In order to decide whether or not you are part of a community, part of a culture, part of a nation; you must examine your values. I mean if all those around you worship something that you despise, you are the odd man out.

I have decided that I am not a very good American. It has to do with my likes and dislikes. So I figure it is a genetic disorder. I must admit all my disagreements with American Culture. Supposedly, if we first admit our faults we may have an opportunity to take more steps in the healing process and I might become a good American after all.

 

GRACE KELLY

I despised Grace Kelly (Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco") when I was ten. Do you realize that The American Film Institute ranked her #13 amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time?

I would have no problems at all rating her one of the thirteen worst actresses I have ever seen on the screen. Her affectations in speech and in her walk did nothing for a young boy or an old slob like me. Phony, phony, phony. She died drunk driving an automobile.

She had grown up as the daughter of a millionaire in Philly, went to the finest schools while living in the finest neighborhoods. She did not apply herself in school and got theatrical parts due to the American love for Cinderella. And she was one of those two faced traitors who chose 'duel citizenship' when our country absolutely bans such things.

I remember watching High Noon and thinking...this is the dumbest movie I ever saw.

HIGH NOON

Plot: This stupid film is supposed to be number 27 on the 'all time list'. I mean, we are supposed to believe that a little 22 year old aristocratic cream puff just falls in love with a 51 year old alcoholic in some dirt town in what is supposed to become New Mexico. Just after the wedding, we find out that,  them liberal and corrupt politicians up north let loose some killer the sheriff had brung down a few years earlier.

And one by one the local citizens demur as Cooper begs for a posse to stop black bart or whatever the frick he is from comin to destroy the town. I have to admit that the last demurer gives the all time dumbest line ever given in a western; a line that would be repeated in thousands of films and TV Westerns:

But I have a wife and children Sheriff.

As if only gay caballeros can ever take up the challenge to rid this earth of Black Barts.

Even his own deputy demurs and sits in a bar getting drunk all day. Lloyd Bridges (whom I have always idolized) plays the spiteful coward who had somehow inherited Cooper's old lady friend. He is mad because he does not get to be the new sheriff in town after Cooper leaves. The showdown between Cooper and Black Bart's men is so badly shot that it  DEFIES credulity. I mean the film does not flow,

Rather, it continues in fits and starts, badly choreographed. And the stunt man for Cooper performs feats that no 51 year old alcoholic could achieve.

Needless to say, I never liked Cooper either. His aw shucks persona just pisses me off. I must admit, having sat through the film recently,  it was fun to see actors like Elam who would go on to appear in some of the greatest westerns ever made, like Once Upon a Time in The West.

 

JULIA ROBERTS

 

I just got through watching buttlips (the first buttlips that I can remember) in the Pelican Brief. Her feigning of fear and such is sooooooooooooooo aggravating; I suddenly remembered why I could never sit through the damn movie. I just cannot stand looking at this pretense of thespianism.

I have never hit a woman or a child in my life, but I swear to god almighty (blesses himself) I have the strongest urge to just slap her silly in this film if only to wake her up and challenge her affectations.

Just take a minute and think of someone like Susan Sarandon. She would not stand for some director telling her to curl up her 90 lb body in some chair wearing some oversized undershirt panting and sobbing and such.

The plot is terrible anyway. I mean I could see the conservative oligarchy plotting to kill some liberal Supreme Court Justices in order to solidify the fascist America in which we now reside, but one billionaire oil guy would never do this alone.

I mean I like pelicans and all, but we are facing the economic torture of millions of Americans everyday due to the fascists who sit on our present court together with our fascist legislators.  Instead of pelicans, why not choose asthmatic children as the victims of fascism; those who die in Emergency rooms all over this country every year.

 

JOHN WAYNE

 

I hate John Wayne and I do not think I need to lay out my reasons here. He was a bad actor, a bad husband, a bad father and a bad fascist repub.

 

JIMMY STEWART

 

I hate Jimmy Stewart. I mean I hate Rear Window, It's a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I despise all his films except for Harvey. Psychosis is charming to me in a way which may explain my unamericanism.

In the fifties he would wear a rug that I would not put on my dog and in his fifties he always had some 22 year old like Novak or Kelly fawning over him.

And compare his movies and his 'acting ability' to someone like Henry Fonda. Come on!!!!

He was a life long repub and fascist.

 

BOB HOPE

 

I hate Bob Hope. I hate Bob Hope's movies. Can you imagine, the idiot could not understand why he never received an Oscar nomination?

Patty cake patty cake baker's man.  Fine, five year olds might enjoy Hope/Crosby slap stick.

Oh I know, he would take half naked girls overseas and 'celebrate' our troops. But I just know he did it for the money. He died a billionaire when a billion dollars was a lot of money.

RONALD REAGAN

Bedtime for Bonzo.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwIOEN6XamA

Do not even get me started. I hope he and Wayne are stuck in some hell hole in hell; forced to watch their own movies.

So there you have it. Oh I idolized and still do idolize Douglas Fairbanks & Son, the Barrymores, Henry Fonda,  Errol Flynn, Carol Lumbard, Cary Grant (30's & 40's anyway), along with hundreds of others on the so called 'Silver Screen'.  But I was taught somewhere or other that if you can't stand Grace Kelly, Gary Cooper, Julia Roberts, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope or Ronald Rayguns....well you just aint a real American.

 

p.s.:  I am out of sorts and cigs for twelve more hours, so please forgive my callousness today. And I pick a day where I will stay up 25 instead of 24 hours. Go figure.