I was paying attention to Kentucky Sen. Ran Paul, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, interrogate Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, whom Trump has nominated as his next homeland security secretary (i.e., Kristi Noem‘s successor). But I couldn’t full concentrate because of a woman whiom I assume is Paul’s executive assistant, a 20-something fashion model type with perfect ash-blonde hair and hoop earrings. Conservative politicians love hiring foxy blondes or, failing that, foxy brunettes.
In Wake of N.Y. Times Expose About Diddling Young Teenage Girls, Chavez Rep Is In Tatters — Part Weinstein, Part Polanski, Part Jerry Lee Lewis, Part Jeffrey Epstein, Part Humbert Humbert
The halo over the head of legendary United Farm Workers founder and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993, has suddenly and irrevocably melted in the wake of a N.Y. Times expose about allegations that he had his way with young teenage girls in the ‘70s and was otherwise quite the ravaging hound with other women in his orbit.
The 3.18.26 Times story by Manny Fernandez and Sara Hurtes, well-sourced and thoroughly vetted top to bottom, topples the Chavez legend in one bold, swift stroke. Another liberal-humanist icon has been redefined as a groin-driven hound.
Chavez’s rep is even more tarnished now than Martin Luther King’s was when it came out that King plowed through a long list of white women in several motel room assignations. Chavez hasn’t been MLK’ed as much as Epsteined.
By comparison JFK seems a lot more civilized because at least he was sensible enough to steer clear of jail bait.
I hate to say this but in a roundabout way the Times story might lessen some of the heat around Donald Trump, who, according to recently released Epstein file reports, may have violated this or that young teenage girl.
If the Times Chavez story had been published a month ago, Trump might not have bombed Iran.
The bottom line is that powerful men, regardless of political philosophy or strategic alignment, have often had their way with younger women. Men are basically dogs, and political power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I’m nonetheless shocked that Chavez went for girls who were way below the age of consent…Lolita territory.
$300 Per Barrel (Six Days Ago, Worse Now)
We’ve all been through a stage-by-stage Iran War learning process. Over the last few days the Strait of Hormuz choke-hold situation has altered everything. To say that Trump is now between a rock and a hard place is putting it mildly. Hinterland bumblefucks will soon be enraged.
At first taking out the monsters who’ve been funding Hamas and Hezbollah and who murdered tens of thousands of anti-government protestors earlier this year…at first this seemed cleansing and possibly restorational. Now, not so much.
[Posted on 3.11.16] Anti-Iranian-war Tucker Carlson asking Col. Douglas Macgregor how the United States can get out of the Iran war:
“Somebody will say, why should we end it?
“Because if we don’t, we’re going to hit $300 per barrel of oil. We’re going to watch 60 to 80% of stock values crash. People are going to lose trillions in wealth.
“It will be a disaster, and it’s not something we’ll recover from.”
“We’ve thrown all caution to the wind. Think of any number of worst-case scenarios; they’re all on the horizon.”
“President Trump is still president of the United States, not president of Israel.”
“He has to think about the consequences here at home for us for the average man…not for the billionaire class, and not the Epstein class.”
Choke Point:
Janet Flanner on Bette Davis
The great Bette Davis enjoyed a ten-year career peak between 1934 and 1944, half driven by her brittle, hard-edged, ache-in-the-heart element opposite strong male costars, and the second half largely propelled by her women-centric tragedies.
Among the highlights of Davis’s glory period: Of Human Bondage (’34), The Petrified Forest (’36), Marked Woman (’37), Jezebel (’38), Dark Victory (’39), Juarez (’39), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (’39), All This, and Heaven Too (’40), The Bride Canme COD (’40), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), The Man Who Came to Dinner (’41), Now, Voyager (’42), Old Acquaintance (’43) and Watch on the Rhine (’43).
Davis bounced back, of course, with All About Eve in 1950, and then bounced back a second time with her classic hag-horror performance in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (’62, filmed when she was only 53 or 54).
In February ’43 Davis spoke to The New Yorker‘s Janet Flanner in order to promote her Oscar-nominated performance in Now Voyager. Flanner (1892-1978) was a brilliant writer. Her sentences and phrases (“atavistically suspicious of happy endings”) were perfect in a lean, pared-to-the-bone, thoroughly thought-through way.
Flanner: “As far as she has been permitted, Bette Davis has molded her film career on her motto, ‘I love tragedy.’
“Until Pearl Harbor she was the American favorite of the Japanese moviegoers because, they said, she represented the admirable principle of sad self-sacrifice. An adult-minded New Englander, atavistically suspicious of happy endings, she was so convinced by her early Hollywood parts that a floppy feminine hat was a symbol of celluloid sappiness that she later had written into her contract a clause permitting her to refuse to carry a hat in her hand like a damned basket of rosebuds.
“Becoming a big star often addles a human being, usually in one of three ways; the victim becomes a superior, lonely ego and stays home, or becomes a public character and goes out constantly, or becomes glamorous, no matter where he or she happens to be.
“Miss Davis was glamorous, years ago, for about a month. This period ended when, backed up by a smart town car containing a white poodle and livened chauffeur, and attired in moody black velvet slacks and jacket, she met her mother, who had been on a trip East, at the Los Angeles railway station. Mrs. Davis was unable to believe her own eyes and flatly said so. The glamour was dropped later that day.
“It is her notably large eyes, disliked at first by both Hollywood and herself, which finally accelerated her ascent in pictures. When Hollywood at last got around to making analyses, it discovered that eighty per cent of screen acting is concentrated in the eyes. In Dark Victory Miss Davis made it one hundred per cent.
“Since her role was that of a woman threatened with insanity, her director wanted her to indicate her disorder by crazed motions of the hands. She decided to use only her eyes. Even the quantity of her erotic appeal, which so worried the studios at the beginning, has been recomputed. When, twelve years ago, a producer said she had no more sex appeal than Slim Summerville, she said he went too far. Now producers go even farther; they say she is solid, ice-cold, Puritan sex, of the type against which the Sunday blue laws had to be passed.
“If you ask the Hollywood trade who is the best actress in the business right now, the unanimous, indeed the only fashionable, answer is Davis. The trade adds, sotto voce, that her box-office is enormous because men fans are convinced that she is feminine, though she is really only maternal.
“On a recent War Bond selling tour in the Ozarks and other rural districts, Miss Davis made the perturbing discovery that she scared lots of simple Americans of both sexes. This in turn alarmed her. Some metropolitan theatre critics claim that she seems complex in her roles because she herself is an unresolved character.
“On the other hand, émigrés from Europe feel that she should be the dominant member of a great national stock company, like France’s Comédie-Française, rather than be allowed to beat out her talent and wings in the movies.
“Her own idea of an ideal program would be, as she puts it, ‘to play one good play a winter on Broadway and then photograph it that summer in Hollywood.’ She will probably always think of the stage when she thinks of a good play, and to her the cinema will undoubtedly remain something done with improved lantern slides. ‘A movie,’ she once said, ‘is not even a dress rehearsal.'”
Perri Nemiroff vs. Mean HE-Styled Commenters
[20:51 mark] Perri Nemiroff: “Yeah, I’m sorry…I’m just focused right now on the people who are being queggered in the comments” — “queggered”? What does queggered mean? Is she saying quaker-ed? Or quavered? None of these terms make any sense.
Nemiroff: “I’m happy to put them into time out [mode]. We don’t need to….ahhh…we don’t need to disrespect anyone in order to make our opinion known. Some of you are well aware of this and yet you continue to do it, and [you should know] it’s very easy to ban you from these conversations ’cause we pride ourselves on, yes, having different opinions about award season topics but also treating each other with respect….it’s not that hard.”
Simple Reason Why I’m Not a Denis Villeneuve Fan
During the last act of Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros. 12.6), Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides runs around with a tennis-ball haircut. Which, of course, makes him look much less attractive. It makes him look vaguely wacko or criminal even.
Why did Timmy lose his longish hair? Because director Denis Villeneuve wanted him to look 15 or 20 years older — a totally deranged decision. But that’s Villeneuve for you. A dweeby oddball who simply doesn’t get the sexy-movie-star thing. A blockage.
It doesn’t take a genius mentality to understand that fans of this or that movie star want their idols to look good in a flush, sexy, full-head-of-hair way. Tennis-ball Chalamet looks like a right-wing Aryan psycho from rural Idaho, and yet Villeneuve wanted Chalamet to look like this….he wanted Chalamet to look like an effing East Los Angeles gang-banger.
Imagine if Howard Hawks had insisted that Cary Grant wear a tennis-ball cut for Only Angels Have Wings, or if Alfred Hitchcock had insisted on tennis-balling Grant for his lead role in North by Northwest. If they had done so Hawks and Hitch would have been fired. Hell, blackballed.
Tennis-balled John Wayne in Red River. Tennis-balled Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Tennis-balled Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. Tennis-balled George Clooney in Michael Clayton.
People‘s Michelle Lee, 12.12.25:
“Last summer fans of the once curly-haired actor were shocked to see him out and about with what appeared to be a buzz cut that was confirmed in October. Turns out, he was just as surprised as everyone else.
“During a Dec. 12 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, the Oscar nominee, 29, said that his hair transformation, done on June 25 for his role in Dune: Part 3, started with what’s called a ‘3 millimeter hair cut.’ Then director Denis Villeneuve kept asking the star to go shorter and shorter with his hair.”
HE reaction: Because in terms of understanding the value of traditional movie-star glamour vibes, Villeneuve is a clueless clod.
People: “At the suggestion of a 1 millimeter chop, Chalamet said he practically ‘begged’ to have his hair kept longer. “You know, your hair…weirdly we’re all attached [to our hair]…it’s kind of like our personalities, these follicles that grow out of our heads”.
But his locks were “stolen.”
“It’s supposed to be a nice character shift, and I’m playing 15, 20 years older,” Timothee explained.
Wait…$551M or $887M?
In my mind, David Zaslav was never a WB exec who was propelled by dreams, visions, soul and spirit. He was a bottom-line bean counter who made the Hollywood realm into a stingy, smaller place. Plus he lives in Bob Evans ‘ French chateau home on Woodland, which I visited several times in the ‘90s. Now, there was a studio chief and producer with a semblance of blood ins his veins.
Glenn Kenny informs that Zaslav’s compensation is $551 million in cash and $330 million in tax reimbursement.
HE to Prickly Pissheads Who’ve Been Dissing Chalamet
From hell’s heart I stab at thee…for hate’s sake I spit at thee…seriously. There’s something mean and spiteful inside you. If you can’t recognize and acknowledge serious artistry, what good are you?
Late to “New York’s” Peggy Siegal Rehash
I said this seven years ago, and here goes again: By the standards of big-time celebrity flackery, hotshot publicist Peggy Siegal did absolutely nothing wrong by working for and with Jeffrey Epstein during the aughts and teens. Shade, yes, but guilty of nothing at all. The game is the game.
Siegal was extensively quoted in a 3.5 New York interview piece. Same old same old. A seasoned pro, she fraternized and exchanged favors with a bad guy, agreed, but she had nothing to do with Epstein’s predations. Zip. Let it go.
I’ve done no reporting on the relationship between veteran hotshot publicist Peggy Siegal and odious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. I therefore have no argument with that 7.19 Hollywood Reporter piece, written by Gary Baum and Scott Feinberg, that basically asserts that Siegal used poor judgment in having had certain dealings with Epstein in a professional capacity.
The apparent motive behind the piece was basically to paint Siegal with a dark, career-wounding, guilt-by-association brush.
If I had been in Peggy’s shoes I would have certainly kept my distance after Epstein served his sweetheart Florida sentence, but she’s not a demon for adopting what boiled down to a look-the-other-way attitude. Remember that people in p.r. are always attracted to and dealing with people in possession of great wealth and powerful connections. It goes with the territory.
It’s also a common fact that big-time publicists sometimes rub shoulders with possibly shady fellows in this or that respect. It happens; it’s fairly common.
Where, for example, was the Hollywood Reporter article that besmirched the reps of Weinstein Co. employees who knew or strongly suspected what Harvey was up to, sexual manipulation and assault-wise, but said and did nothing? It’s very easy to point fingers in hindsight.
Earlier today legendary director-screenwriter Paul Schrader weighed in on the Siegal-Epstein thing:
Optimism Is A Nice Mental Diversion, But That’s All
If there’s one serving of advice I have consistently rejected and in fact despised all my life, it’s “invest in love rather than disdain,” “glass half full rather than half-empty,” “always look on the bright side,” etc.
Do you think Mark Twain or George Orwell or Paul Morrissey ever bought into that happy-faced crap?
I’ve always looked at things as they are or seem to be, and free of vibes of forced smiley-face happiness or rose-colored glasses or any of that jazz. Life is not Disneyland.
HE commenter Zoey Rose: “Seriously Jeff, look for the things you enjoy [and] not the things you hate. Time on this planet is winding down so why not find pleasures in life instead of being the epitome of the cliched old fart complaining about kids,” blah blah.
HE to Zoey Rose: “Speak for yourself regarding the ‘winding down’ of time. Nothing’s winding down on this end, I can tell you. And what do you know of the future, by the way? About as much as anyone else does, which isn’t much except for generalities.”
So What If Khameini Is A “Friend of Dorothy”?
As much as I strongly suspect that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, will soon be blown into meaty shards, I think it’s cruel and seriously cheap of the White House Trumpies to howl with laughter over allegedly reliable intelligence that Khameinei may be into “chowing down“, so to speak.
So what if he’s gay? Khameinei’s closeted sexuality, if verified, has nothing to do with whether or not he deserves to die, or whether he will, in fact, be taken out by Israeli missiles.
I’ll admit that I’m wondering myself if Kahmeini is a top or a bottom (one presumes that the leader of a country would be a top).
The N.Y. Post‘s Steven Nelson is reporting that President Trump “couldn’t contain his surprise and laughed aloud when he was briefed on the intel, according to sources.
“Others in the room also found it ‘hilarious’ and joined the president’s reaction, while one senior intelligence official ‘has not stopped laughing about it for days,’ said one person familiar with the briefing.”
You know the N.Y. Times won’t touch this possibly valid intel with a 20-foot pole.
It Happened At In-N-Out Burger on Sunset
Okay, what’s done is done. I punched my refrigerator three or four times after Michael B. Jordan stole the Best Actor Oscar from the much more deserving Timothee Chalamet, but I’ve let it all go. The man won and that’s that. Move on.
Who was the last major award-winner to drop by a fast-food joint after the Oscar ceremony?
The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti visited an In-N-Out Burger after winning at the 2024 Golden Globes.
After winning Best Actress for her Million Dollar Baby performance, Hillary Swank famously visited Astro Burger (which I’ve always called Mojo Burger in my head) at 7475 Santa Monica Blvd.
How many times have I visited In-N-Out Burger at 7009 Sunset Blvd. (corner of Orange, three or four blocks east of La Brea). Maybe not even twice. It’s too brightly lit, too many commoners.