i don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

Someone had said this of a post a few days ago on Keith Richard's style that they loved the "who the fuck is Mick Jagger?" tee shirt. Well, I too loved it because it is so Keith. I must admit that Mr. Richards must be in possession of the best tee shirts ever made. They are usually a little bit loud, a little bit (socially) inappropriate, and always really great. Well, I did some digging around and I found an exact copy of Keef's tee, which originated from the 1975 Rolling Stones tour of the Americas. There are a lot of imitations out there of this infamous shirt, but this is the closest I've found to the actual version. It even has a sort of faded look to the writing, so you could feasibly pass it off as a vintage original. For a cool $45, you can score this shirt for yourself. It's a little steep for just a tee shirt, but think of it as an investment in your love of the Keef; after all, you can't put a price on love.

so sad, so sad

This week has not been too kind at all -- first Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, then Michael Jackson, and now we have learned that Karl Malden passed away today. At 97 years old, Karl was a legendary actor whose career spanned over seven decades. He often collaborated with Marlon Brando and director Elia Kazan in film and stage, his two best known screen roles were in A Streetcar Named Desire as Mitch, Stanley's friend who is interested in Blanche but is an ardent mama's boy (for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1951), and On the Waterfront as Father Barry, a man who believes works to stop the control the mob has over the docks. His most notable film appearances also include: One-Eyed Jacks (his third and last Brando collaboration); Baby Doll as Archie Lee Meighan, the frustrated husband of a sexually withholding teenage Carroll Baker; Gypsy; The Cincinnati Kid; How the West Was Won; and Patton. He also starred as a cop alongside Michael Douglas in the 1970s crime series The Streets of San Francisco.
Rest in peace, Karl. You will be sorely missed.

i saw a film today, oh boy, the english army had just won the war

"Can I rub your ball, sir? It gives me great pleasure." Hmm... alrighty then, John. During the fall of 1966 before the Beatles started the Sgt. Pepper recording sessions, John Lennon flew to Spain to take part in director Richard Lester's newest film, How I Won the War. Lester, who had directed the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night and Help!, recruited John for this anti-war satire aimed at criticizing Vietnam and war itself. Lennon was cast as the kleptomaniac fascist Private Gripweed, a soldier under command of the clueless Lieutenant Goodbody (Michael Crawford, also a frequent collaborator of Lester in The Knack...and How to Get it, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) during WWII. The task for the inexperienced troop is simple -- build a cricket pitch behind enemy lines in North Africa for the future troops arriving there. Its Lester's take on the film that is a little less so. In Lester's world, after one of the characters is killed, they never really die -- they still talk and most all of them still follow the other soldiers on their mission, the only difference is that they become a different color (pink, green, orange, blue...), which admittedly makes certain characters' deaths easier to take. There are other oddities in the film -- a cricket game with Hitler (where John's 'can I rub your ball' line comes in -- he's talking about a cricket ball, you dirty people!), a soldier who tries the entire film to seem mad and is finally dubbed insane after quoting Churchill, and tons of Lester's trademark absurd Monty Python-esque humor.

For any Lester film that I have seen -- and even most anti-war films that I've seen -- this film is comparably darker, angrier, and more critical than the others. In this film, Lester stresses the point that no good can come from war as it destroys everyone and everything involved. While Goodbody's troop seems to try to kill him off the entire film, Goodbody inadvertently causes most his troop to gradually die off. Lester's criticism of war is biting and very haunting. After Gripweed dies, he looks directly into the camera and says eerily prophetically, "I knew this would happen. You knew it would happen, didn't you?" After I saw that scene, I cried for like an hour.

Even still, this point in Lennon's life is where I crush on him the most. He cut his hair in the Army-regulated cut and started wearing his soon-to-be-trademark granny glasses for the first time. And really who can resist seeing Lennon in army fatigues and a wife beater? I love seeing photos from the set because even though the film is darkly depressing, everyone seemed to be so happy behind the scenes.

i’m drifting in and out of dreamless sleep, throwing all my memories in a ditch so deep

Edge of Love has to be one of my favorite films that I've never seen. Starring two of the most fashionable girls around today (Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller), I fell in love with the film's English countryside wardrobe -- all those worn cardigans, rubber boots, and washed out florals looked so dreamy and wonderful to me. Unfortunately, I really didn't know anything about the film itself for a long time, except that Lindsay Lohan was supposed to do Sienna's part but then she crashed her car and got arrested, so she was otherwise busy.

The film is set in World War II (hence the retro hairstyles) and centers around Vera Phillips (Keira), who one day meets her former love Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and finds that there are still feelings there between them, despite the fact that he is married to Caitlin MacNamara (Sienna), a free-spirited dancer. At first, there is a rivalry between the two women, but soon they grow to be good friends and together with Dylan, they live happily. When Vera marries William Killick, a soldier about to be deployed abroad, Dylan becomes openly jealous of the new addition to the group, something that Caitlin takes notice of. After William is deployed, the trio moves to the Welsh countryside where Vera's feelings for Dylan grow. After Willian returns home with war trauma, teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, to find his wife in an uncomfortably close relationship with Dylan, it is safe to say that he was less than pleased. What happened next was a night infamous in the literary world.

Reviews for the film were mixed -- some said that it was brilliant, others criticized the movie's less-than-accurate depiction of the events. In all honesty, I don't really care if the film is enlightening or terrible-- at least they look cute in it.

incense and peppermints, meaningless nouns, turn on, turn in, turn your eyes around

Starting last year, my school made us have those pesky meetings with guidance counselors to discuss our goals, dreams, and futures. Well, I generally lack any realistic ambitions -- being the gypsy princess of Monaco and wife to Paul McCartney doesn't seem like the safest set path for my future -- but that didn't really phase me when I was going in to meet with them. To be honest, I had no real goals, dreams, or tentative futures that didn't involve being transported back a few decades in a time machine. I was fairly certain I didn't want to go to college, but that was never an option, especially for the mildly crazy like I. You see, I don't think about things in terms of how plausible it is or what will be best for me in reality -- to quote Blanche DuBois, "I don't want realism, I want magic!" Well, they were all well and horrified enough after just a few questions, but then the pièce de résistance when they asked me who were figures in history that I most admired. I answered truthfully -- that my personal heroes changed from time to time, but at the moment they were: Abraham Lincoln, Ice-T, and Keith Richards.
I wasn't trying to be cool or anything, because I pretty much fail at being cool/hip/with it all of the time. I was just saying the people that I truthfully thought were admirable in their careers. Well, I got lucky for starting with Abe Lincoln -- apparently he was a pretty common answer, so they didn't make me explain too much why I admired him. I said that I had a historical crush on him, not just because of his politics and rhetoric (yes, rhetoric can be sexy) but also because I thought he was handsome. Probably not the best thing to reveal that you're crushing on a man that died 1.25 centuries before you were born, but I sometimes (always) say really dumb things. Ice-T was harder to explain -- its difficult to discuss the merits of gangsta rap with a bunch of counselors. It's like trying to explain to Rush Limbaugh why abortion was a really awesome idea, I would get nowhere except possibly smacked in the mouth. But then I told them that he was the guy on Law and Order SVU, which they accepted as a suitable reason.
Keith Richards was even harder to explain to them -- the counselor even asked, "now how on earth could admire this man?" I suppose that they had this image of me, the failed product of the parochial school system, in my plaid uniform and saddle shoes laying down to worship at the feet of the dark lord of rock and roll to offer myself as his sacrificial virgin. He would be sitting on gold throne in a cloud of cigarette smoke and drenched in Jack Daniels, and decide that I was fit to be his consort. Immediately, he would shoot me up with heroin and cocaine, and I would start having lots of sex. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad a fate for me. But anyway.... I told them that Keith has been at the top of his profession for skill and originality for years, very much admired not only for his music, but also because he fought against his demons, winning the battle with drug addiction. And then I asked why they didn't like him -- was it because they didn't like his music, or because they were holding his prior problems (i.e. possibly snorting his dad, et al) against him. And then I said that a certain higher power wouldn't like that, because can't a man redeem himself? Isn't that what's it all about in the end?

I think Keith is fantastic. He probably has the best wardrobe of any rock star. With a penchant for skull rings, scarves, black leather pants, scruffed up boots, leopard print, and really great tee shirts -- he's like a pirate-cowboy-rocker-gypsy God. And I would gladly lay myself down at the feet of his throne, if he'll have me.

weddings, parties, anything

Marilyn Monroe, circa 1957

Grace Kelly in 1955 at a Hollywood dinner

Sylvie Vartan, greeting the Beatles in Paris, 1964

Rock Hudson and his new bride Phyllis Gates,

following their wedding in 1955

Mia Farrow dancing up a storm with Ringo Starr

at the Dorchester in 1968

Julie Christie, Ursula Andress, and Catherine Deneuve

before formally meeting Princess Margaret

James Dean and Ursula Andress on a date in Hollywood, 1955

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin at the Cannes Festival

Twiggy at Disneyland in 1967

Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski, and Sharon Tate

at the premiere of "Rosemary's Baby"

Grace Kelly on a publicity date in the 1950s

Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp out on the town in

New York in 1964

Brigitte Bardot meeting Paul Newman in the 1960s

Marilyn Monroe at a Hollywood function in 1961

The Rolling Stones in London, 1967

work it out, shake it little mama, let me see you do the jane fonda

I've always liked Jane Fonda a lot, but kind of in the way one might like pitbulls or the movie "300" -- the idea of her is a bit intimidating to me, but its comforting to know that she's out there doing her thing, as long as nothing is directed toward me. She's not an intimidating-looking person really in any respect (well when she had her Hanoi Jane haircut, arguably she was...) --she's quite petite and really very beautiful, so I guess its more in the way she speaks and carries herself that gets me. Everytime she enters the screen in a movie, I watch her because its like she's forcing everyone to look at her. I could never imagine Jane playing a character that was delicate or a pushover, just because Jane could never be that person. Jane is best when she's playing an ass-kicking TV reporter, or an ass-kicking prostitute, or an ass-kicking office worker, or an ass-kicking futuristic crimefighter. Essentially whatever role where she can kick ass -- physically or metaphorically -- is where Jane will succeed most. I'm not even going to talk about this one because she takes her insane intimidation abilities to new heights. The closest Jane ever came to playing a very vulnerable, emotionally abused character was in On Golden Pond, and even then she was playing a character who used to kick ass.

I remember in a scene in California Suite where she gets complimented by Alan Alda, and she just turns to him and scoffs "Fit? You think I look fit? You awful shit, I look gorgeous!" I just remember thinking that Alan Alda's proper response should have been to sink cowardly and say "Yes, ma'am" quietly before excusing himself to go cry in the bathroom.

I've always really liked it when she costarred with Robert Redford in movies, because I think their differing personalities worked well together. I remember reading a quote where Jane said that everytime they filmed a movie together, she would fall in love with him all over again. Together they starred in "The Chase," "Barefoot in the Park," and "The Electric Horseman." Barefoot in the Park is my favorite of the films that they did together because, unlike the others, it was an unapologetically sweet romantic comedy -- Jane played a charmingly ditzy bride trying to adjust to being a wife and still be a free spirit, and Robert played her adorably square conservative husband who just can't seem to shake things up. I think this is my favorite type of character that Jane plays -- one who is a bit kooky, a bit intimidating, but very lovable indeed.