News From The "Who Cares?" Desk: A Barely-Known Good Flick

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

That's unsolved-murder writer James Ellroy on the right, looking like he does in "James Ellroy's Feast of Death" which I saw last night after severing my last tie to the Democratic Party ["WHAT!" you say. "Quit now when there's real hope on the way?" Exactly, and this too shall be shortly explained].

I've read five or six Ellroy books, saw the quite good "LA Confidential" when it came out a few years ago. "Blood Feast" was a pleasant surprise. It's a documentary about Ellroy's life, generally based upon "My Dark Places," his autobiography. Turns out Ellroy and Dr. Bawb not only went to the same high-school, Fairfax in L.A. but also to "JB" - aka John Burroughs Junior High though I was about nine-years ahead of Ellroy.

Ah, yes: "With honor and service, our watch-words now to thee/ True to your colors, our hearts will ever be!/Fairest and dearest, John Burroughs Junior High!" went the final chorus of that three-year horror school's Alma mater.
Out of a student body of 2000, all with Raging Hormones, I was the Lone Spastic. Further my chainsaw stutter theatened to drown in a near-drooling 24/7/365 state of grimacing muteness. Bad eh? Ellroy's three years TKO's mine two-minutes into Round One: A year before "JB," the body of his mother a nurse and enthusiastic Bar Fly was found raped, strangled and partially dismembered by some Little Leaguers. The "perp" remains unknown through today. Mazel tov, Jim! Your JB story kicks the crap outta mine. No wonder you're weirder than I ever thought of being. No wonder you wrote the hell outta the 1947 Elizabeth Short Black Dahlia case. Which, until I saw you and a half-dozen of your buddies of the LAPD murder police kicking back at the Pacific Dining Car, one of LA's truly great steak houses [The "Baseball Steak" above], also remained unsolved. Omitted forgiveably from the movie version of your Auto-Bio "My Dark Places" was your shrewd plan to get expelled from then-mostly Jewish Fairfax High by wearing a Swastika arm-band. Nothing personal: My dad showed up to face down Fairfax's then-Principal, a fine broth of a Jew-hater, who refused to seat Weird Young Me on the Student Council. No one messed with my pissed-off dad! We do what we gotta do. That Swastika shtick coulda got you what you wanted anywhere. Good show! Again, as one Weirdo to another, Mazel tov!

In truth, my admiration of Ellroy goes much further than his splendid plotting and writing. Spend a long enough time in the Shrink dodge and one wonders [at least I do] how a kid as bleeped-up as Ellroy was can [A] Survive and [B] Become, then sustain, productiveness on his/her own terms. One need not "approve" of the manner and style of those who emerge intact from unspeakable beginnings. Given my "druthers," I prefer never to meet James Ellroy. I've had my fill of Ellroy's "mannerism wannabes." "Real articles" remind me of catastrophes I've dodged and how it otherwise could have been. He and I are fortunate.

In 2006 a glint of Democratic Party Future prompted the excellent Anonymous Liberal to write of David Addington thusly: http www.anonymousliberal.com/2006/06/look-out-david-addingtons-head-just.html. Yesterday, 6/27/2008, smirk intact, Addington and side-kick John Yoo gave the Middle-Finger Salute for three-hours to the U.S. Congress generally, earnest, moderately annoyed Democrats more specifically and the US Constitution in particular. Having suspected 98% of all elected Democrats are 100% invertebrate, this was no bulletin. What made me spatter the screen of this 'puter [Why in THE hell watch grown-ups try and fail to lance a pair of putrescent, throbbing carbuncles on the neck of decency?] was Chairman John Conyers thanking both for "arranging your time to appear before this committee." Say WHAT??? So it's a Pro forma courtesy! So Conyers DIDN'T break off a bottle and jump both mocking ass-wipes like Ernest Borgnine as Sgt Fatso Judson came at Sinatra in From Here To Eternity! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045793/

Damn! My 70th year; One week as Grandfather of Jayden Robert Starr; Awards up the yang and I STILL demand justice! Maybe, like Professor Kingsfield said in "The Paper Chase" http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=the+paper+chase&x=14&y=3
I shoulda applied to the School of Theology.