FLAG DAY, PLUS...

Today is Flag Day, perhaps not as much in the public eye as the Fourth of July, but still an important day for what it represents.  The flag is a symbol for what our country stands for, for both what were are and what we hope to be.  It is a symbol of what American had died for for over 250 years.  What it should not be is a prop used to gin up yahoos and so-called patriots to serve a devious and meretricious political purpose; when a flag is perverted in that manner it is merely a piece of cloth, nothing more.

Flag Day is also the birthday of our current president, a conman and grifter who likes nothing more than to use the flag for his own political purposes.  Here is a man who is a convicted felon, adjudicated sex offender, and purported pedophile who is actively working to destroy the constitution and our protections under law for his own profit and self-aggrandizement, a man who is actively working against the betterment of most of the people who voted for him, whose inflated narcissism makes him incapable of seeing beyond his own distorted image in the mirror, who seemingly brandishes his dementia as a shield, and who callously approves the slaughter of innocents.  (In case you are late to the party, yeah, I do not care for Uncle Cankles one bit.)  Trump has illegally trashed one of the enduring symbols of this country -- the White House -- with his destruction of the East Wing to build his ego-inflated ballroom.  He has used the White House to denigrate his perceived enemies, and to festoon the  building with the tackiest of gilt.  His unnecessary redo of the Reflecting Pool is  now an algae-filled disaster that went at least 800% over budget to line the pockets of his cronies.  His proposal for a Triumphant Arch is  not lonely unneeded and tacky, but will desecrate those who lie in Arlington National Cemetery'

And now we have an Octagon on the South Lawn.

To celebrate his 80th birthday (and ostensibly to celebrate America's 250th), he will hosting a UFC mixed martial arts cage fight at the White House today.  This, of course, is a private, for profit enterprise that will in part be paid by taxpayers, although, again, Trump's cronies will profit.  Oh, dear Mother of God...  

Nothing says America more than the UFC, unless it may be the Grand Prix that Trump is planning to race through the streets of D.C. later this year for the 250th.

Today is also another scheduled No King's Day to be held throughout the country wherever there is not a wrestling mat.

Today is also the birthday of my father-in-law, Harold Keane, a proud veteran and Bronze Star recipient, who would be more than upset at what the "sonofabitch" Trump was doing.  Harold was a first generation Irishman; his father and two uncles left Ireland in the  middle of the night, one going to Canada, one to Australia, and Harold's father to America -- why they suddenly left the Auld Sod is unclear and the subject of much family speculation.  Harold's father settled in Massachusetts, began working in the shoe industry, married and had eight children that any man would be proud of.  After World War II, Harold married and went to Georgia Tech, living in a trailer, raising tow children, and working his way through to become an engineer.  Harold was a smart, kindly, and feisty man with a great sense of humor, and -- true to his County Cork roots --built like a fire plug.  When he angered, it was with a purpose, one often related to his youth in "No Irish Need Apply" America.  He loved his family and he loved his country and he loved the water.  He doted on his grandkids and they truly loved and respected him.  For over two decades now, we have celebrated his memory with an ice cream feast on his birthday -- he loved to make a full meal on Kimball's banana splits when he moved back to Massachusetts in the mid-Sixties.

So later today, we are going to Fanny Lou's in Pensacola -- which serves the very best homemade ice cream in the area -- to raise a spoon in honor of the Maker of the Feast.  We will be ignoring the UFC and "that sonofabitch Trump" because Harold, and his legacy, is now, and always will be far, more important to the America we love.

HYMN TIME

 Peter Hollens with a 200-person youth choir.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13_nXuJ6dX8

OSCAR CESARE - 100 CARTOONS BY CESARE (1916)

Cesare (1883-1948) was a Swedish-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist whose grease crayon technique was used to great effect in opposing World War I.  Some of the nuances and references in this 1916 book may be lost on modern readers, but his visceral reaction to the War to End All Wars remains stunning.  As the publisher of this book said, "the caricature merely makes you laugh; the cartoon makes you think."  Sometimes art can serve a higher purpose, and sometimes (alas) that purpose is forgotten by the march of history...

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102117&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: GLORY IN DEATH

Glory in Death by "J. D. Robb" (Nora Roberts), 1995.

Okay, so here's my plan.  I am going to live forever, or at least for a very long time.  How will I accomplish that?  By reading all of J. D. Robb's ...In Death books featuring futuristic police detective Eve Dallas.  There are, or will be by September, 63 novels in the series, and growing.  Plus at least 12 novellas.  If I read one every other month or so, and if the author keeps churning them out, I will be busy far, far into the future.  And of course, the gods of reading will do nothing to prevent me from finishing this simple task.  Voila!  Instant near immortality!

So what's the hype about these novels, anyway?  All I can say is that a number of people whose judgment I truly respect go ga-ga over them, to the point that a couple of months ago I decide to rad the series in order, from start to finish.  The first book, Naked in Dead, set the groundwork.  It's New York City in the mid-21st century, and there have been a few technological and social changes, but  nothing that is explained in enough detail to get in the way of a crime thriller.  Eve Dallas, both beautiful and sensual, is one of the best homicide cops in the city.  She is passionate about her job and, as is explained more than once, stands for the victim unwaveringly.  Eve has a mysterious and lonely past -- she has no memories of her life before the age of eight and grew up with no family and no past, which allows to have very few friends or connections and allows her to concentrate on her job.   In the first novel, Eve is handed a particularly nasty murder and meets Rourke, a mysterious and powerful billionaire with with a shrouded past.  Rourke, too, has had a rough childhood and has accumulated few friends.  In that first book, Rourke becomes a main suspect, as well as -- to her great surprise -- Eve's lover.

In Glory in Death, a talented and successful prosecutor is murdered in a disreputable part of the city, her throat cut open.  What was she doing there?  Eve is upset to learn that the victim is also a business partner of Rourke, although Rourke was not involved in her murder.  Suspicion begins to fall on the victim's family:  her ex-husband, her spoiled son, her aggressive daughter and her gambling addict fiance, and her current lover, all of whom seems powerful enough to block Eve's investigation.  Things get more complicated when Eve's boss turns out to be a close friend of the family and the godfather to the victim's children.  Then a second victim gets her throat cut; this time it's a young up-and-coming actress who also happens to be previous lover of Roarke's.  The influential standing of the victims make this case a major news story, spurred on by the opportunistic reporting of an unethical newscaster who tries to make Eve's investigation look bad.

Because the victims were both well-known females, Eve decides to us herself as bait, using her connections with a television station to promote herself.  This ploy fails horribly when a third victim, an assistant to the reporter Eve is working with, is murdered in a case of obvious mistaken identity.  Coincidences keep tying the family of the first victim to the murders, leading to a false confession and bad publicity for Eve.  But the murderer still has it out for Eve, leading to a final, knife-weilding climax in a darkened corner of Central Park.

Along the way, Eve's relationship to Rourke deepens despite the fact that both are highly independent and naturally suspicious people.  The two finally acknowledge their love for each other and now they must work out the boundaries and kinks of that romance.  It's no secret that the pair eventually marry -- most likely sometime over the course of the next few books, I presume.

Glory in Death is a sensual romantic and somewhat violent mystery.  The romance is sometimes sappy and a tad unbelievable, but is true to the nature of the characters, heightened  by the fantasy and power of Rourke's immense wealth.  A good blend of futuristic police procedure, criminal psychopathy, and smart characterization.  It's easy to see why all of the books in the series have been best-sellers.  I'm actually looking forward the third book in the series, Immortal in Death.

Nora Roberts (born 1950) is the author of over 225 novels of classic contemporary romance, romantic suspense, crime, and fantasy.  She is one of the most successful novelists in the world.  Since 1999 every one of her novels has been a New York Times bestseller -- over 220 of them, many debuting in the number one spot.  Her books have sold over 500 million copies globally.  Her books have won seven Golden Medallion awards, fifteen RITA Awards, three Quill Awards, one Romantic Times Reviewer Choice Award, and has won three times in the AAR (All About Romance) Annual Reader Poll.

MYSTERY PLAYHOUSE: CHARLIE CHAN -- THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE (SUMMER, 1944)

Today is King Kamelamela Day in Hawaii, and when I conjure up Hawaii in my mind I picture Luaus and hula, Don Ho, an old Elvis Presley movie, Magnum, P.I., Barack Obama, the USS Arizona, and how cute Connie Stevens looked in Hawaiian Eye, as well as the island's most famous pre-Steve McGarrett fictional police detective, Charlie Chan.

Here's Charlie, as played by Walter Connolly, who must face the kidnapping of his beloved daughter Rose by bank robbers after a  bungled robbery.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbmWQ83QnnU

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: OLD FAGS

 "Old Fags" by Stacy Aumonier  (first published in The Grim 13, edited by Frederick Stuart Green, 1917; reprinted in Hutchinson's Magazine, March 1928; and reprinted in The Edge of the Chair, edited by Joan Kahn, 1967, and in an abridged paperback version titled The Graveyard Shift, 1970)

"The boys called him 'Old Fags,' and the reason was not hard to seek.  He occupied a room in a bock of tenements off Lisson Grove, bearing the somewhat grandiloquent title of Bollingbroke Buildings, and conspicuous among the many doubtful callings that occupied his time was one in which he issued forth with a deplorable old canvas sack, which, after a day's peregrination along the gutters, he would manage to partly fill with cigar and cigarette ends.  The exact means by which he managed to convert this patiently gathered garbage into the wherewithal to support his disreputable body, nobody took the trouble to inquire, nor was there any further interest aroused by the disposal of the contents of the same sack when he returned with the gleanings of dustbins, distributed thoughtfully at intervals along certain thoroughfares by a maternal Borough Council."

Old Fags basically kept to himself.  He had lived in the building for seven years and no one knew anything about him.  He was unwashed and his clothes were caked with dirt.  His gleanings from the cigar and cigarette butts he accumulated were evidently enough to support him because he was never behind on his measly rent and always seemed to have enough for his constant bottle of cheap gin.  When his door was open a pungent smell of cooked onions for a stew would permeate the hallway.  His neighbors and those he met on the street avoided and berated him, but he seldom noticed.  He was basically a kind-hearted and simple soul; once, when the woman next door could not make her rent, he gave her fifteen shillings, which she slowly repaid, resenting him greatly all the while.

It was a poor neighborhood and times were hard and employment scarce.  One neighbor was old Mrs.  Birdle, who did laundry and ironing when she wasn't ill.  Her daughter, Minnie, was employed at the estate of Mrs. Bastien-Melland as a very low level servant -- so low that her mistress had never met her, nor talked to her, nor even knew she existed.  Mrs. Bastien-Melland's pride and joy was her dogs -- ten purebred show dogs, Chows and Pekinese, on whom she doted and spent money on their pampered care.  The dog groom was named Meads, a handsome but mean-spirited man with a weakness for women and gambling.  As dog groom, he had a somewhat comfortable position in the household and was considered among the higher echelon of its workers.

As it happened, Meads was occasionally interested in Minnie and took her out several times.  Then Minnie became an "unmarried girl in that condition" and was fired.  By this time Means had lost interest in her and had dropped -- he was already paying for children in Norfolk and Enfield, and was determined not to the same with anyone else.  But Mrs. Bridle was very ill and Minnie could scarce find work and the two were in desperate straights, seldom being able to afford food.  Minnie's health also began to be affected and she was often week and bed-ridden.  Seeing this, Old Fags offered them some of his ever-present onion stew, highly-spiced, and with undetermined meat and bones in it.

The baby came and milk for the infant was a paramount need, often provided to the expense of the two women.  Old Fag's stews became more important.  But times were also tough for Old Fags, his stews became weaker and weaker, with less and less meat, and at times only bones among the onions.  Then Old Fags made the mistake of passing out drunk in a public park and was arrested and spent ten days in jail.  When he returned to Bollingbrook Buildings, he found the Birdles in even more desperate circumstances.  He promised them that he would bring them a heaty stew that evening.

That day he came across Meads in a pub and plied him with drink and told him of a beautiful and willing woman who would be waiting for him that evening between six and seven, giving Meads a fictitious address.  But Mead had to walk the dogs between 5:30 and 6:30 -- Mrs. Bastien insisted and the imperious Mrs. Bastien-Melland must not be disobeyed.  but Old Fags offered to walk the dogs for Meads while he went on his romantic interlude.

And so it happened.  Meads spent hours trying to find the fictitious address and Old Fags took control of the dogs.  And that night, the Birdles had the "finest stoo" they've ever had in their lives.

Of course, there is more to the story than this, but this is its essence.  We never learn the actual fate of the dogs so out imagination must fill in the blanks.  The anthology in which the story first appeared, The Grim 13, was comprised of tales rejected by magazines because they were too gruesome or horrible...

Stacy Aumonier (1877-1928) was a stage performer and popular author who published six novels, a book of essays, a book of character studies, and some 85 short stories.  He was best known for his short stories, which were highly praised  by the likes of John  Galsworthy, Rebecca West, and James Hilton.  Part of his genius was in the variability of his writing; There is no typical Aumonier story, or typical Aumonier character."  Among his more noted tales were "The Octave of Jealousy," "Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty," "Where Was Wych Street," "The Accident of Crime," "The Landlord of the Love-a-Duck," "The Perfect Murder," and "A Source of Irritation."  Aumonier died of tuberculosis at age 51.

UPDATE, AND A PERSONAL COMMENT:  I've been thinking about this story and why it resonated so much with me.  When I was a kid we had our own version of Old Fags in my small town.  He did not gather cigarette  butt s for possible financial reward, though.  We called him Dirty Ernie; I have no idea what his real name was, nor anything about his personal history, although I do know his name was actually Ernie, and he was unwashed and filthy and had distinct mental deficiencies.  According to rumor, Ernie would garner cigarette butts from the gutter and eat them; I never personally witness this but I had friends who swore they had -- but we were very young at the time, between ten and twelve, so who knows if what they claimed was true.  In private we might make fun of Ernie, but never to his face; no one in town that I knew of ever teased or ragged him to his face; he was treated with benign neglect, if anything.  Ernie was strange and unintelligible, but never feared for his difference.  One of the locals allowed Ernie to live in his barn, and -- perhaps -- even fed him.  I don't really know and I never cared to ask; I was just a kid.  I also don't know what ever happened to him.  He just wasn't important enough to me to ask why.  I was not deliberately callous; I was just an unthinking kid.  I suppose every town has its local legends and Dirty Ernie was ours, and how much we told ourselves about him was fact and how much was imagination is something I can not answer.  In the city next to us -- Lowell, Mass. -- they had their own legend; she was called Depot Annie; beyond that I know nothing, not who she was, what she was known for, or if she was even real -- for a kid, the legend was always enough.  It occurs to me that we often go through life, looking at others and filling in the blanks with out imaginations, regardless of whether it is the truth or just a good story.  The one true fact about Ernie that I know is that he was never treated unkindly; at the very worst he was tolerated, and that makes me feel a little better.  And, considering the treatment that the mentally ill often got in the 1950s, the fact that he was given a safe place to stay and to call his home -- even if it was a barn  -- was an act of great kindness.

The adult me, the mature and considerate me, wishes I knew more about Ernie.  Who he was, where he came from, did he have any family anywhere, and was he in his own way satisfied with his life...

Those are some of the thoughts that have been rattling around in my brain since I read Stacy Aumonier's story.

OVERLOOKED SINGING COWBOY OATER: RAWHIDE (1938)

Sykes "Smith" Ballew is a sometimes overlooked singing cowboy.  A studio vocalist for dance bands and jazz records, Ballew formed his own orchestra in 1929 and was one of the earliest singing cowboys of the 1930s, beginning with Western Gold (1937), although he had dubbed singing for John Wayne in 1934's The Man from Utah, and between 1929 and 1935, he made scores of records as Buddy Blue & His Texans and Jack Blue's Texans.

Co-starring with Ballew was baseball great Lou Gehrig, playing a version of himself.  Gehrig decides to retire from baseball and become a western cattle rancher, visiting his sister Peggy (Evelyn Knapp, Perils of Pauline, In Old Santa Fe, One Frightened Night) in Rawhide, Montana.  Once there, Gehrig discovers that local ranchers are being extorted by a protection racket run by bad guy Ed Saunders (Arthur Loft, The Woman in the Window, Should a Girl Marry?, Charlie Chan in the Secret Service).  Joining  in the fight against Saunders is local attorney Larry Kimball (Ballew).  Gehrig plays his role with charm and humor; in one bar fight scene, he uses billiard balls as baseballs to clock his opponents.  It should be noted that researchers have shown that Gehrig showed no sign of ALS while filming this film, although an analysis of photos taken in 1938 indicated that the disease had begun its progression.

Songs include two -- "When a Cowboys Goes to Town" and "Driftin'" -- written by Albert von Titzer, who, appropriately was the man who wrote "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."  Other songs in the movies are "A Cowboy's Life" and "That Old Washboard Band."

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7bQaVq2fKw