OUR GREATEST PRESIDENT AT WORK

Is it distinctly American to always ponder THE BEST?

The Oscars set me off on this rant.

Maybe it is not just an American phenomena.

Pele was a God south of our borders. And he still is a god even though he has not played soccer since 1977!

I feel more comfortable with top ten lists but you miss so much even screwing around with these lists.

Matthews asked his panel this week:

Who was the best actor and  who was the best actress?

And he chose Cary Grant.

I could not believe it.

Cary Grant never played anyone but Cary Grant. (He did produce and act in a wonderful English movie but it flopped. He was compelling in that role)

Then it hit me.

As soon as someone gets into a discussion of the best, I get drawn in.

Stallone to me is a terrible actor. But when he played the NJ Sheriff in Cop Land, I was blown away. Totally unexpected.

I loved that movie.

Burt Reynolds is a terrible actor but in Deliverance and a couple other roles, the guy just does the trick.

When I was younger I thought Clint Eastwood was a joke.

Now he has to be one of my favorite actors. His presence in films like Unforgiven astound me and he has been in so many gems; he has produced and directed and starred in so many great flicks, and if he is in the movie, I am going to watch it..

Meryl Streep has got to be the best screen actress I have ever seen, generally.

When she plays Julia Child, I go nuts. I mean this comical figure in the form of the TV chef—at least to me—comes alive and believable. Who’d a thunk?

But Helen Hunt playing a lonely single mother of an asthmatic and living with her mums in As Good As It Gets?

I cry and cry when I watch that film. Hunt is absolutely perfect for that role.

Tommy Lee Jones has taken some roles and just drew me into them emotionally and intellectually.

He has been in some clunkers like Batman, but I tell you, he can just look into space during some well written dialogue and I read his thoughts, I swear.

Jeff Bridges has been in so many roles and I swear I savor every one of them.

What lists do, to me anyway, is take away context.

When I watch a movie, some actor will appear whom I have never seen and come across with some message that will actually change my view on some issue concerning humanity.

I recently did that critique of Pygmalion.  Stanley Holloway who portrays Doolittle in My Fair Lady is someone I will never ever forget.

Was he the best?

Well, I will tell you one thing, Holloway was the best on those days that he shot his scenes for that part in that movie.

At times I am sure that 2001 is the greatest movie ever made. But it depends upon my mood for chrissakes.

I am not always In the mood for 2001 and as a matter of fact I am only in the mood for 2001 once a year or so.

What happened to me today or yesterday?

How is my body today?

Am I pissed or elated or sad?

Many things attendant to being a human being, even a run-down human being, will have an effect upon mood.

And what else really counts?

I watched Samuel Jackson again last night in Jackie Brown.

The guy blows me away every single time.

Even when he has had it with all the snakes on that plane, it is extremely difficult to nap while he is on the screen.

I viewed Destry Rides Again recently.

I never liked Jimmy Stewart but in this 1939 flick, he just shines with Marlene Dietrich.

Destry is a great flick even if it contains one of the worst over-emoted scenes of a bad guy dying in the history of filmdom.

Maybe anybody could have shined with Marlene.

Who was the best baseball player?

Duke Snider just died.

I read a bio/obit on him discussing how the talk of his day involved rating Mantle and Mays and Snider.

Even as I write this, I feel that the answer is simple: Willie Mays.

And I might go into his stats, his home runs, his batting average, his….

Who cares?

I watched Mickey Mantle and Harmon Killibrew and Roger Maris all hit homeruns on some sunny day in ’61.

For that one moment, when Harmon got up to the plate and hit that fast ball into the center field bleachers, he was the best.

We lost the game 22 to 6 or something. Hahahaha

Who is your favorite general?

From what I have read and seen, MacArthur was a prick, a real fascist megalomaniac.

That sonofabitch led the charge against his own troops when the vets made that march on Washington D.C.

But when he signed certain civil rights legislation in Japan while he was the conquering tyrant in that country, he was as close to God as you can get as far as I am concerned.

Imagine, Japanese women were given the vote and recognition as human beings with one stroke of a pen ending an attitude that went back thousands of years.

Maybe this all comes to mind because of the Oscars.

I certainly did not watch so much as one second of that four hour advertisement for movies.

Of course, I will not see any of those movies for a couple of years.

Maybe this all has something to do with democracy.

I mean some folks run for office, but only one ‘wins’ the post.

Ronald Reagan was voted the best President of all time in some recent poll.

That is just silliness to me.

Lincoln and Grant won the Civil War for chrissakes.

FDR and Ike won WWII-with a little help from Truman.

Lyndon Johnson instituted the greatest series of Civil Rights Laws in the history of this Country and gave us Medicare to boot.

In my opinion, 50% of our electorate has no idea who Lincoln or Grant or FDR or Ike or Johnson were or what they accomplished.

Of course that same electorate has no idea what Reagan accomplished or failed to accomplish.

You know, somewhere today, a father took some time off of work and took his kids to a museum.

For a brief period of time, that father was the best father around.

Sean Penn has spent a year in Haiti and for a week or a month or maybe the entire year, Sean Penn was the best American in Haiti.

The same could be said of George Clooney for what he has and is accomplishing in Darfur.

Jimmy Carter has spent decades saving millions of lives from needless diseases associated with dirty drinking water.

Bill Clinton has continued that tradition, saving millions of lives.

I think sometimes, we must reexamine what THE BEST really means.

Previous stab at this gibberish is @ http://onceuponaparadigm.wordpress.com/