kindersczenen's Xanga

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:23:25 GMT

I am not (nor can ever be) a smoker, due to that whole heart failure thing, but you can’t tell me that smoking doesn’t at least look cool. Granted, I’m from the era where people smoking everywhere was on the decline, but I’ll be damned if we didn’t have TWO smoking lounges in our proud, lung cancer filled high school (one for students, the other for teachers/staff). Interestingly enough, we really didn’t think about the legal smoking age—18. Actually, there weren’t that many 18-year-old seniors in my class. I was one, but there were probably about 9 others in my huge class of 95 students.

So that means, not only were the administrators ignoring the law (and smoking away in their own offices!), the police didn’t particularly care either. Okay, we only had one police officer, and he was a janitor during the day, then at 2 pm, he changed into his police uniform. I suppose the police force liked those coffin nails too.

Then, there were the really underage kids—junior high and younger. We all saw them, and aside from the occasional comment that those kids looked way too young to be smoking, we didn’t even think about it. You could go into the corner store and buy a carton of your favorite brand (supposedly for your parents, and sometimes it actually would be!), and they sometimes weren’t too strict on kids coming home with a couple of six-packs of Bud (for the parents, of course.)

You could smoke in offices; the Dairy Queen in which I worked (in the kitchen, on the register, in the back office, in the restaurant area, dammit, if you had ‘em, you could smoke ‘em!) I even remember when you could smoke on public transportation. (Okay, I was 3, but you’d think in 1978, you could still smoke anywhere on God’s green and black tar earth). Of course, there were always the stogie smokers, and those who were probably playing along with the whole “Dave’s not here, man.” Because of how the windows opened then, you could basically open the whole damn side and stick your body out to holler at whomever. Nowadays, only the tops open, which sometimes makes me miss the good ol’ days of dangerously opening windows. When it’s hotter than hell, those little top-opening windows just don’t cut through the funk, I’ll tell you what.

Now, due to all the horribleness of smoking (no, I’m not saying smoking’s good, but follow along for a bit.) There are those horrible Truth ads on TV, but I’ll be damned if they ever go after big LIQUOR! I mean, why they are never pestering the people at Busch beer about the fact that those who drink their product will most certainly shorten their lives by a noticeable amount. But I suppose drink shitloads of liquor (and driving!) is a hell of a lot healthier than smoking.

And, to for your enjoyment, here are some wonderful ads from yesteryear when we didn't know that smoking and amphetamines would kill us! (Of course, you can't help but notice whom I'm listening to right now, either! No, I'm not judging....how could I judge? Me, the picture o' health!)

Doin' the Curly Shuffle!

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:53:07 GMT

I can't believe that it's been 25 years since I've seen the Curly Shuffle on American Bandstand. Then again, I'm aging myself by admitting that I've watched AB. Hey, both my parents and my sister and I have seen James Brown perform, so...

Not to get this on to an American Bandstand thing, but I miss shows like that--there was something about watching it on a Saturday afternoon, seeing who the new groups were, and seeing Dick Clark hold up the record that the band was going to sing a song from. (Yeah, it was a record...which is, to me, the best format of music. You can have your mp3s, CDs, those horrible monstrosities called cassettes AND 4 and 8-tracks, nothing will ever beat the warmth of a well-cared for record. Now, I'm not talking mono here--mono sucked total ass.

Okay, back to the subject at hand, Mr. Curly Howard (or Jerome Horwitz). That man lived a mere (I hate using "mere" when much younger people die, but I'll use it here) 48 years. The man lived enough lives for at least five people. There were the many marriages, the many affairs, and his love of food and drink which definitely contributed to his demise. If you look at a short from early 1945, then from later that year, you cannot believe the total difference in the man--I mean, he looked 10 years older in a matter of months. I don't know what the hell kind of treatment they were using back in the 40s, but damn! Giving him boiled rice and apples to lose weight?! Shit, weight'd drop off me in a manner of microseconds. Ewww!

But, however sad his life ended, you have to say the man lived hard, and died hard. How many of us can say that we were on top of the world, at least for a while, one of the most beloved entertainers in history? Most of us are living sad, loud-ass lives of hysterical desperation, wishing that there was something different that we could be doing. (Of course, that could just be me, the secretary talking....well, not just a secretary--I'm also a psych major who's planning to go to grad school whenever I can figure out what the fuck I need to do to actually do it.

Wow--this did not really go as well as Larry's tribute, did it? But I feel a little differently about Curly than Larry. Larry was my favorite--the man was the best actor of the three (Norman Maurer--Moe's son-in-law even said so), so when it comes to him, it's just funny to look at him because he was the true definition of a Stooge--stand there and look dopey. Curly? Dude could not stand still--even with such a handsome face, he was funnier than hell. And speaking of which, here's a picture of the world's most famous Stooge:

(And yes, I know that his birthday was actually October 22, but I probably won't be able to "work" tomorrow!)

"Can't do that...we ain't got no cream!"

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:49:42 GMT

Larry Fine (originally thought to be born on October 5, 1902, he later discovered it was actually September 5, 1902)
January 24, 1975

For some reason, I've always liked this photo--this is from (I believe) 1933 or 1934, when the fellows had just left MGM for their historic career at Columbia. What made them so memorable, so able to transcend all these generations....from my paternal AND maternal great-grandparents on down to my sister and I...Stooges for life!

(The title of this entry comes from the wonderful drunken banter of Moe and Larry in a short from 1950, Love at First Bite.

In it's entirety:

(During a bachelor party, Shemp gets drunk and decides to take a foot bath...in cement!)
Moe: We killed him! We killed our best pal!
Larry: They'll hang us for this!
Moe: I got it! we'll cremate him!
Larry: Can't do that...we ain't got no cream!"

Interesting perspective....

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:23:03 GMT

I was just reading this blog, and the author and comments make me wonder just HOW WORTHLESS is my bachelors (in Fine Arts, no less!). I've never believed that I was getting anything that was worth any great shakes--in fact I know that it's just a prettier piece of paper than my high school diploma. But the thought of going to grad school doesn't fill me with dread...it makes me wonder if I'd be prepared because I didn't really find the classes all that challenging. Sure, I've been interested in psychology since I was four (it was probably before that), so not only did I not feel challenged, I was also lazier than hell and my transcripts prove that out. I was much more successful in my sociology minor than my major. Ah, well. I'm sure that people are going to look more at the masters degree anyway. And in psychology, that means that I'll need to go further. Why bother with grad school if you're not going to get a doctorate?

So, apparently, I'll be in school for the rest of my natural born life.

It's the time of the season....

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:03:03 GMT

It's almost the most wonderful time of the year! Once October gets started, it means that the Christmas deluge is on! Hallowe'en in August, Thanksgiving briefly thrown in to show us that Christmas IS COMING!, and then it's Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! Personally, I do love the lights, etc., but could do without the pappy smaltz that accompanies all newstories that time of year. What? Get burned out of your house? It's terrible, because it's Christmas time! Not because it's snowy, colder than hell, and all your shit just burned up, but because it's CHRISTMAS!

Oh, it's also that time when homeless people come out. (The freaks come out at Christmas, the freaks come out at Christmas!)

Onto better and more fun news, I'd love to get a good receipe for gingerbread, gingerbread cookies, or molasses cookies that are similar to the Grandma's brand they used to sell. Or like the Voortman's brand. My own experiments never turned out like those!

Drugs. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:43:33 GMT

Who said that Homer Simpson wasn't one of life's great minds?

MEXICO CITY – Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

"All right!" said a grinning Ivan Rojas, a rail-thin 20-year-old addict who endured police harassment during the decade he has spent sleeping inMexico City's gritty streets and subway stations.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon's drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

"Now they will go because they can get drugs," said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. "For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use."

Enacted last week, the Mexican law is part of a growing trend across Latin America to treat drug use as a public health problem and make room in overcrowded prisons for violent traffickers rather than small-time users.

Brazil and Uruguay have already eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use, although possession is still considered a crime in Brazil. Argentina's Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession on Tuesday and officials say they plan to propose a law keeping drug consumers out of the justice system.

Colombia has decriminalized marijuana and cocaine for personal use, but kept penalties for other drugs.

Officials in those countries say they are not legalizing drugs — just drawing a line between users, dealers and traffickers amid a fierce drug war. Mexico's law toughens penalties for selling drugs even as it relaxes the law against using them.

"Latin America is disappointed with the results of the current drug policies and is exploring alternatives," said Ricardo Soberon, director of the Drug Research and Human Rights Center in Lima, Peru.

As Mexico ratcheted up its fight against cartels, drug use jumped more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2008, according to the government, and today prisons are filled with addicts, many under the age of 25.

Rojas has spent half his life snorting cocaine and sniffing paint thinner as he roamed Mexico City's streets in a daze. Most days he was roused awake by police demanding a bribe and forcing him to move along, he said.

"It's good they have this law so police don't grab you," said Rojas, whose name, I-V-A-N, is tattooed across his knuckles.

Rojas hit bottom three weeks ago when he could not score enough money for drugs by begging and found himself shaking uncontrollably. He accepted an offer for help from workers from a drug rehabilitation center who approached him on the street.

"Drugs were finishing me off," said Rojas, whose 13-year-old brother died of an overdose eight years ago. "I lost my brother. I lost my youth."

Juan Martin Perez, who runs Caracol, the nonprofit center helping Rojas, said the government has poured millions of dollars into the drug war but has done little to treat addicts. His group relies on grants from foundations.

The new law requires officials to encourage drug users to seek treatment in lieu of jail, but the government has not allocated more money for organizations like Caracol that are supposed to help them.

Treatment is mandatory for third-time offenders, but the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.

"This was passed quickly and quietly but it's going to have to be adjusted to match reality," Perez said.

Supporters of the change point to Portugal, which removed jail terms for drug possession for personal use in 2001 and still has one of the lowest rates of cocaine use in Europe.

Portugal's law defines personal use as the equivalent of what one person would consume over 10 days. Police confiscate the drugs and the suspect must appear before a government commission, which reviews the person's drug consumption patterns. Users may be fined, sent for treatment or put on probation.

Foreigners caught with drugs still face arrest in Portugal, a measure to prevent drug tourism.

The same is not true for Mexico, where there is no jail time for anyone caught with roughly four marijuana cigarettes, four lines of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

That's what concerns U.S. law enforcement at the border.

"It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world's most dangerous drugs," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. "For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence."

Don Thornhill, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor who investigated Mexican cartels for 25 years, said Mexico's rampant drug violence will likely deter most U.S. drug users, and the new law will allow Mexican police to focus on "the bigger fish."

The Bush administration criticized a similar bill proposed in Mexico in 2006, prompting then-President Vicente Fox to send it back to Congress. But Washington has stayed quiet this time, praising Calderon for his fight against drug cartels — a struggle that has seen some 11,000 people killed since Calderon took office in 2006.

"We work with Mexico every day to combat illegal drugs and cartel violence," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said when asked about the law. "And we look forward to continuing that cooperation."

_____

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Harold Heckle in Madrid, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Olga Rodriguez in Mexico City and Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:24:33 GMT

August 20, 2009

Hildegard Behrens, Soprano Acclaimed for Wagner, Is Dead at 72

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

The German soprano Hildegard Behrens, a mesmerizing interpreter of touchstone dramatic soprano roles like Wagner’s Brünnhilde and Strauss’s Salome during the 1980s and early ’90s, died on Tuesday in Tokyo. She was 72 and lived in Vienna.

Her death was reported by Jonathan Friend, the artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera, in an e-mail message sent to associates and shared with the press by Jack Mastroianni, director of the vocal division at IMG Artists and her former manager.

Ms. Behrens fell ill while traveling to a festival in the Japanese resort town of Kusatsu to present master classes and a recital and was taken to a hospital in Tokyo on Sunday night. She died there apparently of an aneurysm, Mr. Friend wrote.

Ms. Behrens’s ascent into the demanding Wagnerian soprano repertory was uncommonly fast after starting her career late. She did not begin vocal studies, at the Freiburg Academy of Music, until she was 26, the same year she graduated from the University of Freiburg in Germany as a junior barrister, having initially chosen law as a profession. Her debut came in Freiburg in February 1971, the month she turned 34, in a lyric soprano role, the Countess in Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro.” Her voice at the time was rich and flexible, and she might have continued on a lighter repertory path. But the shimmering allure and power of her sound and the intensity of her singing led her inexorably to Wagner.

In her prime she was a complete vocal artist, a singer whose warm, textured voice could send phrases soaring. Her top notes could slice through any Wagner orchestra. Her technique made heavy use of chest voice, an approach that would eventually take a toll on her singing. Many purists argued that Ms. Behrens was no born Wagnerian. Her voice lacked the penetrating solidity of a Kirsten Flagstad or the clarion brilliance of a Birgit Nilsson.

Yet with her deep intelligence, dramatic fervor and acute emotional insights, she made her voice do what the music and the moment demanded. A beautiful woman with dark hair and a slender athletic frame, she was a poignant actress capable of fits and temperamental flashes onstage. She was riveting as Wagner’s Isolde, a role she recorded with Leonard Bernstein conducting; Senta from “Der Fliegende Holländer”; and, especially, Brünnhilde.

She learned the three Brünnhilde roles of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle (in “Die Walküre,” “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung”) simultaneously, because she thought of the four operas as an entity, an organic operatic drama. Her first Brünnhilde came with a complete “Ring” at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany in 1983, the production conducted by Georg Solti. It was a triumph for Ms. Behrens, which she repeated for the following three summer seasons there.

She sang the role when the Met opened its 1986-87 season with “Die Walküre,” the first installment of Otto Schenk’s production. In the spring of 1989 she sang in the Met’s first presentation of the complete Schenk “Ring,” which was designed with her in mind. The production was retired in May of this year.

Between her Met debut as Giorgetta in Puccini’s “Tabarro” in 1976 and her appearances as Marie in Berg’s “Wozzeck” in 1999, she sang 171 performances with the company, including Leonore in Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” Elettra in Mozart’s “Idomeneo” and the title roles in Strauss’s “Salome” and “Elektra.” She sang the title role in Puccini’s “Tosca” opposite Plácido Domingo in the premiere of the popular Franco Zeffirellistaging introduced in 1985, a production later broadcast on public television.

Still, Brünnhilde became her Met calling card. She appears in the company’s DVDs of the Schenk “Ring” — recorded mostly in 1990, when she was at her dramatic and vocal peak — with James Levine conducting. The release affectingly captures her uncommonly feminine and thoughtful portrayal of this rambunctious character.

Yet Ms. Behrens’s move into Wagner was an act of will that took a vocal toll. By the mid-1990s, when she was approaching 60, her singing became ragged, with dicey pitch and strident top notes. Ms. Behrens drew criticism from many opera buffs and reviewers during this period. But she was determined to sing her chosen roles with uncompromising intensity, whatever the cost.

Hildegard Behrens was born on Feb. 9, 1937 in Varel, Germany, west of Hamburg, the youngest of six children. Both her parents were doctors, and her father was an avid amateur musician. As a child Ms. Behrens studied piano and violin and had a natural singing voice. Commenting on her musical upbringing in a 1983 interview with The New York Times, she said, “Nobody cared for me, and I had no expectations.” Hence her drift into law school.

Her true talent did not emerge until well into her vocal studies in Freiburg. In 1972 she became a member of the Deutsche Oper in Düsseldorf. She was discovered there by the powerful conductor Herbert von Karajan, who recruited her to sing Salome at the Salzburg Festival in Austria in 1977. The experience was exasperating for the determined Ms. Behrens: Karajan insisted that a nonsinger perform Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils. Still, her performance was acclaimed and resulted in a landmark recording.

In the 1983 interview Ms. Behrens explained that she knew from the beginning that she would become a dramatic soprano, and that her slow start was an advantage.

“I consider my career to have had a fantastic logic,” she said, adding, “Now I realize that all that time I spent at the conservatory allowed me to evolve as a musician.”

“It was like playing a role out in my mind, before I actually did it. Even today I can think through a part, and my throat will subconsciously assume all the correct positions without my actually having to sing.”

By the early 1980s Ms. Behrens was such a major Met artist that she considered her loft in Chelsea home; she lived there at the time with her two children. Ms Behrens’s children, Philip Behrens of Munich and Sara Behrens Schneidman of Vienna, survive her, along with two grandchildren.

Ms. Behrens saw no divide between acting and singing. “Music for me comes out of the dramatic context,” she said in a 1997 interview with Opera News. “I have never had the temptation to view the voice as a fetish. For me it’s just a vehicle. I cannot consider it as some kind of golden calf.”

In 1990, while performing in the “Ring” at the Met, Ms. Behrens sustained a severe injury when a piece of scenery fell on her during the final scene of “Götterdämmerung,” the dramatic climax in which the Hall of the Gibichungs collapses. A beam of plastic foam and canvas stretched over wood fell prematurely and knocked Ms. Behrens to the floor, bruising her forehead and blackening her eyes. She had to miss subsequent performances. In a statement at the time, she said that if the beam had not struck her she might have taken a fatal fall into an open shaft created by a premature lowering of part of the stage floor.

Ms. Behrens was not an artist who looked back at decisions with regret, including her early choice of law school. She found helpful connections between law and opera.

“You go step by step in law,” she said in the Opera News interview, “and that’s what you do in opera too — finding motivations, reasons, cause and effect, emotions, guilt, responsibility. The intellectual training and discipline that it takes to solve a juridical case are very good for the approaches to a role.”

Correction: Aug. 19, 2009

A previous version of this article misspelled the surname of Hildegard Behrens's daughter. She is Sara Behrens Schneidman, not Scheidman.

Another day, another school year....

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:05:11 GMT

There's nothing like starting a new academic year with a "degree" in hand. Well, it'll be in hand whenever I go back to get everything cleared up. Am I in a hurry? Oh, hell no! Come on! It took me forever to get the damned thing, a couple of days waiting won't make any difference. Do I feel like a loser? Kind of, since I still have no idea of what I want to do, and feel rather silly trying to figure it out. I almost wish I lived in one of those Eastern European countries where your future's mapped out as soon as you get into kindergarten. That's the problem with the US. You're given all of these options of what you could be when you grow up (no, I'm not getting into any sociological/classist rant here--I'm too tired), and before you know it, you're 40 years old and still confused.

Meh. All I know is that sociology/psychology will play a part in my future (I hope). Who knows?

And I still don't have a computer! D'oh!!!

"I didn't think I'd live this long."

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:01:02 GMT

I've written an entry with that same title before, and I always thought it was one of the funniest lines of "The Simpsons." The other? "You don't have to take that from no punk-ass crab!" Just the randomness of him trying to "toughen up" Pinchy was hysterical. That episode doesn't come on nearly enough.

But to the subject at hand. What I mean by the title is that I think that it plays a major part of why I have no idea of where I'm going, what I'm doing, or why I have NO PLANS AT ALL FOR THE FUTURE. I mean, sure, I plan to go home, exercise, play through some Chopin etudes, snark on CSI: Miami, etc., but as for REAL, SERIOUS, GROWN-UP plans like all people who are 34 are supposed to have? Nein! I don't know, maybe I did have plans, but something happened and I forgot about them. Or maybe I just got jaded. Who knows? Alls I knows is that I am (probably) destined to be one of those drones, one of those ugly children that that mother hid from God in that Grimm's fairy tale. She showed off her "beautiful" children, and they were chosen to be princes, princesses, etc., and when (finally) she broke out the ugly kids, they got to do the slag jobs, such as....well, low-wage, crap-ass jobs. Similar to those commercials that permeate daytime TV. Now, I'm not saying that anyone who has that type of job (and if you watch as much daytime talk-show TV as I do, you know what commercials I mean), because I AM DOING one of those kinds of jobs right now. Well, the ones they used to advertise. I don't see much advertising for secretarial schools anymore. And the bad thing is, I don't think I could even get a job as a real secretary--my main claim to fame is typing really fast. I'd have to go back and re-learn the whole Dictaphone, proofreading/editing, and all that other secretarial hoo-hah. If I'd had any sense, I'd have stayed with it to fall back upon while I went to school for Psychology. But with me being stupid and shit, I got bit by the music bug, and lo and behold--I had some damn talent. Now look where I am. Evil as hell because I can't work 8 hour days for any extended amount of time (thanks heart failure!), and I've probably forgotten so much about psychology that I'd need to go back to the beginning to brush up on my skills. Only thing that I CAN do well would be tutoring piano students, but fuck that. I wouldn't teach a monkey to throw shit. I don't like teaching, I don't have the talent, and I think that's what people miss. They seem to say, well, "Those that can't, teach." PLEASE! I beg to differ--"Those that CAN, teach. Those that can't, lose their tempers and start shooting sprees because of students that don't know shit from shinola, yet have the nerve to get all ig'nant with you. Fuck that. Life's too short to deal with students who think that the world owes them something because they just happened to be the "lucky" sperm that hit the egg at the right time. Oy, we're going to have generations of stupid kids that make ALL young people look bad.

One of the men I've always wanted to be.....

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:36:01 GMT

John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009)

I know that he died almost 7 months ago, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t take me this long to write something about him. I mean, when I heard that news in the morning, it hit me like a kick in the balls. (I’ve no balls.) I mean, what can I say? He is/was one of the two men I want to be—the other, Colin Blunstone. Lord knows what I’m going to feel like when he kicks off. I’ll probably go on a crazy spree, listening to his CDs all night/day long, which is pretty much the same thing I did when I heard of his death. It’s not like it was a great surprise—I mean, damn, he smoked like he was a Stooge, so what do you expect? What I did not expect for him to have been twice married—for some reason, I thought Martha Updike was the one and only Mrs. Updike. Then again, damn, look at the subject matter! I would’ve thought he’d be more like Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, not to mention Richard Burton. But no, “only” two marriages, and for the most part, he seemed like a normal guy that I would’ve given a complete stranger’s newborn child to just listen to him. Not lecture—lectures kinda suck ass, but just talking for shits and giggles.

Let’s see: what’s my history with this man? I read Rabbit, Run when I was six. Hey, it had rabbit in the title, and the bookmobile guy was just glad kids were reading. (This bookmobile catered to both children and adults.) I even remember the little punch/due date card he placed in the pocket. (You young’uns won’t know what that is, but y’all old fogies will!)

And sadly, that’s all I have to say—I mean there’s not much to say about a man whose works you’ve loved since forever. And so, there are the pictures of the men (man, now I guess I have to say, I want to be.)