2:45 pm: I just left for a big Martin Scorsese tribute dinner in Santa Barbara. Roger Durling and the Santa Barbara Film Festival organization are presenting the Irishman director with the 2019 Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. I’m actually hitching a ride from Sasha Stone, and then coming back with Tatyana, who can’t leave until later.

Four years ago the original Rubber Soul album cover photo was unearthed and circulated. By this I mean the naturally-proportioned image that wasn’t used in favor of the famously distorted image that become instantly iconic.

The photo session happened sometime in November ’65, and reportedly on or near the grounds of John Lennon‘s home on the St. George’s Hill estate, Weybridge, Surrey. (It’s currently called Kenwood).)

The folk-rockish, Dylan-influenced suede buckskin jackets obviously indicated the shot was taken in cool, autumnal weather. But until this morning I didn’t realize that the weather was more on the frigid side, as in one of the fabbies muttering “Jesus, take the shot already, it’s fucking cold out here.”

How do I know this? Paul McCartney has pulled his sleeves over his hands and fingers. Nobody does this unless it’s biting cold. (Or unless they’re light on Jack Löndon-like manliness.) I occasionally did this myself while walking around my New Jersey and Connecticut home towns so don’t tell me.

I didn’t pay attention in 2015 when this photo was first circulated, so this is new. Five decades plus and I never saw the freezing McCartney hands until today.

A middle-aged ex-basketball star with a drinking problem (Ben Affleck) lands a gig coaching a basketball team at his old high school in Torrance. We’ve all seen this film, of course. Hoosiers mixed with alcohol meets Kevin Costner‘s McFarland, USA. We also know there are only so many ways to tell this kind of story, and all of them with the same ending.

The compelling X-factor is the fact that Affleck’s own struggles with alcohol add a palpable subcurrent. Plus director Gavin O’Connor (The Accountant, Miracle) knows his way around athletic dramas.

The current title is The Way Back (Warner Bros., 3.20). A year and a half ago it was called The Has-Been.

Deadline Boilerplate, posted on 6.11.18: “The Accountant team of Ben Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor are circling The Has-Been, a drama scripted by Brad Ingelsby. I’m told Warner Bros is trying to make a deal on a movie that would happen on a fast track. No deals have been completed at this point.

Brad Ingelsby‘s script “centers on a former basketball all-star who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction. He attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate, ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater. The Has-Been will be produced by Affleck and Jennifer Todd, Mark Ciardi and Gordon Grey, with O’Connor also expected to be involved as a producer along with the writer.”

I’d like to read Inglesby’s script, if anyone has a PDF. Reach out on Facebook and I’ll send you an email.

As horrific as this morning’s Saugus High School shooting was (two fatalities, three critically wounded, shooter apprehended), none of us are shocked or surprised when this kind of thing occurs. The truth (and God help us) is that school shootings are an almost routine occurence. We know this won’t be the last, and that random slaughter is more or less a facet of American life now.

Which is why the bigger gut-punch, for me, is the two-day-old news about the drowning of Venice, Italy — the worst flood there since 1966, and a harbinger of future floods to come. The eternal beauty and serenity of Venice is no longer a given, and the vibes are anything but serene with this the Sword of Damocles hovering. It’s shattering, heartbreaking.

Wash, rinse, repeat: Many world-class cities (Manhattan included) are going to be flooded in the coming decades, and it’s basically the fault of those on Donald Trump‘s side of the aisle — thoughtless industrialists, the denial brigade, China, India, cattle industry, etc. And 38% of the American electorate is down with the Trump agenda. Because they’re devoted to aggressive ignorance, and because the maintaining of Anglo Saxon dominance and pushing back against POC encroachment is paramount to them.