HE comment: How would it be possible for a Secret Service chief to not know and follow the logistical basics of protecting a President during a public event? Of course KimberlyCheatle knew that you always block access to elevated potential shooting spots (roofs, high-up windows). Of course she did.
So why was “McLovin” allowed to crawl on top of that Butler fairgrounds rooftop? Because a Butler-based SS subordinate fucked up. Tired, unfocused, hung over, thought local law enforcement would handle it, etc. Doesn’t matter — the buck passing stopped with Cheatle so she had to fall on her sword, but what were the specific particulars behind this colossal scene-up?
N.Y. Times: The Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, faced bipartisan calls for her resignation after a disastrous hourslong congressional hearing in which she declined to answer basic questions about the attempted assassination of former President DonaldJ. Trump.
“Ms. Cheatle declined to say how many agents were protecting Mr. Trump when a gunman shot at him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, or who decided to leave a nearby rooftop out of the event’s security perimeter.
“Nor would she tell members of the House Oversight Committee why Secret Service agents were not aware until the last seconds that people in the crowd had seen a gunman on that roof.
“At times, Ms. Cheatle seemed less informed than the lawmakers quizzing her. When Representative MarjorieTaylorGreene, a Republican from Georgia, asked for a detailed timeline of events, Ms. Cheatle said she did not have one.
“’I have a timeline that does not have specifics,’ she said, eliciting laughter from the room.”
An hour ago HE finally visited the old Westport home of the late GeneTierney, which is actually in the Greens Farms area. Built by her dad, HowardSherwoodTierney, in 1929.
Posted on 1.3.24:
When the 58-year-old Gene Tierney sat for a chat on TheMike Douglas Show in 1979, she bore little resemblance to the beautiful, tres elegant femme fatale she played in Otto Preminger ‘s Laura (‘44).
The Douglas interview was 35 years later, of course, so why the shade? Because Tierney seemed altered by more than time.
She looked and sounded Lucille Ball-ish, to be honest — like someone who’d been smoking unfiltered cigarettes for decades and enjoying her nightly cocktails.
And she spoke with a slightly coarse accent that didn’t exactly scream “finishing school,” which was how she sounded in Laura. She pronounced “awards” as “awauhds”, Warner Bros. as Wauhnuh Brothuhs” and father as “fahthuh”.
Plus Tierney had sadly been grappling with mental issues off and on since the ‘50s, and given my own younger sister’s decades of battling schizophrenia I know what that shit looked like.
All to say that for those who’ve been blessed with good genes and have revelled in their youth and the fair-weather life that often results when people can’t stop talking about how ravishing your green eyes are, they don’t know what they’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
Tierney and her well-to-do family (her father, Howard Sherwood Tierney, was a flush insurance broker) began living in nearby Westport in the mid 1930s. Their home was in the Greens Farms region, and is located at 2 Tierney Lane, presumably christened in honor of her dad. (I’m wondering if Howard’s middle name was somehow connected in a family way to nearby Sherwood Island.)
I’ve been meaning to visit the Tierney homestead since moving here in the spring of ‘22. One of these days.
Gene Tierney made it to age 70. She died on 11.6.91.
…whenever a character wearing leather boots (lace-up or cowboy) walks into knee-deep water. I really hate that. I’m imagining doing this myself and feeling the water seep into the boots and soak the socks, and how my clammy feet would feel walking around with those soggies with little pools of water in the lower boot sole.
If I had to walk into shallow water I would take the boots and socks off, and then roll my pants up to my knees. I might even take the pants off entirely and fold them neatly next to the boots and socks.
…like “Shadows and Light” were to somehow fly into Taylor Swift’s head while she’s walking her dog or taking a shower, she’d probably have an anxiety attack. Or she’d break out in hives. I was going to say that songs like this are way beyond Swift’s comfort zone, but I don’t know her repertoire all that well. Has she ever performed or recorded acapella? I’m asking.
Friendo: “I give Harris a one-out-of-three shot of beating Trump. In other words: not good enough. But I think it’s already clear that she’s going to be the nominee. The Democrats can’t help themselves. Get ready for Donald Trump vs. Kamala Dukakis Hillary Harris.”
HE sez:
If Biden had resigned the Presidency and therefore made Kamala the new administrative king of the country as well as a symbol of relative youth (certainly compared to Donald Trump) and renewal, she would have, right now, a reasonably good chance of being elected in November.
President Kamala would be the new captain of the steamer with all the attendant power, and this would almost certainly install a feeling among voters that she’s due a certain deference…that this ceremonial figure and relatively untested commander-in-chief deserves her own term…a chance to show what she’s made of.
But Joe’s final act of Irish obstinacy and stubbornness — ending his campaign but insisting on serving his term out until 1.20.25 — means Harris is probably going to lose to Donald Trump on 11.5.24.
I’m glad that Joe is out and would like to see Kamala win, but I fear that average voters (outside of black women) don’t like or respect her enough, if they do at all.
The Kamala cabal can tapdance and shilly-shally all they want, but Harris was plopped into the Vice-Presidency because of gender and racial symbolism.
In the spring of 2020 candidate Biden, seeking the support of progressive women voters and especially the revolutionary #MeToo movement, had promised to choose a female running mate. Most of us understand that Harris fit that bill because of an added layer of political calculation —Joe wanted to emphasize his devotion to DEI (i.e., racial score-settling) in the wake of the George Floyd outrage and upheaval that rocked the country in May and early June of that year.
Harris — face facts — has never been a popular figure. She isn’t liked by a large swath of older, non-MAGA male voters (call them the Bret Stephens or Bill Maher community) and not just because of that terrible cackle. Harris didn’t win a single state during the 2020 primary season, she has a rep of being testy and an ineffective team leader, she dropped the ball on the Mexican immigration issue and she’s not a great public speaker (i.e., that whiny tone).
I realize that the Democratic establishment is timid by nature and already traumatized by the Biden collapse, and that the XX chromosome allegiance feels that electing a non-white woman president would be a great symbolic achievement, but a Harris candidacy, I fear, is not going to placate anyone or anything.
Unless, that is, she chooses Pete Buttigieg as her vice-presidential running mate, in which case all bets are off and the sky is potentially the limit.
Friendo #2: “I think you need to chill on this. If we are learning anything this unprecedented race is full of twists and turns. With the tables turned on Trump now (you can sense his unhappiness by his unhinged Truth Social in the past 24 hours) and him now being the oldest to ever run, PLUS a sentencing coming in September, debates, and the potential of a smart choice for VP (a governor from Midwest or Kentucky/NC being best.
“I love Buttigieg but America isn’t ready for a gay guy and also you don’t want someone from the administration already) her poll numbers could significantly increase. Most of all I am just counting on Trump to go more Trumpy than ever, blow that “unity” talk he lies about, and remind voters why he was so unpopular in the first place. It will be interesting to see what happens to RFK Jr.”
Working backwards from today, here are (a) Hollywood Elsewhere’s ten best fictional presidents and (b) best portrayals of historical presidents in feature films. Yes, I’m allowing for Saturday Night Live and other comedic portrayals.
FICTIONALS (in order of preference): 1. Lee Tracy, The Best Man; 2. Peter Sellers, Dr. Strangelove, 3. Jack Warden, Being There; 4. Donald Moffat, Clear and Present Danger; 5. Henry Fonda, Fail Safe; 6. John Heard, My Fellow Americans, 7. Harrison Ford, Air Force One; 8. Jeff Bridges, The Contender; 9. Walter Huston, Gabriel Over The White House; 10. Kevin Pollak, Deterrence.
JOE BIDEN: Jim Carrey on SNL. 2nd Best — Jason Sudeikis, SNL.
DONALD TRUMP: Thomas Mundy. 2nd best — Jeff Bergman, Our Cartoon President. 3rd best — Brendan Gleeson, The Comey Rule.
BARACK OBAMA: No opinion. Okay, SNL’s Jay Pharoah was fairly decent.
BILL CLINTON: Darrell Hammond, SNL. GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Dana Carvey, SNL.
RONALD REAGAN: Phil Hartman, SNL. 2nd best — Tim Matheson, Killing Reagan. JIMMY CARTER, GERALD FORD: Nobody. (Chevy Chase made no attempt to impersonate Ford.)
RICHARD NIXON: Rip Torn, Blind Ambition.
LYNDON JOHNSON: Randy Quaid, LBJ: The Early Years (’87).
JOHN F. KENNEDY: There’s never been a truly first-rate JFK, ever. That said, Bruce Greenwood wasn’t too bad in Roger Donaldson‘s Thirteen Days. Worst — William Devane, The Missiles of October.
So much for ClintEastwood’s JurorNo. 2, which may be his final film. If I was running WB distribution I’d open it this year solely out of respect for Clint’s legacy. To hell with the quality aspects, whatever they may amount to.
No passing the scepter to the not-all-that-popular Kamala Harris…I’ll certainly vote for her but she may lose to Trump…America’s first DEI candidate for the presidency (chosen by Biden purely for identity factors) is not necessarily the smartest path…an open convention is the only way to go.
Presuming the Harris cabal will get their way, will Kamala have the strength of character to choose the obvious best choice for her vice-presidential running mate — Pete Buttigieg? Even the most ardently homophobic black voters (a sizable voting bloc) would support this ticket.
Droolin’ Joe knew that if he’d refused to drop out and had subsequently gotten his ass kicked on 11.5.24, he would have gone down in history as the stupidest, the most mule-stubborn and most despised Democratic president in U.S. history.
So he didn’t have much of a choice.
Last night I hopped on the R train (Times Square to Steinway) in order to visit the nominally pleasant but architecturally dreary neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. Talk about your ethnic downmarket vibe. I took a couple of snaps (SAMO graffiti, a guy openly taking a leak) as I wondered how and why anyone would want to live in this kind of vaguely shitty neighborhood.
The precise destination was the Museum of the Moving Image, where the highly touted 70mm restoration of John Ford’s wildly over-praised TheSearchers unspooled at 7:30 pm.
The MOMI host told us we were in for a real treat — a 70mm replication of a genuine, bonafide VistaVision version of a luscious color film (shot by WinstonC. Hoch) that very few popcorn-munching Average Joes saw in ‘56.
What I saw last night looked like a nice but unexceptional 35mm print that could have played in my home town of Westfield, New Jersey.
“Bullshit!”, I muttered to myself as I sat in my third-row seat. “I’ve been took, tricked, scammed, duped, deceived, flim-flammed, led down the garden path, fooled, boondoggled, lied to, taken to the cleaners, sold a bill of goods”, etc.
Immediately my eyes were telling me that the 70mm restoration is some kind of reverent con job, and that ticket-buying schmoes like myself were being gaslit. “This?” I was angrily saying to myself. “Where’s the enhancement? Where’s the extra-exacting detail that a ‘straight from the original VisaVision negative’ 70mm print would presumably yield?”
The MOMI theatre is seemingly a technically first-rate operation with a nice big screen, but what a fuming experience I had. No “bump” at all over the versions I’ve watched on various formats over the years. No bump whatsoever, fuckers! Plus some shots looked overly shadowed, and some looked a tad bleachy.
Technically sophisticated friendo who knows his stuff: “In order to present a film print properly — especially 70mm — more things must come together than you might imagine in your worst nightmare.”
Thanks, powers-that-be! Thanks for lying right through your teeth!
Have you ever been to Monument Valley? It’s kinda like the moon. Beautiful but barren. No water, no nutritious soil, no grass for cattle to eat, nothing at all to sustain life. It’s a completely ridiculous notion that anyone would have settled there.
Where did Ethan’s canteen water come from? How did anyone clean themselves or wash their clothes, much less take a bath? How did the families “attend to business” in any sort of half-sanitary fashion without an outhouse, much less toilet paper? No one had any perfumes or colognes or deodorants. They all stunk to high heaven.
The racism in this film is beyond odious. It’s appalling how Ford depicted Native Americans as bloodthirsty simpletons…savage, murderous, sub-human. Those shots of captured white women whom Ethan dismisses with disgust (‘They ain’t white!’), howling and shrieking like young witches whose brains had been removed….a ghastly moment.
Plus Scar (played by Henry Brandon, the blue-eyed gay actor who turned up 20 years later in Assault on Precinct 13) surely began to sexually enjoy Natalie Wood’s “Debbie” in her early teens, and she didn’t have children?
Why did Ford never shoot during magic hour? The natural glaring sunlight seems to overwhelm the wonderful brownish-red clay colors in the powdery soil. The only interesting dusky compositions were shot inside a sound stage.
On top of which the toupee-wearing John Wayne had begun his descent into overweight-ness. He was a much slimmer fellow when he made “Hondo.”
I finally couldn’t stand it. I left around the 85-minute mark and forlornly strolled across a mostly vacant 36th Street to Tacuba Cantina Mexicana and ordered some unexceptional grub.
N.Y. Times: The Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, faced bipartisan calls for her resignation after a disastrous hourslong congressional hearing in which she declined to answer basic questions about the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump.
