JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PEOPLES TEMPLE

THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT.

This documentary "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" is the best treatise on this subject that I have ever seen. All of us feel at sometime that the world will end, and this is the way that Jim Jones felt on November 18, 1978. This catastrophic event was very carefully captured, and we can watch these confusing events unfold in real time. I have seen many specials on The Peoples Temple and this PBS work is the most carefully researched, the most objective account. There are no reenactments, just film footage, the careful placement of photographs against events, and the painful commentary of former members, most of which were stricken with the tragedy of the multiple loss of family members.

The best aspect was the thorough coverage of the early church in Indiana and then the move to California. You can hear much of the preaching of Jim Jones and see footage of the early church. Jim Jones was clear at that time, and was an early champion of the rights of blacks, even in the 1950s. Also he was a socialist and used the communal teachings of Jesus to persuade new members to join the congregation. Some of the frauds were revealed too and the ways he held these poor people in his grip. He used sex to control them also. Jones: "...If You see me as your God I will be your God". It is surprising to see his popularity unfold early on, but one has to put on blinders, reminded of the darker aspects of this story unfolding. In the mid-seventies Jim started taking drugs and got very paranoid. This I suppose is the basis for his messiah complex which made him conscious that everyone was out to get him and his people.

The extras are really good and provide many of the individual stories that have been so carefully preserved. Through the years I have gone through this sorted tale many times, wondering why this happened, and it is still a mystery, even as it seemed that something miraculous was to happen, but suddenly the devil took hold. One suspects that you must be careful who you worship, who you hold up as a messiah. I recalled how shocked I was when I learned that JFK had so many affairs, even when he was the commander in chief. This was troubling. Jones had many affairs with men and women and then hushed it up. People could not talk with one another. His taped voice was a constant drone on the loudspeakers in Guyana, just like the FBI did in Waco with David Karesh. I also saw how gospel music played a deep role with the Peoples Temple. Jim was very in tune with the African American experience, and almost seemed black himself. I was reminded of Elvis and his miraculous crossover.

This tale has been told over and over again. It will be told many more times. A much more precise assemblage of photos, facts, and footage was applied in this American Experience special. This PBS documentary is the best retelling of these twisted events to date and will be included in my collection, as I still attempt to probe how these bizarre incidents could have come about. One new thing that I saw was that the Kool-Aid murder/suicide had been rehearsed many times before. Noone tried to stop him before that time, and then when Leo Ryan went to Guyana and actually tried to stop his crazy plan, he had a back-up strategy to counter him.

TORRE PENDENTE

This is my absolute first oil painting. It was conceived and executed some three years ago. The oil is a rendering of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and I used a bewitching, embellished (touched up) postcard as its model. I traveled to Pisa in October of 2000, and in many ways it was perfectly preserved and in tune to the late medieval city-state of the distant 14th century. All around the Campo dei Mirocoli, the grounds for all three buildings, were many souvenir peddlars selling curiosities, prodigious wares in the way of tower trinkets (you know the drill-tee-shirts, mugs, postcards, ball caps, larger prints, sculpture, pendants etc....) This was a mind blowing experience for me as I had dreamed capriciously of witnessing this phenomenon, this architectural quirk (or better oddity), all of my mortal days! I believe my painting came out right handsomely as a result of my strong devotion for the edifice. Please read up on its history because it is of a consummate fascination; a labyrinth of unusual events are baked into the cake of the Torre Pendente. The most noteworthy is that Galileo may have dropped cannon balls off of it to prove that mass and gravity are two unique wonders of physics, indeed a rare marvel! I had first learned of this on Fractured Fairy Tales, a cartoon written by Jay Ward. The Torre Pendente was begun in 1173 and commenced to lean almost immediately, so it amazing that it is still standing.

My work was painted on a piece of maple wood and is 11.25 inches square. I used Winsor & Newton oil paints for it. There is a strong use of impasto, or the thick application of paint to give it a pronounced, three-dimensional surface. I do not believe that you can quite detect that characteristic in the photograph for this blog posting. There is the use of foreshortening and a teeny bit of the application of chirascuro. I`m proud of that because those are lessons that I learned in art history class; those techniques were conceived by the Italian Renaissance artists. The tower itself is teeming with detail and quite a bit of toil is etched into the surface of the maple. The sky is a deep azure blue (and gave me a bit of trouble) just as it was on that crisp October morn in Italy some seven years prior! The lawns and cypress trees are rendered with accuracy and some TLC. That day in Pisa was one of the best days in my entire life, so I hope that my painting too reflects that rare mirth, that visits us so infrequently!

THE DOBIE EXPERIENCE

Sometimes there is nothing going on in Austin, especially in the middle of the summer. This is the best time to go to Dobie Mall to see a movie. The funky parking garage is not so full and the dilapidated mall is indolent as well. The training screens are very quiet, but you can focus on your feature better. I usually meander about the mall some before the show, and a lot of memories come back of when I was a student and roomed here in the early seventies. Many friends had worked at Dobie Screens back then and seem to have fond memories of their days there.

My first job had been as an usher at Northtown Six Theater in the late sixties-Dallas. That mall is no longer there, but many of my memories of the sixties are (or were-see "1408") lodged in that building. Some of the films that showed were "Five Easy Pieces", "2001 A Space Odyssey", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Bullet". I would see these films over and over again until I memorized them down to each scene. I have fears that Dobie too will be torn down now and when looking at the theater, I fear that it will close soon. I haven`t confirmed that for sure, but do fear it. Memories are erased when something leaves, even if it is just a building, and as a result the footage of the mind starts to fade away as well! All things go at some time, I suppose? Just look at the way Drive-Ins have drifted away. All of this makes me sad, and it makes me realize I am getting old. I see the moms dropping their kids off to college and I recollect similar occasions in 1972. Funny how fast time goes by.

As I am flitting about I still imagine that some of the shops are present from when I was student. I`m not as bad off as Vanessa Redgrave in "Evening" yet, but I prefer some of the funky little shops from then. Like the Magic Mushroom -where you could buy electric candles, and incense and such. Or like the Bakers Dozen-which had pretty good donuts. I saw my very first expresso machine at BD and had my very first expresso in there. Okay, I know...there is nothing going on at Dobie, but that is what makes it cool. You can channel through the past, present, and future in there. It`s paranormal, dude! It will experience the wrecking ball sooner or later, but I will try to hold on to my glorious recollections...until I too fade.

The first year that Dobie opened I lived on the top floor. The cafeteria was pretty good and I remember that everyone was talking about "The Last Picture Show". I would just attend my classes by quickly popping out of Dobie, then scurrying over to Sutton or Garrison Hall, a mere 2 or 3 minute walk from Dobie. Convenient to say the least! In those days I would spend the whole day studying medieval history, puffing on a little smoke, and playing my guitar constantly, and writing dreamy songs, like "The Captain`s Mystery Home". I had a small two-track Sony recorder which I used to work on demos for countless hours. We would call it The Tower of Babel back then because you could buy any kind of drugs on some of the different floors. This is not a brag, but I am simply stating how it was back then.

This is me from around that time, say 1972. Not that I really looked all that different from lots of other students that would be walking across the West Mall on UT campus at say high noon. Remember the expression he has long hair, wears bluejeans, a tee-shirt, and likes The Rolling Stones? That about sums it up. However, I have never liked bluejeans, but have rather always dug cords.

I would listen to rock music all day long. I believe to this day I am a little brain damaged from too much rock. I know my hearing is a little ify. Okay, I`ll confess, at that time I would smoke pot the entire day and just live in an unreal world! That one seemed better to me than parents, Vietnam, and Nixon. Yea...infinitely better.

But Dobie really does a lot for me. When I was younger I would comb the malls doing nothing, but when I worked at Northtown Six I usually went to Yankee Doodles and played pinball and had my normal chili-cheese-dogs for lunch. I liked ushering and I dug the uniforms that we wore. I would bring home a check too and learned responsibility at the age of sixteen. And did you know that our Dallas AMC Theater was the first multiplex in the country? I believe that some of my friends got a similar buzz from working at Dobie Screens. Currently, I favor the Egyptian Room for the delightful murals painted on the walls. Your experience with a film is always a pleasant one at Dobie-very cozy and intimate, as if you are in someone`s parlour. Recent pleasant experiences have been "The Motorcycle Diaries", a travelogue of Che Guevara and "Maria Full of Grace", a harrowing story of how a young girl gets caught up in the drug trade just to get money. I saw that one twice. I love to see foreign films also like Claude Chabrol`s "The Bridesmaid". We couldn`t see many French flicks when I was growing up.

Hey, I`ve always been a mall rat and have always been a big movie goer. Maybe I can enjoy Dobie a little while longer before it endures the blows of the wrecking ball. A memory killer indeed! Hal...hal...Hal...can you hear me hal?

*(I have overhauled my Best of 2006, so look at it under February. The piece is on NewsBlaze and has 1,626, 266 this month, visits so far!)

A LOST LETTER FROM CAPTAIN JOHNSON-1699 AD

*[photo of the former Cap`n by Gail Gant]

Am promulgating the Right-Honorable Captain & `Is Buccaneer Oarkestra and their dittie-laden music platter-A Man Overboard. Few ears `ave drunk of `is tangy sounds, splendidly engraved on platters in the aforementioned production. `Is lordship The Kidd has been pitifully waylaid on a speck of an isle in the Caribbean, much like Defoe`s Robinson Crusoe, and has endured hardship in the way of typhoons, hurricanes, & ghastly hangings of `is slew of rapscallions, with likewise fragrance fur habits or customs of merrymaking and kit-kat-carousing. And as such, `is consummate assemblages of 1998 `as lain isolated and without the kinship of prominence and the company of Higher-Ups in the world of commerce at large; as such. & in furtherance, am penning a spark of a word fur `is colleague Monsieur Claude Boveé, who paints canvas and who cogitates more on pictures & beauty fur the eye, than booty fur the purse. Cap`n Brew Kid & Monsieur Boveé `ave shipmated on countless voyages & `ave survived the tempest of political turmoil, as well as bloodletting and devastation, but are still a semblance of living flesh, animated as such. On this scroll, I will tell ye why you should give a listen to these pipings, that will indubitably breath palmy zephyrs into your sound cones! A Man Overboard wears nicely with time-just brush off the coral, seaweed, & brine, and drink of the horn of Poseidon`s salty muses!

“Eureka!” `twas uttered when the Captain brainstormed the catchy nomenclature ‘Cap`n Brew Kidd’ in the late seventies, around the days of the Iranian Revolt of the nefarious Ayatollah Khomeini (remember when the Iranians kidnapped the Americans in the U.S. embassy in Tehran), & too recall the formidable pulsations of the Punk Revolution, `specially the blokes faring` from Angland-The Sex Pistols and sundry poesies of the rebel Johnny Rotten. Olde Brew Kidd `ad been admirin` me buke A General History of The Robberies & Murders of The Most Notorious Pirates, principally devouring the words on Captain William Kidd, and `is misdeeds, which he paid an ultimate farthing, and was hung & ignobly displayed in chains on the gallows, near the river Thames, puttin` the fear of The Maker in any stray dog gloatin` on `is piracies. The musically-endowed Captain added on the ‘Brew’ fur the largesse portions of punch drunk by `isself & the lotta rogues that rampaged on missions with `im. Hearsay he`s forsaked the pungent potency of 100 percent proof punch in `is latter days. Shiver me timbers, your constituency, but it is rather `is chanteys, and their buoyancies that I wish to bear witness herein!

The Goodman Captain was tinkering with these pirate anthems fully twenty-five years ago; but now-a-days the absconding Disney blokes and that pansy-pants Johnny Depp are hoardin` all the treasure fur theirselves, with that wallflower of a slab of celluloid: the Pirates Of The Caribbean-some of them pieces of eight rightfully should go to Brew Kidd or to meself, the original chronicler of Blackbeard, Rackham, Captain Avery, & sundry other rogues. Anyways, I prefer the original Treasure Island with the idol Charles Laughton as John Silver and Jackie Koogan as the cabin boy. I stray from my vocation! Olde Cap`n Brew Kidd released a right innovative ‘art cassette’, with the title: Urban Buccaneer, in the year 1980 that is festooned with piratical limerick and bits & pieces of the fabric of pop, ska, sea chanteys, ballads, rockers, dirges, island sounds, & all sprinkled with the spices of Punk & ‘New Wave’ blokes-in short, a treasure trove of contemporary sound bites that’s fairly teeming with fun, romance, suspense, and tall tales-all the victuals of proper-piratical wisdom or custom, & likewise `as been handed down from the Blackbeard-Days of the 1700s or in such a neighborhood of nautical charts! And it is a deed in the works now to replenish `er so that she can sail the high seas again, and to make her digital and refit her with art, and make her available on a CD for the blessed multitudes, before too many tides ur dawns and dusks roll over the horizen. Yet here are a few tributes to the aforementioned fresher dittie parchments of-A Man Overboard, a Pot A Gold for yer barnacled bunions!

The song most seemly to acquire the moniker of a number one smash hit would be track 4, ‘Dreamer`s Holiday’-tis a chimerical, romantic pop-ballad along the lines of Harold Arnold, and should be blasting through every radio box in the Free World, and also on the dabblasted Apple I-Tune Network. ‘World of Dreams’ is a pithy, spirited little instrumental, and ‘Crackerhash’, an ode to the pirate biscuit, is a right peppy little jig that will lift you off your hammock and toss you a light-stepping on the top floor with a up fur grabs merrymaid. ‘Bottle of Rum’ is a fictional ballad based on a real fella and is laden with catchy hooks & lyrics, as a cutthroat recalls `is high-seas` misadventures just mill-a-seconds before `is green mile to the gallows. ‘Whale Of A Tale’ is yet another ear-catcher, craftily dished out by Doctor Sticks, the drummer fur Brew Kidd & sundry other rowdy outfits of sound, and it comes from the flick Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, a right miraculous mariner movie. ‘The Twister’ is a disaster ditty (please remember Airplane or perhaps the new zany Snakes On A Plane for its archetype) and was done up as a music video, if you`d care to view it at a later date. Finally or mortally, ‘Eye Of A Deadman’ may grab its muse from the Golden Age Of Piracy most succinctly of `em all! & there are more, & all of `em are diamonds, emeralds, or rubies, if you was to ask me! So start your preparations or marketing stratagems, that is, scheme up ways to get these jewels, by way of nautical chanteys, out of storage and into the earpieces of all the citizenry of the Americas fur me; satisfy me wishes, if you will, and I will quickly brim your barrels with crackerhash & lace your bowls with powerful, eye-opening punch!

Great Caesar`s Ghost! Seems as if we are running short of bunk space in this sloop, so I will begin to parcel my words with prudent dexterity. If you could see fit to bring these songs to Everyman, or to the wider Body Politick, this would serve `is Lordship Brew Kidd well & bring em fortune & fame, as is fitting fur a man of `is caliber. A Man Overboard is more fun than the Pirate Pendulum at The Texas State Fair or Skull Island that resides at Six Flags Over Texas! Don`t let the olde boy sputter out of gas, so thus the carrion crow will swoop down and leisurely pick at `is mortal carcass, devourin` `is tasty innards, then `is dusty charnel bones will flounder through eternity on Gilligan`s Isle in obsequious obsolescence!


With an Ample Portion of Sincerity
& X Marks Me Spot,

*[Cap`n Cameo by Ellen Gibbs]

Captain Charles Johnson

A TRIBUTE TO THE DIVAS OF THE OPERA

RENÉE FLEMING
HOMAGE-The Age Of The Diva

A GALLERY OF DIVAS-ALL OF THEM PARAGONS OF OPERA UTTERANCE!

This is my first Renée Fleming CD and I am totally mesmerized by it. Its title is "HOMAGE-The Age Of The Diva" (it had a release date of October 2006) and Renée pays tribute to many of the star divas of the opera such as Magda Olivero or Maria Jeritza. Some of the tracks are rare such as track nine that I`m listening to now-Tsveti moi! By Rimsky-Korsakov from his lost opera Servilia. A song from Massenet`s Cléopâtre is also new. Renee attempts to tippy-toe on newly plowed soil for a large proportion of the time here. Ms Fleming`s voice is beautiful, quivers like a nightingale in the upper-ozone-stratosphere of sopranosville, as a I play this record for about the umpteenth time. I`m still trying to decide which track is my favorite, but am leaning towards two Korngold selections, and this is maybe due to the fact that he is in the vanguard of film-score composers.

Included is a very attractive CD booklet with all the lyrics to the arias and information about each of the pieces, the composers, the most famous performers, their claim to fame, origins and such. Also, the photographs are nice of Renée Fleming dressed to the gills as an old-timey-diva. Moreover, there are photos of many of greats such as Mary Garden or Geraldine Ferrar. I am doing a little research on these famous divas, and am dying to hear some of their recordings. This may have been the purpose of this CD, and if that is true, it is doing its job splendidly! I usually listen to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays, when in season, but I listen mostly in my truck when I am running errands, so my concentration is somewhat limited. I have heard Renée Fleming on 89.5 KMFA radio, Austin`s classical station, which I listened to religiously, because it keeps my jangled nerves in check. I always listen to the New York Philharmonic on Tuesdays-yea, I look forward to that show the most!

I have been reading up on the two dearly departed divas, and that may have factored in in my purchase of this CD. I anxiously perused the recent death of Beverly Sills in Wednesdays` New York Times (that was the 4th), a piece by Anthony Tommasini, and did not have too many recollections of her, save some Tonight Show appearances. I will make a point to review her career more thoroughly. Then on Friday I flipped through the obituaries of Régine Crespin, a French diva most known for her as Sieglinde in Wagner`s “Die Walküre”, (part of the Ring Cycle) and especially her version with Georg Solti`s Decca recording. This piece was also written by Anthony Tommasini, the classical music critic for the New York Times, and a writer I seem to get most of my classical stuff from. I am curious about Regine`s sound catalog too. Please go to this historic opera site to purview old postcards, programs, billboards, scores, and trivia galore-it is a lot of fun and you will learn a lot too!

I`m listening to Servilla by Rimsky-Korsakov now and I have chills as a result of its beauty. This is all very new to me, so it is still very fresh and exciting, in both content and in its performance. I will be studying these references carefully and then will maybe pick up some other titles, if I can manage it. I just loaded “Homage” on my MP3 player, so as I take my walk down 6th Street, the Bourbon Street of the Capitol City, and as I glide past all the hobos, winos, and washed-up souls maybe I will get a clearer perspective on this CD! Just before I leave I`m playing track 5 again-Korngold`s “Ich ging zu ihm” because he most intrigues me at the present time, perhaps because of his amusing name. But oddly in a few moments it will be Puccini`s “Tosca”, perhaps? After taking my walk (it is now 9:38 AM), and after oodles of Starbucks` powerful White Chocolate Moca Ventis, I am not any closer to worshipping one song over another, in fact I LOVE all thirteen tracks! (That is Giacomo Puccini with Maria Jeritza just above).

Franco-American Discord-Or What?

That is Louis XVI on the left, and he played a pivotal role in the American Revolution, in that he granted aid to The Thirteen Colonies in 1777, but only after the battle of Saratoga demonstrated a turn in the favour of the Americans. This aid was mostly due to Louis` minister of foreign affairs, Charles Gravier de Vergennes, who saw an opportunity to avenge the English, after a scolding loss in the Seven Years War, by aiding the Thirteen Colonies in their independence. Naturally, Louis was no champion of democracy, but England was winning more control of territory in the New World, and France needed to get back in the game. This is exceedingly ironic in that Louis would lose his head about sixteen years later for not being an advocate of democracy.

I picked up the book "Our Oldest Enemy" by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky at Bookpeople on Sunday because I was searching for a volume about Franco-American relations over the past several hundred years. I haven`t read all of it, but I`m starting to get their drift. Relations have been tainted, especially over the Iraq War, which Jacques Chirac has been strongly opposed to. But being the 4th of July and all, I simply wanted to look at the role of France in the War of Independence, which grants us the freedoms that we experience today. I have to go to a movie later, so I`m just going to give you a few of the profound details that I discovered. Please read all of the mostly Wiki links with an eye for detail, and see what you come up with.

I think it is safe to say that the French played an important role in the rebels` securing a victory. "Our Oldest Enemy" maybe takes the argument too far, in the way it emphasizes that France really offered a negative helping hand. Nonetheless, the book is well researched and certainly worthy of inspection. The chapter Revolting Ally covers the right period for this blog entry, and it was here that I uncovered some startling clues. The Treaty of Alliance of 1778 has to studied carefully if any of this is going to make any sense whatsoever. By pouring money into this foreign war, the coffers of Louis XVI were completely drained! Thus, this was one significant cause for the French Revolution; oddly, this revolution modeled itself on the successful revolution of the Americas, yet Louis had backed it? These profundities must have crossed his mind as he mounted the scaffold of the guillotine!

Some of the chief French players in the conflict were mainly representatives of France, not the Americans. This doesn`t seem too unusual, yet this does not imply that they did not aid the Americans in their cause, does it? The marquis de La Fayette was a great friend to Washington and provided valuable assistance to the Colonists at Brandywine, Monmouth, and especially at Yorktown, the final battle of the war. He was both a hero for France and the Americans! He was opposed to slavery and was an early abolitionist. In the French Revolution he was a moderate and fell into the Constitutional Monarchist camp. Pierre Beaumarchis sponsored an underground network of support for the American rebels in the way of munitions, clothes, and provisions. This was in cahoots with the crown, covertly of course. Charles Hector, comte d`Estaing as a naval commander, did not always behave exactly as George Washington would have preferred. But he had to retreat to the Boston harbors for repair, after stormy seas waylaid many of his frigates. Too, he made some misjudgments when trying retake Savannah from the British, and was soundly defeated in the summer of 1777. His chief maneuvers were in the West Indies, but this was due to his goal to protect French financial interests in the New World- this seems only natural. Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse also made some benevolent contributions in some of the naval battles, and with the victory at the battle of Chesapeake in September of 1781, the French were able to blockade the Atlantic coast and helped to soundly defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown. One small blackmark seems to be the behavior of Pierre Landais against John Paul Jones. The two hated each other and were involved in quite a few rows.

The Big Picture here is that the French made a valuable contribution to the American Revolution. As immigrants floated on their boatride by the Statue of Liberty, a product of a French architect, in say the late 19th century, I can safely speculate that they are dreaming that without the Franco-contribution to America`s liberation, they could never have obtained their freedom. I still stubbornly hold this to be true, though this notion is a little unpopular today, yet mostly by arch-conservatives. Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite! This slogan rings true for the American Revolution as well; Jefferson, Paine, and Adams borrowed heavily from the French Enlightenment Philosophes, such as Rousseau and Voltaire, yes it was quid pro quo across the Atlantic between the French and the Americans. Together they created the freedoms that we experience today!