George Jensen made it to the top of the best seller’s list with his novel “The Final Ending.” He should be on top of the world, instead, his world is spiraling out of control. He needs to Make it Write.
Basic Training: A Film by Frederick Wiseman
It’s 1970 in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and filmmaker Frederick Wiseman has been given access to film a new group of Army recruits, draftees and enlisted, as they go through eight weeks of basic training. One thing these young men have in common, they all look haunted by what is ahead… Vietnam.
The eight weeks of training is a dehumanizing experience filled with the young boys taught to act robotically the same for the greater good. Those who do not fit in are harassed or even worse. One young soldier, his name is Hickman, cannot march to the cadence of “Left, Left, left, right, left…” He is continually called out to get in step. Eventually, he is pulled out of the squad and “trained” by a Drill Sgt. The kid still can’t get the rhythm. Later, he tells a Pastor that he just doesn’t fit in with the others, never did. He can’t seem to do anything right and has even been threatened with a “blanket party” by his fellow soldiers. Another trainee, a young black accused of not following orders explains to a superior, “Let’s be frank with each other, now you know this is not my country.” He would rather get a dishonorable discharge than follow orders. The officer explains how a dishonorable discharge will follow him through life. He doesn’t care. Most of the boys fall in line. The gun-ho guys who are ready to fight, others to get through it all and come back home alive.
While it seems filmmaker, Frederick Wiseman was given free access, I tend to doubt it. The Drill Sgt.’s are tough, but they seem a little too nice. With the prospect of Vietnam ahead of them, the trainees are told by the D.I.’s and higher-ups is just do what we teach you and everything will be fine. How comforting.
My skepticism comes from my own experience. I was drafted a year earlier and went through basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The Drill Sgt.’s were not as kind. Kind was not in their vocabulary. You had to have a good pair of lungs to be a D.I. because they screamed a lot, ridiculed, and trashed you. And as far as the “do what we teach you and everything will be fine,” well, it was more like “boy, your ass is going to ‘Nam, Charlie is waiting and you are going to die, and while you’re there, Jody and me will be making nice with your mama, your sister, and your wife.”
You watch these young soldiers, really boys, going through their training: how to crawl in the mud under barbed wire, hand to hand combat, bayonet training, weapon (M-16) training. You cannot help but wonder how many of these boys never made it back home. The strangest training segment in the film and this is something I did not experience, is a training class on how to correctly brush your teeth! Brush your teeth and win the war. We lost in Vietnam, many boys lost their lives, and many more came home disabled mentally and/or physically.
When I came home, I didn’t talk about Vietnam. Not because of any trauma or horrific experiences from the war, it had more to do with the people back home. There were two camps, those who favored the war and wanted America to bomb all of Southeast Asia out of existence and those who were part of the anti-war movement and saw you as a baby killer. I belonged to neither camp. Like the trainee, Hickman who I mentioned earlier, I just didn’t fit in anywhere, and so I didn’t talk about it. It took many years before I told people I was a Viet Vet and to this day I still don’t know where I belong.
Like Lana Turner in Postman only Deadlier
She took one step into the bedroom framing herself by the open bathroom door. Jimmy stared at her. Exactly as John Garfield first saw Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, he thought: white shorts, halter top, and turban. Only this time Margaret added one more accessory… – The Late Show and Other Tales of Celluloid Malice
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Movie Watching in Quarantine
As a writer, I stay home and write. That’s the nature of the process, but when I put my photographer’s hat on I am outside. Again, that’s the nature of the process. Covid-19 has put my photography on hold. Sure, I can do indoor photography, but my taste has usually run toward the outdoors.
These days, I’m spending more time inside than out. My writing is at its best in the early hours. Subsequently, to pass the time I read, and I have been watching movies, movies and more movies.
I have been posting on Facebook a few thoughts on most and decided to share a few here.
Cape Fear
Cape Fear one of the great thrillers from the early 60s. Robert Mitchum’s revenge-seeking crazed Max Cady is one of cinema’s great psychopaths. What makes his performance so effectively terrifying is his laid back style. He’s a relentless, vengeful, monster that would put fear in anyone’s heart. The film is a twisted tale that will keep your nails short due to all the biting you will do while sitting on the edge of your seat. Bernard Herrmann’s score is one of his best as is Mitchum’s off-kilter, heavy-lidded, sexually charged, nasty performance.
Carrie
Brian DePalma’s Carrie is best remembered for the film’s prom night climax: the bucket filled with pig blood dropping on Carrie, the split-screen, the bursting flames of fire, and the deadly revenge filled bloodshed as the highlights in this film. True, it’s one of the most shocking of screen massacres and all-time great sequences in horror. But complementing thasequence is the sequence that comes prior to it. The tense filled scenes beginning with the collection of prom queen ballots to the tracking shot of the bucket’s cord and the fated spilling of blood onto Carrie’s hair and body. That sequence creates a slow, but tense, nail-biting buildup to the final destruction
Three Days Of the Condor
Paranoia Strikes Deep as Buffalo Springfield once sang. Three Days of the Condor strikes deep into the heart of the CIA. Robert Redford reads books for the agency looking for ideas, plans, secret codes that may be Thembedded. He is not a field agent. So when there is a mass slaughter of his co-workers (with the hits occurring while he is literally out to lunch). Redford calls his superior and wants to be brought in from the cold. One little problem. He finds himself a target not only from the assassins but the Agency itself. Condor is one of the great paranoid thrillers of the day. Sydney Pollack was an efficient filmmaker whose crisp, no nonsense style moves the film along at a sharp pace. There are no fancy shots, and he manages to clearly explain what is sometimes a convoluted tale. Even in quiet, simple scenes like the elevator ride where Redford slowly comes to the realization that Max Van Sydow, his co-rider on the elevator is the enemy Pollack can build up suspense. I did find the love affair that ensues between Redford and Faye Dunaway lacking believability but this is a film I like watching over and over.
The Professionals
Recently watched Richard Brooks’ classic western, The Professionals, a film that contains one of the great closing lines in cinema. Ralph Bellamy’s arrogant and lying Texas millionaire calls Lee Marvin, one of four men he hired to bring his alleged kidnapped wife back, a bastard. Marvin’s character responds “Yes sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, you’re a self-made man.”
Selected As One of 6 Authors Challenging The Short Story
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Photographs Over Time – Part 3
Part 3 in my series of Photographs Over Time.
Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse, Maine (2016)
Yellow-headed Blackbird – Yellowstone Park (2014)
Atlantic Puffins – Machias Island, Maine (2007)
Sandhill Cranes – Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico (2007)
Lady Slippers (2017)
The Palouse (2017)
Book Review: The Perfect Daughter
I have never lived in Maine, but if you follow and read my blog posts, you know that it’s one of my favorite destinations. It’s scenic, for my photographic endeavors, and it has the inner aura of a place I’d like to live. Shepard’s Bay, a fictional coastal town in Maine, is divided. There are lifelong locals, mostly lobster fishermen and there are the wealthy newbies who are getting prime real estate to build their large new home. It’s also driving up real estate values, forcing many long-time local folks to worry about their future. It’s the type of situation where resentment can easily build up. When a wealthy teenager, Dakota James, goes missing followed by two teenage girls, life in town soon changes.
The Perfect Daughter is a twisty story of a town divided by financial status and secrets, plenty of secrets: love affairs, drugs, wild parties, jealousy, gossip, regrets, and more.
The two teen girls, Katie, from the poor side of town, and Willow, from the wealthy side, have become best friends. After Katie’s disappearance, Ilsa, Katie’s mother is in a panic. A search party is formed and two days later Katie’s found, though bruised, bloodied and with a loss of memory. But where is Willow? The local police, led by Karl, Ilsa’s high school sweetheart, is overwhelmed by this type of situation. He toughest job ususally is handing out parking tickets. Ilsa’s husband, Ray, is a drunk and rarely ever around.
As one secret is revealed, a new layer of secrecy pops up. The secrets, the twists, and turns continue throughout this multifaceted and riveting tale of small-town life on the brink. Author Joseph Souza knows how to keep you on the edge, and just when you think you have it figured out, he smacks you with another twist that leaves you misdirected and wanting for the answers.
Photographs Over Time Part 2
Part two in my series of photographs taken over time.
Rivergate Tower aka the Beer Can Building in downtown Tampa (2015)
Yellowstone Park (2014)
Jenn’s Farm -Vermont (2015)
Washington State (2018)
Vermont Woods – (2018)
Sunflowers -2017
Short Story: Social Distancing
Tad was a wild and reckless kid. We’ve known each other since middle school, hanging out many afternoons when we cut classes: smoking pot, drinking, and picking up girls. They were good times until we’d get caught. Our parents reacted in different ways to the news. Tad’s father always physically hit him. There were times he came to school with visible bruises. When the teachers questioned him, he always said he got into a fight with some kids who he refused to name. My father never hit me. Instead, he’d sermonize. No, he’s no preacher, at least not in the traditional sense. Dad would sit me down and give me what he called a good talking to or a lecture: why cutting classes is wrong, why it is wrong to lie, why it is wrong to be friends with a kid like Tad. The talks were long, lasting close to an hour each time. By the end of his sermon, I prayed he would just hit me and get it over with.
As time passed, I became more responsible: graduated high school, went to college, and got a good job. I guess my father’s sermon’s sunk in; I did not want to jeopardize my future by having a bad reputation that would follow me through the years. Tad didn’t give a damn. He barely graduated from high school. Had one low-paying job after another, none of which lasted long. Through it all we remained best friends, though he thought I became a flaming pussy. Afraid to take chances I wasn’t, I just grew up and learned that many of those chances were not worth taking, like sleeping with your best friend’s wife. Technically, Jenny wasn’t my wife at the time; we were engaged. Tad later said that still made her available.
Jenny and I married. I didn’t know about their hooking up at the time. Neither of them ever mentioned it. After Jenny and I divorced ten years later, Tad assumed it was okay to tell me about it since Jenny and I no longer were husband and wife.
I never forgave him.
I finally understood what my father told me at the end of all those lengthy sermons which he always finished by saying, “Tad’s a jerk.” That he was. Still, we remained friends. Don’t ask me why? I don’t think I can explain why.
Jerks! There are plenty of jerks around these days. Stupid may be a better word, and unlike COVID19 when someday there will be a cure. There will never be a cure for stupid. After being caged up in his apartment for more than a month, Tad couldn’t take it any longer and decided he needed to get some beach time in now that the county reopened the beaches.
“Tad, I don’t think it’s a great idea, going to the beach,” I said. “There will be hundreds of people there and who knows who is carrying the virus.”
“Hey man, we live in Florida! The beach is what we live for, Sand and surf, watching women strolling along in bikinis, fishing, watching women hanging out in bikinis, what could be better?”
“It’s reckless!”
“All these years and you’re still a flaming pussy.”
“People are not going to social distance.”
“The sun and heat kill the germs.”
“Tad, there is no proof of that.”
“The President wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”
“Listen to the scientist and doctors. You’re better off.”
“You’re coming with me, my friend.”
“No, I’m not.”
Tad laughed. “Fine, I’ll go myself. Sit in your apartment all day, every day, doing whatever you do. I can’t take it anymore. No one in our lifetime has ever had to sacrifice like we’re doing now. This is America, man, we have rights, and we have the freedom to do what we want.”
“You make it sound like staying home is the biggest sacrifice ever. How about the people who went through the years of the Great Depression, World War
i and II? And what about Anne Frank and her family who hid from the Nazis for over two years? No sun, no rain, they couldn’t see the sky or the grass. All we have to do is stay home and watch Netflix, and you can’t do it!”
“That’s all bullshit; this is not a war. And we have our rights.”
“Oh yes, it is a war, and we will lose it, or at least those of us who are reckless enough will lose it. Freedom doesn’t mean you can be reckless and get other people sick and die!”
Tad didn’t pay attention. He called me a drama queen and went to the beach.
That night on TV they showed the crowds on the newly opened beach, hundreds, if not thousands, of people. There was no room for social distancing, even if you wanted to observe it. Tad made it on the news that night. As the local news commentator spoke and the camera scanned the crowded beach, there stood Tad next to this beautiful blonde in a skimpy bikini. They were part of the crowd in the background cramped together with other beachgoers, Tad, the blonde and everyone waving at the camera attempting to get their one moment of TV fame. Less than a minute later, as the commentator wrapped up the segment, Tad and the blonde were hugging and kissing each other as the surrounding crowd egged them on, and giving each other hi-fives.
Tad told me the next day over the phone, since I refused now to see him in person, that her name was Sandy; they met that day. Like Tad, Sandy loved the beach.
That was the last time I spoke to Tad. His father called me a few weeks later; he was crying. Tad was dead from COVID 19.
Copyrighted 2020 by John Greco
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Photographs Over Time
I have been sharing photographs on Facebook over the past few weeks, hoping to bring a small ray of happiness during troubling times. Posted below are some of my works taken over time.
Orca Sunset – Washington State
Fox – South Beach, San Juan Islands
Yellowstone Park (2014)
Little Blue Heron – Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Naples, Fl. (2015)
Skagit River – Washington State (2018)
Maple Syrup – Vermont (2015)
John Greco Author/Photographer 