“I want all of you to enjoy your cake, so... enjoy.”
 
Everyone needs a hero. Someone to look up to. That special someone who grabbed life by the balls and made it his own. One such hero is entrepreneur, molasses runner, friend of Cuba before Castro, and my favorite character from Godfather Pt 2, Hyman Roth. 
 
Today we celebrate his genius.
 
Hyman Roth lived through a lot of changes in the modern world and these changes never seemed to affect him.
 
Well, almost never.
 
“I'd give four million just to be able to take a piss without it hurting.”
 
He was a businessman who truly knew the art of the deal.
 
“I'm going in to take a nap. When I wake, if the money's on the table, I'll know I have a partner. If it isn't, I'll know I don't.”
 
Because he always money for his partners.
 
“Hyman Roth always makes money for his partners. One by one, our old friends are gone. Death, natural or not, prison, deported. Hyman Roth is the only one left, because he always made money for his partners.”
 
He was a philosopher
 
“Good health is the most important thing. More than success, more than money, more than power.”
 
Baseball fan
 
“I loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstien fixed the World Series in 1919.”
 
Loyal Friend
 
“There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada... made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast. That kid's name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn't even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn't angry; I knew Moe, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!”
 
And didn’t possess a prejudice bone in his body.
 
“I Don't Trust A Doctor Who Can Hardly Speak English.”
 
And most important, a dreamer!
 
“If I could only live to see it, to be there with you. What I wouldn't give for twenty more years! Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the goddamn Justice Department and the F.B.I. ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government. Ninety miles! It's nothing! Just one small step, looking for a man who wants to be President of the United States, and having the cash to make it possible. Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.”
 
It seems like only yesterday when this great American stood up to the fake media and made this final, dramatic statement.

​Well, it was bound to happen and why not? Everyone else is doing it. I even hear that Great Clips is offering an HBO Max tie-in appropriately titled The Snyder Cut (can you add about two hours to the sides). So, here we go, in honor of all of that and, because everyone else is doing it, my thoughts on The Justice League, the Snyder Cut.
 
Before we perform a ceremonial pig-pile on Joss Whedon (yes, I think referencing a pig is quite appropriate), I want to state that I was a fan of some of his earlier work. Some episodes of Buffy the Vampire Killer are some of the finest television ever written. And Firefly, well, I was late coming to the short-lived series but eventually became a huge fan. The first Avengers is groundbreaking and opened up the whole genre of filmmaking. But as Patton warned, all glory is fleeting and the first in the series was followed by Avengers: The Age of Ultron and was as bad as the other film was good. I’ll leave out the Shakespeare at the Hollywood pool party which literally is Much Ado About Nothing, so, there you have it. Fan to not, quicker than you can say Marvel: Agents of Shield.
 
From what I have read, Warner’s (Warner Brothers to the uneducated and to anyone who has never been invited onto the lot), decided that they did not like Snyder’s version and were looking for a way to can him. Like the rest of his super-hero films, his version of the story was too hooty snooty (their words not mine) and needed to include more fun. You know, like The Thin Man or, say, The Hangover Part III. And this caped crusaders as gods bit. That definitely had to go. Keep the sermons to Sunday, brother, So, when Snyder’s back was turned with a family tragedy the boom was lowered and he was let go. Apparently, Dorothy Parker wasn’t available, so the studio turned to Whedon to turn what they already had into Justice League: Smart, good looking and sassy. They reshot some major footage, added a metric ton of quips, digitally erased a mustache and turned Synder’s black Superman suit into a more fitting and cheerful red and blue. The result is just what you would expect and is what I suspect of starting the whole pandemic that we find ourselves in, henceforth to be referred to the Whedon flu.
 
Now, onto the Snyder cut which is divided into 6 chapters (which is the exact number of Christ’s apostles cut in half, get it?), and runs shortly over four hours. Despite the running time, the movie has clear goals and accomplishes most of them. Characters that seemed a bit thin in the original have been fleshed out, and the story itself seems to make a bit more sense. I watched the film in increments, and it seemed to work. I stayed interested and found the additions compelling. The addition of The Martian Manhunter, Darkseid, Deathstroke made sense with only the multiple worlds, Joker scenario and the Lord of the Rings when is this going to end not really working for me. But, with all that, I think it is the superior version and definitely worth a look or three. I will be revisiting, just to see it in black and white.

(Pictured above:  The Melnor XT... which is not a phone)

The script was called The Shadow Riders, the call was from producer Ed Elbert (The Mighty Quinn) and the phone call happened to be answered by my elderly mother. 
 
With divorce comes many sacrifices, one of which is being flat broke and having to move in with a family member. Bless her heart, that person happened to be my mother. I repeatedly briefed my mother on the importance of any incoming call but somehow the constant admonishments on my part faded over the days, weeks and months and the dire importance of this particular call became as unimportant as any other of the lifestyle choices I had made. 
 
It was summer, the sky was blue, a rarity in Oregon at the time, and a weekend with my daughter was just getting started. As a celebration of the rare Portland weather, I had set up sprinkler in the front lawn and was showing my four-year-old the ins and outs of racing through an abundant water supply. My daughter, was getting the hang of it quite well, squealing and delighting in every dash and dodge through the Melnor 4500 oscillating fun. At forty years of age, and no slouch myself in this department, I was more than willing to provide examples for her for trips through the watery fantastic.
 
I did not hear the phone ring.
 
She could have played their all day but eventually I talk my daughter into going back inside, so we could both dry off and share our stories of humans versus water. At four years of age, it is all about the challenge. We adjourned inside my childhood home and were greeted by mother.
 
“You had a phone call,” she said pleasantly. 
 
My ears perked up. Were they still on the line?
 
“I told them you were busy.” 
 
“Who was it?” I pleaded. “And why didn’t you call me?”
 
“It was someone named Ed,” she answered innocently. 
 
Ed, was of course Ed Elbert the producer of The Mighty Quinn starring Denzel Washington and my favorite femme fatale and poker player, Mimi Rogers. Ed had been producing for over twenty years, while alas, I had only been playing in sprinklers.
 
“What did you tell him?” I gasped
 
“I told him you were playing in the sprinkler.”
 
“With my daughter, right?” You told him I was playing with my daughter?”
My mother offered too long of a pause before answering. She too must have sensed that it was much too late for any salvation from this call and only offered in signature admonishment when confronted with a complicated question. 
 
“I’ll fix you two some lunch?”
 
The phone call was made from a nearby phone booth, the option was eventually signed, and the subject was never brought up between Mr. Elbert and myself.  Several months later, Maverick starring Mel Gibson came out and Hollywood’s taste for westerns once again went dormant. 
 
For the record, the sprinkler remained popular until early Fall.

Honestly, I could give a flying fuck for any award show, let alone the Oscars. I am still personally pissed about my own slight from years ago. I was quite confident that Axe to Grind would have least won for the Best Picture Made For Less Than Three Hundred Dollars. Alas, Avatar won. I know, right? 
 
I must admit at delighting at the prospect of what qualifies and what doesn’t. This little pandemic has seemed to settle little Stevie Spielberg’s argument about what really constitutes a motion picture and what does not. Let’s not stop at Netflix or Amazon. Personally, I think we should open the list of nominees from YouTube and the media drive from your personal computer. Academy Members, put that in your ivory pipe and smoke it. 
 
And the nominees for Best Motion Picture are:
 
Cat Jump Fail. Directed by GO54Ever and Directed by Pet2PleezU.
 
The Nutcrackers: TikTok Groin Hits. Directed by Doscajones and Produced by BallBstr7
 
MILF Cucks Hubby 3: The Reckoning, Amateur69 Director and Produced by Porn Hub
 
Baby Talks to Golden Retriever. Produced and Directed by James Cameron.
 
And the winner is… Oh, they are all winners in my book. And don’t forget to thank God. Very important.
 
All of these events are really self-aggrandizing fashion shows. I
 
“You look simply ravishing. Who are you wearing?”
 
“Thank you ever so.  My outfit was completely designed courtesy of The Bass Shop. And in lieu of blood diamonds, I have adorned my sequined fishing vest in tie fly flies, most notably the colorful but practical Tungsten Jig Bugger.”
 
There’s just too many Award shows now:
 
The Golden Globes
The Grammys 
The Oscars
The Spirit Awards
The SAG Awards
The Emmys
The Tonys
And, of course,
 
The Grammies "Edna, this is your year, dear' 
 
“The award for best hard candy wrapped in a tissue goes to… Oh my god, I am so nervous, I can’t even get this open.”
 
Even a pandemic can’t stop these award shows. They are the cockroaches of televised events. Each year the ratings get worse and worse and each year we get more and more of them. I honestly think they are reproducing. 
 
Oh, what’s the use.

​With you-to the end of the world!” 
― Rudyard Kipling
 
Anyone who knows me, understands that I am a man who changes obsessions as often as most people change their clothes. Films are mostly the objects of my compulsion, but I willingly confess that an occasional non celluloid subject can preoccupy my mind as well. For the sake of this blog, we will stick to film. When a film takes over my limited brain span, I am powerless to fight it. I watch it repeatedly, hum the soundtrack incessantly and replay scenes over and over in my head,
 
This week’s obsession is The Man Who Would Be King (1975), directed by John Huston and starring Michael Caine as Peachy Carnahan, Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot and the exceptional and late, great Christopher Plummer as Kipling himself.  
 
This was a pet project for Huston who first wanted Gable and Bogart, then Burton and O’Toole, Lancaster and Douglas until finally settling on Paul Newman and Robert Redford to play the leads. Newman wisely suggested that only true Englishmen should play the parts and I’m glad Huston took that advice. I can’t imagine anyone else playing the two working class soldiers who dream of becoming kings.
 
I won’t bore you with any more trivia that I liberally stole from Wikipedia. There is a racist moment that disturbs me involving Peachy, Kipling and a fellow passenger but it is not enough to take me out the rest of the movie. The rest of this 2 hour and 9 minute running time is damn near perfection.
 
Morocco doubles for Afghanistan and Huston, quite the adventurer himself, does an excellent job taking full advantage of the rugged location. The cinematography of Oswald Morris is Oscar worthy and the score by Maurice Jarre is rapidly becoming one of my favorites.
 
This is old fashioned adventure at its finest, directed by a master of his craft, and if you have not seen it, get your ass over to HBO Max and check it out.

​Seems like everyone now a has a one man show. Hell, back in the very early eighties I had one. It was appropriately titled, Casually Insane and I still have my clippings if you’re interested. But I bet you didn’t know that at the twilight of his career, Roderick George Toombs, aka Rowdy Roddy Piper, wanted to try his hand at one. See? I thought not.
 
Well, sit back and relax, because if you are a wrestling fan, a J.P. Linde fan or a follower of self-promoting, self-indulging, narcissistic stories starring down and out wrestlers and comedian/writers, this may very well be the story for you.
 
Unlike many of you, I watched WWF wrestling rarely.  To say that I was fully aware of the entire colorful cast of characters that somehow managed to bring down an entire civilization would be an exaggeration. But, thanks to a Cindy Lauper, I was aware of some of the key players and Rowdy Roddy Piper happened to be one of them. 
 
So, when I got the call, along with Art Krug, co-writer and creator of our two man show Dumped and Divorced, that Roddy was looking for collaborators, I jumped at the chance. Nothing makes for a quicker fan than a potential job and paycheck. There would be five of us at the creative summit including myself, Art, Barry Kolin, the producer, and the man himself, the star of They Live, Rowdy Roddy Piper.
 
Roddy showed up fashionably late, with a drink in his hand, a chemically enhanced gleam in his eye and a perpetual sniffle in his nose. He looked a bit tired and haggard but enthusiastically pitched his idea. He immediately regaled us with colorful stories and anecdotes from his past. He handed us each a copy of his autobiography for research and documentation and so we were hooked.
 
The goal was to book the show in comedy clubs, testing the material out and then opening it up to larger venues. We would all be rich, Roddy told us, this was a going to be a surefire hit.
 
I had not yet officially retired from comedy and here is where the rubber hit the road. For the time being Art and I would not be paid for our writing services but would open up for the famed wrestler warming up the audience for a fee. I was to be last comedian on stage, introducing Roddy to the crowd. 
 
And now, here is the reason that Art and I never wrote a one man show for Roddy Piper. Roderick turned to me and with a coca enhanced grin, announced that after I brought him up on stage, he would lift me high over his head and throw me into the tables at least four feet below. “Don’t worry,” he concluded. “I will teach you how to land.”
 
Being thrown off a stage that is five feet off the ground is one thing, not being paid is quite another. Being much bigger than us, and cruising on god knows what combination of chemicals exactly, Art and I gracefully excused ourselves and later, when we were quite sure that Roddy did not know where we lived, declined the offer.
 
Someone else ended up taking on this prestigious job, but tryouts at the comedy club did not go well as Roddy was incapable of holding his train of thought for more than a few minutes. Sad, really.
 
The world of professional wrestling is a relatively short-lived career. A good portion of wrestlers crash and burn after being exploited by a system that seems to deal in tragedy. Some stories are even sadder than that of Roderick George Toombs. Before Toombs died, he got the chance on HBO Real Sports to finally tell his story, the real story; to talk about his life, his sport, the high price he paid and even predicting his own death. If only he had been well enough to share his real story with myself and Art. That would have been a one man show worth talking about.
 
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
 

​Can I just get this off my chest right now? I hate waiting. I am most likely the least patience person on the entire planet. Add to the fact that I am almost always chronically early, and you have a recipe for disaster. Now, creatively these two attributes can spell death to a creative career. Why, right up there in the pantheon of Hollywood lingo with “There’s no business, like show business,” and “did my agent happen to call?”, are “just hang in there,” and, of course, this chestnut, “hurry up and wait.”
 
To the purveyors of such nonsense, I freely offer the following feedback, “fuck off.”
 
Time, unlike bullshit, is finite. Waiting is a young man, or woman’s, game. Not for those of us of a specific age.
 
However, there are some examples of patience being its own reward for the AARP set.
 
At age 82, Christopher Plummer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
 
At age 77, John Glenn was the oldest person ever to go into space.
 
In his golden years, Albert Einstein once used a $1500 dollar check from the Rockefeller Foundation as a bookmark and then lost the book.
 
Well, that last one might be a step backwards.
 
At age 65, Colonel Sanders discovered he could harden the arteries of millions of otherwise healthy Americans by deep frying fowl. Decades later, the company he founded would invent a sandwich with two chicken breasts substituting for the bread.
 
Unfortunately, these stories of senior success do not go on and on. In fact, I think we are all out. Zip. Nada. Nothing. So, as you can clearly see, being patient is a waste of time. I suggest you get on that phone, call somebody, yell at them at the top of your lungs, informing them that you are running out of time. Tell them it is only a matter of time before you fall and break your hip and that you are tired of doing crossword puzzles to improve mental cognizance. If you are loud and insistent enough, they may just put you in a home with other like-minded individuals. That won’t be so bad, will it. I understand that Tuesdays and Thursdays are tapioca night.
 
 Until next time, America!

So, I am reading Stephen King’s The Stand for the 3rd time. My Captain Tripps history goes back over 40 years, reading it for the first time in 1978. Twenty years passed, and the complete and unabridged version had just been released so naturally, I had to read it again. Thirty years later and and this will be my 3rd time (again the complete version) for Linde Family Book Club (which meets by phone every other Sunday at 4 pm if you’re interested in becoming a member). To say this opus of horror is one of my favorite books is an understatement. To say it is one of my favorite novels, might be. For the record, East of Eden by John Steinbeck is my favorite novel. I hate to get all nitpicky, but I think there is a fundamental difference between favorite book and novel and that’s what we are going to explore today on snob corner. 
 
For sheer literary beauty, Steinbeck’s novel is unsurpassed. The prose is nothing short of hypnotic and the story is so rooted in the human condition that you can’t help but learn about yourself and your fellow man. Grapes of Wrath was once my favorite novel as was Cannery Row but, that is the wonderful thing about favorite authors and novels, they can change depending on age, status or mood.
 
But King’s classic story of good versus evil remains a book I can’t help returning to. The Stand is just a damn good yarn, pure and simple and there is no shame in preferring it over other literary giants. Hey, don’t get me wrong. There is some damn good character work in King’s work as well. M-O-O-N that spells good character work. 
 
I find myself drawn into the story easily because it has one foot grounded firmly in reality while the other languishes about freely in King’s fertile imagination. The Stand is mythic in structure and holds one’s interest from page one. High praise indeed. There are only two other books that I have read as often. Each are about as long and of both, I would say the same things. If you are interested, they are Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien and Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War. These two also happen to share certain things in common. Both are damn fine yarns (one based in history), both are epic in scope and both concern the battle between the forces of good and evil. 
 
So, Linde, what’s the big diff between greatest novel or greatest book? Or are you just a snob? Well, I am definitely a snob but let me try and break it down in just one single one line of King’s prose. 
 
And I am quoting directly here:
 
“Baby can you dig your man?”
 
Do I need to go on?
 
“He is a righteous man!” 
 
I think this one quote sums up my entire argument. It’s not a big deal really. Afterall, the lyric of Larry Underwood’s hit song is merely a device to get Larry from nobody to somebody, to survivor of a global pandemic. However, my guess is the total time it took the author to come up with this lyric must have been a literal nano second. 
 
I am only suggesting that the author of what I consider to be the greatest novel may have taken a bit more time before settling on the above choice.
 
But…
 
When you are concentrating on telling a great story, you do not always have to spend hours finding the perfect words to tell it. Hell, that may even slow you down. The choice merely has to be not so glaring that it takes you completely out of the story. There are thousands of such examples in literally hundreds of Kings’ other stories and yet they are some of the most popular that have ever been written. And, for good reason. Sometimes word (or lyric) choice is not all that important when writing a book that was meant to be read three times. 

​Look, I will be honest, I don’t get offered that much work to turn down. It’s not like producers and directors are beating down the doors of our Windsor abode to capitalize on my writing talent. On the one hand, while it may not be the most satisfying of careers, it certainly makes it much easier when it comes to filing my taxes. Recently, I received an offer to write another ultra, low budget horror film and, gasp, here are the following reasons for me saying no. 
 
I should qualify all this by saying that I have not formally said no but have made a list of demands that will most likely will not be met.  So, just what exactly does it take for J.P. Linde to turn down a job or at least make a list of demands that will never, ever be met?
 
I am glad you asked.
 

1. A script that can’t possibly be saved. Now, I am of a firm belief that almost anyone can find redemption. For the written word, I am not so sure. Sometimes you stumble across something written so poorly, that there is no way you can make it even remotely watchable. Some would say that Axe to Grind is one such script and who am I to argue? Hell, I might even agree. In my defense, I would only say, I had one week, and you should have seen what I had to work with. But sometimes, you come across something that can’t be saved, and you simply have to zip up the body bag and get on with your life.
2. Low, low money. Hey, if I am going to work in the sewers, I want to be paid. Very simple really. I have taken some very lousy jobs, some for even lousier money. But, with each on time completion, I value myself and my work a little bit more and my price goes up. Dave Anderson, comedian, broadcast journalist and radio talk show host, was right. Never fall below what you were paid for your last job. 
3. Full credit for what you’ve done. There are some hyphenates (Producer-Writers) who are resistant to sharing credit. Add to this that the more lacking in talent they are, the worst they are willing to share credit. If they were so damn good, the director would not be coming to you last minute to save the damn thing. Two words. Fuck them!
4. I doubt very much that anyone here would accept a job writing speeches for Donald Trump. It is very much the same when accepting rewrite jobs. If you can’t in good conscience work on it, by all means say so. It just isn’t worth the amount of time wrestling with your conscience on why you took the job in the first place. 
5. Realistic expectations aka silk purse out of sow’s ear. If you are expecting a Golden Globe nomination for The Lighthouse Keeper 2, good on you. Who am I to stomp your dreams all to hell? But when you do come out of the coma, realize that one job leads to another and with each time you open Final Draft, you are getting that much bit better.

 
Okay, that is all I have to say on this subject. I would add a customary you tube video here but to be honest, I am not sure what would pair nicely.
 
Let’s try this.

​Hello all!  I thought we would take a break from me bitching about current events and go over some notable documentaries that are currently streaming. Three out of the four are great and worth a look. Without further ado, let’s get started
 
Belushi (Showtime) Fair and balanced reporting of the life and tragic death of a major comedic performer and star by the people who knew him best. From his early childhood in Wheaton IL to his last tragic days alone at the Chateau Marmont, this accounting never holds back at a career that made such a major impression in television and movie audiences the late 70’s. Definitely worth checking out.
 
The Go Gos (Showtime) A documentary for all those who doubt the contribution of this groundbreaking female band. Even though their contribution to the overall music scene was short lived, their influence continues to live on. This film follows the humble beginnings of these punk wannabes as they form their own band and move from opening act to headliners in what the industry would consider record time.  As with Belushi we do get a fairly good look what sudden fame, drugs and infighting can do to a career. Come for the music, stay for some glances at truly sad examples of plastic surgery.
 
Murder on Middle Beach (HBO). Maddening in that it could have been a bit shorter and that we never truly uncover the true killer of Barbie Beach, instead spending the overall length of episodes merely muddying up the waters of what truly happened. Was it the father? Was it the sister of the victim? Was it the daughter? As an audience we deserve more that, we may never know. What is, however, truly inspiring about this doc, is the work of the documentarian, Madison Hamburg, as the sifts through all of the maddening scenarios of what could have happened. 
 
Fear City: New York vs The Mafia. Finally, a documentary where Rudy Guiliani does not have his hands in his pants. This is an extremely interesting recounting of the fight of a major city to uncover the tentacles to the major crime families and how they were initially brought to justice through wiretapping and the brave men and women of the justice department who live to talk about themselves. Again, easily two episodes and thirty minutes too long.
 

See you all next week!