Bruce Paley's Blog

Where on earth is our compassion? What kind of government turns its back on vulnerable, helpless children? We've all seen the coverage of the horrors of life in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East on TV - these people and millions like them are fleeing war zones and ISIS. All they want is a safe place to raise their families and start their lives anew. They have lived through the kind of devastation and destruction most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine, yet the UK - supposedly the 6th richest country in the world with a thriving economy (although for some reason they can't find money for the NHS even though there's plenty of it to be found - ask me and I'll find it for them) - refuses to take in anything resembling its fair share of adult refugees, never mind the children. The kindertransport of 1939 took in 10,000 children fleeing Nazi Germany; we're now accepting 350 children fleeing similar horrors. Yes, a few of them might be over 18, but so what? The large majority are indeed children, and besides, what would any of us do in their situation? Axing the Child refugee Scheme disgraces the UK - even Donald Trump has yet to sink so low. I hope there's a special place in Hell for May and Amber Rudd and all the rest of these heartless Conservatives.

"Bruce Paley is an extraordinary writer and his Obrovsky is a joy & a delight, an original laugh-out-loud comedy" says The Dice Man author Luke Rhinehart, and it's free on Kindle until Jan 13. Obrovsky... is an outrageous, satirical black comedy about a dwarf troupe trying to mount a production of Hamlet in an Eastern European country as it makes a difficult transition from communism to capitalism. Lured out of a premature retirement to play the lead is the brilliant Jiri Bloudin. Known in his country as the miniature Marlon Brando, Jiri has a well-earned reputation as a womaniser, and is unapologetic about his hedonistic lifestyle, which includes copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, though rumour has it that he is washed up.
Is he? Is he up for Hamlet?
The answer will surprise you.

Sympathies to his family and those who loved him, but A A Gill had always disgusted me ever since he shot a baboon simply in order to see what it was like to kill something. I cannot think of a more appalling act, and Gill then described the experience in horrific detail, and likened it to a bit of "naughty fun"; nor did he ever apologise. I confess I'm a vegetarian and an animal lover, and can just about grudgingly accept people who kill game for food, but I have no time for the so-called "sport" of hunting. Maybe when the animals are armed… In any case, there's a special place in hell for someone who decides to kill a living creature simply for the sake of killing it. Obituaries referred to Gill as a journalist, but journalists write about news and events, and he mainly wrote about food and TV - he was a critic, not a journalist, and a polemicist who deliberately went out of his way to needlessly insult groups of people - the Welsh, inhabitants of the Isle of Man, Mary Beard, Clare Balding, and others all bore the brunt of his barbs. Like Katie Hopkins or the late Christopher Hitchins (who at least had great intellect), he seemed to get his jollies offending people. So while I take no joy from his death, neither do I shed any tears. Better people die every day - just look at the carnage happening in Aleppo even as I write this.
Indeed, some might even call Gill's death karma…

If The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as stockbroker Jordan Belfort, is anything to go by, then the answer is most definitely yes. The film (which I only now watched on DVD) is Goodfellas on steroids, an attempt by Scorcese to mimic that film's narrative, energy, and structure, but without its charm, pace, and control. Both films tell the story of one man's ascent into a particular fraternity that sees him acquire undreamt wealth as he succumbs to drug abuse and corruption, followed by his subsequent downfall and betrayal of his colleagues. Specifically, Wolf… is about excess in the stockbroker world, and ironically it suffers from a surfeit of excess. For one thing, at 2 hours and 52 minutes it is at least an hour or an hour and a quarter too long. Furthermore it is repetitious, wildly over the top, and unremittingly bombastic. The viewer is bombarded by numerous scenes of manic celebration that go on and on and on, propelled by whirlwinds of frenetic energy, with few breaks. In Goodfellas the energy was tightly controlled, at least until the dizzying sequence near the end of the film that perfectly replicated the cocaine-induced chaos and paranoia suffered by Ray Liotta's character, whereas Wolf… has so many similar but extended sequences that their impact is quickly blunted into boredom. Is Martin Scorcese so revered that no one dare tells him that he has no clothes? Couldn’t someone have surreptitiously slipped him a pair of scissors to trim the film's excess?
The film's one plus point is Leonardo DiCaprio's excellent performance, as he reveals a heretofore unseen side of himself, but it's not enough to save the film. In Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorcese tried to make a Martin Scorcese film, and failed miserably.

The recent death of Leonard Cohen was a reminder that the next decade or two are going to see the deaths of virtually all the remaining first and second generation rock'n'rollers, most of whom are now in their 70s or 80s, or even 90, like the peerless Chuck Berry (who is about to release a new album!) Just under a month ago the pop singer Bobby Vee died, age 73. He had several hits in the States in the late 50s/early 60s, a time when the Teen Idols - the pretty boys big in looks but less so in talent - ruled the roost following the demise of the original rock'n'rollers. Elvis had been drafted into the army and lost some of his edge, Chuck Berry had been imprisoned for violation of the Mann Act (transporting an underage girl across state borders, very possibly a trumped up charge), Little Richard had turned to God and gospel, having survived seeing the wing of the airplane he was in catch fire, Jerry Lee Lewis had been blacklisted after it was revealed he had married his 13-year-old cousin (on top of which he hadn’t actually divorced his first wife), and Buddy Holly was killed in that tragic plane crash, as immortalised by Don McLean in his song The Day the Music Died. As Jerry Lee Lewis famously lamented, half of the Teen Idols seemed to be called Bobby - Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vinton, and Bobby Vee. But out of the pile of Bobbys et al, came the brilliant Dion (DiMucci), and the underrated Ricky Nelson. And while Vee wasn't quite in their class, he was a notch or two above many of his contemporaries, among them Fabian, who became the first manufactured pop star, although he had never asked for it. A good looking Italian kind from South Philly who bore a vague resemblance to both Elvis and Ricky Nelson, 16-year-old Fabiano Forte was sitting on his stoop after an ambulance had carted away his stricken father, who had suffered a heart attack, when he was spotted by a local music mogul who asked him if he fancied being a rock'n'roll star - true story!
Bobby Vee's story also reads like a Hollywood movie.
In 1959, North Dakota native Robert Velline was a 15-year-old Buddy Holly fan who played in a rockabilly-type band with his brother, and was looking forward to seeing his idol in concert the next night. But tragedy struck when Holly's plane crashed. Rather than cancel the gig, the promoter sought other acts to fill the bill via a local radio station, and Velline's band got the gig. In fact it was their very first gig, and the band didn’t even have a name, so they made one up on the spot: The Shadows. And in true Hollywood fashion, they went down a storm and a star was born, and a few years later Bobby's riding the top of the charts with the memorable Goffin-King song Take Good Care of my Baby, one of those pop tunes that everybody knows. Vee - as he then was - was a good enough singer, but the strength of that song lies in the textured, multi-layered production by the young Texan "Snuff" Garrett, a sort of precursor to Phil Spector's famous "Wall of Sound" - in fact, Spector is on record as saying that he thought Garrett (who died earlier this year) was the only contemporary producer worth a damn. Vee enjoyed several other hits including the superior Garrett-produced The Night has a Thousand Eyes, another superior pop song that most people know, which can be seen as a forerunner of The Police's Every Breath you Take.
One footnote of interest: while still a working band, The Shadows briefly hired a local piano player who called himself Elston Gunnn (sic). "Bobby Vee was from Fargo, North Dakota, raised not far from me," wrote the man who shortly afterwards changed his name to Bob Dylan in his memoir Chronicles. "In the summer of '59 he had a regional hit record out called Suzie Baby on a local label. His band was called The Shadows, and I had hitchhiked out there and talked my way into joining his group as a piano player on some local gigs, one in the basement of a church. I played a few shows with him, but he really didn’t need a piano player, and besides, it was hard finding a piano that was in tune in the halls that he played….Bobby had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice," Dylan recalled, "and it was musical as a silver bell, like Buddy Holly's, only deeper. When I knew him he was a great rockabilly singer, and now he had crossed over and was a pop star."
And what did Vee make of his provisional piano player? "He was a kind of a scruffy little guy, but he was really into it, loved to rock'n'roll. He was pretty limited by what he could play. He was pretty hot - in the key of C. He liked to do hand claps, like Gene Vincent…He would come up [to the microphone] and do that every now and then, and then scurry back to the piano…He was just a spacey little guy," Vee concluded, "you know, just sort of worming his way around."
Which brings us to The Rolling Stones, cumulative age somewhere around 3,000 years old (or is that 300?), and in possession of the finest and deepest back catalogue of all, rivalled only by The Beatles - The Last Time, Satisfaction, Paint it Black, Gimme Shelter, Sympathy for the Devil, Honky Tonk Woman, Wild Horses, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Street Fighting Man, You Can't Always get What you Want, Tumbling Dice…the list goes on and on, on top of which there's that stunning run of four classic albums: Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street, that few acts can claim to have equalled. And if they haven't made a really good album since 1978's Some Girls, so what, they’ve done more than enough (and the bits I've heard of their new blues-roots album Lonesome and Blue don’t sound too bad either).
I'm of the baby boomer generation, and to me rock'n'roll provides many of the cultural landmarks and highlights of our times - Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show, Dylan going electric, The Beatles in India, the Woodstock festival…and the Stones mythology is the richest of all: the drugs, the women, the Redlands bust featuring Marianne Faithful and that Mars bar, the death of Brian Jones, the Hyde Park concert, Altamont, and the creation of the brilliant Exile on Main Street, arguably their finest effort, much of which was recorded at Keith Richards' decadence drenched mansion Nellcôte in the south of France (electricity stolen from the French mains, thank you). As I see it too, it was Keith Richards more than anyone else who redefined masculinity in the 1960s with his teased hair, eye make-up, earring, and colourful, flowing garments, and with Anita Pallenberg on his arm, cocking a defiant snook at the stuffy English establishment. As embodied by Keith and others, the '60s were a brilliant sunburst of colour in a black and white world that represented the liberation from decades if not centuries of the shackles and restraints of convention as to how men were supposed to look and behave, and what you could do with your life.
Anyhow, the other night Channel 4 broadcast The Rolling Stones: Olé, Olé, Olé! A Trip across Latin America, a documentary that followed the Stones on their 2016 tour of the area, which culminated in a free concert in Cuba. Musically the excitement is still there, reverberating with every familiar riff, and given that the core of the band - Mick, Keith, and Charlie - has been playing together for over 50 years now (and 30 years with Ronnie Wood) they're tighter than ever, and Keith and Ronnie play seamlessly off each other, (though I personally prefer the line-up featuring Mick Taylor's lovely, delicate guitar lines - he absolutely shines on Sticky Fingers!) The tour took in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, and Cuba, and there was lots of fascinating local colour and culture on offer - a samba musician, for instance, told how the music originated as a rebellion against their Spanish rulers and the forced imposition of Catholicism, while Argentine boasts a cult called the Rolingas, dedicated to the Stones and their music. In addition, many locals spoke of how under the recent dictatorships that governed several Latin American countries it was forbidden to listen to Western music, and people told how they had actually gone to prison for listening to the Stones. We in the West take these things for granted, but to these people the Stones concerts were a major event in their lives, a symbolic liberation and vindication of their freedom and beliefs. There were scenes of grown men moved to tears at seeing their heroes, and the ecstasy on the fans' faces was undeniable. There were funny moments too regarding the Cuban concert, which had to be rescheduled at the last minute due to President Obama's historic visit, only for the Pope to object to the new date, which happened to be Good Friday!
So, a fascinating documentary, do catch it if it comes your way! Viva Los Stones!

It's a shame that the UK's only left wing Sunday newspaper isn't really that left wing, it's more centrist, even right wing at times, witness dull, safe commentators like Will Hutton and Andrew Rawnsley, the polemical, perennial Corbyn-basher Nick Cohen, while others like Barbara Ellen only seem to write about trivial things. (It's sister paper, The Guardian, while a great crusading newspaper, is also more often centre-left rather than genuine left wing and has been consistently hostile to Jeremy Corbyn (who we need more than ever in this age of the demagogue Trump), with the notable exceptions of George Monbiot, Gary Younge, Owen Jones, and sometimes Zoe Heller. And while their G2 section sometimes carries interesting pieces, it's often silly and infantile). BUT...The Observer's New Review arts section is rarely less than excellent. Last Sunday's edition (Nov 13), for example, contained an interesting discussion with Elton John about photography and his personal collection, currently on exhibit at London's Tate Modern. I'm no big fan of his music (though there are a handful of decent early rock'n'roll songs that I like), but he obviously loves his photography and has insightful and thoughtful opinions about the genre. There is also a fine, short article about Leonard Cohen by Neil Spencer, with a great vintage photo by Michael Ochs (brother of late folk singer Phil, an underrated talent due rediscovery), with contributions by Paul Muldoon, Martha Wainwright, and Ezra Furman, and also a fascinating article by Andrew Anthony about filmmaker Paul Schrader, best known for writing the seminal Scorcese films Taxi Driver (which, he laments, will surely be the first line of his obituary) and Raging Bull, and directing the obscure gem Blue Collar, and the underrated Cat People. It's full of Schrader's stories and anecdotes about the industry and his relationships with such actors as Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Nicholas cage, and especially Nastassja Kinski, who apparently told Schrader, who was having an affair with her, "Paul, I always fuck my directors. And with you it was difficult" Then there's a regular column by David Mitchell which I never read (I could never figure out if I actually like Peep Show or not, for while it's occasionally funny and amusing, on the whole I find it too annoying and full of itself), plus excellent film reviews by Mark Kermode, and the usual book, music and theatre reviews, no better or worse than what you might find in any quality paper. But their feature articles are consistently superb and of interest, so kudos to them for that.

Sad to hear of the death of Leonard Cohen at 82, who wrote such beautiful, elegiac, even magical songs. Most people probably know him as the author of Hallelujah, which originally had something like 80 stanzas! In the 60s, his lovely song Suzanne was one of the "underground" tunes of the day among the hippie crowd (of which I was a part), not a big hit, but one of the "hip" tunes that everybody in the counter culture knew and loved. Only a few months back he was informed that his former partner and muse Marianne Ihlen (immortalised in his song So Long Marianne) was dying. At the time Cohen sent her a note which read: "Well Marianne, it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I've always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom...but now I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love. See you down the road."
Sad but lovely.

Oh well. Woke up this morning, the sun was still shining, birds were still at the feeder, sheep still in the fields...

So today America goes to the polls, and what happens in America affects us all. Now while I don't have any great love for Hillary Clinton - she's basically a centrist politician who will pander to Wall Street and the multinationals who are taking over the world and need to be reined in rather than accommodated (if only Bernie Sanders had got the nomination!) - compared to Donald Trump she's Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa and Simone de Beauvoir rolled into one. How a dim, bombastic, racist, potty-mouthed, misogynistic, out-of-control, egomaniacal reality TV idiot in love with himself, utterly lacking in dignity, grace, and class, and who advocates ridiculous promises like building a wall between America and Mexico "and making them pay for it" and slings out empty slogans like "make America great again" can get anywhere near the White House short of delivering pizzas absolutely stupefies me. Has it really come to this? America, you should be deeply ashamed of yourself!
Then again, I've always believed that half the American electorate is basically stupid, as a look at some of the presidents, vice-presidents, and presidential candidates we've recently been blessed with will confirm: Reagan, Quayle, Bush Jr,... Sarah Palin anybody?!!! Hello? Still, this time at least, I suspect that America will do the right thing and vote Clinton in so we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief. Whatever they might do over there, we over here in the rest of the world do not deserve a President Trump.
Clinton will win.
I hope.
(And lest you think I'm picking on my fellow Americans [NB: I'm an ex-pat, happily resident in rural Wales], 52% of the British electorate is just as stupid as they are and equally susceptible to empty slogans ("get our country back" anyone?) and has a lot to answer for by blindly voting for Brexit without having a clue as to what that might actually mean, and what it might do to the economy and the UK as a whole. Did these morons really vote for food and other prices to go up across the board? Do the farmers who voted out really think successive UK governments (especially this appalling Tory one that delights in cutting benefits for the least well off while pouring billions of pounds into unnecessary white elephants like Hinckley, HS2&3, and the third runway at Heathrow) will match the generous subsidies they got from the EU indefinitely? Good-bye to the environment too. And workers' protection. And the Human Rights bill. (Hopefully, just maybe, Parliament and the House of Lords will prevent the UK from making this terrible mistake)
Basically we're a flawed, stupid, clueless species. I think if the first primordial creature that crawled out of the swamp billions of years ago had a clue as to what was coming, it would turn around and crawl right back in! There it is.

Watched the second of the two Truman Capote films on DVD last night, the one directed by Bennett Miller from the book by Gerald Clarke, and with an excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role that won him an Oscar, supported by fine performances from Catherine Keener as Harper Lee and Clifton Collins Jr as the killer Perry Smith. It focuses on the close and conflicted and disturbing relationship between Smith and Capote, who is possibly in love with Smith and at the same time racked with guilt over his exploitation of Smith for the purposes of his book (which would become the extraordinary In Cold Blood) and his desire for an ending to the book, i.e., Smith's execution. As I said, fine performances, and an intelligent, thoughtful screenplay by Dan Futterman.

***** - five stars.