Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 288

This Date in Beatles, and Aretha, History

On this day in 1966 the Beatles started recording "Eleanor Rigby."  Not my favorite Beatles track and I bet you've never heard this rocking, perhaps not quite successful,  Aretha version in 1971:

Dallas Green: Managing Grief

NYT sports section with a piece today about the new memoir by former major league manager and pitcher Dallas Green.  If you've forgotten (or never known):  It was his grand-daughter, age 9, who was shot and killed in the attack on Gabby Giffords.  Dallas is now a big gun control advocate.

I go way back with him.  As a kid, I saw him pitch in the late-1950s for the Buffalo Bisons on his way to the Phillies.  Then it happens that one of my New York friends, as a kid, used to babysit for Dallas and his wife down in Delaware.  He remained very close to Dallas's son John, who became a baseball scout (and gave us advice on our fantasy baseball team).  When Dallas became manager of the Yanks and Mets, my friend would get tickets from the Greens and we'd sit right behind the dugout with Dallas's  wife, a wonderful woman (who took up skydiving in her 60s).  I got to take my son to a game there, where he got his first baseball hit into the stands.

Anyway:  Read the Times' piece.  As you can imagine, Dallas still hasn't gotten over the shooting.  Nor should we.

Jazzfest Memories

Day two in New Orleans today.  Well, a day two not long ago. 

When the 'Nerd Prom' Mattered

When I was at E&P, I may have been the first to cover and quote in full  the infamous Stephen Colbert roasting of Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner.  And Joe Strupp was in the hall and got the first reaction quote from Stephen on the less-than-riotous reception from wounded media and White House figures.  So here it is again--as an antidote to both tonight's affair and the Bush reclamation project of this past week.

Kubrick's "Napoleon" Complex

As you may have heard, Steven Spielberg has announced plans to finally bring to the screen the fabled Napoleon planned by his late friend Stanley Kubrick.  I'd heard about the script for decades (since Strangelove and Paths of Glory are both in my Top Ten), with Rod Steiger at one time in the leading role, decades back.  Anyway, I've now downloaded the 155-page original script, via Raindance, and now here it is for you.  Spoiler alert:  Nap meets his Waterloo, ends up in exile.

Gunning for the Truth

Riveting piece for the NYT tonight by a novelist who deeply loved guns--until he accidentally shot and killed a friend. 

The gun lobby likes to say guns don’t kill people, people do. And they’re right, of course. I killed my friend; no one else did; no mechanism did. But this oversimplifies matters (as does the gun control advocates’ position that eliminating weapons will end violent crime).

My friend was killed by a man who misunderstood guns, who imagined that comfort with — and affection for — guns was a vital component of manhood. I did not recognize a gun for what it was: a machine constructed for a purpose, one in which I had no real interest. I treated a tool as an essential part of my identity, and the result is a dead man and a grieving family and a survivor numbed by guilt whose story lacks anything resembling a proper ending.

Rockabilly George

The late George Jones recorded some pure rockabilly singles in the late 1950s as "Thumper Jones."  They didn't sell and he later claimed he was embarrassed by them.  But you will see, no reason to:

Down But Not Dead

Frightening moment last night in Port Chester, NYC, as ex-Grateful Deader Bob Weir, age 65, collapses on stage.   Helped up he refused to exit, though sat in a chair for awhile, to cheers, but ultimately leaving.  Need update on condition.

Mary Thom Dies in Cycle Crash

Prominent feminist writer and longtime Ms. editor Mary Thom was killed in a motorcycle crash on Friday, my local paper reports today.  Yes, I met her a couple of times in the 1970s.  She was a longtime cyclist and never owned a car.  Besides her books and editing work, she was a consultant for several non-profit women’s organizations, including the National Council for Research on Women and the Women’s Media Center.

My New Book Out This Week: "Hollywood Bomb"

This is a disturbing--if rollicking--tale that I've written about in brief but finally got to explore at length, and it's published today in e-book form: Hollywood Bomb:  Harry S. Truman and the Unmaking of 'The Most Important' Movie Ever Made (Sinclair Books).  That's a poster for the 1947 MGM film at left, and you'll find the trailer below.  It's my 15th book, if you're keeping score at home, and can be read on iPads, Kindles, and so on, for just $2.99.

A film titled The Beginning or the End was to be, in the words of MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, "the most important" movie ever made.  But that was before it was distorted, even censored, with President Truman playing a key role. Continuing the book blurb:

Hollywood Bomb traces the wild, and largely untold, episode from its start, just hours after the first atomic device was exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945.  MGM was already trying to sew up exclusive rights to make the first celluloid epic about The Bomb.  A rival studio raced to catch up with a script written by...Ayn Rand.

It seemed, for a time, that the big-budget MGM film would serve as a warning to mankind about the dangers of going too far down the nuclear path, with the potential to rally public opinion against The Bomb before it was too late to halt an arms race that would eventually bring 50,000 nuclear warheads into the world.  It even questioned Truman's decision to drop the bomb.

But that was before the making, and unmaking, of The Beginning or the End ended that chance, thanks in large part to intervention by the U.S. military and President Truman. At the White House, Truman even edited several versions of the script, deleting parts of his dialogue and adding distortions to buoy his decision to drop the bomb.   And, in what must have been a first for Hollywood, actors slated to play two presidents in the same movie were fired after protests—from a former First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt) and from the sitting President (Truman)

Also intimately involved in this lively, often amazing tale, was a colorful cast of supporting players, including (besides Ayn Rand):  Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, producer Hal Wallis, actors Donna Reed, Hume Cronyn and Brian Donlevy, Walter Lippmann,  and Cardinal Spellman, among others.  Once again, here's the link to Amazon.

My two previous books on this general subject were Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton) and Atomic Cover-up.  Here's the trailer.  You might want to skip to  the 3:00 minute mark to sail past the fake and dopey "Inquiring Reporter" intro--though you might want to look for a quick shot of Beaver's mom, Barbara Billingsley.