The Last Gasps of Indian Summer by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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THE LAST GASPS OF
INDIAN SUMMER
Edward Drobinski
Copyright © 2023 by Edward Drobinski
All rights reserved
001 - Alpha – Omega A/K/A Prologue - Epilogue ................. 1
002 - Hair – Berkely, California .............................. 8
003 - Two Lane Blacktop - Fort Lee, New Jersey ............... 34
004 - La Dolce Vita - Rome, Italy ............................ 69
005 - Zabriskie Point - Los Angeles, California .............. 82
006 - Blow Up – Warhol - London, England, UK ................. 96
007 - Monterey Pop – Monterey, California ................... 121
008 - The Velveteen Rabbit – Geneva, Switzerland ............ 123
009 - The Catcher in the Rye – Pencey, Pennsylvania ......... 132
010 - Yellow Submarine – Jupiter, Florida ................... 140
011 - Alice in Acidland – Oxford, England, UK ............... 145
012 - Charlotte’s Web – Skowhegan, Maine .................... 153
013 - Daisies – Prague, Czechoslovakia ...................... 158
014 - Heaven’s Gate - Newport, Rhode Island ................. 164
015 - A Hard Day’s Night – Castle Combe, England, UK ........ 170
016 - Reefer Madness - Bayonne, New Jersey .................. 175
017 - Brother Sun, Sister Moon – Berea, Kentucky ............ 182
018 - Alice’s Restaurant – Great Barrington, Massachusetts .. 188
019 - The Dreamers – Paris, France .......................... 209
020 - The Strawberry Statement - Blairsville, Georgia ....... 213
021 - Woodstock - Bethel, New York .......................... 221
022 - Camelot – Camelot, England, UK ........................ 232
023 - Psych-Out – San Francisco, California ................. 240
024 - The Love Bug – Plymouth, New Hampshire ................ 247
025 - Help – Saint Ives, England, UK ........................ 254
026 - My Fair Lady – Whatley Manor, England, UK ............. 258
027 - Seven Beauties - Naples, Italy ........................ 267
028 - Five Easy Pieces - Amarillo, Texas .................... 272
029 - Across the Universe – Liverpool, England, UK .......... 277
030 - M*A*S*H* - Seoul, South Korea ......................... 285
031 - Wall Street - Zurich, Switzerland ..................... 292
032 - Humboldt County – Kimmswick, Missouri ................. 300
033 - Hare Rama, Hare Krishna – Montreal, Canada ............ 309
034 - Wild in the Streets - Portland, Oregon ................ 313
035 - El Dorado – El Dorado, Brazil ......................... 319
036 - The French Connection - Canal Zone, Panama ............ 325
037 - The Love-Ins – Tiburon, California .................... 332
038 - Easy Rider - Black Hills, South Dakota ................ 336
039 - The Sound of Music –Salzburg, Austria ................. 345
040 - 2001; A Space Odyssey – Houston, Texas ................ 354
041 - The Acid Eaters – Arcata, California .................. 358
042 - A Clockwork Orange – Surrey, England, UK .............. 366
043 - The Passenger – Moundou, Chad ......................... 371
044 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Burlington, Vermont . 378
045 - Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Manhattan, NYC, NY ........... 383
046 - Band of Outsiders - Joinville, France ................. 387
047 - Fellini’s Casanova – Stromboli, Sicily, Italy ......... 394
048 - The Wicker Man – Pagosa Sprigs, Colorado .............. 399
049 - Willy Wonka ..... – Somerville, New Jersey ............ 405
050 - Breathless - Espelette, France ........................ 411
051 - The Day of the Dolphin – Boca Raton, Florida .......... 415
052 - Smiley Face – Venice Beach, California ................ 422
053 - The Night Porter – Berlin, Germany .................... 429
054 - Barefoot in the Park – New Hope, Pennsylvania ......... 432
055 - Sixties News .......................................... 439
056 - The Bear that Wasn’t – Erie, Pennsylvania ............. 446
057 - Patton – Green Bay, Wisconsin ......................... 451
058 - Planet of the Apes – Federal Way, Washington .......... 459
059 - Doctor Strangelove – Washington, DC ................... 467
060 - El Topo – San Paolo, Brazil ........................... 476
061 - Frosty the Snowman – Artondale, Washington ............ 482
062 - Date Bait – Brooklyn, NY .............................. 489
063 - One Hundred and One Dalmatians – Hutchinson, Minnesota 493
064 - Atlantic City – Atlantic City, New Jersey ............. 499
065 - The Electric Horseman – Sunrise Manor, Nevada ......... 506
066 - American Graffiti – Buck Creek, Indiana ............... 508
067 - When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? - Galisteo, New Mexico 516
068 - Cool Hand Luke – Thibodaux, Louisiana ................. 523
069 - Hallucination Generation – Barcelona, Spain ........... 527
070 - One Million Years B.C. – Stevens Point, Wisconsin ..... 530
071 - One Eyed Jacks – Sonora, Mexico ....................... 534
072 - Magical Mystery Tour – Windsor, England, UK ........... 539
073 - Eight Miles High – Berlin, Germany .................... 543
074 - Barbarella – Tulsa, Oklahoma .......................... 546
075 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Cherbourg, France ........ 553
076 - Red Beard – Nagasaki, Japan ........................... 558
077 - Satyricon – Ciampino, Italy ........................... 565
078 - Fruit of Paradise – Jindrichuv Hradec, Czechoslovakia . 572
079 - Old Yeller – Wichita, Kansas .......................... 580
080 - Candy – Onancock, Virginia ............................ 585
081 - Solaris – Volgograd, USSR ............................. 593
082 - Hud – Claude, Texas ................................... 599
083 - The Natural – Bertrand, Nebraska ...................... 605
084 - The Smut Peddler – Yonkers, New York .................. 613
085 - The Hospital – Butte, Montana ......................... 617
086 - Fritz the Cat – Ashtabula, Ohio ....................... 621
087 - Love Story – Bennington, Vermont ...................... 627
088 - Little Murders – Vineyard, Utah ....................... 631
089 - Bleak House – Chesney Wold, England, UK ............... 636
090 - Chimes at Midnight – Stratford-upon-Avon, UK .......... 644
091 - Annie Hall – Newfield, New York ....................... 653
092 - The Holy Mountain – Oaxaca, Mexico .................... 658
093 - Wonderwall – Port Clyde, Maine ........................ 664
094 - Almost Famous - San Diego, California ................. 668
095 - Zachariah – Sturgis, South Dakota ..................... 673
096 - Dirty Harry – Petaluma, California .................... 678
097 - Valley of the Dolls – Bell Buckle, Tennessee .......... 684
098 - Two for the Road – Romney Marsh, Kent, England, UK .... 692
099 - Alphaville – Moab, Utah ............................... 698
100 - Butch Cassidy ..... – Hole in the Wall, Wyoming ....... 701
101 - Damn Yankees – Stone Ridge, Virginia .................. 706
102 - The Glass Menagerie – St. Louis, Missouri ............. 712
103 - Death Wish – Bronx, New York City, New York ........... 716
104 - Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol – Aurora, New York ..... 722
105 - Genevieve Goes Underground – Terre Haute, Indiana ..... 727
106 - Taxi Driver – Manhasset, Long Island, New York ........ 745
107 - The Happening – Miami, Florida ........................ 750
108 - Goldfinger – Miami Beach, Florida ..................... 754
109 - Slaughterhouse Five – Dearborn, Michigan .............. 759
110 - The Sting – Tulsa, Oklahoma ........................... 764
111 - Not Fade Away – Mendham, New Jersey ................... 771
112 - Where the Buffalo Roam – Durango, Colorado ............ 776
113 - Fantastic Planet - Les Baux de Provence, France ....... 781
114 - A Fistful of Dollars – Lawrence, Kansas ............... 785
115 - Performance – Leeds, England, UK ...................... 790
116 - Once Upon a Time in America – Chicago, Illinois ....... 795
117 - The Harder They Come – Trenchtown, Kingston, Jamaica .. 802
118 - Darling – Henley on Thames, England, UK ............... 809
119 - Joe - Clark, New Jersey ............................... 815
120 - The Carabiniers – Arromanches-les-Bains, France ....... 821
121 - Maryjane – Tahlequah, Oklahoma ........................ 826
122 - Medium Cool – Minneapolis, Minnesota .................. 830
123 - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Taos, New Mexico .... 834
124 - Jules and Jim – Lienz, Austria ........................ 840
125 - The Born Losers – Boise, Idaho ........................ 844
126 - Wild Strawberries – Stockholm, Sweden ................. 850
127 - Contempt – Greenwich, Connecticut ..................... 855
128 - Billy Jack – Santa Fe, New Mexico ..................... 860
129 - The Hustler – Spring Valley, Nevada ................... 864
130 - Pierrot the Fool – Saint Emilion, France .............. 870
131 - The Appaloosa – Ojo Prieto, Mexico .................... 875
132 - Electra Glide in Blue – Bisbee, Arizona ............... 879
133 - The Big Cube – Palm Springs, California ............... 883
134 - Catch-22 – Pianosa, Italy ............................. 888
135 - Seventies News ........................................ 894
136 - Escalation – Pensacola, Florida ....................... 901
137 - Rebel Without a Cause – Avalon, California ............ 905
138 - Doctor No – Kingston, Jamaica ......................... 911
139 - Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – Tucson, Arizona ..... 916
140 - Georgy Girl – Great Missenden, England, UK ............ 920
141 - The Trial of Billy Jack – Bosque Farms, New Mexico .... 932
142 - Eight and One-Half – Venice, Italy .................... 937
143 - Mirror - Zavrathye, Russia, USSR ...................... 940
144 - Our Idiot Brother – Redding, Connecticut .............. 946
145 - The Magician – Copenhagen, Sweden ..................... 952
146 - Zardoz – Corinth, Mississippi ......................... 959
147 - Giant – Austin, Texas ................................. 964
148 - Carnival of Souls – Salt Lake City, Utah .............. 973
149 - Ocean’s Eleven – Lake Tahoe, Nevada ................... 980
150 - The Party – Hollywood, California ..................... 985
151 - Bad Pizza – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania .................. 991
152 - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Las Vegas, Nevada ... 1002
153 - Butterflies are Free – Bolina, California ............ 1010
154 - Lady and the Tramp – Opelika, Alabama ................ 1016
155 - Lost in America – Morro Bay, California .............. 1022
156 - Dazed and Confused – Austin, Texas ................... 1027
157 - Faster, Pussycat ... – Grand Junction, Colorado ...... 1034
158 - The Manchurian Candidate – Langfang, China ........... 1038
159 - The Big Chill – Beaufort, South Carolina ............. 1043
160 - Shampoo – Beverly Hills, California .................. 1049
161 - South Pacific – Maui, Hawaii ......................... 1056
162 - The Valley – Bismarck, North Dakota .................. 1061
163 - The Magic Garden ... – Topanga Canyon, California .... 1065
164 - The Deer Hunter – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ............ 1070
165 - The Silence – Timoka, Austria ........................ 1077
166 - Mickey Mouse in Vietnam – Hunts Point, Georgia ....... 1083
167 - My Dinner with Andre – Phoenicia, New York ........... 1089
168 - I Love You, Alice B Toklas – Vancouver, Washington ... 1093
169 - Nashville – Nashville, Tennessee ..................... 1099
170 - Radical Chic ..... – White Plains, New York .......... 1113
171 - William Wilson – Vienna, Austria ..................... 1118
172 - Saturday Night ... – Nottingham, England, UK ......... 1120
173 - Apocalypse Now – Dubuque, Iowa ....................... 1126
174 - Metzengerstein – Glethoorn, Netherlands .............. 1133
175 - Choose Me – Boston, Massachusetts .................... 1137
176 - Trouble in Mind – Seattle, Washington ................ 1142
177 - Diner – Baltimore, Maryland .......................... 1156
178 - A Thousand Clowns – Cleveland, Ohio .................. 1163
179 - Wild Angels – Mecca, California ...................... 1170
180 - Wanderlust – Cumming, Georgia ........................ 1179
181 - If – Tintagel, England, UK ........................... 1184
182 - The Trip - Burbank, California ....................... 1188
183 - Knife in the Water – Krakow, Poland .................. 1192
184 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Hollywood, California 1195
185 - The Devils – Loudun, France .......................... 1201
186 - The Misfits – Evanston, Wyoming ...................... 1208
187 - The Searchers – Abilene, Texas ....................... 1215
188 - Movie - Movie - Corrales, New Mexico ................. 1220
189 - Doctor Zhivago – Phoenix, Arizona .................... 1229
190 - More – Cologne, West Germany ......................... 1237
191 - Aguirre, the Wrath of God – Rioja, Peru .............. 1241
192 - Rollerball – Saint Louis, Missouri ................... 1252
193 - Network - Great Neck, LI, New York ................... 1260
194 - Burn – Queimada, Nicaragua ........................... 1287
195 - The Way We Were – Bar Harbor, Maine .................. 1291
196 - Seven Samurai – Tokyo, Japan ......................... 1295
197 - A Travelling Companion - Flagstaff, Arizona .......... 1303
198 - The Master and Margarita - Moscow, Russia, USSR ...... 1362
199 - Inherent Vice - Fargo, North Dakota .................. 1372
200 - Bad Times at the El Royale – Crystal Peak, Nevada .... 1398
201 - Escape from New York – Cazenovia, New York ........... 1404
202 - Go Ask Alice – Waldport, Oregon ...................... 1413
203 - The Palace – Gstaad, Switzerland ..................... 1420
204 - Cinema Paradiso – Giancaldo, Sicily, Italy ........... 1433
205 - Genevieve – Santa Fe, New Mexico ..................... 1439
206 - Ciao Manhattan – Santa Barbara, California ........... 1450
207 - The Tree - Northumberland, England, UK ............... 1461
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 1
001 - Alpha – Omega A/K/A Prologue - Epilogue
Goodbye Joe
Laura Nyro
We were lost in the fair on the highland, Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
With the sky and the deer on the highland, Goodbye, Joe (du-du-du)
Time is full of changes, and now you've got to go Don't forget that we loved on the highland, Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Yes, I understand, I'm trying not to cry But if I do, it's only 'cause I'll miss you One last time, let me kiss you
I remember when you came-a calling,
Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Like a sunrise that rose without warning, Goodbye, Joe (du-du-du)
Time is full of changes, and now you've got to go And we walked on a Manhattan morning,
Goodbye Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Yes, I understand, I'm trying not to cry
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 2
But if I do, it's only 'cause I'll miss you One last time, let me kiss you, let me kiss you
Goodbye, Joe. Goodbye, Joe
Let me kiss you, goodbye, Joe (du-du-du) Time is full of changes, Joe, and now you've got to go Don't forget that we loved on the highland Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (Goodbye, Joe)
Written by Laura Nyro .
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer
Page 3
Up On the Roof
Carole King
Up on the roof
Up on the roof
When this old world starts getting me down And people are just too much for me to face
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 4
Up on the roof
I climb way up to the top of the stairs And all my cares just drift
right into space
Up on the roof
On the roof, it's peaceful as can be
And there the world below can't bother me Let me tell you now,
when I come home feelin' tired and beat I go up where the air is fresh and sweet Up on the roof
I get away from the hustling crowds
And all that rat race noise down on the street Up on the roof
On the roof's the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so And it's where I go
Up on the roof
When the world below
Up on the roof
Gets too hard to bear
Up on the roof
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 5
It's my secret place
Up on the roof
At night the stars put on a show for free And, darling, you can share it all with me I keep a-telling you
Right smack dab in the middle of town
I found a paradise that's trouble-proof Up on the roof
So if this world starts getting you down There's room enough for two up on the roof Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Everything is alright now
Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Yeah, yeah,
Up on the roof
Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
Something
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 6
The Beatles
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
Somewhere in her smile, she knows
That I don't need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around now it may show
I don't know, I don't know
Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 7
Written by George Harrison.
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 8
002 - Hair – Berkely, California
Hair
Act I
Claude sits center stage as the "tribe" mingles with the audience. Tribe members Sheila, a New York University student who is a determined political activist, and Berger, an irreverent free spirit, cut a lock of Claude's hair and burn it in a receptacle. After the tribe converges in slow motion toward the stage, through the audience, they begin their celebration as children of the Age of Aquarius ("Aquarius").
Aquarius
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius The age of Aquarius
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 9
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius The age of Aquarius
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
Berger removes his trousers to reveal a loincloth. Interacting with the audience, he introduces himself as a "psychedelic teddy bear" and reveals that he is "looking for my Donna" ("Donna").
The tribe recites a list of pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal ("Hashish"). Woof, a gentle soul, extols several sexual
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 10
practices ("Sodomy") and says; "I grow things." He loves plants, his family and the audience, telling the audience, "We are all one." Hud, a militant, is carried in upside down on a pole. He declares himself "President of the United States of Love." In a fake English accent, Claude says that he is "the most beautiful beast in the forest" from "Manchester, England."
Manchester, England
[CLAUDE]
Manchester England England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius genius
I believe in God
And I believe that God
Believes in Claude
That's me
That's me
Claude Hooper Bukowski
He finds that it's groovy
To hide in a movie
Pretends he's Fellini
And Antonioni
And also his countryman Roman Polanski
All rolled into one
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 11
One Claude Hooper Bukowski
Now that I've dropped out
Why is life dreary dreary?
Answer my weary query
Woah, Timothy Leary dearie
[CLAUDE & TRIBE]
Oh, Manchester England England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius genius
[CLAUDE]
I believe in God
[TRIBE]
He believes in God
[CLAUDE & TRIBE]
And I believe that God
Believes in Claude
[CLAUDE]
That's me
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 12
[TRIBE]
That's he
[CLAUDE]
That's me
[TRIBE]
That's he
[CLAUDE]
That's me
[TRIBE]
That's he
[CLAUDE]
Uh huh huh
A tribe member reminds him that he's really from Flushing, New York ("Manchester England reprise"). Hud, Woof and Berger declare what color they are, while Claude says that he's
"invisible." The tribe recites a list of things they lack ("Ain't Got No"). Four tribe members recite street signs in symbolic sequence ("Dead End").
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 13
Sheila is carried onstage ("I Believe in Love") and leads the tribe in a protest chant. Jeanie, an eccentric young woman, appears wearing a gas mask, satirizing pollution ("Air"). She is pregnant and in love with Claude. Although she wishes it was Claude's baby, she was "knocked up by some crazy speed freak."
The tribe link together LBJ (President Lyndon B. Johnson), FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation), CIA (the Central Intelligence Agency) and LSD ("Initials"). Six members of the tribe appear dressed as Claude's parents, berating him for his various transgressions. He does not have a job, and he collects
"mountains of paper" clippings and notes. They say that they will not give him any more money, and "the army'll make a man out of you," presenting him with his draft notice. In defiance, Claude leads the tribe in celebrating their vitality ("I Got Life").
After handing out imaginary pills to the tribe members, saying the pills are for high profile people such as Richard Nixon, the Pope, and "Alabama Wallace," Berger relates how he was expelled from high school. Three tribe members dress up as principals in Hitler mustaches and swastika arm bands, mocking the American education system. Berger and the tribe defy them, singing "Going Down." Claude returns from his draft board physical, which he passed. He pretends to burn his Vietnam War draft card, which
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 14
Berger reveals as a library card. Claude agonizes about what to do about being drafted.
Two tribe members dressed as tourists come down the aisle to ask the tribe why they have such long hair. In answer, Claude and Berger lead the tribe in explaining the significance of their locks ("Hair").
Hair
She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hell that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know
It's not for lack of bread
Like the Grateful Dead
Darling
Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 15
Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair
Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder Of my ...
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 16
I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!
Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short
Down to here
Down to there
I want hair
Down to where
It stops by itself
They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 17
My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair The woman states that kids should "be free, no guilt" and should
"do whatever you want, just so long as you don't hurt anyone."
She observes that long hair is natural, like the "elegant plumage" of male birds ("My Conviction"). She opens her coat to
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 18
reveal that she's a man in drag. As the couple leaves, the tribe calls her Margaret Mead.
Sheila gives Berger a yellow shirt. He goofs around and ends up tearing it in two. Sheila voices her distress that Berger seems to care more about the "bleeding crowd" than about her ("Easy to Be Hard").
Easy to Be Hard
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 19
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend
How can people be so heartless
You know I'm hung up on you
Easy to give in
Easy to help out
And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who say they care about social injustice Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
Jeanie summarizes everyone's romantic entanglements: "I'm hung up on Claude, Sheila's hung up on Berger, Berger is hung up
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 20
everywhere. Claude is hung up on a cross over Sheila and Berger." Berger, Woof and another tribe member pay satiric tribute to the American flag as they fold it ("Don't Put it Down"). The tribe runs out to the audience, inviting them to a Be-In. After young and innocent Crissy describes "Frank Mills,"
a boy she's looking for, the tribe participates in the "Be-In".
The men of the tribe burn their draft cards. Claude puts his card in the fire, then changes his mind and pulls it out. He asks; "where is the something, where is the someone, that tells me why I live and die?" ("Where Do I Go").
Where Do I Go?
Where do I go?
Follow the river
Where do I go? Follow the gulls
Where is the something? Where is the someone That tells me why I live and die?
Where do I go? Follow the children
Where do I go? Follow their smiles
Is there an answer in their sweet faces That tells me why I live and die?
Follow the wind song, follow the thunder
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 21
Follow the neon in young lovers' eyes
Down to the gutter, up to the glitter
Into the city where the truth lies
Where do I go? Follow my heartbeat
Where do I go? Follow my hand
Where do they lead me?
And will I ever discover why I live and die?
Follow the wind song, follow the thunder Follow the neon in young lovers' eyes
Down to the gutter, up to the glitter
Into the city where the truth lies
Where do I go? Follow my heartbeat
Where do I go? Follow my hand
Where do they lead me?
And will I ever discover why I live and die?
I live and die
Why do I live, why do I die?
Where do I go?
Tell my why, tell me where?
Tell my why, tell me where?
Tell me why?
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 22
The tribe emerges naked, intoning "beads, flowers, freedom, happiness."
Act II
Four tribe members have the "Electric Blues." After a black out, the tribe enters worshiping in an attempt to summon Claude ("Oh Great God of Power"). Claude returns from the induction center, and tribe members act out an imagined conversation from Claude's draft interview, with Hud saying "the draft is white people making war on the yellow people.” Claude gives Woof a Mick Jagger poster, and Woof is excited about the gift, as he has said he's hung up on Jagger.
Berger gives a joint to Claude that is laced with a hallucinogen. Claude starts to trip as the tribe acts out his visions ("Walking in Space").
Walking in Space
Doors locked (doors locked)
Blinds pulled (blinds pulled)
Lights low (lights low)
Flames high (flames high)
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 23
My body (my body)
My body
My body (my body)
My body
My body
Is walking in space
My soul is in orbit
With God face to face
Floating, flipping
Flying, tripping
Tripping from Pottsville to Mainline
Tripping from Mainline to Moonville
(Tripping from Pottsville to Starlight
Tripping from Starlight to Moonville)
On a rocket to
The Fourth Dimension
Total self awareness
The intention
The Last Gasps of Indian Summer Page 24
My mind is as clear as country air
I feel my flesh, all colors mesh
Red black
Blue brown
Yellow crimson
Green orange
Purple pink
Violet white
White white
White white
White white
All the clouds are cumulous
Walking in space
Oh my God your skin is soft
I love your face
How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?
To keep us under foot
They bury us in soot
Pretending it's a chore
To ship us off to war
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In this dive
We rediscover sensation
In this dive
We rediscover sensation
Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!
He hallucinates that he is skydiving from a plane into the jungles of Vietnam. Berger appears as General George Washington and is told to retreat because of an Indian attack. The Indians shoot all of Washington's men. General Ulysses S. Grant appears and begins a roll call; Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Calvin Coolidge, Clark Gable, Scarlett O'Hara, Aretha Franklin, Colonel George Custer. Claude Bukowski is called in the roll call, but Clark Gable says "he couldn't make it." They all dance
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a minuet until three shamans kill them; all except for Abraham Lincoln who says, "I'm one of you." Lincoln, after the three sing his praises, recites an alternate version of the Gettysburg Address ("Abie Baby"). Booth shoots Lincoln, but Lincoln says to him; "Shit! I'm not dyin' for no gun man."
As the visions continue, four Buddhist monks enter. One monk pours a can of gasoline over another monk, who is set afire, reminiscent of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, and runs off screaming. Three Catholic nuns strangle the three remaining Buddhist monks. Three astronauts shoot the nuns with ray guns.
Three Chinese people stab the astronauts with knives. Three Native Americans kill the Chinese with bows and tomahawks. Three green berets kill the Native Americans with machine guns and then kill each other. A Sergeant and two parents appear holding up a suit on a hanger. The parents talk to the suit as if it is their son and they are very proud of him. The bodies rise and play like children. The play escalates to violence until they are all dead again. They rise again and comment about the casualties in Vietnam; "It's a dirty little war" ("Three-Five-Zero-Zero"). At the end of the trip sequence, two tribe members sing, over the dead bodies, a Shakespeare speech about the nobility of Man ("What A Piece of Work Is Man"), set to music.
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After the trip, Claude says "I can't take this moment to moment living on the streets. ... I know what I want to be ...
invisible." As they "look at the Moon," Sheila and the others enjoy a light moment ("Good Morning Starshine").
Good Morning Starshine
Good morning star shine, the earth says hello You twinkle above us, we twinkle below
Good morning star shine, you lead us along My love and me as we sing our
Early morning singin' song
Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy
La la la, lo lo
Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba
Lee lee, lo lo
Tooby ooby wala
Nooby aba naba
Early morning singin' song
Good morning star shine, the earth says hello You twinkle above us, we twinkle below
Good morning star shine, you lead us along My love and me as we sing our
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Early morning singin' song
Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy
La la la, lo lo
Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba
Lee lee, lo lo
Tooby ooby wala
Nooby aba naba
Early morning singin' song
Singin' a song, hummin' a song
Singin' a song
Lovin' a song, laughin' a song
Singing a song
Sing the song
Song the sing
Song, song, song sing
Sing, sing, sing song
Song, song, song sing
Sing, sing, sing song
The tribe pays tribute to an old mattress ("The Bed"). Claude is left alone with his doubts. He leaves as the tribe enters
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wrapped in blankets in the midst of a snow storm. They start a protest chant and then wonder where Claude has gone. Berger calls out "Claude! Claude!" Claude enters dressed in a military uniform, his hair short, but they do not see him because he is an invisible spirit. Claude says, "like it or not, they got me."
Claude and everyone sing "Flesh Failures".
The Flesh Failures
We starve, look at one another, short of breath Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Somewhere, inside something there is a rush of Greatness, who knows what stands in front of Our lives, I fashion my future on films in space
Silence tells me secretly
Everything
Everything
Manchester, England, England
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Manchester, England, England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius, genius
I believe in God
And I believe that God believes in Claude That's me, that's me, that's me
We starve, look at one another, short of breath Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Singing our space songs on a spider web sitar Life is around you and in you
Answer for Timothy Leary, dearie
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
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The sunshine in
Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
The tribe moves in front of Claude as Sheila and Dionne take up the lyric. The whole tribe launches into "Let the Sun Shine In", and as they exit, they reveal Claude lying down center stage on a black cloth. During the curtain call, the tribe reprises "Let the Sun Shine In" and brings audience members up on stage to dance.
Good Morning Starshine
Good morning star shine, the earth says hello You twinkle above us, we twinkle below
Good morning star shine, you lead us along My love and me as we sing our
Early morning singin' song
Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy
La la la, lo lo
Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba
Lee lee, lo lo
Tooby ooby wala
Nooby aba naba
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Early morning singin' song
Good morning star shine, the earth says hello You twinkle above us, we twinkle below
Good morning star shine, you lead us along My love and me as we sing our
Early morning singin' song
Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy
La la la, lo lo
Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba
Lee lee, lo lo
Tooby ooby wala
Nooby aba naba
Early morning singin' song
Singin' a song, hummin' a song
Singin' a song
Lovin' a song, laughin' a song
Singing a song
Sing the song
Song the sing
Song, song, song sing
Sing, sing, sing song
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Song, song, song sing
Sing, sing, sing song
********
“Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The work broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In"finale.
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003 - Two Lane Blacktop - Fort Lee, New Jersey A conversation which took place in front of “The Last Hudson City Lights” movie theater was overheard.
He said; “Fort Lee High School is the druggiest high school in America.”
She said; “You’re bragging.”
He said; “No, it’s true. One hundred percent participation.
Can’t top that.”
She said; “So, you’re going to get me high before the movie?”
He said; “Con su permiso.”
She said; “Right here?”
He said; “Sure. The last thing the authorities in this crime free, affluent, suburban community want to advertise is that there are drugs in their town. It’s totally safe.”
She said; “Insidious. Hehehe.”
He said; “Cool. Hehehe.”
She said; “Permiso concedido.”
He said; “Puff puff.”
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She said; “Puff puff.”
Time Has Come Today
The Soft White Underbelly
Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can't put it off another day
I don't care what others say
They say we don't listen anyway
Time has come today
Hey
Oh
The rules have changed today. Hey.
I have no place to stay. Hey.
I'm thinking about the subway. Hey.
The love has flown away. Hey.
My tears have come and gone. Hey.
Oh my Lord, I have to roam. Hey.
I have no home. Hey.
I have no home. Hey.
Now the time has come. Time.
There's no place to run. Time.
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I might get burned up by the sun. Time.
But I had my fun. Time.
I've been loved and put aside. Time.
I've been crushed by the tumbling tide. Time.
And my soul has been psychedelicized. Time.
Time.
Now the time has come. Time.
There are things to realize. Time.
Time has come today. Time.
Time has come today. Time.
Time.
Time.
Oh, oh
Now the time has come. Time.
There is no place to run. Time.
But I had my fun. Time.
I've been loved and put aside. Time.
I've been crushed by the tumbling tide. Time.
And my soul has been psychedelicized. Time.
Time, yeah
Written by Joseph Doobie and Mark Doobie.
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He said; “I think that I came in the middle last time. Not much was happening, and it proceeded to mellow out from there.”
She said; “Sounds good for grass. You’ve seen this before?”
He said; “More or less. I didn’t want to repeat a first date disaster. I took a girl to a Warhol film in Manhattan. I didn’t know anything more about it than it would be arty and cutting edge. But it was just faggy and full of nudity, as if the Greeks and Romans didn’t cover that. Disaster.”
She said; “Puff puff.”
He said; “Yes, ma’am. Maybe a little acid, too. Quarter tab?”
She said; “Half for now. Art film?”
“Minimally in its Gaddisian attributes. Don’t hold that against it.”
She smiled and they went in.
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Page 38
Two Lane Blacktop – The Graduate (more or less) A/K/A Indian Summer
Sky blue screen.
Voiceover:
An Indian summer is a period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Several sources describe a “true” Indian
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Page 39
summer as not occurring until after the first frost, or more specifically the first "killing" frost. Having said that;
Two White street racing financial partners, each thin with messy shoulder length hair, Dewey Driver and Theo Mechanic, live off the road in secluded parks, in their highly modified, primer gray, 1955 Chevrolet 440, four door sedan, drag machine, and drift from town to town making their income by challenging overconfident, suburbanized, local residents to impromptu drag races.
As they drove east on Route 66 from Needles, California, they
“picked up” Clara Girl, a female hitchhiker who has “It,” in Flagstaff, Arizona, when she picked them up by parking herself in their car while they were inside a diner. Dewey Driver developed an obvious crush on Clara Girl. He announced that he
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wants all of them to go out drinking and parked the car in the lot of a bar and grill just off the highway. Clara and Theo disapprovingly mumbled something like “juice head,” both apparently exclusively favoring the mind drugs; grass and acid; which attitude Theo had thought up until now that Dewey shared.
Dewey went in for a few shots of courage thinking and hoping the others would follow; at the very least Clara. But instead Clara slept with Theo Mechanic in the back seat of the Chevy.
Ol' 55
Eagles
Well, my time went so quickly
I went lickety-splitly
Out to my Ol' 55
As I pulled away slowly
Feelin' so holy
God knows I was feelin' alive
And now the sun's comin' up
I'm ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade
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And I lead the parade
Just a-wishin' I'd stayed a little longer
Lord, don't you know the feelin's gettin' stronger
Six in the morning
Gave me no warnin'
I had to be on my way
Now the cars are all passin' me
Trucks are all flashin' me
I'm headed home from your place
And now the sun's comin' up
I'm ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade
And I lead the parade
Just a-wishin' I'd stayed a little longer
Lord, don't you know, the feelin's gettin' stronger
Well, my time went so quickly
I went lickety-splitly
Out to my Ol' 55
As I pulled away slowly
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Feelin' so holy
God knows I was feelin' alive
And now the sun's comin' up
Yes it is.
I'm ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Freeway cars and trucks
Ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks
Ridin' with Lady Luck
Written by Tom Waits.
Flashback; Number One of Three - Dewey Driver was back in high school. He was a laconic, shy, libidinous basketball star distracted by obligations and current events, the misadventures of his “hippy,” volatile best friend Fedorko, a potential pro career about which he had mixed feelings, the most significantly the draft with which he wanted no part, campus unrest, and a turbulent affair with Anne, who was the wife of Murray, a professor and friend. She showed casual disregard for her tight skirt’s placement while having been “heartfully” teary while
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claiming to have been trapped into a loveless marriage when she first invited him over, saying that the request came from his friend Murray, who actually was off on one of his fishing trips.
Dewey forgot about his draft fears for too short a time.
Mrs. Robinson
Simon & Garfunkel
De, de, de-de, de-de, de-de, de-de, de, de-de Do, do, do-do, do-do, do-do, do
De-de, de-de, de, de, de-de, de, de, de-de, de And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know Woah, woah, woah
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files We'd like to help you learn to help yourself Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know Woah, woah, woah
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God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes It's a little secret, just the Robinson's affair Most of all, you've got to hide it from the kids Coo-coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know Woah, woah, woah
God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson
Heaven holds a place for those who pray Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon Going to the candidates' debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at it, you lose
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Wooh, wooh, wooh
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Jolting Joe has left and gone away
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Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
Written by Paul Simon.
When Dewey came back to the parked 440, Clara was still in the back seat, but Theo was occupying the driver’s seat. He insisted upon driving because of Dewey’s “condition,” to which Dewey quickly acquiesced.
Subsequently, whenever together all three act as if nothing had happened and Dewey kept his suspicions to himself, as though they sat apart, Theo in the front passenger seat and Clara in back, they seemed just too smiley toward each other. In the unprotected bosque of Corrales, New Mexico they began to encounter another serial car driver, Batty Boy, and on the highways, in his garishly lavender, 1962 cloned Jeep Wrangler.
Though initially seeing each other as rebellious familiars, an atmosphere of hostility slowly developed between the two parties. As Batty was not an overt street racer and seemed to know little about cars, and was thereby unchallenging, a cross country race to Washington, DC is suggested. Dewey Driver proposes that the prize should be "pinks," or legal ownership of the loser's car. Along the way, Batty picked up various hitchhikers, including a memorable Warhol refugee named Holly.
When Batty's inexperience became pathetically apparent, he,
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Dewey Driver and Theo Mechanic agreed to call off the race and they formed an uneasy alliance. Dewey Driver even drove with him for a while when Batty got all sorts of fagged out.
Needing a money infusion, Dewey Driver, Theo Mechanic, and Batty Boy competed at a race track in Memphis. Their purported main competition was a local loudmouth with a stripped down, deep purple, two door Thunderbird without an engine hood to muffle the cacophony. The sneering bald headed driver was referred to as Isaac Hotbutter according to the oversized nametag in the center of the imitation gold chain which hung from his neck. He said to anyone within earshot; “Fuck all this bullshit. I be about money. That’s all.” While Dewey and Theo finish their race in front, having gotten way ahead of Isaac’s heavy T-Bird right off the line and increasing their lead over Isaac as the race progressed, Theo saying; “So much for money worship,” Clara Girl hopped into Batty Boy’s Jeep clone and they left together.
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
The Beatles
Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes
And she's gone
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ahh
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
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Ahh
Picture yourself on a train in a station
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties
Suddenly, someone is there at the turnstile
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ahh
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ahh
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Lucy in the sky with diamonds
Ahh
Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
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Dewey Driver pursued them to a diner located on US-66, the “Tail of the Dragon,” where Clara Girl had just rejected Batty Boy’s idea to visit Chicago. Dewey Driver proposed going to Columbus, Ohio, to get parts, but Clara Girl rejected him too. Instead, she left with a stranger on a loud vintage Harley motorcycle, sporting Hell’s Angel tags on his light blue denim jacket, and abandoned her few belongings in the parking lot. Dewey and Theo split from Batty and kept on heading east, determined to finish seeing everything.
Flashback; Number Two of Three - Dewey’s basketball coach always paid special attention to him, ostensibly given his natural abilities. Coach Stokely was one of those annoying, tinkering types everyone wishes they had never met, who had apparently never heard the phrase; “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” and is thereby perennially relegated to screwing up high school kids, kept away from collegians and pros. Being cultural opposites, Stokely is unsure how to get Dewey to focus and fulfill his financial potential; Stokley’s that is, as being the popularly perceived pilot of preeminence. Stupidly and self-serving Stokely could never understand Dewey’s friendship with non-athletic Fedorko. Dewey's attitude, and his coach's frustration with that, is exemplified through one meeting before an important late season game wherein the coach instructed Dewey to
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"Play it open and straight out there tonight, like you mean it.
I don't want any fooling around at all." To his coach's exasperation, Dewey replied with a shrug and a deadpan "Why not?" not combative, but more reflective of an attitude of it doesn’t matter to me. Little to win, but nothing to lose.
Fedorko, an engaging kid, but also an ill-mannered, borderline psychotic, was far more troubled and committed to rebellion than Dewey. He abused all sorts of drugs, disrupted a basketball game with a guerrilla theatre stunt, went crazy during an induction physical, ransacked his room, espoused anti-establishment views about everything, and drifted aimlessly.
At the draft “physical” freak out, Sergeant Goldwater classified Fedorko 1-A, and said; “You’re not getting a Section Eight that easy.”
During a confrontation in a grocery store, Anne informed Dewey that she was pregnant, implied that he was not the father, and told him their affair was over. Dewey lied and replied that he had "the clap," which infuriated Anne. She warned him that if he followed her, she would call the police.
In New Jersey’s Old Bridge Township “Browntown Speedway Park,”
Dewey and Theo used most of their Memphis “prize” money for the entrance fee to the main event. The car, surprisingly to them,
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balked so badly at the starting line, that it would have made Isaac’s purple Thunderbird look fast. They found that it had been cleverly sabotaged. Theo apologized, for all the good that did, for not having made a last minute check before the race.
They were post-race joined by an uninvited swarthy sweating man in a dark pin-striped suit, who said; “You boys got the stuff, but you need a ‘manager’ to look out for you.” When Theo found that the idle had been “adjusted” downward, they strongly suspected that this was the work of NJ’s notorious organized crime racket, and didn’t want to play that game. Theo readjusted the idle and with just enough money for gas and food they drove back west, seeing the width of the US once again.
Later, Batty picked up two hitching soldiers and for some reason told them that he won his car by beating two men driving a custom built 1955 Chevrolet 440 in a cross country race. They didn’t believe him, but said nothing derogatory in need of a ride back to their base.
Flashback; Number Three of Three - That night, Dewey led his team to a huge victory. The fans, all sixty-three of them counting the cheerleaders and pep squad, stormed the court, and triumphantly carried Dewey off, which he found more embarrassing than laudatory. At the same time, Fedorko, who was fully aware of Dewey and Anne’s relationship or lack thereof, broke into
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Anne's house while she was bathing and physically assaulted her.
She fended off his attack, eventually running outdoors with Fedorko in pursuit just as Dewey drove up. Fedorko, having heard of Dewey's trysts with Anne, screamed at Dewey that Anne was just a slut and preferred anyone over Murray, then ran off when Murray arrived home, hearing what he had said. Dewey confronted Murray, telling him Anne should be with him. A shaken Anne asserted her independence, saying "I'm not going with anybody, anywhere." Murray chased him outside and unable to catch him yelled a warning to Fedorko; "I'll kill you", then escorted Anne, who had followed, back into their house.
The next morning Fedorko, completely naked, ran into the high school biology lab and freed the snakes, an iguana, mice, and other vermin. Eventually campus police and white coated attendants arrived with a straitjacket. Fedorko rebuffed them, insisting he was both "right and sane." They cloaked him in a blanket and led him into a padded van. Dewey, seeing this, jumped onto the back of the moving van, demanding that they open it. As the van pulled away, picking up speed, he jumped off, yelling to Fedorko that his mother had called.
On a chilly October morning, on a tiny, unoccupied, private airstrip in Gallup, New Mexico, once upon a time, Dewey Driver and Theo Mechanic raced for chump change against an over-loaded
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Chevrolet El Camino driven by a single feathered Lakota, who looked more suited to being on a horse or the local casino bar.
The race and film ended abruptly, while seemingly still in progress, with Dewey and Theo surprised to be only ahead by a 440 engine’s length.
Blue sky screen.
Exit music.
Fixing a Hole
The Beatles
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
I'm filling the cracks that ran though the door
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong, I'm right
Where I belong
See the people standing there
Who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don't get in my door
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I'm painting the room in a colorful way
And when my mind is wandering
There I will go
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ah ohh
Hey! Hey!
Hey
Hey
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong, I'm right
Where I belong
Silly people run around
They worry me and never ask me
Why they don't get past my door
I'm taking the time for a number of things
That weren't important yesterday
And I still go
Ooh-ooh, oh ah ohh
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
Where it will go
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
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And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
Monterey
The Animals
The people came and listened
Some of them came and played
Others gave flowers away
Religion was being born
Down in Monterrey
Young gods smiled upon the crowd
Their music being born of love
Children danced night and day
Religion was being born
Down in Monterrey
Monterrey babe
The Byrds and the Airplane
Did fly
Oh, Ravi Shankar's
Music made me cry
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The Who exploded
Into fired light (yeah)
Hugh Masekelas music
Was black as night
The Grateful Dead
Blew everybody's mind
Jimi Hendrix, baby
Believe me
Set the world on fire, yeah!
His majesty
Prince Jones smiled as he
Moved through the crowd
Ten thousand electric guitars
Were groovin' real loud, yeah
If you wanna find the truth in life
Don't pass music by
And you know
I would not lie
No, I would not lie
I would not lie
I would not lie
I would not lie
Monterrey
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Alright!
Three days of understanding
Of moving with one another
Even the cops grooved with us
Do you believe me?
Yeah!
Down in Monterrey
Down in Monterrey, yeah
Down in Monterrey
Down in Monterrey, yeah
I think that maybe I'm dreamin'!
Monterrey!
Monterrey-yeah!
Down in Monterrey
Did you hear what I said?
Down in Monterrey
That some music
Monterrey
I said
Monterrey, Monterrey, Monterrey
Yeah-yeah, hey-hey-hey
A-ay, a-ay, a-ay-a-ay
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Page 58
Written by Eric Victor Burdon, Victor Briggs, John Weider, Daniel McCulloch, and Barrie Jenkins.
Blank screen.
The End
It was dusk when they exited.
She said; “So funny.”
He said; “At the same time, so bitter.”
She said; “So ingenious.”
He said; “So culturally literate.”
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She said; “Especially on rock music.”
He said; “So politically astute.”
She said; “So Swiftian/Sorrentinoesque/Flann O’Brieny.”
He said; “So lovelorn.”
She said; “So raunchy and gruesome.”
He said; “So outraged at the scene.”
She said; “So surprising an ending.”
He said; “So many off the wall metaphors.”
She said; “So many show stopping arias.”
He said; “So satisfying a view.”
She said; “So reaffirming.”
He said; “Only this director could pull off a study in despair in the form of an American gazetteer.”
Fort Lee is a borough at the eastern border of affluent Bergen County, situated along the Hudson River atop The Palisades.
Virtually one hundred percent White, the only known black residents are purported to be Cab Calloway and Minnie the
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Moocher. Brick houses predominate as do Italians wishing to be bullet proof.
The George Washington Bridge crossed the Hudson River from Fort Lee to the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City; all its wickedness just a short car or bus ride away.
Fort Lee is not bogged down in stupid pretensions about being
“new.” It also values the past, not only in the proliferation of thriving antique stores, but also in the new Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, finally scheduled to be opening October 21
after two years of delays. It is a lot of things.
It's a museum. It's a 267 seat repertory film theater. It's a reception space. It's a tribute to Fort Lee's role, 120 years ago, as the birthplace of the movie industry. It's also a monument; the greatest since Joyce Kilmer, to a tree.
The branching, forking family tree of America's greatest acting dynasty, the Barrymores, takes up an entire wall of the museum area. They, too, have roots in Fort Lee. "When you look at that family tree, you realize how far back they go," said Mayor Joseph P. Licata, who spearheaded the project along with some very knowledgeable film people. "What made the Barrymores so amazing is that they were a theatrical family that made the jump
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to film," said Nelson Pagano, Executive Director of the new facility.
You probably know Drew; star of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and
"Ever After." Also maybe her grand-uncle, Lionel; who torments Jimmy Stewart every Christmas as mean Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life." But bigger than either, in their day, were John Barrymore, "The Great Profile," the definitive Hamlet of his generation, and Ethel Barrymore, namesake of a theater on West 47th Street. They, and many other Barrymores, are celebrated in the exhibit "The Barrymores: The Royal Family of Fort Lee," at the museum space. There are a lot of them.
And they are genetically unmistakable. "I had two guys delivering some equipment to the film center a few weeks ago,"
Pagano said. "I brought them around to a portrait of Ethel, and one guy said, 'Well, that's Drew Barrymore right there.' And I said, no, that's Ethel Barrymore — circa 1912.' They were stunned."
The center opens to the public the weekend of October 23 with a Barrymore six pack. On Friday, October 23, you can see John in
"Twentieth Century" – 1934, and "Counsellor at Law" – 1933. On Saturday there's "Don Juan" – 1926, “A Free Soul" – 1931; starring John's brother Lionel, and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" –
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1920. And to top it off on Sunday, we bring you the incomparable
“Grand Hotel” - 1932, with both John and Lionel Barrymore; very briefly described as “Doctor Otternschlag, a disfigured veteran of World War I and a permanent resident of the Grand Hotel in Berlin, observes ‘People coming, going. Nothing ever happens;’
after which a great deal transpires.”
These films will be shown in the center's state of the art auditorium; whose scalloped, Deco-ish ceiling, designed by architect Daria Pizzetta, is a nod to both Radio City Music Hall and the retro-futurist designs of William Cameron Menzies, the visionary behind the 1936 sci-fi classic "Things to Come." This is a theater for movie people, by movie people.
"We wanted something that had the feel of the future, with a tip of the hat to the past," Pagano said.
An orchestra pit, perhaps the first designed for a movie theater since the 1920s, can accommodate up to twenty musicians for revivals of silent films. The 20 by 40-foot screen will dominate a stage big enough to mount a live show. There is a three keyboard organ. Accompanist John Baratta will be doing the honors at the October 22 screening of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
"In the silent days, they used to have a full orchestra on weekends, and they'd use the organ during the week," Pagano
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said. "The organ was the voice of silent films. Then, once we got into the sound era, the organ still brought live sound for overtures and intermissions."
The talkie transition began in 1926; and naturally, a Barrymore was at the center of that, too. "Don Juan," starring John at his most lovably roguish, was the first feature with prerecorded
"Vitaphone" sound. It paved the way, a year later, for 1927's
"The Jazz Singer," the film that really lit the fire.
In sum, the Barrymores are key to film, just as film is key to Fort Lee. John, Ethel and Lionel all made films here in the early days. Between 1910 and 1918, Fort Lee was the center of the world's film production. At least seventeen big studios were cranking out movies in this Hollywood on the Hudson, including some whose names we still know; Universal, Fox, and Paramount; originally Artcraft. By the 1920s, they'd all packed up and moved to California. "This was at one point in time the motion picture capital of the world," Pagano said. "It was the first studio town."
The Barrymore Center is about that history, too. A second floor gallery features plaques honoring some of the pioneers who did their early work here. Stars like Mary Pickford, Theda Bara, Lon Chaney and Pearl White, whose movie serial "cliffhangers" were
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actually filmed on the Palisades cliffs. Producers like William Fox, Sam Goldwyn and Universal's Carl Laemmle.
But the Barrymore, its creators emphasize, will be about Fort Lee's present and future, as much as its past.
The full schedule for the coming months is still under construction, but among other highlights is a Judy Garland centennial festival including "The Wizard of Oz" and "Meet Me in St. Louis" - November 25, a big-screen revival of "Lawrence of Arabia" - November 19, and a showing of Disney's 1959 "Sleeping Beauty" - November 5. Also, on December 17, there will be a holiday screening of "It's a Wonderful Life." "People remember Lionel Barrymore because of 'It's a Wonderful Life,'" Pagano said. "So all this ties together very neatly."
Much as the Barrymore is a salute to Fort Lee, to the movies and to the Barrymores, it's also a monument to some other, very persistent people, living and dead. Movie lovers who believed in it and spent years, even decades, laying the groundwork. It was Joseph P. Licata, the mayor, who proposed a major movie theater for the city's burgeoning downtown. But it was a cadre of Fort Lee historians and film lovers who convinced him just what kind of theater it should be.
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"I never get into these things unless I know I have the people who are committed and passionate about them," Licata said. "And with this theater, we have some incredibly passionate people."
Pagano is one of them. Pagano has spent a lifetime in the movie exhibition business, as past owner-operator of the Galaxy in Guttenberg, the Cedar Lane Cinemas in Teaneck, and the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, N.Y.
Another is Richard Koszarski, the film scholar whose "Fort Lee, the Film Town" and "Hollywood on the Hudson" are definitive studies. Critic Theodore Huff, town historian Sylvia Abbott and film buff Lou Azzollini, all deceased, deserve a nod, as does director Thomas Hanlon, whose 1964 documentary short "Before Hollywood, There was Fort Lee" started it all.
"The Barrymore Film Center is the fruit of all those years of effort by so many people," Koszarski said.
Above all there is Tom Meyers, Executive Director of the Fort Lee Film Society, a lifetime resident who had made it his 30-year mission to wake the world from its amnesia about Fort Lee's movie past. "We built consensus in the town, awareness," Meyers said.
All his life, he'd been hearing hints of the town's past glories. Both his grandparents had worked for the industry. "My
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grandmother Carrie Viola told me that as a child in Fort Lee, they let the kids out of school early so they could be extras in films," he said. "They paid a dollar a day and free lunch."
When Meyers grew up here, the few remaining studio buildings were derelict hulks. Few people in town had any idea what they'd been. Few movie histories mentioned Fort Lee. He helped get the corner of Linwood Avenue and Main Street renamed Theda Bara Way, after the famous "vamp" who lured men to their doom at Fox Studios. The corner of Washington Avenue and Fifth Street was rechristened Carl Laemmle Way.
But Meyers also suffered defeats. All his horses and men couldn't prevent the area's first studio, Champion, founded in 1910, from being razed. And one of his most heartbreaking setbacks was when the Borough Council voted 4-2 to demolish the Barrymore House. "We had a big public meeting," said Meyers, who was then on the council. "We had over 100 people in T-shirts saying 'Save the Barrymore House' to no avail." This was a ramshackle Victorian on Hammett Avenue in the Coytesville section, Meyers' own neighborhood, where actor Maurice Barrymore raised his three famous children, Ethel, Lionel and John. With all that history, it still came down
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"The mayor at the time, who I won’t name, told me publicly,
'Someday there will be a building worthy of the Barrymore name in this town, so don't worry,'" Meyers said. "And he was right."
The 21,500 square foot Barrymore Film Center is, arguably, a more fitting shrine to the acting dynasty. Particularly through April, when the Barrymore exhibit will acquaint visitors with Barrymores galore.
It's a line that stretches back to actor John Drew, from the 1840s, and encompasses such ancillary characters as Bramwell Fletcher, who played the archaeologist who went mad when he saw Boris Karloff lurch out of his sarcophagus in 1933's "The Mummy", comedian Tom Green, briefly married to "E.T.'s" Drew, and Dolores Costello, wife of John and grandmother of Drew, the beautiful, fragile mother of 1942's "The Magnificent Ambersons."
Some of the best material relates to John Barrymore, famous in his day not only as the world's greatest actor and most handsome man, but also the world's greatest womanizer and lush. His affairs with Evelyn Nesbit and Mary Astor, and his drunken escapades, on and off stage, were legendary.
Barrymore's chair, dagger and prompt book from "Hamlet," and his suit of armor from "Richard III," among other items on display testify to his acting prowess.
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And the other stuff? Ask anyone in Fort Lee. "These stories were handed down from generation to generation," Meyers said. "We knew an old lady in the neighborhood who dated John Barrymore when he was there. Her father took a shotgun and went to see Maurice Barrymore and said, 'Keep him away from my daughter.'"
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004 - La Dolce Vita - Rome, Italy
La Dolce Vita (more or less)
A US Army helicopter transported a rope dangling statue of Pope Paul VI – Giovanni Batista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, over an ancient Roman aqueduct outside Rome while a second helicopter followed close behind.
Marcello Rubini's Italian news helicopter, followed it into the city. The news helicopter’s pilot, Alfredo Gianini, was momentarily sidetracked by a group of bikini clad women sunbathing on the rooftop of a high rise apartment building.
Hovering above, Alfredo and Marcello used hand gestures in an attempt to elicit phone numbers from them but failed in the attempt. The women unanimously disliked anyone associated with Paul VI, and saw the following Italian helicopter as part of
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Paul VI’s entourage, he the hated first of the ecumenical popes and the even more hated last of the anti-birth-control pontiffs.
The ladies unanimously gave them the arm salute, placing their left hands on their right elbow, and raising their right hand in a fist. Marcello shrugged while he and the pilot continued following the statue to Saint Peter's Square.
That evening Marcello met Valentina for the first time entirely by chance in the exclusive nightclub, Lumen Bar – Centro Storico. A beautiful and wealthy heiress, Valentina was tired of Rome, citing; “It’s long been over,” to anyone within earshot, while Marcello found that it suited him. They wound up making triangular love in the bedroom of another smashed, female Roman critic whom they had given a ride home in Valentina's Cadillac.
The following morning Marcello returned to his apartment to find that his fiancée, Annabelle, had overdosed on barbiturates. On the way driving her to the hospital, he declared his everlasting love to her deaf ears and again as she lay in a semi-conscious state in the emergency room. While he waited frantically for her recovery, however, he tried to make a phone call to Valentina, who did not pick up.
That day, he went on assignment for the arrival of Sylvia Garbo, a famous Swedish-American actress, at Ciampino airport where she
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is met by a horde of news reporters. When she sees the frothing, camera laden horde, she derisively muttered to no one in particular; “Time for the obligatories again.”
During Sylvia's brief press conference, Marcello called home to ensure Annabelle has taken her medication. He had to reassure her that he was not alone with Sylvia. After the film star confidently replies to five stupid journalists' questions, her current boyfriend, local Roman actor, Roberto Rossellini entered the hotel room late and drunk. Marcello casually recommended to Sylvia's producer that she be taken on a tour of St Peter's.
Inside St Peter's dome, a news reporter complains that Sylvia is
"an elevator" because none of them can match her energetic climb up the numerous flights of stairs. Inspired, Marcello maneuvers forward to be alone with her when they finally reach the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square.
That evening, the infatuated Marcello danced with Sylvia in the Baths of Caracalla. Sylvia's natural sensuality triggered raucous partying while Roberto, her bored and drunken fiancé, draws caricatures and reads a newspaper. His humiliating remark to her caused Sylvia to leave the group, eagerly followed by Marcello and his paparazzi colleagues. Finding themselves alone,
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Marcello and Sylvia spent the rest of the evening in the alleys of Rome, where they waded into the Trevi Fountain.
Like a magic spell that had suddenly been broken, dawn arrived at the very moment Sylvia playfully "anointed" Marcello's head with fountain water. They drove back to Sylvia's hotel to find an enraged Roberto waiting for her in his car. Roberto slapped Sylvia, ordered her to go to bed, and then assaulted Marcello, who took it in stride.
Marcello was surprised to meet Mel Rosenstein, his distinguished intellectual friend, inside a church. Rosenstein showed off his ancient book of Sanskrit grammar. The two went up to the empty balcony to play the organ, and offered up a McCoy Tyner type
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jazz piece for the aggravated, watching priest with altar boys in tow, who was shining whatever was sitting on the altar, before segueing into a slightly more acceptable Bach “Goldberg Variation.”
Late afternoon of the following day, Marcello, his photographer friend Paparazzo, and recovering Annabelle drive to the outskirts of Rome to cover the story of the purported sighting of the Madonna by two children. Although the Catholic Church was officially skeptical, or perhaps because of, a huge crowd of devotees and reporters gathered at the site.
That night, the sighting was broadcast over Italian radio and television. Annabelle prayed to the Virgin Mary to be given sole possession of Marcello's heart. Blindly following the two children from corner to corner in a downpour, the crowd tore a small tree apart for its branches and leaves were said to have hidden the Madonna. The gathering didn’t end until dawn with the crowd mourning a sick child, a pilgrim brought by his mother to be healed, but trampled to death in the melee.
One evening, Marcello and Annabelle attended a gathering at Rosenstein's luxurious home, where they were introduced to a group of intellectuals who recited poetry, strummed their guitars, offered philosophical ideas, and listened to sounds of
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nature recorded on tape. The British poet Iris Tree, whose poetry Marcello had read and admired, recommended that Marcello avoid the "prisons" of commitment. "Stay free, available, like me. Never get married. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen." Annabelle appeared to be enchanted with Rosenstein's home and children, and told Marcello that one day he will have a home like Rosenstein's, but he turned away from her moodily.
Outside on the terrace, Marcello confesses to Rosensteiner his admiration for all he stands for, but Rosenstein was nonplussed, admitting that he was torn between the security that a materialistic life affords and his longing for a more spiritual albeit insecure way of life. Rosenstein philosophized about the need for love in the world and feared what his children may grow up to face one day.
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles
Roll up, roll up for the magical mystery tour!
Step right this way!
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
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Roll up (And that's an invitation)
Roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up (To make a reservation)
Roll up for the mystery tour
The magical mystery tour is waiting to take you away Waiting to take you away
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up (We've got everything you need) Roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up (Satisfaction guaranteed)
Roll up for the mystery tour
The magical mystery tour is hoping to take you away Hoping to take you away
A mystery trip
Ah, the magical mystery tour
Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up (And that's an invitation)
Roll up for the mystery tour
Roll up (To make a reservation)
Roll up for the mystery tour
The magical mystery tour is coming to take you away Coming to take you away
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The magical mystery tour is dying to take you away Dying to take you away, take you today
Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon .
Another day Marcello spent the afternoon working on his as yet untitled novel about something to be determined at a seaside restaurant. He met Paola, a young waitress from Perugia, who was playing Perez Prado's cha-cha “Patricia” on the jukebox and then hummed its tune. He asked her if she has a boyfriend, to which she just smiles, and then describes her as an angel in Umbrian paintings.
That night Marcello met his father, who was unannounced visiting Rome on the Via Veneto, and wanted to keep it that way, though was now stuck. With Paparazzo, they went to the "Cha-Cha" Club, where Marcello introduced his father to Fanny, a beautiful dancer and one of his past girlfriends. He had promised to get her picture in the paper but failed to do it. Fanny took a liking to his father. Marcello told Paparazzo that as a child he had never seen much of his father, who would spend weeks away from home. Fanny invited Marcello's father back to her flat, and two other dancers invited the two younger men to go with them.
Marcello left the others when they got to the dancers'
neighborhood. Fanny came out of her house, upset that Marcello's
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father had become ill. Marcello's father had suffered what seemed to be a mild heart attack. Marcello wanted him to stay with him in Rome so they can get to know each other, but his father, weakened, wanted to go home and got in a taxi to catch the first train to Cesena. He left Marcello forlorn, on the street, watching the taxi leave.
The following evening Marcello, Nico, and other friends met on the Via Veneto and were driven to a castle owned by aristocrats at Bassano di Sutri, outside Rome. There was already a party long in progress, and the party goers were bleary eyed and intoxicated. By chance, Marcello met Valentina again. The two of them explored a suite of ruins annexed to the castle. Valentina seated Marcello in a vast room and then closeted herself in another room connected by an echo chamber. As a disembodied voice, Valentina asked him to marry her. Marcello professed his love for her, but avoided directly answering her proposal.
Another man came along and kissed and embraced Valentina, who lost interest in Marcello. He rejoined the group in the main house, and eventually spent the night with Lady Jane, a British artist and heiress. Burnt out and bleary eyed, the rest of the group returned at dawn to the main section of the castle, to be met by the matriarch of the castle, who was on her way to mass, accompanied by priests in a procession.
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Jump cut. Marcello and Annabelle were alone in his sports car on an isolated road. Annabelle started an argument by professing her love and tried to get out of the car. Marcello pleaded with her not to get out. Annabelle said that Marcello will never find another woman who loves him the way she does. Marcello became enraged, and told her that he cannot live with her smothering, maternal love. He now wanted her to get out of the car, but she refused. With a bite from her and a slap from him, he threw her out of the car and drove off, leaving her alone on a deserted road at night. Hours later, Annabelle heard his car returning as she picked flowers by the roadside. She got into the car with neither of them saying a word.
Marcello and Annabelle were asleep in bed, tenderly intertwined.
Marcello received a phone call. He rushed to the Rosenstein apartment and learned that Rosenstein had killed his two children and himself. After waiting with the police for Rosenstein's wife to return home, he met her outside to break the terrible news while the paparazzi swarmed around her snapping pictures.
An unspecified amount of time later, an older Marcello, now with gray in his hair, and a group of partygoers broke into a Fregene beach house owned by Riccardo, a friend of Marcello's. Many of the men there were garishly homosexual, one wearing the same
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sarcastically effeminate attire “he” had donned for an appearance on a cheap talk show the previous night. Marcello was mocked for abandoning journalism to become a crass publicity agent. To celebrate her recent divorce from Riccardo, Nadia performed a striptease to Perez Prado's cha-cha “Patricia.”
Riccardo showed up at the house and told the partiers to leave.
The drunken Marcello attempted to provoke the other partygoers into an orgy. However, their inebriation caused the party to descend into mayhem, with Marcello riding a young woman crawling on her hands and knees and throwing pillow feathers around the room. The party proceeds to the beach at dawn where they find a modern day Leviathan, a bloated, sea ray like creature, caught in the fishermen's nets. In his stupor, Marcello comments on how its eyes stare even in death.
Paola, the adolescent waitress from the seaside restaurant in Fregene, called to Marcello from across an estuary, but the words they exchanged were lost on the wind and drowned out by the crashing waves. He signaled his inability to understand what she was saying or interpret her gestures. He shrugged and returned to the partygoers. One of the women joined him and they hold hands as they walk away from the beach. In a long final close up, Paola waved to Marcello and then stands watching him with an enigmatic smile.
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Everybody's Talkin'
Harry Nilsson
Everybody's talkin' at me
I don't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the echoes of my mind
People stoppin', starin'
I can't see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes
I'm goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
Through the pourin' rain
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes Bankin' off of the northeast winds
Sailin' on a summer breeze
And skippin' over the ocean like a stone Wah, wah, wah-wah-wah
Wah-wah, wah-wah, wah-wah-wah
Wahhh
I'm goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
Through the pourin' rain
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes Bankin' off of the northeast winds
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Sailin' on a summer breeze
And skippin' over the ocean like a stone
Everybody's talkin' at me
Can't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the echoes of my mind
I won't let you leave my love behind
No, I won't let you leave
Wah, wah, ah
I won't let you leave my love behind
Written by Fred Neil.
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005 - Zabriskie Point - Los Angeles, California Zabriskie Point – Toby Dammit
In an unlit first floor room at the Kent State University campus in Kent, Ohio, at dusk, many White students and two black non-students discussed an impending student strike. The opening issue was one; to protest the war in Vietnam and militarism in general. The non-students with ‘fros reaching for the sky dominated the conversation, cutting off others, in order to instill their “relevant” knowledge of the ghetto and its dynamics, and how that should be on the striking agenda.
Mark Daley, a White freshman, who hailed from various towns in California, stormed out of the meeting after saying he is
"willing to die for the cause, but not of boredom," which drew seemingly unanimous criticism from the young White “radicals”
present. Calls of “racist” and “Yu doan be down wid da bruthas”
followed him as he moved through the crowd.
For What It's Worth
Buffalo Springfield
There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
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Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
What a field day for the heat (Ooh ooh ooh) A thousand people in the street (Ooh ooh ooh) Singing songs and they carrying signs (Ooh ooh ooh) Mostly say, "Hooray for our side" (Ooh ooh ooh) It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
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We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
You better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
You better stop
Now, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
You better stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
Written by Stephen Stills.
Mark flashed into a sunshine inspired daydream. He suddenly was a former Shakespearean actor named Tobias Dart and he was losing his acting career to alcoholism. He agreed to work on a crappy, extremely bourgeois film, to be shot in Rome, for which he will be given a brand new Ferrari as a bonus incentive. Dart began to have unexpected visions of a macabre girl with a white ball.
While at a film award ceremony, at which he was a guest, he got drunk and appeared to be slowly losing his mind. A stunning woman comforted him, saying she will always be at his side if he
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chooses. Dart was forced to make a speech, then left and took delivery of his promised Ferrari.
Following a mass arrest at the un-focused campus protest, Mark visited a police station in hopes of bailing out his roommate, Gandolf, from jail. He is told to wait, but after doing so for thirty minutes, he goes to the unprotected lock up area, and asks further about bail for his roommate. Mark is rebuffed and threatened with arrest by the cops, who fortunately for him, have given virtually all of their priorities to the task of filling out the paperwork for all their arrests.
He called out to the arrested students and faculty that they will soon “fly away like an eagle,” and as a consequence for being upbeat is arrested. While being booked, he gave his name as Karl Marx, which a disinterested duty officer typed as "Carl Marx," ostensibly unaware of the absurdity or apathetic toward offbeat attempts at humor. After he is released from jail, Mark and another college friend named Bert, travel a bit in an old woodie and buy firearms from a Cleveland gun shop, saying they need them for "self-defense" to "protect our women," which actually isn’t a lie, but more importantly serves as a valid reason for the arms clerk to issue Mark a gun.
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Simultaneously and 2,344 miles away, primarily through US Route 1, in a downtown Los Angeles office building, successful real estate executive Lee Speyer reviewed a proposed television commercial for Sunny Dunes, a new resort-like real estate development in the desert near as yet unspoiled Zabriskie Point.
Instead of actors or models, the slickly produced commercial featured casually dressed, smiling mannequins. In the next scene Speyer talked with his business associate about the greater Los Angeles area's very rapid growth as the two drove through crowded streets.
Mark went to a bloody campus confrontation between students and police. Some students were tear gassed and at least one was shot. As Mark reached for the gun carried in his boot, a Los Angeles policeman was seen being fatally shot, although it was unclear by whom, as shots were heard coming from many directions.
Pushin' Too Hard
The Seeds
You're pushin' too hard, pushin' on me
You're pushin' too hard, what you want me to be You're pushin' too hard about the things you say You're pushin' too hard every night and day
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You're pushin' too hard
Pushin' too hard on me (too hard)
Well all I want is to just be free
Live my life the way I want to be
All I want is to just have fun
Live my life like it's just begun
But you're pushin' too hard
Pushin' too hard on me (too hard)
Well, better listen girl to what I'm tellin' you You better listen girl, or we are through You better stop all your foolin' around Stop your runnin' all over town
Because you're pushin' too hard
Pushin' too hard on me (too hard)
Well I know there's a lot of fish in the sea I know some would stay by me
So if you don't think I'm going to try
You better ask yourself the reason why
Because you're pushin' too hard
Pushin' too hard on me (too hard)
Pushin' too hard, pushin' too hard
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Pushin' too hard, pushin' too hard on me (hard)
Written by Sky Saxon .
Mark fled the campus and drove to suburban Hawthorne, California; a place he knew having lived there during grammar school, where, after failing in his attempt to buy a sandwich on credit from a local blue collar delicatessen, he walked to Hawthorne Municipal Airport, stole a small Cessna 210 aircraft and flew into the desert.
Mark’s serial flashback continued. He and his Ferrari raced around the city, where he saw what appeared to him to be fake people in the streets. Lost outside of Rome, Dart ran into numerous dead end streets, having to four point, commencing with a reverse to get out, and he eventually crashed into a work zone and came to a stop before the site of a collapsed bridge. Across the ravine, he saw a vision of the little girl with a ball, whom he had earlier identified, in a TV interview, as his idea of the devil. He got into his car and sped toward the void. The Ferrari disappeared, and we then saw a view of roadway with a thick wire across it, dripping with blood. Dart had been decapitated. The girl from his vision picked up his severed head and the sun rises once more.
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Meanwhile, Daria West, a sweet, pot smoking, post-teenybopper of decent inclinations, was working the cash register at a bakery, where a young male customer asked her if she dug working. Daria replied; “I don’t like dig the boring job, but I like dig the bread. Dig?”
She was driving across the desert towards Phoenix in a 1950s era Buick automobile to meet Clu, her boss, who may or may not also be her lover. Along the way Daria was searching for a man who worked with emotionally disturbed children from Los Angeles, keeping them away from the chaotic city. She found the young boys near a roadhouse in the Mojave desert, but they teased, taunted, and grabbed at her, boldly asking for "a piece of ass,”
to which she asks in reply; "Are you sure you'd know what to do with it?"
Daria flees in her car. While filling its radiator with water, she was spied from the air by Mark, who buzzed her car and then flew only fifteen feet over her as she lay face down in the sand. He threw a T-shirt with the Doors on it out of the window of the aircraft for her to pick up. Daria goes from upset to curious and smiling upon seeing it.
Riders On the Storm
The Doors
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Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah
Girl, you gotta love your man
Girl, you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah
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Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Written by Jim Morrison, John Paul Densmore, Robert A Krieger, and Raymond D Manzarek.
They later met at the desert shack of an old man, where Mark asked her for a lift so he can buy gasoline for the aircraft.
The two then wander to Zabriskie Point, where they made love. As they begin, they see other unidentified young naked people playing sexually on the ground, their wild games sending up thick clouds of white dust from the desert floor.
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Later, a California highway patrolman suspiciously questioned Daria. Hidden behind a portable toilet meant for tourists, Mark took aim at the policeman, but Daria stood between the two of them to block this, apparently having saved the policeman's life before he drove away. Daria asked Mark if he was the one who killed the cop in Los Angeles. He stated that he wanted to, but someone else had shot the officer first and that he never got off a shot.
Returning to the stolen aircraft, they painted it with politically charged slogans and psychedelic colors. Daria pleaded with Mark to travel with her and leave the aircraft, but Mark was intent on returning and taking the risks that it involved. He flew back to Los Angeles and landed the plane at the airport in Hawthorne. The police, along with some radio and television reporters, were waiting for him, and patrol cars
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chased the aircraft down the runway. Instead of stopping, Mark tried to turn the taxiing aircraft around across the grass and was shot dead by one of the policemen.
Daria learned about Mark's death on her car radio. She drove to Clu's lavish desert home, "a desert Berchtesgaden," set high on a rock outcropping near Phoenix, Arizona, where she saw three affluent looking women sunning themselves and chatting by the swimming pool. She grieved for Mark by drenching herself in the house's architectural waterfall. Clu was deeply immersed in a business meeting having to do with the complex and financially risky Sunny Dunes development. Taking a break, he spotted Daria in the house and happily greeted her. She went downstairs alone and found the guest room that has been set aside for her, but after briefly opening the door, she shut it again.
Seeing a young Native American housekeeper in the hallway, Daria left silently. She drove off, but stopped to get out of the car and look back at the house, her own imagination seeing it repeatedly blown apart in billows of orange flame and household items.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
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Boom.
Coming into Los Angeles
Arlo Guthrie
Coming in from London from over the pole Flying in a big airliner
Chicken flying everywhere around the plane Could we ever feel much finer
Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister customs man, yeah
There's a guy with a ticket to Mexico
No, he couldn't look much stranger
Walking in the hall with his things and all Smiling, said he was the Lone Ranger
Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister customs man
Hip woman walking on the moving floor
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Tripping on the escalator
There's a man in the line and she's blowing his mind Thinking that he's already made her
Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister customs man
Coming in from London from over the pole Flying in a big airliner
Chicken flying everywhere around the plane Could we ever feel much finer
Coming into Los Angeles
Bringing in a couple of keys
Don't touch my bags if you please
Mister customs man, yeah, all right
Written by Arlo Guthrie.
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006 - Blow Up – Warhol - London, England, UK
Andy - Blow Up
After having been put off for the photo shoot by “art dealer”
Ginsburg upon his arrival in London, Ginsburg calling him a vampire, Andy Deff strolled around Wandsworth for a while in the English drizzle to get his bearings. Andy decided to stay for a while anyway, and he didn’t have much in his pockets, and he wanted something that was both near Ginsburg’s employer, McConnell’s Pawn Shop, which was at the intersection of Baker and Camden Streets, where they met the Thames, and didn’t charge much; a flophouse. They being easily detectable from a distance, Andy found a suitable cheap flophouse on Baker Street named THE
PARK ROYAL H T L, easily walkable to the pawnshop.
The missing “O” and “E” in Hotel, the Brit flag at the entry, the Union Jack, and the bricked over windows at the side were dead giveaways, matter of factly and warmly saying; “Welcome, loser.” Since Andy had not anticipated staying in London, and had consequently not brought a change of duds he figured that he would take a day or two to fit in with the rest of the H T L
clientele and take some snaps with his overused and tired Kodak.
These kinds of facilities were typically aimed at local residents with low or minimal incomes and other bums who rent
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small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. No phone, no cooking, no visitors were the best attractions. Single room occupancy (SRO) units were rented out as a permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants shared a kitchen and toilet in the hall. If a resident didn’t quickly shit or get off the pot they were courting trouble. SRO units ranged from 80 to 140 sq. ft. In some instances, luxury units may have a small sink, but if you had known what prior tenants had done to it, you wouldn’t want to use it. Flophouses have at least two core concepts; they are possible to rent for cash nightly and they are also cheap enough that poor people can rent them on a monthly basis. This brought a democratic, egalitarian diversity to the community, most suitable for the point of view of Andy’s intended photos.
He saw empty street parking spaces on the bricked-over-windows side, and ambled to the entryway, accosted only by one disheveled, speeded up hobo who had a fascination for his middle aged countenance and wig. For a moment Andy thought that he should have given more consideration to his possible surroundings and taken more money with him, but in his haste he had neglected to contemplate the systemic possibilities, but it
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was Ginsburg’s fault, if in fact he was responsible for his own actions. Ginsburg was certain that he wasn’t.
The white wig hadn’t even been recently washed or combed. But maybe that was precisely the speed freak hobo’s fascination.
Some of the hobos who have nothing are somehow more tuned into the care and market value of things than those who have them.
They obsess on them, like a left out Marxist dud in Cuba. Andy flipped him a dime he couldn’t currently afford and he seemed happy as he kept staring at the shine it made when angled toward the sky. Andy was glad this Roosevelt shiny image took his attention away from his wig, which was soon to be left unprotected on a sleazy, London, side street.
Making a left at the Union Jack, Andy had to step over a few sleeping hobos of no particularly obvious persuasion on his way to the front door. No problem; he might have crunched a finger or two, but he was glad they were there rather than inside, as he didn’t trip and this would make trailing him one step more difficult. Andy opened the door and viewed the lobby.
No working girls were in sight inside. There also weren’t any chairs encouraging one to sit. The hanging buck head and the exposed fuse box were of particular interest; they suggestive of the modernistic penchant for some sort of supposed functionality
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as opposed to the rigors of debatable aesthetics. The overall effect was a naturalness which largely arose from Andy’s inability to discern the original paint color, it having faded and chipped into a spotty gray which was easy on the eye. The ambience was perfected through the sweet music in the air.
A World Without Love
Peter and Gordon
Please, lock me away
And don't allow the day
Here inside where I hide
With my loneliness
I don't care what they say, I won't stay In a world without love
Birds sing out of tune
And rain clouds hide the moon
I'm okay, here I'll stay
With my loneliness
I don't care what they say, I won't stay In a world without love
So, I wait and in a while
I will see my true love smile
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She may come, I know not when
When she does, I'll know
So baby, until then
Lock me away
And don't allow the day
Here inside where I hide
With my loneliness
I don't care what they say, I won't stay In a world without love
So, I wait and in a while
I will see my true love smile
She may come, I know not when
When she does, I'll know
So, baby, until then
Lock me away
And don't allow the day
Here inside where I hide
With my loneliness
I don't care what they say, I won't stay In a world without love
I don't care what they say, I won't stay
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In a world without love
Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
Andy was sold, but knew that it was best to appear otherwise in business situations. Later concessions, whether or not predisposed, are often worth some bread. And if not, no loss. No matter, the music on the hotel lobby radio took over, obliterating any inferiority.
To his right was an occupied desk. Much like a bank or post office, the lower wood paneling was covered by an upper level insert of a bullet-proof glass with a small cutout for the passing of bread and the sounds of perfunctory “conversations.”
For some strange reason unbeknownst to him, it was not difficult for Andy to refrain from taking out his concealed carry gun and yelling; “Your money or your life,” or some other narrative capable of compelling the now scared occupants of the room to volunteer their valuables. He supposed that he might have lost his sense of humor or that it could have been the beat surroundings, but more strongly suspected that it was the Peter and Gordon music which was playing on the unseen radio.
Andy stood next to the bullet-proof partition, while the rotund, seated clerk ignored him. He looked at the room rates posted on
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the wall behind him and though thinking them a bit high decided on a five day stay. Curiously there were no differentiations stated regarding room size and “amenities,” the only specification the intended length of stay. He rapped on the glass with a-rat-a-tat-tat of his knuckles to get the clerk’s attention. The clerk looked at him and said a friendly; “What can I do for you?” while his dead eyes conveyed more of a “fuck off” greeting.
Andy said; “I’m considering a room.”
“Aha. Please spare me the surprises. The old ticker isn’t what it used to be.”
“Rates seem a bit steep.”
“Oh! Another palpitation. Allow me to catch my breath. ........
Hokey dokey. No undesirables to share a hall bathroom with. The hobos remain outside. Don’t come cheap. You know what I mean.”
His bored monotone suggested that he might have had this conversation once or twice before. The hotel detective sitting at the rear, cradling a semi-automatic gun shot Andy the hi-okay sign, which he returned.
“Okay, put me down for five days.” He passed a double sawbuck through the slot. The clerk slid back some change and a key to room #318.
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Andy walked to the elevator and the clerk called out; ”Stairs work; elevator don’t.”
Andy labored as he went severely uphill, like the loosely guarded entryways to the hills of Chelsea, to the third floor and went down the narrow corridor to #318. No one else was there and no sounds emanated from the apartments, not even a radio.
When he opened the door his first reaction was that it was better than he had expected. It wasn’t a big concern as his stay would be short and temporary. The once whitewashed walls were now comfortably complemented by the un-distilled remains of telltale gasper roll-your-own smoke.
He dropped on the bed facing the window, took out his portable ashtray, popped the top, and lit a filter free, irregular looking Lucky, adding to the ambience present while being scrutinized by the bird figurine on the makeshift shelf, certain of not having entered the kingdom of paranoia yet. He had to admit, at least to himself, that he didn’t know how the nosy bird was feeling.
Andy’s plan was obvious, perhaps too much so; to hole up here when light and prowl on foot under the cover of darkness, trying to get a candid shot of Ginsburg. Unlike country areas like Chelsea, big congested cities like London have creeps lurking in
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the darkness all the time. However he’d be obscured in the company of other undesirables. He hadn’t previously realized that big cities were good for something, other than a reason for staying while complaining.
But, right now, first he had to find some food. He hadn’t eaten since two hours before the flight. As he trudged back down the hotel stairs, he wondered how Holly might have reacted to his sneaky plans. He decided that he’d retain a degree of concealed truth, and never tell the “truth” freak about it.
Andy felt a need to get settled and proceeded to do so after having been directed to the nearest eatery by the hotel clerk, who for some reason volunteered to tell him that his name was Farley Granger. He was probably high on something speedy and talky. He was likely a doppelganger, though that revelation merely reinforced the notion that appearances are regularly deceiving. He said; “Watch yourself. I was once taken off out there by some hobo.”
“Farley” probably got a cut to send Andy to “Benny’s Eats,” less than half a block away. But, what’s one to do? The inside dope always costs ya.
Back, Andy and his meatball hero and beer settled into bed. He leaned back against the wall and pillow behind his headboardless
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rented bed, ate, drank, and looked out the window on the unnamed side street where heaps were parked. The windows on the street the two levels beneath him were bricked over, but up here on “the top of the world” three, he still had glass and a frame.
He was glad as coming from a small, rural town he was interested in seeing what actually went on in the big city, without necessarily having to participate.
The activities of the Hobo Gang seemed to dominate the street area nearest him. The scent of juju was in the air, and he wondered how many were contagious lungers.
The hobos strutted through the rubble as if they were the exalted princes of it, no doubt telling stories of personal greatness, until the booze and speed started to wear off, bringing on that warm and fuzzy feeling featuring one of the
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myriad of fantasies of an unruffled and popular perception of pleasure at which point they would find a spot in which to curl up and hurl up in the “privacy” supplied by numbers.
The big bouncer at the “Avalon Ballroom,” a dance joint made his living because of the existence of these people. He had tired slits for eyes which saw everything they needed to see, under a cocked trilby which he wore at a haphazard and varying rakish angles, even while indoors. Having been born muscular and not averse to using the occasional firearm, he had a rather easy time of keeping the hobos at bay for the benefit of the
“grateful” dancers, so that the dead hoofers with painfully full dance cards, who weren’t exactly cookin’ with helium could use their wiles to try to exploit the crippled losers who were in turn trying to exploit them.
Andy watched some of them “digging the jive” through the picture window the “Avalon Ballroom” had in front. He didn’t make note of any ducky shin crackers. It seemed strange that all eye contact was avoided. He guessed that the grounds and surroundings were more interesting. It did have a lot going for it as thanks to the big bouncer, it was at least devoid of the presence of any unpleasant Hobo Gang dinges. Still, something seemed to be missing which the coin of the realm dimes were not providing.
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He alternated dozing with watching the street theater as he snapped with a telescopic lens, the former an unintentional reaction to the degree of sophistication which London city life had alone added to the decaying banalities of a stolen farmland; which now rather than growing crops grew weary.
For the first time Andy noticed that the makeshift shelf to his right had a book flat on it, and he figured that he’d give it a scan and try not to get any meatball sauce on it. It was named
“Side Street” and was by Malcom St. Claire. Since no one had bothered to steal the short book, ostensibly thinking it not worth the effort, he wasn’t expecting much and consequently couldn’t be disappointed. It seemed impossible for it to be less interesting than what he saw out his window.
It turned out to be a quick, simple read about a guy, down on his luck, who gets into a whole heap of trouble by trying to make things financially better for his wife, by breaking the law. The theme was strangely familiar to him though he couldn’t quite place it. Ulysses? Odin? He made a mental note, writing it on the ice, that he’d someday have to re-check the classical details.
Joe Norson lived with his wife and her parents in New York City.
It wasn’t very pleasant as he had just lost his gas station job
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and found some work which didn’t pay very well. He had become a part-time mail carrier, and was given the routes with the loose and aggressive dogs. Because he wanted the best for his pregnant wife Ellen (nee Frigg), Joe did his best to dodge salivating teeth, until he utilized his job acquired experience expertise and came up with a plan to steal what he thought was $200 from a police informant's office on his route. Afterward, at his periodic bar haunt, Joe accidentally discovered that he'd actually stolen $5,000 from Victor Backett, a corrupt, politically and mob contacted attorney, though it was just the general conversation of the day, and he did not implicate himself. It was said that Backett had framed wealthy broker/patsy Emil Lorrison in a sex scandal, then extorted the cabbage from him with the help of Lucille "Lucky" Colner and ex-con, ding dong and maniacially vicious goon, and accomplice Georgie Garsell. Georgie was delighted to have been instructed by Backett to find the lettuce and to torture before rubbing out whoever had it.
Upon learning this through his former partners and bar mates, Joe began to panic. “I’m in the deep end.” He attempted to explain his newfound wealth to his wife Ellen as being the result of a lucrative out of town job. He then disguised the bread in a package which he stupidly left with his hangout
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bartender, who he trusted for no good reason; Nick Drumman.
Perhaps the “trust” was actually generated through being mentally unstable, one step away from desperation. Concurrently, Lucille's body was found in the East River, strangled. Captain Walter Anderson of the New York Police Department investigated the murder. Both Lorrison and Backett were interviewed, their names having been found in Lucille's "love diary."
After the birth of his child, Joe decided to try to return his ill-gotten gain, but Backett suspected a trap and refused the offer. At that point, Joe inspected the package he had recovered from Drumman to find that the money was gone. Meanwhile, Backett sent Garsell and a taxi driver to grab Joe and recover the cash.
Joe was able to escape after he convinced Garsell that Drumman had the bread and had gone into hiding after substituting a nightgown in the package. Unlike naïve Joe, Garsell knew that Drumman had always been an opportunistic thief.
Now, intending to “safely” take back the dough, Joe looked for Drumman, but Garsell found the bartender first, strangled him, and recovered the bread. Joe confessed the original theft to Ellen, who urged him to turn himself in. But Joe found himself to be a suspect in Drumman's murder. He tried to track down the holder of the lettuce, Garsell, to clear himself; while Captain Anderson methodically pursued both he and Garsell as suspects;
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Garsell for Lucille’s murder and Joe for Drumman’s. Joe located Garsell's girlfriend, singer and floozy, Harriet Sirenity, who seduced him. But, nothing other than her racket on her mind, she found it “wise” to betray Joe to Garsell.
Garsell planned to murder Joe and strangled Harriet to eliminate her as a witness. Captain Anderson was hot on their heels and a chase ensued through the early morning streets of run down Ninth Avenue, New York. Joe was stalking Garsell, while Garsell was stalking him, and Anderson was stalking both of them. Sensing the claustrophobic pressure, and looking to cut a deal, Garsell's partner, the taxi driver, tried to surrender to the police, though he had unexpected difficulty in doing so, the result of trying to turn himself in to a cop on the pad. So, through a corrupt cop, Garsell was told of the taxi driver’s infidelity, rounded up Joe, and drilled the taxi driver, filling him with daylight, and intended to frame Joe. He forced Joe to drive, but this decision did not prove wise, as Joe deliberately crashed the taxi in an attempt to end the nightmare. Garsell climbed out of the wreckage and was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the police. Ellen arrived at the scene, and found Joe seriously but not mortally injured. She embraced him before the police loaded him into the long meat wagon.
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The book, which seemed to have all of its pages, ended there, but Andy would have found it more interesting if the writer had not chosen so abrupt an ending. He guessed that rather than intending a feature, Malcom St. Claire wanted to do a “B” book.
I know that Victor Backett, the corrupt, politically and mob contacted attorney would never be caught; and that framed wealthy broker/patsy Emil Lorrison would continue to be blackmailed. But, I’d have liked to know what happened to Joe and Ellen. He put the book back on the shelf and double-checked.
It was the only one in the room, so he returned to his window view of the side street.
The pedestrians walked toward a disturbed and scruffy hobo man who appeared to be attracting them like a magnet by holding a camera to his puss and pointing it at them like a revealed conceal carry gun. Everyone wanted to be a star, with no conception of what being one entailed. The crowded sidewalk of the neglected side street included many young dinge boys dressed in rags they, judged by their propensities to uniformly strut like chickens about to be beheaded, apparently thought to be the height of fashion. Well-dressed women into slumming sat in rickshaws, while very poor thin women walked alongside. All looked uncomfortably into what they thought was a camera, the un-counted composing facial contortions which were designed to
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show that they didn’t care, while subliminally advertising that they did. Andy’s vertical pan showed poorer women swathed in rags, some having just been physically ejected from the Avalon Ballroom. A gray bearded old man carrying a bundle passed the camera and smiled at it, finding something unmentioned to be funny. The song-like sound of an unseen distant tram car bearing a large Star of David rang through the busy street. The woman lying on the sidewalk was ignored by the pedestrians passing by.
Shot through and through, the street vendor of thrice warmed pretzels and his cart gathered steam and kept moving on.
Being further down the side street from his new favorite takeout joint, “Benny’s Eats,” Andy found that it wasn’t easy to see well, but it looked like there was a flurry of activity in front of “Rochester’s Magnificent Shoe Shine and Repair Emporium.”
“Yassuh, Missah Binny, it be a can-do yard fo’ the feets.” It must have been a good business, as one hobo could easily detect another’s standing by the quality of their shoes and heels. You could get that taken care of while being directed to the juju man.
The fog which was blown in by the zephyr over the Thames made Andy’s view murky and imprecise. It more importantly told him that it was time to go out and prowl under the eyes of the street gaslights.
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At the most bottom of lines Andy could hardly contain the joy he received from getting many slice of life shots at the Avalon Ballroom and Rochester’s Magnificent Shoe Shine and Repair Emporium. IT was well worth his risk of encountering crazed hoboes.
After spending the night at a flop house, where he had taken pictures for a book of art photographs, photographer David Bailey was late for a photo shoot with model Twiggy at his studio, which in turn made him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. When the second contingent commenced with their griping, he grew bored and walked off, leaving the models and production staff in the lurch. As he departed the studio, two teenaged girls who are aspiring models asked to speak to him, but David drove off to visit at an antique shop, ignoring them.
Wandering into Maryon Park, David took some photographs of two lovers. The woman, Jane, takes note and was furious at being photographed and pursued David who ran back toward his car. Jane caught up with him before he could pull his 1967 Austin Healy convertible out of a tight parking space and demanded his film.
She ultimately unsuccessfully tried to snatch his camera.
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He blocked her with one hand and started photographing her with the other. She then ran away through a meadow. David then met his agent Alan for lunch, and noticed that a man was following him and looking into his car.
Back at his studio, Jane arrived, asking desperately for the film. She and David had a ditsy conversation and flirt, but he deliberately handed her a different film roll. She, in turn, wrote down a false telephone number and gave it to him.
David, curious, makes multiple zooms of the black and white film of Jane and her lover. They reveal Jane worriedly looking at a third person lurking in the trees with a pistol. David excitedly called Alan, claiming his impromptu photo session may have saved a man's life. Alan played along, though he really thinks it to be of minimal market value, and wasn’t interested.
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David was disturbed by a knock on the door, and it was the two persistent young girls again, with whom he proceeded to have had a romp in his studio and the fell asleep. Upon awakening, he found they hope he will photograph them, but he thinks there may be more to the photographs in the park. He told them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!"
Further examination of a blurred figure under a bush made David suspect that the man in the park may have been murdered after all, during the time Thomas was arguing with the woman around the bend.
As evening fell, the photographer went back to the park and found the body of the man, but he had not brought his camera and was scared off by the sound of a twig breaking, as if it was being stepped on. Thomas returned to find his studio ransacked.
All the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blow-up of what is possibly the body, which he had in his dark room.
Rather than making a useless police report, David drove into town, and he thought that he saw the woman Jane. He followed her into a club where the Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar, Keith Relf on vocals, Chris Dreja on bass, and Jim McCarty on drums, were seen performing the song "Stroll
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On." David is not asked for an admission fee and walks in undisturbed to see a handful of the crowd dance slowly, while the majority remained seated and silent, staring at the group as if delightfully and/or disinterestedly stoned. He does not see Jane.
Stroll On
The Yardbirds
Strollin' on,
'Cos it's all gone,
The reason why.
You made me cry,
By tellin' me,
You didn't see.
The future bore,
Our love no more.
If you want to know,
I love you so,
And I don't want to let you go.
I'm strollin' on,
Gonna make you see.
I'm strollin' on,
You'll find you really love me.
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I'm strollin' on,
Be your turn to cry.
I'm strollin' on,
You wish you'd never lied.
You're going to change your mind,
But you ain't gonna find,
Any more of my kind.
I'm strollin' on,
'Cos it's all gone,
The reason why.
You made me cry,
By tellin' me,
You didn't see.
The future bore,
Our lovin' no more.
If you want to know,
I love you so,
I don't want to let you go.
I'm strollin' on,
Gonna make you see.
I'm strollin' on,
You'll find you really love me.
I'm strollin' on,
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Be your turn to cry.
I'm strollin' on,
You wish you'd never lied.
You're going to change your mind,
But you ain't gonna find,
Any more of my kind.
Written by Jimmy Page, Jim McCarty, Jeff Beck, Keith Relf, and Chris Dreja.
During “Stroll On” there was an intermittent buzz in Beck's guitar amplifier, which he first “fixes” by turning some nobs, and then by smacking his guitar into it. When all his attempts at correction prove futile, Beck is angered so much, he smashes his guitar on stage, then throws its neck into the crowd; Page ostensibly picking up Beck’s guitar portions, while none of the audience seems to react in any way. However, Beck’s guitar neck caused an audience riot; as they came to life in pursuit of the suddenly “valuable” item. The photographer David was able to grab the neck and ran out of the club before anyone could snatch it from him. He continued running and then he had second thoughts about it; threw it on the pavement, and walked away. A passer-by picks up the neck and throws it back down, not realizing it is from Beck's guitar, as if that mattered. Other club patrons who followed after David also see the discarded
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neck, but don’t even stoop to touch it; silently shrugging, their interest completely gone, as is shown in their faces, now faintly illuminated in the hip, mod, clothing boutiques of Carnaby Street, all of which were closed. David never located the elusive woman Jane, perhaps having lost all interest in her.
At a drug drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, David found Twiggy, who had told him that she was going to Paris. When David confronted, she said that she was in Paris right now. David asked Alan to come to the park as a witness, but cannot convince him of what has happened; he thinks because Alan is very stoned, while Alan also secretly does not care in the least. Instead, David joined the drug party, nodded out, and woke up in the house at sunrise. He returned to the park alone, only to find that the body was gone.
Befuddled, David watched a mime troupe perform a tennis match and is drawn to it. After a bit, he picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to two players. As he watches the mimes, the sound of the ball being played was heard and David’s image faded away, leaving only the grass.
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007 - Monterey Pop – Monterey, California Monterey Pop
Monterey Pop is a 1968 American concert film by D. A. Pennebaker that documents the Monterey International Pop Festival of 1967.
Among Pennebaker's several camera operators were fellow documentarians Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles. The painter Brice Marden has an "assistant camera" credit. Titles for the film were by the illustrator Tomi Ungerer. Featured performers include Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, the Mamas & the Papas, the Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose namesake set his guitar on fire, broke it on the stage, then threw the neck of his guitar in the crowd at the end of "Wild Thing".
In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Performers and Songs
Songs featured in the film, in order of appearance: Scott McKenzie – "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)"
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The Mamas and the Papas – "Creeque Alley"* and "California Dreamin'"
Canned Heat – "Rollin' and Tumblin'"
Simon and Garfunkel – "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin'
Groovy)"
Jefferson Airplane – "High Flying Bird" and "Today"
Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin – "Ball and Chain"
Eric Burdon and the Animals – "Paint It Black"
The Who – "My Generation"
Country Joe and the Fish – "Section 43"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Wild Thing"
The Mamas and the Papas – "Got a Feelin'"
Ravi Shankar – "Dhun" ("Dadra and Fast Teental")
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008 - The Velveteen Rabbit – Geneva, Switzerland
“The Velveteen Rabbit,” or “How Toys Become Real” is a British children's book written by Margery Williams, also known as Margery Williams Bianco, and illustrated by William Nicholson.
It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit's desire to become real through the love of his owner. The story was first published in Harper's Bazaar in 1921 featuring illustrations from Williams' daughter Pamela Bianco. It was published as a book in 1922 and has been republished many times since.
“The Velveteen Rabbit” was Williams' first children's book. It has been awarded the IRA/CBC Children's Choice award. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association voted the book #28 on the "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children."
The Velveteen Rabbit
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A stuffed rabbit sewn from velveteen is given as a Christmas present to a small boy. The boy plays with his other new presents and forgets the velveteen rabbit for a time. These presents are modern and mechanical, and they snub the old fashioned velveteen rabbit. The wisest and oldest toy in the nursery, the Skin Horse, which was owned by the boy's uncle, tells the rabbit about toys being made real by the love of children; "Real isn't how you are made. ... It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become
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real.” The rabbit is awed by this idea, but his chances of achieving this wish are slight.
Stoned Soul Picnic
Laura Nyro
Can you surry?
Can you picnic?
Can you surry?
Can you picnic?
C'mon, c'mon and
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey
Sassafras and moonshine
Red yellow honey
Sassafras and moonshine
Stoned Soul
Stoned Soul
C'mon, c'mon and
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
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Rain and sun come in akin
And from the sky
Come the Lord and the lightnin'
And from the sky
Come the Lord and the lightnin'
Stoned Soul
Stoned Soul
Surry on surry
Surry, surry, surry, surry
There'll be trains of blossoms
There'll be trains of music
There'll be music
There'll be trains of trust
Trains of golden dust
Come along a surry oh
Sweet trains of thought
Surry on down
Can you surry?
Can you surry?
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
Surry down to a stoned soul picnic
There'll be lots of time and wine
Red yellow honey
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Sassafras and moonshine
Red yellow honey
Sassafras and moonshine
Moonshine
Stoned Soul yeah
Surry on surry
Surry
Surry
Surry
Written by Laura Nyro.
One night, the boy's nanny gives the rabbit to the boy to sleep with, in place of a lost toy. The rabbit becomes the boy's favorite toy, enjoying picnics with him in the spring, and the boy regards the rabbit as real. Time passes and the rabbit becomes older and shabbier but remains happy. It meets some real rabbits in the summer, and they learn that the velveteen rabbit cannot hop as they do, and they say that he is not a real rabbit.
One day, the boy comes down with scarlet fever, and the rabbit sits with him as he recovers. When he’s well, the doctor orders that the boy should be taken to the seaside and that his room
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should be disinfected; all his books and toys burnt, including the velveteen rabbit. The rabbit is bundled into a sack and left out in the garden overnight, where he reflects sadly on his life with his boy. The toy rabbit cries, a real tear drops onto the ground, and a marvelous flower appears. A fairy steps out of the flower and comforts the velveteen rabbit, introducing herself as the Nursery Magic Fairy. She says that, because he has become real to the boy who truly loves him, she will take him away with her and "turn him into real" to everyone.
The fairy takes the rabbit to the forest, where she meets the other rabbits and kisses the velveteen rabbit. The velveteen rabbit changes into a real rabbit and joins the other rabbits in the forest. The next spring the rabbit returns to look at the boy, and the boy sees a resemblance to his old velveteen rabbit and enjoys seeing the rabbit out in the wild.
Cyprus Avenue
Van Morrison
And I'm caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I'm caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I'm conquered in a car seat
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Not a thing that I can do
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
I may go crazy
Before that mansion on the hill
But my heart keeps beating faster
And my feet can't keep still
And all the little girls rhyme something On the way back home from school
And all the little girls rhyme something On the way back home from school
And the leaves fall one by one by one by one Call the autumn time a fool
Yeah baby my tongue gets tied
Every every every time I try to speak
My tongue gets tied
Every time I try to speak
And my inside shakes just like a leaf on a tree I think I'll go on by the river
with my cherry cherry wine
I believe I'll go walking by the railroad
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with my cherry cherry wine
If I pass the rumbling station
where the lonesome engine drivers pine
And wait a minute, yonder comes my lady Rainbow ribbons in her hair
Yonder comes my lady
Rainbow ribbons in her hair
Six white horses and a carriage
She's returning from the fair
Baby, baby, baby
And if I'm caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And if I'm caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I'm conquered in a car seat
And I'm looking straight at you
Way up on, way up on, way up on ...
The avenue of trees
Keep walking down
In the wind and the rain, darling
You keep walking down
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when the sun shone through the trees
Nobody, no, no, no, nobody stops me
from loving you baby
So young and bold, fourteen years old
Baby, baby, baby ...
Ooooh-ee
Written by Van Morrison.
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009 - The Catcher in the Rye – Pencey, Pennsylvania The Catcher in the Rye
Holden Caulfield recalls the events of a weekend, Saturday afternoon to Monday afternoon, shortly before the previous year's Christmas, beginning at Pencey Preparatory Academy, a boarding school in Pennsylvania. Holden has just been expelled from Pencey because he had failed all of his classes except English. After causing the fencing team to forfeit a fencing match in New York because he accidentally lost the team’s equipment on the subway, he says goodbye to his history teacher, Mr. Spencer. He offers Holden advice and embarrasses him by criticizing his history exam.
Later, Holden agrees to write an English composition for his roommate, Ward Stradlater, who is leaving for a date. Holden is distressed to learn that Stradlater's date is Jane Gallagher, with whom Holden was infatuated. That night, Holden decides to go to a Cary Grant comedy with Mal Brossard and dorm neighbor Robert Ackley. Since Ackley and Mal have already seen the film, they eat food, play pinball, and return to Pencey. When Stradlater returns hours later, he fails to appreciate the deeply personal composition Holden wrote for him about the baseball glove of Holden's late brother Allie who died from
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leukemia years earlier and refuses to say whether he had sex with Jane. Enraged, Holden punches him, and Stradlater easily wins the fight. When Holden continues insulting him, Stradlater leaves him lying on the floor with a bloody nose. Fed up with the "phonies" at Pencey Prep, Holden decides to catch a train to New York. Holden intends to stay away from his home until Wednesday, when his parents will have received notification of his expulsion. Aboard the train, Holden meets the mother of a wealthy Pencey student, Ernest Morrow, and makes up nice but false stories about her son.
Look What They've Done to My Song
Melanie
Look what they've done to my song, ma
Look at what they've done to my song, ma It was the only thing I could do half right And it's turning out all wrong, ma, look What they've done to my song
Look what they've done to my song, ma
Look what they've done to my song, ma
It was the only thing I could do half right Turning out all wrong, ma
Look what they've done to my song
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Look what they've done to my brain, ma
Look at what they've done to my brain
Well, they picked it like a chicken bone And I think that I'm half insane, ma
Look what they've done to my song
Oh, I wish that I could find a good book to live in Oh, I wish that I could find a good book Well, if I could find a real good book
I'd never have to come out and look at
What they've done to my song
Ils ont changé ma chanson, ma
Ils ont changé ma chanson, ma
C'est la seule chose que je peux faire
Et ce n'est pas bon, ma
Ils ont changé ma chanson
But maybe, it'll all be all right, ma
Maybe, it'll all be okay
Well, if the people are buying tears
Then I'm gonna be a rich girl some day, ma Look what they've done to my song
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Look what they've done to my song, ma-ma-ma Look, look what they've done to my song You know, they tied it up in a plastic bag And then turned it upside down, oh ma-ma Look at what they've done
Want to look at what they've done, oh ma-ma Look what they've done to my song
Written by Melanie Safka .












