. But Floyd's not a man to let anything get in his way of doing what he sees as the right thing. He's good people. An older man named Leroy Polk dies of what appears to be a heart attack. The doctors/medical examiners find one of Floyd's business cards among the dead man's effects. Now Floyd did not know Leroy Polk personally but like millions of other people he knew the man intimately in Polk's persona of "Daddy Doo-Wop", a Chicago area DJ, music promoter, A&R man, producer and would be record company owner. Daddy Doo-Wop helped break tons of black music acts throughout the Midwest and West. Record companies and their acts would do their best to get their music played on his show. If Daddy Doo-Wop played your record that could make you famous and make you a lot of money. On the other hand if he didn't like your music it could be very difficult to get people to come to your shows. In some instances you might as well have quit the music industry and taken up needlepoint.

As a teen and young man, Floyd listened to Polk's show and was enthralled. Daddy Doo-Wop not only influenced Floyd's music tastes but also gave him the idea to go into business for himself. Floyd is shocked and saddened to learn of Polk's death. However the local police are interested in how and why Floyd's card wound up in Polk's possession. And so is Polk's attractive daughter, Clothilde. She's convinced that her father did not die of a heart attack, no matter what the coroner's report says. And she wants Floyd to look into it. Clothilde is not the kind of woman who listens to the word no. When you look like she does, you don't hear the word no very often. Floyd's investigation will lead him into some pretty deep and dark waters. The music business is not a place for shy people. There are some pretty nasty sharks out there who would just love to take a chomp out of a bail bondsman who they think is out of his league. Even if Daddy Doo-Wop did not die of natural causes there is a depressingly large number of people who might have had motives to kill him. Not too many folks are losing sleep over the fact that Daddy Doo-Wop is no longer on the planet. And that's all I want to say about that as I do not wish to give away spoilers to readers who might be interested in this book. Anyway I also want to write shorter reviews because of time constraints. So this is as good a place as any to stop. In paperback format this book is just over 300 pages but it's a quick read. 

There was never any spot that I felt that the story died. With one or two exceptions the characters are mostly engaging. Everything and everyone feels real. Most of the story lines are neatly wrapped up. It's written in third person, which I like. If you are into well constructed mystery stories that neither insult your intelligence nor get too complex this could be a good read for you. The author is also a doctor and medical professor as well as being a Denver native.  So because the book's events mostly take place in Denver certain book locations, real or fictionalized might be familiar to those of you who are native to that city or have passed through.




The Sinatra Club
by Sal Polisi

Salvatore Polisi, aka Crazy Sal or Sally Ubatz, was a mobster associated with the Colombo faction of the New York Mafia. For the obvious reasons he eventually decided to get out. He testified against former associates and entered the Witness Protection Program. The Sinatra Club is his memoir. However it's not as good as it could have been because of three decisions. First, recognizing that Sal Polisi is less well known than John Gotti, the book plays up any and all associations that Polisi had with Gotti, stories and rumors he heard about Gotti, Gotti's bad temper about his gambling losses, Gotti's distaste for hookers, the time Polisi was in the restroom with Gotti and Gotti made a racial insult against Sarah Vaughn and so on. Second, Polisi was a horrible husband who was never faithful to his wife. He constantly informs the reader that he needed at least five certain sex acts daily. While this adulterous behavior is not so uncommon among married mobsters, Polisi shares way too many details. Evidently Polisi's true love and soulmate was his primary girlfriend Jane, a fallen angel madam, dominatrix and prostitute. Polisi was already married when he met Jane. To hear Polisi tell it he was uniquely able to convince the otherwise asexual/lesbian Jane to try some salsiccia. Polisi spends a lot of time discussing all the ways that he and Jane made whoopie, by themselves and with other women. Some details were similar to Penthouse letters. Maybe there are a few people who needed to know how Jane could convince Polisi (in his words) to do things that Italian guys normally didn't do. I wasn't one of those people. Neither Jane nor Polisi's wife wanted to share him though each was content for a while to be lied to by him. That particular storyline ended the way you might expect. Lastly the book jumps around in time too much. As individuals there are things which are important to us all that happened decades ago. Polisi had a turbulent and occasionally abusive childhood. But as a reader it was frustrating to skip back and forth between the story of Polisi's sister's death and the time that a higher ranking mobster made Polisi do something really savage to someone. Although Polisi is frank about his evil ways, he's ashamed of having committed a particular act, which even by Mafia standards, was depraved, albeit possibly deserved. FWIW Polisi claims he never killed anyone.

It is interesting to compare Polisi's street level account of events with stories or documented testimony given by other informers or undercover agents. He repeats as fact things which others contradict. I wouldn't necessarily say he got a lot of things wrong. I would say that similar to people in the real world, his perspective differs from those who were higher up and/or made more money. The guy putting the engine in a vehicle on the assembly line has a different perspective than a fellow at the same company trying to create a worldwide business plan for the upcoming fiscal year. It's important for mobsters not to be curious or ask too many questions. Either characteristic can be extremely hazardous to a gangster's future health. He is after all working with very violent suspicious people who don't believe in coincidences or in taking chances that someone who knows too much won't talk. As legendary mob boss Lepke Buchalter said way back in the thirties, "no witnesses, no case". So it's unsurprising that on some things I really was curious about Polisi didn't know the answers and/or went out of his way not to ask questions of people who did know the answers. 

Polisi was never "made" or formally inducted into the Colombo crime family. Although this is a huge distinction within the world of organized crime it's more or less meaningless to people who only interact with the Mafia as victims, curious outsiders or customers. Basically all this additional status would have meant is that an organization recognized Polisi's outstanding entrepreneurial and/or murderous potential and went on record extending its protection to him. No one could have murdered him without prior permission from his bosses. Polisi would have had much more authority within the Italian-American underworld but also would have had much greater expectations and workload. His bosses would have tolerated fewer mistakes. Polisi would not have been able to decline certain requests. Polisi was a jack of all criminal trades. He was involved in muscle work, loan sharking, gambling, bookmaking, auto theft, armed robbery and bank robbery. He beat up pimps who were rivals to Jane. But his primary business became narcotics importation and wholesale distribution. Polisi ran a club which gave this book its title. Although the club was initially profitable via hoodlum gambling games, Polisi's primary interest was in using the club to launder his drug profits. It's not that he wanted to hide them from the IRS. No, he wanted to hide them from mob superiors who would have killed him for dealing or more precisely for dealing without making sure they got their cut. If you liked the movie Goodfellas I suppose you might enjoy this story. Polisi knew or ran with many of the people portrayed. But I found the book's organization and style a little offsetting. There was a film made from this book which I have not seen.







The Savage Sword of Conan Volume One
based on tales by Robert E. Howard

This was a gift from my brother, who knows that I am a fan of most things Robert E. Howard and to a lesser extent classic comic books. The Savage Sword of Conan is a collection of seventies era Conan comic book stories, generally published by Marvel Comics. It's important to get a few things out of the way immediately. Some of Howard's work could be very grim and violent. There was a streak of racism and what would be today called sexism which ran through it. The men, especially Conan, are drawn as well muscled fighters. As you can no doubt tell from the cover these stories are primarily designed to appeal to people with an inborn frank appreciation for the feminine form, i.e. men or people who will one day be men. The women are generally drawn in shapely feminine styles featuring lush hourglass figures with plenty of visible cleavage and ample backsides. Conan's default response to an attractive woman is "You know we're gonna f*** so you might as well give me some now and get it out of the way". This usually works. There's only a few women on whom it doesn't work but even there Conan is still trying his best. In the very first story "The Frost Giant's Daughter" there is some controversy about whether Conan was going to commit a crime and if so was it from his own desire or was he under more malign influence. Rereading it I think it's unclear. The reader will have to decide for himself. On the other hand in other stories lack of consent is considered to be one of the most evil things imaginable, whether it be a woman ravished or a man enslaved. Conan speaks against both in the harshest of terms. Howard had plenty of contradictory ideas, some of which could be found in the same story. Because it was the seventies I don't think too many people cared or noticed but today comics like these would probably attract a lot more opprobrium from both feminists and traditionalists. Problematic depictions of women or non-whites not withstanding these stories are exciting. Howard wrote a LOT of Conan stories. Many of them turn up here in abridged black and white comic book format. However the authors do not limit themselves to Howard's published Conan work but remix some of his other stories and/or make up their own Conan tales. Some of these work better than others. Much of the prose can fairly be described as purplish but to be fair that is part of the appeal for stories such as these. A typical example might be "When a man looks at you, woman, he forgets his will until you show it to him". Lines like this might make you laugh out loud but in these stories they make perfect sense. Conan has been in just about every line of violent work there is, soldier, mercenary, thief, brigand, pirate and has the scars and stories to prove it. The artwork quality varies a bit from story to story but is generally good. 

Rolling Stone Magazine Retracts UVA Fraternity Rape Allegations

Although it should scarcely need to be repeated for the generally fair minded individuals who read this blog every last single one of us has our own individual biases, which are often magnified and accelerated by our experiences and the gender, race, class, sexual, political and other identities through which we experience the world. It’s just the way human beings are. So that is why it is important, though we can all forget it from time to time, to remember that an accusation does not equal proof that a crime occurred. Sometimes people do not remember what happened. Sometimes people lie. And I have not seen any evidence that shows that lying is solely or even disproportionately the preserve of one gender or another. Men and women are equally human. We all have both angels and devils lurking within.

So when the Rolling Stone story about an alleged gang rape at UVA came out, complete with such lurid details as beatings and rape as fraternity initiation and a woman being violated on top of broken glass, I didn’t feel one way or the other about it. I wanted to see some proof. There were some inconsistencies in the account that made me think that this was more of an urban legend than an actual event but I am not a journalist or criminologist. If true then someone definitely should have been arrested and charged (unless of course the assailants were cops but I digress) Unfortunately UVA and the people who are concerned with stopping rape didn’t bother waiting to find out whether this was true or not before taking action against the fraternity (in UVA’s case) or repeating what have turned out to be untruths (in the case of the media and various other social justice warriors)


Well sometimes people who rush to be first forget to check if they're right. Other investigators, journalists and writers raised some of the same questions I had about the rape allegations. Rolling Stone actually had to go back and check its story. And it found that some of the details didn't hold up under scrutiny.

In the article, published on Nov. 19, writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely described the brutal rape of a woman — identified as Jackie — by seven men at a 2012 fraternity party, the university's failure to respond to the alleged attack and the school's troubled history of handling such cases. After its publication, both the university and the Charlottesville, Va., police department launched investigations and the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, suspended its operations.

On Friday, Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana issued an apology, saying there were "discrepancies" in the woman's account. "In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced," Dana wrote. "We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story."

Earlier this week, Erdely, who had been criticized for relying on a single source and not contacting the men accused of rape, said she stood by her reporting.“I am convinced that it could not have been done any other way, or any better,” Erdely told the New York Times. “I am also not interested in diverting the conversation away from the point of the piece itself.”

LINK

Unfortunately I’ve seen first hand the impact that rape can have on a person. It is important to state again that nobody in his or her right mind is in favor of rape. Aside from murder, rape is the worst crime you can commit against someone. So to make up something that didn’t happen, to lie about rape because you think that the greater good requires it, is a particularly low malevolent malodorous foul thing to do. But this wasn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. Human nature guarantees that slanderous false accusations will happen again. There’s no real way to stop that. But what people should remember, and I definitely include myself in this, is that just because someone you already don’t like for other reasons is accused of committing a crime doesn’t mean that they did it. If someone is convicted of rape then let them pay the penalty and then some. But accusations or stories are not equal to proof, no matter how much some of us might want them to be. Lies about rape make it more difficult for real rape victims to obtain justice. It is the nature of our justice system that some rapists will be found not guilty at trial. I don’t think that requires a rejection of the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” or that people think it’s okay to lie about an accusation. When Erdely says that she is not interested in diverting the conversation from the point of the piece itself that is a red flag that such things as truth and reality are less important to her than the cause. And that is or rather should be a problem for any of us, let alone a journalist. Erdely didn't even bother talking to the accused. She apparently didn't do basic fact checking like seeing if there was actually a frat party on the night in question. There wasn't. Truth should be among the highest values to which we aspire. There is no justice without truth.

Bill Cosby Rape Allegations and Al Sharpton Tax Issues

It's difficult to keep up with the various rape accusations against Bill Cosby. There are currently over fifteen different women who have made allegations that Bill Cosby either attempted to seduce them or raped them. Unfortunately, for those of us who would like to know the truth, these charges detail events that may or may not have occurred many decades ago. Some accusers (Janice Dickinson) have made past statements which contradict their present ones. Other women claim to have engaged in ongoing intimate relationships with Cosby after the alleged rape. Cosby himself has categorically refused to address the accusations. He has previously reached civil settlements with some of the women. Because of the statute of limitations, unless someone with more current accusations pops up, these claims can't be criminally tried. I don't know if outstanding claims can be heard in civil court but there are lawyers who could address that. Nonetheless there are so many accusers that lack of criminal convictions notwithstanding, Bill Cosby's reputation and future business plans have taken a serious hit. NBC and Netflix cancelled planned projects. Much like with allegations with Herman Cain or Jian Ghomeshi, with this many women coming forward, even a Cosby fan who holds innocent until proven guilty as a moral cornerstone might wonder about some things. It's important to point out that I am agnostic on Cosby's guilt or innocence. Who among us knows either Cosby or his accusers? There is no evidence so far that anyone has provided that would strongly convince me of his guilt or innocence. Too much time has passed. We're not in a court of law.

We could be watching bitter former groupies or mistresses lie about an innocent man. We could be watching some delayed justice catch up with a filthy serial rapist. I simply can't call it. Women can and do lie about being raped. Men can and do get away with rape. People who claim that women never lie about rape or that men are constantly beset with false allegations of rape generally have ideological or personal axes to grind.

I wanted to write about this situation because of the news that TVLand cancelled reruns of The Cosby Show. Because apparently if you watch The Cosby Show you support rape or something. Other people are asking if we should boycott reruns of A Different World. 
I wrote on this before but I am not a huge fan of linking enjoyment of or appreciation for people's artistic accomplishments to who they are morally. If you consistently do that you won't enjoy much art. In her memoir Lena Dunham revealed that as a child and teen she had what many people would consider at best an odd relationship with her younger sister. At worst she was a molester.

As she grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection: one dollar in quarters if I could do her makeup like a “motorcycle chick.” Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just “relax on me.” Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out.

Now I wouldn't watch Dunham's HBO show Girls if you paid me but if I did watch would that mean I support Dunham's perversities? No it wouldn't. One of the most beautiful rock ballads ever written, Led Zeppelin's "Ten Years Gone" was created in part by a man, Jimmy Page, who was having sex with fourteen year old girls when he was twenty-eight. That was statutory rape even back in the hedonistic seventies. If you listen to this song are you condoning sex with underage girls?  Do you boycott anything Sean Penn is associated with because he once went upside Madonna's head with a baseball bat? Charlie Sheen has beaten and shot women. Mark Wahlberg committed racist hate crimes, beating a Vietnamese man so badly he went blind in one eye. So even if every allegation against Cosby is true, I don't see what that has to do with the Cosby Show. Cliff Huxtable is a fictional character. Obviously I dislike some artists for non-creative reasons. I understand that because of an artist's criminal actions or particularly vile political or racial stances there will be Americans who hate the artist. I get that. What I don't comprehend are people who want to yield to the totalitarian impulse to insist that a disgraced artist have all of his or her art eliminated so that no one can enjoy it. Just because you enjoy someone's creative impulse does not mean that you support rape or murder or any other foul action or belief. Bill Cosby may or may not be a rapist. His Fat Albert cartoons, his comedy albums and his television shows are still worthwhile additions to American culture. Life is complex like that sometimes. If you think that Cosby committed these crimes and thus can't watch his comedy routine or tv shows again, that is fine. But other people can separate art from creator and that is also fine.

The New York Times recently ran some articles disclosing that the Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network and of MSNBC has not been paying his federal or state taxes. The article also alleged that Sharpton had been moving monies back and forth between his personal accounts and his business and non-profit accounts. Supposedly this also included paying his daughter's tuition bills with funds that had come from non-profit organizations. The paper alleged that the good Reverend had been ducking out on private bill paying obligations. It's unclear how much information the Times obtained from investigation of publicly available documents and how much the Times obtained from sources within the IRS or elsewhere who wanted to drop a dime on Sharpton. The paper is mum on that since some of the information it has appears to be private. Al Sharpton wasted no time finding the nearest microphone to rebut some, but not all of the charges, and blaming it on unspecified enemies who wanted to disgrace him. There is a long history of prominent black political leaders being targeted in the press and discredited by untrue or partially true allegations. Sharpton's no doubt aware of this history and seeks to place himself within that narrative.

Although I think he's FAR too much of an uncritical water carrier for the Obama Administration and a horrible utterly inarticulate television host, on a few issues I care about Sharpton's heart is in the right place. But if you're going to stand up and be counted you need to make sure your stuff is together. Historically, some social justice or civil rights organizations, particularly black ones, have been one man charismatic operations that didn't give enough priority to the mundane business necessities such as ensuring that taxes and bills were paid along with staff workers. You can't maintain the trust of the people you're supposedly fighting for if you don't keep your business tight. No one with a functioning brain stem will give their hard earned money to someone who is paying himself a hefty salary and otherwise "dealing in dirt and stealing in the name of the Lord". It's understandable that a neophyte may not know all the various local, state and federal rules and regulations or generally accepted accounting standards surrounding non-profits, taxes, licensing, financial statements, and when you can and can not mix personal and business monies. But Sharpton is not a young man. He's been at this for a while. He should know better. Get it right. And young or not, everybody has to pay taxes. Ask Wesley Snipes.

What do you think of these situations?

Movie Reviews: Nightcrawler, Deliver Us From Evil

Nightcrawler
directed by Dan Gilroy

Nightcrawler is an independent film by first time director Dan Gilroy (he wrote The Bourne Legacy) which is worth checking out. Have you ever been around someone who makes you truly uncomfortable? Do you know someone whose smile or laugh gives you the impression that they are doing so not because they actually find something funny but because they learned on their home planet Voltron that humans occasionally smile or laugh. So they're trying to blend in. They're imitating human emotions. Some people fake feelings better than others do. Such a person could be a sociopath. They don't really have very many human passions other than lust or the need to dominate but they can temporarily put on many sentiments just as you put on clothing every morning. But as clothing is not a part of you, human instincts are foreign to sociopaths. Sociopaths can use emotions to manipulate or trick people. The more skilled of them can, when necessary, give an impression of actually caring about people. But truly, they don't. People are just a means to whatever end they are seeking. The sociopath can take off whatever emotion she was using to delude you and move on to the next mark. Guilt, shame, regret and honor are all meaningless concepts to such people. Trying to explain such things to them or worse trying to make them experience them are a complete waste of time and could wind up with someone getting hurt. In my current career, I don't think I've ever known anyone truly like that. I might have when I was in financial sales. 

The higher I've moved up the food chain the more I find that many people closer to the top do not give a flying Fibber McGee about the folks below them. But honest to God true sociopaths? I think those are rare, at least at my relatively low level of authority. But Nightcrawler would have you believe that many of them are working in the news business. Los Angeles man Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is such a person. 

He is a smiling sociopath who only very rarely drops the mask to reveal the dark emptiness that's behind his cold eyes. Nightcrawler could be experienced as something of a satire. Louis has read/heard from online self-help classes or motivational gurus that a secret to success is to find the match between the set of things that you like to do and the set of things that you're actually good at doing. When you find that match you will then know what work you should do that will make you internally happy as well as possibly wealthy. Well so far Louis hasn't had any luck making that match. But things can change. When we first meet Louis he's a scrap metal thief who doesn't mind robbing security guards. An accident on the expressway catches his interest and also that of professional independent photographer Joe Loder (Bill Paxton). Loder answers a few questions from Louis but has little patience or time for someone he dismisses as weird. Well before long Louis has started showing up at crime scenes with an out-of-date camcorder. The other freelancers initially laugh at him as he's often late or irritates cops but Lou is persistent. Before too long the aggressively confident Louis has hired Rick (Riz Ahmed) as a low paid assistant. He's also started selling his video/photo work to an aging TV news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo-Dan Gilroy's wife) who oversees a low rated station and more specifically a low rated morning news show. Nina's already morally damaged. As she explains to the quick study Louis, she doesn't want stories about or images of poor or Black/Hispanic crime victims. Affluent white victims with non-white perpetrators are what she wants as news leads. In different ways both Nina and Loder underestimate Louis. They misread what he wants and how far he's prepared to go in order to get it. This is a man on a mission. Both Nina and Loder will be changed by their interactions with Louis.

This film proves that you can make an engaging, disturbing and quite professional looking movie for very little money ($8 million) as long as you have a good story and reuse a lot of the same vehicles, props, scenery and actors. I was impressed. Los Angeles at night can be quite scary. Nightcrawler reminded me in equal parts of American Psycho, Network, Taxi Driver and A Shock to The System. Louis is a man who hides large parts of himself from other people. This doesn't cause him any emotional problems because he is a sociopath. Nevertheless he has definite goals in both his career and personal life. H's not shy about reaching for the brass ring in either arena. He can spout forth any number of bland self-help bromides. It's unclear if Louis truly believes them or rather if he just wants the listener to believe that he believes them. Gyllenhaal apparently lost a lot of weight and muscle for this role. So the sense of purpose and authority that he exudes doesn't come from his musculature but from an intense blue-eyed stare. The weight loss made the eyes look even larger. The eyes constantly remind you that there is something a little off about Louis. Tread lightly around him. 

Gyllenhaal's subtlety and mastery of facial expressions is what makes Louis such a powerful and offsetting incarnation. One of the film's creepiest ugliest scenes occurs at a happy Mexican restaurant. The movie also touches on the dance of life and lust between men and women and how both genders can be both victim and victimizer.  How far would you go to protect your source of income? You might surprise yourself. Because the film does not give Louis any background the viewer is free to make up his or her own mind about what his past includes. The fact that he was so quick to suss out that Rick had previously turned tricks for male clients despite identifying as straight made me wonder if Louis' past included similar activities. I was actually supposed to see Fury but I am glad I saw this film instead. If this movie had a weakness it's that the other characters, with the possible exception of Nina, are not that detailed. But I think that's a feature, not a bug, of the film. Make no mistake. You will not be rooting for Louis in any real way. If you do you might have some unresolved issues. If you go into this movie expecting a likable protagonist, you are going to be disappointed I think. But if you appreciate good direction, a mostly sharp script and messages that can be interpreted in multiple ways according to your own moral true north, you MIGHT enjoy this film. As always YMMV. There is violence, both depicted and implied.

"What if the truth is not that I don't understand people but rather that I dislike them?"
TRAILER





Deliver Us From Evil
directed by Scott Derrickson

Ok, if you have been around the blog for a while you will know that I am a sucker for horror movies. Sometimes this can lead to seeing some really good films which I think people should check out. And sometimes this can lead to watching some pretty bad films which I think people should be warned against. Unfortunately Deliver Us From Evil falls into the latter category. This was a waste of my time and my money. Some directors, writers and producers are able to take a well-known hoary story and make chicken salad out of chickens*** while others just want to feed you the unadulterated chickens*** and make you believe that it tastes good. Well this film didn't taste good. I'm looking for the rubbing alcohol, mouthwash and hydrogen peroxide. 

To list all the stories and movies that this film ripped off was influenced by would take longer than I have to give as I promised myself not to dedicate more than three paragraphs telling you not to see it. Let's just say that from the opening this film felt very derivative and not in a good way either. We have a macho NYC cop Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) who doesn't really believe in the supernatural. There is a somewhat unorthodox Catholic priest Mendoza (Edgar Ramirez) who most definitely believes in the supernatural or more specifically that Evil with a capital "E" exists and is constantly trying to harm humanity. And finally we have the hapless group of soldiers who found something in Iraq which bore all sorts of warnings not to look at it or open it. Unfortunately since the soldiers don't speak the language common in Iraq 4000 years ago they do just that. 

Well you know the rest. The soldiers come back to the United States and something which isn't of this world comes back with them. Sarchie starts to look into some disturbing events involving some of the soldiers. Cheap jump scares, unexplained noises in Sarchie's daughter's room and other obvious "scary" scenes abound until a knock down drag out fight ensues with unclean spirits. Ho-hum. Other directors executed this story much better in Fallen or for that matter The Conjuring.  I thought this film failed to capture both the sense of wonder and of dread that would exist if someone, even someone who was already a devout Christian, received undeniable proof that there are supernatural entities of malign intent in this world. The film would have been more impressive if such entities had had a plan that didn't involve scaring or possibly killing a little girl as their main goal. I mean according to the stories these are creatures who were tossed out of Heaven untold eons ago during a rebellion and have been plotting revenge ever since. Maybe they should set their goals a little higher? The story was supposedly based in part on real life events.
TRAILER

Ferguson Grand Jury Indictment Announcement: No Charges Filed!

The grand jury tasked with deciding whether or not to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown has reached a decision. That decision was just announced shortly after 9 PM EST this evening. Update: No criminal charges will be filed against Darren Wilson. Not a one. The grand jury found no probable cause. Stop back here later for updates, discussion and analysis of next steps, if any. With any luck one of the blog attorneys will stop by to comment and provide perspective. I think this whole process has been janky, to borrow a word often used by one of my cousins but we shall see what will happen. One of the things which has bothered me about this situation is that too many people who support Officer Wilson seem to want to try the facts before a trial has even been set. The grand jury is only supposed to decide if there is enough evidence for an indictment. It's a much lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt. Everyone should remember that. If the grand jury indicts it doesn't mean that the people on the grand jury thought that Officer Wilson was guilty of the crime. That remains to be seen. One of the things that some of the commentary around this incident does show is that in general people with more melanin and people with very little melanin have completely different viewpoints of reality, to the extent that one wonders how there can ever be any "coming together". Of course such coming together can and does happen on an individual level but in so many ways institutionally we remain a nation completely divided in perceptions and everything else. This CNN poll shows that 38% of whites think that Wilson should not be charged with a crime at all while a full 50% of whites think that police in their area have no or almost no prejudice against blacks. LINK 
Anyway, indictment or not, once the decision has been announced let us know what you think of the process, the case particulars and what if anything this means for the future of race relations in America.

Book Reviews: Mafia Prince

Mafia Prince
by Philip Leonetti with Scott Burstein

I'm not too familiar with current organized criminal activity in the Philadelphia-Atlantic City-South Jersey area but throughout the eighties and nineties this area was shared by at least seven different Italian-American criminal organizations: the five New York Families, a small moribund North Jersey Family and the Philadelphia Crime Family, which had a dominant presence in Philly and Atlantic City. Although Gambino Crime Family boss John Gotti would personify a new brash breed of go-go eighties mobster, in fact he was preceded by his good friend Philadelphia Family Boss Nicky Scarfo. Scarfo's reign was extremely violent. Scarfo was apparently something of a paranoid press obsessed pint-sized psychopath whose dedication to violence and to preemptive murder turned many family members and associates against him, including his maternal nephew and later underboss, Phillip Leonetti. It's one thing to kill someone who has broken some widely accepted Mafia rules. It's something else again to kill someone's "civilian" relative or order murders of crew members for the tiniest of transgressions, real or imagined. Scarfo's reputation for violence initially increased the amount of money flowing into mob coffers but he enjoyed killing too much. He brought in too many people whose only skill sets were intimidation and murder. Blood costs money. The relevant state and federal law enforcement agencies made putting Scarfo behind bars a top priority. This book primarily describes Leonetti's relationship with his uncle and Scarfo's rise to and fall from power. There are some things revealed within that I didn't know. Philip Leonetti, or "Crazy Phil" as he was known on the streets, was an accomplished murderer in his own right. During a mob war his mere presence caused one man to commit suicide (FWIW Leonetti said he just wanted to talk to the man) It's not really possible to feel too much sympathy for him.  But unlike a mobster such as Kenji Gallo Leonetti doesn't seem to miss the old days of murder and mayhem. He's also pretty circumspect about the day to day business in which he was involved. We read about control of or influence in unions but not much about how it was established or how it works on a daily basis. It was usually maintained by threat of murder.

Mob Boss Angelo Bruno takes the retirement package

Leonetti often justifies his actions or inaction by claiming that he had no choice. However, because he became a witness against several of his former friends or associates in the Mafia, I think that he always had a choice. The book gives plenty of examples why you wouldn't want to bring your relatives into the Mafia. There are instances when Leonetti muses that his uncle would kill him or thinks that he might have to kill his uncle. Sometimes this is darkly humorous. Who among us hasn't felt a sudden rush of irritation at a relative? But when you and your relatives are all killers, these feelings can be problematic. Other mafia soldiers wind up working for a captain who killed their father. They serve that captain loyally. Can you imagine such a thing? It was no secret either. The captain told the two brothers that he murdered their father because that man had killed his father. But it was business. It's possible that Scarfo's murderous nature might have stemmed from his relatively small stature (5'5") or other psychological issues but Leonetti doesn't have too much to say about that. Leonetti also leaves out huge portions of his personal life. It comes as a surprise halfway thru the book when he suddenly talks about his son or his wife (who is apparently not his son's mother) This book pulls the curtains back on the so-called Honored Society and shows that at its core it's no different than a street gang. I was amazed by how often the boss of a family had to negotiate with his men and form alliances rather than simply dictate. Of course sometimes such an approach is considered proof of weakness, which normally leads to bad consequences for the boss.

Crazy Phil enjoying a short prison stay

Men are murdered in front of their mothers. Women are abused. A rising Family star makes the critical mistake of calling off his engagement to a powerful man's daughter. And much like Robb Stark, he learns the hard way that his would be father-in-law wasn't pleased by the "insult". A Philadelphia mob leader goes to New York to get permission to murder his boss, a Scarfo predecessor. He's told "Do what you have to do". Considering this permission he carries out the hit and declares himself the new boss. He's then lured to New York to be formally recognized only to find out that the New York delegate lied to and manipulated him. When the New York people told him to "do what you have to do" they claim they meant for him to work things out peaceably. Murdering a boss without Commission approval is a Mafia capital crime. The hapless Philly mob boss and his driver were then tortured and killed. New York organizations took over his businesses, which of course was their plan all along. The treachery and brutality never stops. IIRC Leonetti only admits to two murders. His uncle ordered and participated in many more. But you don't get a nickname like "Crazy Phil" by sitting on the sidelines and knitting sweaters. I'm sure, like many such authors in similar situations, Leonetti is leaving some things out. If you liked fiction like Goodfellas or The Sopranos, you will want to read this book. To hear Leonetti tell it, his dislike and distrust of his Uncle Nicky  was longstanding. What drove Leonetti over the edge was having Nicky state to Leonetti that he wanted Leonetti to murder Nicky's wife or listening to Nicky blame Leonetti and his mother for Nicky's son's attempted suicide. Of course I'm sure being convicted had NOTHING to do with Leonetti's approach to the feds. Leonetti briefly returned to Atlantic City to care for his ailing mother and grandmother after he had testified against the Mafia. The Philly mob knew he was there but such was his reputation that no one wanted to tangle with him. That's what he says anyway. 

After Leonetti's mother's and grandmother's deaths he returned to the Witness Protection program. He built thriving landscaping and construction businesses. He may be living somewhere close to you. One of his last statements in the book is "F*** my uncle." Given that Nicky would order that both Leonetti and Leonetti's mother, Nicky's sister, be killed, that's an understandable sentiment. This book is about 300 pages. It has a high number of typos. "Site" is used for "sight" ; "your" is used for "you're".

Music Reviews: Madame Butterfly

Madame Butterfly
by Puccini

For some reason I actually was more familiar with the gender bending remake M. Butterfly so it was good to recently see the original in the Detroit Opera House. The original story had much more in common with The Jerry Springer Show than with The Crying Game. When Madame Butterfly first came out it was considered to be quite trashy. So maybe a century from now people will think that Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and Wendy Williams are high art. You never know. I was actually surprised to feel some pathos while watching and listening to the opera, particularly during the tragic third act. While some people are able to become intimate with others and keep things on a even keel without serious commitment, other people who engage in the dance of life are like swans. They mate for life and expect their partner to do likewise. Many people think that these characteristics differ between genders but every individual is different. There are men who get one-itis and never ever get over their lost true love who rejected them in some horrible fashion. There are women who are quite comfortable using emotional or physical intimacy to extract things from men while never truly committing to any single man. But Madame Butterfly sticks with the more common and familiar tropes of gender expectations regarding which gender is more likely to have "love them and leave them" as a viable if not preferred option and which gender is more likely to stay up at night wondering if someone will call or have concerns about sexual intimacy occurring too soon. 

The story is simple. An American sailor named B.F. Pinkerton is looking to marry a Japanese woman. This woman is not really a woman by modern American standards. She's only fifteen. And she's a geisha. There are differences of opinion if this is quite the same thing as an American paid consort or high class (high cost) hooker. I have read that a geisha can entertain clients with conversation, music, and dance. Right. Anyway, Pinkerton clearly has only the most superficial attachment to the idea of marrying a Japanese woman. It's just something to do to pass the time until his inevitable return to America. He feels that just as he can cancel the contract on his Japanese house at any time he can do the same with a marriage -- with a Japanese woman anyway. The American Consul Sharpless, an older and wiser man, advises Pinkerton to take things more seriously. The young woman, Cio-Cio San (this translates as Butterfly), believes in the sanctity of marriage even though Pinkerton had to pay her marriage broker 100 yen to marry her. Pinkerton is pleasantly surprised by Butterfly's beauty and her desperate eagerness to marry him and show her love in any and all ways. She even converts to Christianity to be a proper "American" wife, something that enrages her relatives. The wedding is completed. The new husband and wife retire to their chambers to consummate the marriage. Shortly afterwards Pinkerton leaves. Three years pass. Butterfly's marriage broker is eager to pimp her out again, arrange a marriage to a wealthy Japanese prince. Butterfly won't have it because even though under Japanese law abandonment = divorce, Butterfly refuses to believe that Pinkerton has abandoned her. Sharpless has arrived in Nagasaki in advance of Pinkerton's return. Sharpless has a letter from Pinkerton. I bet you know what it reads. 

He starts to read it to Butterfly but when he sees how excited she is to hear from Pinkerton, Sharpless lacks the heart to read the rest. He suggests that Butterfly marry the Japanese prince but she's not having it. She shows Sharpless her son with Pinkerton. Butterfly has named the boy Sorrow. Sharpless says he will tell Pinkerton about his son. When Butterfly sees/hears Pinkerton's ship entering the harbor she and her maid get very excited. Butterfly says this is proof that she was right all along and that everyone else was wrong. Pinkerton really does love her and has come to take her to America. She gets all dolled up. She dresses her son in a sailor suit and gives him an American flag to wave. She dances and spreads flowers and cherry blossoms all over the place. She decides to wait for Pinkerton. Ten minutes, no Pinkerton. Two hours, no Pinkerton. Four hours, no Pinkerton. All night, no Pinkerton.

The next morning Butterfly sees Sharpless and an American woman in her garden. There's no way to hide the truth any more. When Butterfly asks who the woman is, she learns that the woman is Pinkerton's wife. Pinkerton had briefly been there but left when Sharpless criticized him. He's feeling remorse. But remorseful or not he wants to take his son back to America. Depressed, angered and humiliated Butterfly tells Sharpless that Pinkerton can have their son Sorrow, if he himself comes to get him. She then tells her son not to hate her. A servant takes Sorrow into another room and Butterfly commits hara-kiri using her father's short sword, dying just as Pinkerton returns. This ran just under 3 hours including intermission. The image of Butterfly waiting in vain throughout the night was pretty moving although I thought it went on a little too long. I think the performer was just standing there silently for about 10 minutes. This was a decent story, if only because it should remind people to, as King Floyd would say, to handle each other with care. I enjoyed the story more than the music but I tend to like baroque classical music more than any other classical music. And baroque this was not. This version of Madame Butterfly had colorblind casting. The opening performance featured Noah Stewart as Pinkerton (tenor) and Inna Los as Butterfly (soprano). Both are pictured above. Although the score is written for a tenor Stewart had a certain meatiness to his tone that made me wonder if he could sing in baritone range or if this could be redone for a baritone. His role is almost as thankless as that of Rigoletto's Duke but Stewart injected some real sympathy into what could just be seen as a one note player who tells a naive woman "Hey I got what I needed. Beat it." His regret and shame were real. Similarly Inna Los' reading of Butterfly showed that her suicide could have come as much from pride as from despair. I felt more sympathy for her than contempt. Obviously the libretto is in Italian but translations on the screen were available for us non-Italian speakers. All in all this was an okay show, not magnificent but not bad.

Love duet between Pinkerton and Butterfly on their wedding night