Traveling Man

10,000 B.C. (Before Critics)

I used to get useful information from Rotten Tomatoes.  It's still the best source for current movie reviews, but its overall ratings have become suspect.  This happened to my favorite film critic in Houston (no names), and with Roger Ebert, whose reviews became less than credible for me; I can''t read his stuff any more.  This is happening to more and more RT reviewers.  Maybe they want to be liked (at least, by Festival organizers), or want to develop a reputation as tough.  I don't know.  But I've had to learn to read between the lines.

The recent release 10,000 B.C. received a rating of 10 (out of a hundred.)  I went anyway, and was pleasantly surprised.  It was, well, entertaining.  True, the writers played fast and loose with recorded history, but that's hardly shocking in a (ahem) piece of fiction.  I was amused that they tried to work in "ancient astronauts" and other outrè theories, as well as suggesting origins for previously undocumented but still real touchstones in human development. 

There were intriguing swipes at mysticism and mythology, too.  That they didn't cling to one or two myths, but played with the idea of how myths evolve, was refreshing.

(It's neither here not there, but this remiinded me very much of two of my favorite comic books.  One was the Tarzan series.  Like Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp character, the comic-book Tarzan often discovered lost races or uncovered forgotten technology or history.   The second series was, in the beginning, a back-up story in Tarzan called  Brothers of the Spear.  Two cultures in Africa, a white and a black  one, worked together to fight slavers, conquerors, etc. and keep Africa free from assorted villainy.)

Anyway, the film.  The film story is bound to Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey", and it works well for me.  As far as the story's presentation, what's wrong with depicting truth, honesty, loyalty, love, and its opposite numbers, in bold strokes?  In contemporary fiction (perhaps from the 1960s, or maybe from Freud's first real impact in American society) we work hard to depict in action the same virtues and flaws; we just feel some need to obsfucate them.  I wonder if all this grayness is necessary. 

I think it exists in part to create empathy for the characters; they are gray in the same fashion as we are.  However, these characters will eternally be flawed.  I've been told that we read fiction to learn from their mistakes.  But I wonder if we don't read to learn new excuses.

Indeed.

The most famous poster in the world

I've written a lot about Che Guevara, virtually all of it fiction, although I try mightly to approach the man's spirit.  I was barely out of high school in Texas when Che was killed in Bolivia.  That was 1967 and Che was high-regarded in our culture.  He was, of course, just as widely feared; and more significantly, hated.  The feeling that the world would become (in his words) "many Vietnams" fed that fear of men like Guevara.

It's a great irony that such a sensitive and caring physician became such a violent and ruthless man; and that he accomplished with his cruel death what he could not bring forth in life - the beginnings of world revolution.  (It's an ongoing, back-and-forth struggle where technology, as where as the players, goals, and rules change constantly.   Let's go with this, for now.)

In Feb-Mar of 1960 (about a month's visit, in all), Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir traveled through Cuba and talked with people.  This was about a year after Castro has taken power, and the French philosophers and politicos were asked not to describe Cuba as an emerging socialist society; Castro had not (as it was later described) yet "discovered" he was a Communist: that came in a vision, after the Bay of Pigs and the U.S. economic boycott, which forced Castro to turn to the U.S.S.R. for aid.  (Makes you wonder why our government never seems to be able to recognize a potential friend, or is so quick to make eternal enemies?)

The philosophers spoke extensively with Che, who was fluent in French.  Later Sartre, an accomplished critic, novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and existentialist philosopher, called Che "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our era."

While I admire Che very much, I'm going to ponder that statement for while.  We'll talk later.  I once traveled to Paraguay and Bolivia on a medical mission, but took time to explore some Che issues myself.

Anyway, here's Che, with a video and song I really enjoyed.

Six Liverpudlians

The other day on PBS I watched the documentary Best of the Beatles.  It's a pun title and the same as used on one of Pete Best's albums - the one that really pissed off John and the other Be-at-les.  The fairly straightforward documentary is both entertaining and enlightening, with just a smidge of self-serving commentary from local Liverpudlians, family, and Pete himself.  Mostly it's honest and poignant and more evocative of the era than other more expensive, high-profile pieces I've seen.

Pete really was one of the Beatles, along with John, Paul, George, and Stuart Sutcliffe, who died very young (of a brain aneurysm, I believe.)  Just before signing a record contract (Decca?), Pete was booted out of the group and Ringo was brought in.  I've always thought this a bit unfair, but there might have been other conflicts: its sometimes implied that Pete wasn't a top-notch drummer (this seems unlikely), or that he was getting all the girls (Pete's suggestion), or that he wasn't completely compatible with the raucous, even licentious Beatles of the Hamburg era.  Perhaps.  Tough break for Pete, though, who'd had his sights set on stardom.

Pete eventually left the music business and made an ordinary English living, like the rest of his mates.  Sometime in the 1980s he got a new band, and together with his brother went on the road.

Last October here in Wilmington, DE, I picked up the paper and noticed a small ad listing Pete and his band, playing that evening at Kelly's Logan's House, a bar that serves food and offers a small upstairs room and stage, only a mile or so from my downtown apartment.  Although Kelly's, established in 1864 and on the National Register of Historic Places, was across the street from our favorite grocery, I'd never been inside.

Reading that ad, I had one of the strangest feelings I've ever experienced.  I can't explain it, or even describe the emotion.  It really took me back, though.  In 1964, when I was fifteen, I lived in Houston, and was offered tickets  to the Beatles concert at the Coliseum.  Staying loyal to the Beach Boys, I turned down the tickets.  Later I fell in with the British Invasion - the Hermits, The Animals, the Stones, etc. - and went to every gathering.  This was the real beginning of the 1960s in Texas.

I've always loved live music. Texas was (and still is) full of hillbilly, rockabilly, folk and country singers, pickers, garage and bar bands.  Everything.  In 1956, at Magnolia Gardens (near Galveston), I saw Elvis perform.  1-9-5-6.  I was seven and even then he was electrifying.  (And the dance floor was concrete, so that's dangerous.)

Really dumb choice, of course, rejecting those tickets.  I knew the Beatles concerts were short - about 45 minutes in those days - and deafening, so that you couldn't really hear the music; but I've always regetted missing the experience.  I didn't miss any concerts after that, chasing festivals around the country to be in the moment.  But I missed that quintessential Beatles concert.  Over the years I got to hear Ringo and Paul in concert, and Ravi Shankar and other near-misses; these were Beatle-like experiences.  The day in 1981, when I walked by the Dakota near Central Park, struck home the most.  I mourned the talent and legend and lost promise of John Lennon; a very sad day for everyone.  An unfinished life.

Let's be respectful but joyous.  It's 2007 and I'm here in Wilmington.  Laurie was out of town on a business trip, so I reserved a ticket, then had dinner, took the bus over, and arrived early enough to pay for the $22 ticket and walk inside.  I don't drink alcohol so I bought a Coke and found a seat in the tiny upstairs room.  There was a second bar at the room's back and a small dance floor, plus a few stools arranged in front of the windows; but the stage, covered with two drum kits and ampliers and guitar stands, dominated the room.

I'll cut to the chase.  A local band opened and they were quite entertaining; I think they were energized to be opening for Pete.  After that, Best's band took over.  I think the second drum set belong's to Pete's brother; they both play, while Pete (who is 65) also sings a bit.  An interesting band with lots of credits, talented musicians and singers.  Pete selected songs he'd actually played in the early Beatle years, plus some later songs that were crowd-pleasers.  The room wasn't full - less than a hundred people, probably, and fairly young.  There were only a few seats (I'd grabbed a stool early and a young blonde parked on my lap  for most of Pete's concert; I wasn't annoyed, exactly, since the floor was crowded, but she might at least have asked.)

After the music, Pete chatted and signed autographs.  I know this is a little cheesy, given the vagaries of history and how far the Fab Four had actually carried their banner without Pete along for the ride.  But I truly admired the forgotten Beatle, who took the ingredients he'd been given and made pudding with it.