Okay, please explain the following objections to me:



and this one as well:



Don't conservatives support the effort to get to the truth of the oil spill in the Gulf? Don't conservatives want to protect those who have served their nation? Please don't tell me it's a matter of fiscal responsibility – the Republican members of Congress during the Bush years went along with raising the deficit. Suddenly, they've got religion?

Photos along the Holyoke Canalwalk

I have to say if I had money to invest in a building I'd do it in the Paper City. Projects such as the Canalwalk – the first phase was opened on Friday – along with the high performance computing center and the eventual return of passenger rail make Holyoke more and more attractive.




Here is a random collection of pipes and turbines that now sits near the Canalwalk. I know it has just been dumped there, but it looks like sculpture.



You see nature reclaiming itself even in the center of an urban complex. This patch of plants hides a waterway flowing from the canal. It looks like a typical wetlands.



Looking toward Appleton Street along the Canalway.

Random Springfield photos



I was at the groundbreaking for the new home for ReStore on Tuesday and couldn't help but wonder if the former Sunshine Arts building, which is next door, could find a new use. It doesn't look like it's in bad shape.



High School of Commerce grad Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno wouldn't cave to the demands of the crowd and wear a Tech High School hat at the groundbreaking of the new state back-up data center at the Tech site. Maybe, though, he didn't want "hat head."



I was walking down Bridge Street and spotted this display at a beauty school. It looks like a special effect from an Indonesian horror film. Can you imagine working in the factory that produces plastic heads and hands for these displays? How wonderfully bizarre.



As part of the sidewalk on Bridge Street is this relic of the past. Max Zeller was a successful furrier who had a long-time store on Bridge Street. Zeller is long gone as is his store and the popularity of fur coats.

More fun with mug shots

From today's e-mail, a posting from Sgt. John Delaney of the Springfield Police Department:

"The Springfield Police Department Narcotics Division under the direction of Sgt. Neil Maloney and Sgt. Martin Ambrose conducted an investigation on Cocaine sales coming from the Forest Park address located at 16 Cloverdale Street. The investigating detectives determined that a Kevin Wilson age 38 of 16 Cloverdale Street was living in the dwelling with his girlfriend Damaris Ortiz age 33 and they were dealing large amounts of Cocaine by making 'deliveries' of the illegal narcotic all over the 'City of Homes.' The dwelling was held under surveillance and the officers observed Wilson on several occasions make deliveries in his Taurus and he would bring his two children, age 9 & 10 while he dealt Cocaine to waiting customers in different parking lots located in Springfield.

"Yesterday at 7:00 P.M. the surveillance officers observed Wilson leave his home with his two kids and proceed to drive to the parking lot of "Friendly's" on Sumner Avenue and make a Cocaine sale to a waiting customer. They observed the 'Father of the Year' (its almost Fathers Day) leave the car and make the sale while he left his two kids in the car. The detectives then followed him to Island Pond Road where he made another sale. After the sale they followed Wilson to Wilbraham Av. where they attempted to pull the vehicle over. When Wilson spotted the cops he attempted to swallow the remaining Cocaine. The officers tried to stop the cocaine from being swallowed and Wilson resisted the police in front of his kids. The police retrieved 4.5 grams of Crack Cocaine and he was arrested. The detectives then returned to 16 Cloverdale Street with a Search warrant where they arrested the girlfriend and found the following items ...
85 grams of Cocaine
$3,000.00 in cash
.9mm semi-automatic handgun fully loaded
packaging material
scales and drug paraphernalia
Arrested are......
1) Kevin Wilson age 38 of 16 Cloverdale Street
2) Damaris Ortiz age 33 of 16 Cloverdale Street ...charges....
a) Trafficking in Cocaine 28-100 grms
b) Violation of a Drug Free School Zone
c) Poss. of a Firearm
d) Poss. of Ammo
e) * Wilson is charged with Resisting Arrest
f) * Wanton/Reckless Behavior, risk of injury to child
The children were taken to the Police Station where workers from D.C.F. arrived at station and took custody of the kids.
Both defendants will be arraigned in Springfield District Court today."




wait for it

If you don't understand it right now, please realize we are seeing a true environmental apocalypse in the Gulf, one that will affect the world for many years to come and create a refugee problem as people, unable to work, must leave and seek work and housing elsewhere.




Security should be in the hands of law enforcement or the National Guard, not rent-a-cops and goons.





This might be the moment in American history at which we have the kind of revolution that Thomas Jefferson wrote was necessary for the health of the Republic. If the Tea Party types were actually serious about fundamental change, if the Progressives were serious about change, this insane corporate/government clusterf*ck should be the trigger.

We can lay this at the feet of the federal government. Consider this : "In 1995, both houses of Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (S.395), which granted a royalty "holiday" to oil and gas companies drilling in government-owned deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico for leases sold between 1996 and 2000. Specifically, under the program, companies would not have to pay the normal royalties except when market prices reached $34 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet for natural gas. At the time, oil and gas prices were fairly low, and supporters of the bill argued it would provide an incentive for petroleum companies to drill for oil and natural gas inside the U.S." Sourcewatch

Always remember that Bill Clinton was just Republican light.

That was followed with "In 2005, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6). which included a variety of provisions to provide royalty relief to oil and gas companies. Environmental and taxpayer groups criticized the legislation. Sara Zdeb, Legislative Director of Friends of the Earth, criticized the legislation as it came out of conference, saying, 'the bill hands over billions in taxpayer dollars to America’s worst polluting industries while shortchanging renewable energy and energy efficiency—proven solutions that reduce our dependence on oil.'[7]"

Another shot from the Bushies: In 2006, Congress passed and the President signed the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), coauthored the plan to open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico and share 37.5 percent of the new royalty revenues, dedicated to coastal protection, with Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. An additional 12.5 percent will be dedicated to the state side of the Land and Conservation Fund, which funds the acquisition of parks and green spaces across the country.[8] An industry-led coalition called the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security applauded passage of the bill and claimed that they “played a prominent role” in winning its passage.[9]

"Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program criticized the legislation:
'America is already the third biggest oil producer in the world. The problem isn’t that we produce too little oil – it’s that we consume too much, using one of every four barrels of oil in the world each day. The smartest way to break our reliance on oil is to increase fuel economy standards and invest in energy efficiency measures and mass transit... Left to their own devices, oil companies will just keep drilling in environmentally sensitive federal land and offshore areas, and fueling their corporate wealth in the process.'"[10]

This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is corporate short-term greed. They don't care how they make their money, as long as it is made.

A pivotal scene from "Metropolis" and a fascinating glimpse behind it.

The wait was well worth it

The absolute joy of being a film fan is seeing something you never thought you would ever see. That’s why I’ve been going to Cinefest for 20 years or so – so I can sit in a hotel convention center and see films that are unlikely ever to appear on DVD or be run on television outside of a 3 a.m. showing on Turner Classics.

Back in the 1980s, I used to attend informal gatherings of several film collectors who had acquired 16mm prints of films discarded from television stations or other sources. There was a thrill of seeing something that was an unknown commodity – a thrill that turned sometimes or horror or boredom as you realized a film had deserved its obscurity.

There are plenty of “lost” movies – movies that are no longer easy to see because all prints have been destroyed or literally been lost. Most of the films of the silent era are gone. They have decomposed through the use of the unstable nitrate film stock or they were actively destroyed to make room in vaults for more contemporary films – films with a value for re-release.

Film fans who are younger than 50 or so don’t realize that especially in the era before television studios re-released popular films to new audiences. A movie such as “King Kong” or “Gone With the Wind” had multiple releases. There was an earning potential with these films.

But silent films? Outside of a handful of archives and specialized theaters there wasn’t much demand. It’s little wonder that so many silent films were “lost.”

The output of one studio, FBO, has vanished aside from just a few titles. Merged and molded into RKO for the sound period, the silent films of FBO were destroyed.

There is a romance about these lost films. Will they ever turn up? Will they hold up to the legend that surrounds them?

There is the Holy Trinity of lost movies, “Greed,” “London After Midnight,” and “Metropolis.” Erich Von Stroheim’s eight-hour cut of “Greed” will undoubtedly never be seen, largely, I think, because the studio cut the film down to a standard length and probably trashed the footage immediately.

Perhaps “London After Midnight” will emerge one day. There are still quite a number of Lon Chaney Sr. fans who would love to see this early depiction of a vampire.

“Metropolis” suffered a fate like “Greed,” in which studio politics took an important work away from a filmmaker and altered it. What’s worse for a work of art – to disappear completely or to exist in a truncated form?

Until the release of the Giorgio Moroder restored version in 1984, I never even tried to watch it despite the fact it was in the public domain and fairly easy to find on cheap VHS.



Some purists might have condemned Moroder for his use of rock music – I think his choices suited the film well – but he was the man who started the rehabilitation of the film and its rediscovery by a new audience and I certainly thank him.

When the restored version of 2002 was released I was privileged to see it in the former Columbia Pictures screening room in Manhattan. I sat there knowing I was watching something no one had seen since the film’s release in 1927.

Not quite.

While that restoration was done with the best material and research available at the time, the newly released restoration is indeed – with the exception of just one or two scenes – director Fritz Lang’s movie.

Not only are scenes long since missing from a near complete 16mm print of the original cut of the film, but for the first time researchers had a blueprint for the editing of the film. While the shooting script certainly gave indications of what scene went where, the final edit, since the studio, UFA, had destroyed it several weeks after the release of the film in Berlin, remained unknown.

Lang was quoted disowning the film and I can’t blame him. Lang apparently never watched the film again in any of its forms – he died in 1976 well before the Morodor version was released.

Was all the effort to find and restore the film worthwhile? Yes, it was as my friend Mark and I discovered recently when we traveled to Boston to see the film at the Coolidge Corner.

The movie as a whole stands a remarkable work. Its visuals are outstanding and amazing on the big screen.

Its theme that the heart must be the mediator between the hearts and the hands – we must remain spiritually connected in the face of technology that can dehumanize us – might seem to some as amazingly hokey, especially from a movie maker known for his gritty American film noir work.

Perhaps its my age or my prejudice to like this movie, I found its message, however simplistic, to have real meaning in today’s virtual world.

Despite its length of two and half hours, the film moves along in its new edition at a good pace. Finally we have the entire story, which makes perfect sense, and we have a complete vision of a future world in which technology certainly has outstripped society’s ability to cope with it.

While some might chuckle at the class struggle depicted in the film – H.G. Wells gave a negative review of the film at its release for its “foolishness, cliché, platitude, and muddlement about mechanical progress and progress in general” – I don’t think we’re all that far away from the kind of divides we see in the film with today's erosion of the middle class and the growing poverty in this country.

The acting in the film drew laughter at some points. That’s to be expected, as the style of acting here is radically different that what audiences are used to today. I do think Brigette Helm did a tremendous job as the virginal Maria and her out of control robotic counterpart. And nearly all movie mad scientists owe much to the archetype created by Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Rotwang.

Although the original symphonic score is appropriate in the film, it didn’t serve the erotic dancing sequence very well. A more contemporary score would have been better there. That quibble is quite minor.

If you have the chance to see the film in a theater by all means do so.

My current state of mind during a double layout week. Calgon take me away!

I love the press releases I get from Springfield police spokesperson Sgt. John Delaney. Here is one I received today:

"Yesterday at 1:39 P.M. an 82 year old female city resident was pulling into the "Bank of America" lot located at 1316 Carew Street. The female was driving her car into the lot to do some banking. Her windows were open because of the heat. The elderly female victim parked her car when an unknown male approached her on the passengers side window. The unknown male asked the female victim if she knew where the Springfield Plaza was? As she turned to point to where it was the thief reached into her car and stole her purse containing $50.00 and all her ATM cards. The thug then ran to a waiting silver colored Jeep Cherokee and fled. There was a witness in the lot who observed the crime and jotted down the plate number. There were three people in the Jeep. The car fled towards Chicopee. Bank employees assisted the victim in canceling her ATM card and the police were called to take the report. As the bank was canceling her card they received information that someone was trying to access her account from an ATM on Springfield St. in Chicopee. The ATM was located at the Honeyland Farm Store. (Later, an employee of the Honeyland stated that all three subjects from the Jeep tried to use the card and one of them told the clerk that their mother gave them the ATM and to buy anything they want. The alert clerk didn't buy this garbage and threw the scum out). The Officers in Springfield broadcast a "lookout" for the Jeep and Officer Edwin Vasquez of the Springfield Police Departments "Ordinance Unit" spotted the Jeep traveling down Newbury Street. He pulled the car over across the Chicopee line. Chicopee PD came to assist and the trio was arrested. The victim made a positive ID. The video at Honeyland Store shows the three brain surgeons trying to use the stolen credit card. The victim ID's and money were recovered in the Jeep. Great job by the victim, the witness, the bank employees and the Springfield and Chicopee P.D. Let hope they throw away the key on these three......
1) Brenda Manchino age 21 of 29 Los Angeles Street
2) James Gelinas age 18 of 29 Los Angeles Street
3) Joseph Martinelli age 19 of 236 Springfield Street, Chicopee ... charges ...
a) Larceny from a Person Over 65 years of age
b) Receiving Stolen Property
* Martinelli had Cocaine on his person (shocking, I know) he was charged with the Poss. of Cocaine also."

And now the best part, the mug shots!






Wait for it...

An ode to growing older, yet another year

It’s just a few days from my 56th birthday and I feeling rather introspective.

The reasons are many.

I don’t believe I’ve succumbed to middle age craziness, but I do realize that certain things in my life and personality have changed.

Now I’m very lucky – now that’s the dog! My wife of 31 years still likes me. Loving someone is a lot tougher in the long run if you don’t actually like the person to whom you’re married. My foster daughter and my granddaughter care for me, as does my nephew Douglas. My other nephews, although fine young men and I never really much of a chance to build a relationship.

I’ve got a good relationship with my brother.

I’m gainfully employed doing something I like and, despite what some co-workers think, I’m actually good at – oops, dangled my participle. Our credit card debt is low. We’re paying the bills more or less on time. I’m appreciative of the blessings in our life.

But I do have some issues.

I have a decreasing tolerance for unnecessary bullshit. Now let’s face it everyone faces necessary bullshit at work and in the family – the situations in which you close your eyes, grit your teeth and move on because you have to. As a younger man, I always took it on the chin, but now I’m more apt to sift through the unnecessary and necessary and say something.

My tolerance is waning. The following thoughts frequently run through my mind:

Why do you insist on mistreating animals? Why play that damned music so loud I can feel it? Why throw your bag of fast food wrappers on the street? Why look me in the face and lie and know that I realize you’re lying? Why have children when you can’t care for them?

Why do you invoke Christ’s name, but behave as if you’ve never read the Bible? Why do you think supporting hate is something He would have approved of? Killing in His name is acceptable?

Why do so many people squander the life and opportunities they’ve been given? Why do people who are young really and truly believe that youth trumps age and experience?

Why do so many of the people in power actually do something to help make things better rather than support the corporate status quo?

Now the last 31 years of my life have gone by in a frickin’ flash and time is accelerating. I can feel it every week getting just a bit faster.

I’ve got stuff to do. Books to write. Places to see. Seegars to smoke. Wild Turkey to think about drinking. Movies to enjoy. Friends to cherish. Every minute of my life counts more and more and more.

That’s why at age 56 – almost – I just can’t stand the petty crap I’m forced to wade through on a daily basis.

Perhaps I do have some sort of middle-aged craziness. Ah well, I plan to have a very large piece of cake, a beer and a smoke on May 29th and screw ‘em.

One of the eight cats, DG, likes to keep me company when I write. Here he is at about 6:30 this morning as I was trying to meet all of my deadlines today. I wish I could have slept a bit more myself.

Catching Up
It's been a very busy month so far and frankly I've been boggled. if I'm not working for the newspapers, I've been trting to catch up at home and battle a frequent fatigue.

But I've done a few fun things, such as attend the graduation ceremony for the current class of the Center for Cartoon Studies thanks to my pal Steve Bissette who is a much loved instructor there. I've had the pleasure of lecturing at the school several times and I am constantly amazed at the high level of work I see. Some of the senior thesis projects I saw this past weekend on display were truly ready to published – very polished, professional pieces of work.

There's a lot of talent at this school and I can see why Steve loves teaching there. Seldom have I seen a school/business environment where there seems to be so much genuine support and respect among faculty and students. This certainly wasn't like what I saw working at a college for seven years.

Evan Dorkin's commencement address was one of the best I've heard: funny, sentimental, blistering real and heartfelt.

Mary, Lucky and I also went on our first fishing expedition on beautiful Beaver Lake in Ware – "Come for the fishing, but stay for the beaver! " – and Capt. Dave on the good ship "Fishing Boat" – he reminded his lovely wife Kim that fishing boats aren't supposed to be clean – caught quite a whopper, as you can see below.



This monster was 50 pounds if he was an ounce. Needless to say we didn't try to get the hook out of his mouth.

I've got a bunch of new movie items that I need to scan. Stay tuned.

My wife has a blog!

Mary and I have been married for 31 years and our relationship can be characterized as one of mutual infection.

That sound romantic, doesn't it?

When we met she had no idea about who Max Fleischer was nor was she educated in the lore of obscure exploitation cinema.

I thought her father was speaking a foreign language with his Scottish accent and Glasgow slang.

Now you can quiz Mary on bizarre film stuff – remember this is a woman with a personally inscribed poster of "Insemenoid" from both the producer and director – and she's pretty impressive. Quick, who is the director of "The Corpse Grinders?" She'll shoot back "Ted V. Mikels." She's met Ted as well.

And me? She's says that I'm more Scottish than she is at times. I've certainly embraced her culture and heritage.

One divide remanded, though, between us – blogging, Facebook,etc. She is now on Facebook and now she is blogging about her scrapbooking activities. She used to make fun of scrapbooking – she has been an active cross-stitcher for years as well as a beader – but couldn't get into the rapidly growing hobby.

That's right, Mary was a hobby snob.

Then something clicked and, whoosh, she's into glue dots, and pages, and stamps, and embossing and make and takes and – you get the picture.

Now she is blogging about her scrapbooking, so she has succumbed to another of my dark sides. I wonder what I will have to learn about?

Check it out.

Why I love W.C. Fields




Fields was perhaps the only American comic who had a sequence in a major studio film gags centered around a blind person

I spent a good part of my recent vacation at the Cape finished the best book – and I think I've read them all – on the life and career of W.C. Fields.

Thankfully many of his films have made it onto video, although in collections, rather than single releases. I hope younger film fans take to time to discover this true American original.

James Curtis's book explodes many of the myths surrounding Fields, such as his hatred of kids, his drinking habits and his general reputation as a curmudgeon. Instead through many interviews and his own letters a far more complex portrait emerged of a hard-working self-made man who understood his comic gift and fought very hard to bring his vision forward.

Go out and find this book if you're a Fields fan.

I've always been attracted to people who are individuals. They don't follow trends. They don't make themselves over into something widely accepted. They stand and fall on their own merits.

Fields certainly falls into that description. He could employ slapstick, but it never seemed stereotypical. His drinking jokes were unique and his views on American families were not like any other. There was no other comic with a point of view such as his.

Like Keaton, I think Fields would find a pretty wide contemporary audience if his films were given a chance. The two were very popular among the college crowd in the 1960s and '70s and I think a revival would be successful.

The first film star I ever interviewed was Buster Crabbe, who was quite gracious to me. I remember being so nervous I could barely stop my leg was bouncing as I spoke to him on the phone. Crabbe worked with Fields on "You're Telling Me" and said he was just like his screen image in real life. At the time, I thought what Crabbe meant is that he was a guy who drank too much and disliked children and dogs – the short-hand image Fields grew to have. Yet if you watch the film – one of his best – he plays a well-meaning family man who eventually triumphs despite his many short-comings.

After reading this book, I prefer my latter interpretation.

I spoke this week to students at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont on public relations, marketing and media relations issues. I offered my services because what I have seen is the average person involved in some sort of creative pursuit is more than likely at the mercy of someone else when it comes to getting the word out on a product.

Today one can create comics, a prose book, movies or music much much more easily with the advent of the new digital technology. While some futurists would like people to believe the Web and the social networking sites now allow greater exposure for alternative or independent efforts – they do – the playing field is still not even.

Having a Web site and a Twitter feed is not enough.

It takes a multi-tiered concerted effort to find an audience for a product and to create a brand. Using everything from personal selling at conventions to considering ad buys to support a product or appearance is all part of the mix. What I have seen and experienced, each creator needs to have a very active part in this process.

The following is an outline I used for the class. I'm happy to answer questions from people as this was a two-hour class. Post here or e-mail me at mdobbs at crocker.com.

Why make a concerted pr/marketing effort? Competition for entertainment dollar and justified paranoia: don’t trust your publisher to take care of you.

1. Who are you? What is your product?

Can you describe it in 30 seconds – elevator pitch?

2. Secret of success is in knowing your product and yourself. Where does your product fit in?

For example, I discovered my animation magazine did not sell particularly well in comics shops, for example. Although one might think this was a legit market, I discovered comics fans are not necessarily cartoon fans. I fared better with regular bookstores.

Where would your product best fit in? Who is your audience? You must do research to make sure that where and to whom you present your product

Essentials: Prepare yourself for personal marketing. If after your pitch, if someone expresses interest. Be prepared. Have a business card. Can you put your book as a PDF on a CD? A CD is easier to have in pocket or purse than your book.

Importance of having a blog and a web site with your name in the URL. Naturally be on Facebook and Twitter. The easier it is to find you, the better.

Remember: You are the brand. Properties come and go, but you need to be known.

3. You must fit your product with the right audience. To do so, you must do research.
Example: My experience with my project with Steve Bissette, "The Year in Fear Calendar" was a failure on EVERY level because I trusted the publishing staff and their premises and because I didn't do my research. We found out comic book shops in 1991 weren't interested in something like a calendar. We sold 125 of a 2,000 press run. Next I discovered our calendar came out too late for regular stores to consider buying. Its huge size and lack of a hole – and of course it was laid out not as an effective calendar with the days of the week – would have made it a challenge for any retailer to display.

Much of this pain could have been avoided if I had done my research.

4. Let’s talk about the first level of pr/marketing – conventions.
Research is important. Is the convention the right one? What is the price point range of the audience? Don't waste your time trying to sell comics at a Star trek convention for example, or have really expensive items at a small regional show.

Have a range of items and price points. Can you have a $2 or $3 item on the table as well as a $12?

Conventions teach how to sell. Improper way: sitting at table not paying attention to potential customers – drawing, writing, yakking. Right way is to engage customers and to have right price points at right prices.

5. Next step: spreading the word.
Again research is important. Where do you publicize your product?

What is the news significance of your product? New book from acclaimed artist? First book? Good reviews?

Reviews: how to you get them? Do you know someone whose name would help sell your book? Seriously, use them! Think about handing out copies at cons to well known types. Always include business cards.

Check out the following web sites for their submission requirements:

http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/

http://comics.ign.com/

http://www.bonafidecomics.com/

http://www.tcj.com/

http://www.csnsider.com/

http://www.cbgxtra.com/

Podcasts

www.comicspodcasts.com

http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/


http://www.ifanboy.com/

Do your own podcast and videos to promote appearances, conventions, etc.

To get stories in the mainstream press, you need a hook or a reason for the story: local artist, first book, second book, won award, lauded by critics, etc. This is where a good review can come in handy to sell an editor on doing a story.

First, find out the right editor to send material and what they want and how they want it. Look at web site or call.
Prepare materials according to instructions.

What’s the best press release? A one-page document that answers the questions of who, what, when, how and why and spells out the hook of the story.

Send materials and follow up several days later with phone call. Be polite.

6. Advertising
It’s important to realize that even the best free marketing campaign should be supplemented by advertising.

Put an advertising page in your books that lists other publications of yours and how to buy them. Consider trading ads with other creators.

Consider forming advertising and distribution collectives with other like-minded creators. Create a pool of money and look for logical ad buys to promote books and appearances.

Remember basic rule of advertising: smaller ads that appear regularly have more impact than big one-shot ads.

Promotional items – "freebies" – ideally should not be free. One of the CCSers prepared a sampler that sold for a $1. They gave it away to key people but sold the rest at a price point that allowed people to take a risk without much risk – great idea.

© 2010 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Scenes from the Cape



Sitting on the beach of our timeshare, enjoying a book, a seegar and an adult beverage, the Fat Man forgets about deadlines, advertisers and politicians.





At Jack's Outback 2 in Yarmouth Port, I encounter a mind-boggling breakfast, stuffed french toast. We go to the eatery because Rachael Ray featured it in her book "$40 a Day." We later find out this isn't the original restaurant nor owner, who lost his lease, and the subsequent owners have used his name. The food was good, though and affordable.



The Edward Gorey House is a great museum dedicated to the life and work of the acclaimed late artist. He lived in this house in Yarmouth Port from 1986 until his death in 2000. If you're a fan of his work, this is a must see. For more info go here.





Mary always takes a wade at the Cape regardless of weather. Here, her toes take a dip near the Cape Cod Canal.

Kane Richmond is behind the mask – something the Shadow of air and print never wore

At last, the Monogram Shadow films

I'm not sure how many people today have actually realized at the enormous shift in popular culture that has happened since the success of the Christopher Reeve Superman film and the first Star Wars movie.

In the case of "Superman," the success showed there is an adult audience for material once viewed as just for kids. My friend, veteran movie producer Richard Gordon, once observed how the major studios shifted their feature films to the subject matter once reserved for B-movie and independent films:science fiction, action, horror and adaptations from comic books, pulp novels and radio shows.

"Star Wars" showed the power of the modern merchandising and the enduring ability of a "cult" film to grow a loyal audience.

One would think given today's producing standards, movie makers would have jumped at the chance to bring the successful Shadow character to the screen. The Shadow novels were very popular and the weekly radio show endured over two decades.

A property such as that was not considered "serious," by the big studios then and The Shadow was relegated to an unsuccessful feature made by Grand National, a Columbia serial and then three features produced by Pathe and released through Monogram.

I have several stills from the films (which I will post once I return from vacation) and as I'm a big fan of Kane Richmond, I have been wanting to see them for a long time.

Thanks to a dealer at Cinefest, I now am the proud owner of the three films and they are amazing – in the wrong way.

The casting is fine as Richmond was a veteran B movie hero. If the screenplays had called for it I'm sure he would have made a great Shadow. Instead he was called on to spend most of his time as Lamont Cranston, the meddling nephew of the police commissioner, who insists in solving mysteries before the police can. He and his girlfriend Margo Lane were transformed into a B movie version of Nick and Nora Charles – squabbling and cracking wise.

Although Burbank is a minor character in the first film, "The Shadow Returns," he is the only Shadow associate except for Shreveport the taxi driver who is carried over from the novels or radio show. There is no mention of The Shadow "clouding the minds of men" nor does Richmond ever look like The Shadow with the piercing eyes, red scarf and hawk-like nose.

When he is The Shadow, he is sometimes seen as a shadow, implying some sort of transformation and super power, although it is never clear just what is being presented.

The intent in all three films was to present a generic mystery with comic/romantic overtones that could capitalize on The Shadow without actually having to make an authentic adaptation.

That's not to say there aren't some interesting moments in all three movies ( released in 1946). There's a nasty reporter in a very film noir story element in the second film "Behind the Mask" and the overly complicated plot of "The Missing Lady," the third and last film has some very good photography that any big budget film noir would have been proud to have.

But overall they are disappointing, but in my mind they are not as disappointing as the big budget Shadow film with Alac Baldwin. Now those folks should have known better.

© 2010 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Mary and Mike at Bass River Beach, S. Yarmouth, Mass.


Caution Reminder Publications readers. Dobbs uses some blunt language here. Read at your own risk.

On vacation!

Now there is a guy at work who razzes me every time I take time off. He is apparently offended that I have been able to negotiate four weeks vacation time from management.

But I don't actually take vacation very often.

I do take time off, but there is a difference. Usually, I take time off because I need to use it (or lose it) or to accomplish things I can't get done through the weekends.

Right now though I'm actually on a for real vacation – an extended period of time in which I have no work commitments. Well sort of, kind of. I still must write two pieces for the paper this week while on I'm on vacation,

The last time I took a real vacation was in 2006 when we went to Scotland. This year, we're at our time share at Cape Cod and I'm doing basically nothing.

I've got an excellent book on W.C. Fields I'm reading and have a bunch of DVDs to watch. So far I've furnished the three Shadow movies made in 1946 by Monogram starring Kane Richmond as Lamont Cranston. I've wanted to see these for years and will write about them later this week.

We've walked on the beach, ate a couple of nice restaurants and poked around.

I know the odds are when I return to work there will be unnecessary issues I will have to resolve as well as now a backlog of e-mail, etc.

Until then, frankly Scarlet, I don't give a shit!

And yes, this is serious commentary from the most listened to man in talk radio. Hate is indeed easy and clearly profitable for Rush.

Here's another one:




Didn't George W. Bush use executive orders? Go here to check out his bunch

Cinefest Confidential



The truly appealing Colleen Moore in "Orchids and Ermine"


Since 1987, I’ve been making an annual trip (I know I missed a couple of years) to Syracuse NY for Cinefest, a festival of American, primarily, films from the teens to about 1950.

I just got back from this year’s festival, which was its 30th time and it seemed appropriate to think back especially during the four hour drive to and fro on my experiences with the show.

Now Cinefest is perhaps one of the most laid back and non-glamorous film festivals one could ever attend. First, one has to understand the films are from archives and collectors and sometimes are the only 16mm print of a particular movie in existence. The average age of the attendees has got to be about 60 and to keep it running for the future there has been a concerted effort to bring in young film students into the audience mix.

There are some well-known people who attend the show on a regular basis and there have been a number of special guests, but this is not a show for the paparazzi. This ain’t Sundance, folks.

Unlike many of the people I encountered at Sundance when I went in 2004 – never again! – The people who come to Cinefest are here to see movies. Yes, there are deals being made – collectors buying prints from one another – but that’s about it.

The show has dealers’ rooms that routinely have closed tables. You see, the dealers go to the movies as well. The dealers’ room is one of the best of any show or convention I’ve seen. Routinely I’ve found great stuff there.

This year, I walked away with DVDs of Kane Richmond’s Shadow movies from Monogram, some silent cartoons, a biography of W.C. Fields I didn’t have and a poster of one of Richard Gordon’s films I didn’t have.

The movies are always a crapshoot. You never quite know what you’re going to find.

The folks who run Cinefest don’t care much for horror or science fiction. Animation is something they must despise. They run plenty of shorts subjects, but never a cartoon. I once volunteered to do my Fleischer slideshow for them and was politely told the Cinefest audience wouldn’t care for it.

You’re not apt to see exploitation films, although I did see once a real corker of a film about how Mormons were hypnotizing English girls to be their wives!

Some years the movies are truly memorable and you walk out of the auditorium saying, “Damn! I want that movie.” Of course it’s unlikely you’ll ever see it again.

For instance, several years back I was able to see a print of a Conrad Veidt film called “The Last Performance.” It was an incredible film and it was probably one of the few prints in existence. Of course, it is highly unlikely it will ever be on home video.



The cast and crew of "The Last Performance."

That’s why I go to Cinefest – to see something that I can’t see anywhere else.

My first trip to Cinefest was a day trip. I was then a friend with a guy who corresponded with producer and archivist Alex Gordon. Alex was at Cinefest – he was a loyal attendee – and my then-buddy Ray wanted to see him. So Ray and I and two other guys drove the four hours. I was immediately mortified when one member of our party looked at Alex – who knew Bela Lugosi well and his brother Richard produced two films with Boris Karloff – and asked him who was the better actor. He was a Lugosi fan and thankfully Alex dodged his idiot fan boy question.

I remembered buying a ticket for the day and watching at least one film before we piled back into the car for another four-hour haul back to Springfield.

I was impressed with what I had seen and kept coming back.

The best thing, though, to come out of Cinefest has been my friendship with Richard Gordon, who has been an influential mentor to me, whether he knows it or not!

My wife has gone once and we had one of the best dinner parties of our lives there with Richard Gordon and two of the directors with whom he worked: Radley Metzger and Norman J. Warren. These guys were hilarious and treated my wife like a princess.

I was very happy when my pal Steve Bissette started going. I remember the first year he went simply raiding the dealer’s room for all sort of esoteric Japanese monster movie stuff. Then his wife Marge started going and she would watch for films than either of us!

While this year didn’t have one of those films that proved to be a revelation, I was happy to finally see a Joe E. Brown comedy – “Earthworm Tractor” – Colleen Moore’s delightful romantic comedy “Orchids and Ermine” and a genuine train wreck of a movie, “Peacock Alley,” starring Mae Murray in a failed effort to regain some of her popularity.

I also suffered through a hideous but rare comedy short starring Bert Wheeler of Wheeler and Woolsey fame. They’ll show this crap, but not a Fleischer cartoon?

Ah well, that’s the nature of Cinefest.

© 2010 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Here's the second installment of my report on the New Media Seminar:

First installment of my coverage of the 2010 New Media Seminar



Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers Magazine – a man ahead of his time


Former CNN anchor and now syndicated talk host Lou Dobbs, who delivered the annual First Amendment speech and urged people not to succumb to political correctness and not to tone down their remarks. Would he have approved then of my telling him I think he's full of crap?




Hosts from my 'hood – Bax and O'Brien of WAQY Rock 102



During the talk host rumble, Steve Malzberg of WOR (appropriately on the right) and syndicated host and actor Phil Hendrie frequently found themselves shouting over and at one another. Malzberg repeatedly called the president a "communist."



I really think liberal talk show shots liberal Randi Rhodes and Bill Preiss were genuinely appalled at times at what they heard from the conservatives on the panel.

Once again at the invitation of Michael Harrison I got to be the only local reporter, perhaps the only print reporter who attended his New Media Seminar, his 13th convention for the talk radio industry.

I love the medium and look back on my five years as a talk host – 1982- 1987 – very fondly, despite the low pay – $5 an hour and $1.75 per endorsed live spot. I was the house liberal and as it was during the Reagan years, I received the best hate mail.

My favorite endorsed commercial was for "Cold Stick," a plastic tube that you kept in the freezer filled with anti-freeze. When you had an attack of hemorrhoids you lubed it up and placed it for all natural drug-free relief. Really. I ain't making this up.

When done right local talk is a powerful and entertainment medium. The problem is the large corporations that have bought talk stations over the past 20 years jettisoned local talk for far less expensive syndicated programming. It was great to hear that stations with local talk are making money.

I'm putting together a video of the annual talk rumble, but now here is what I wrote for our newspapers:


NEW YORK, N.Y. – At the 13th annual New Media Seminar, conducted March 19 and 20, radio show hosts and programming executives debated whether or not the local talk show host was a dying breed.

According to William Handel, the talk host who dominates the ratings in the Los Angeles, Calif. market, the era of local radio personalities discussing the local issues that affects audiences is at an end.

Every speaker didn’t embrace Handel’s assertions, though, as many of the attendees believe the survival of the medium is embracing locally originated programming.

Talkers Magazine, the trade magazine for the talk show industry, which is published by Longmeadow resident Michael Harrison in Springfield, presented the two-day convention.

In the greater Springfield area, the stations follow a national model of having local morning host followed by syndicated programming. Bill Dwight at WHMP has the only area weekday standalone talk show from 9 to 10 a.m.

Handel said, “It’s sort of rough to see an exciting medium disappear before our eyes.”

Handel said it is too expensive to operate a station with all local programming.

“To have all local programs is simply an impossibility,” he added.

The practice of stations accepting paid infomercials – something many speakers said was becoming more and more common – marks the “death knell” of radio, Handel said. Handel called the doctors, lawyers and others who buy a half-hour or hour of time to tout their businesses as “egomaniacs” who leave radio when they find the lengthy commercials are not making money for them.

Part of the problem is that radio stations no longer have local or regional ownership as they once did, he explained.
“The mom and pops chose good radio as long as they were making a good living,” he said.

“When done right local radio works,” Handel added.

Handel’s conclusions were refuted by a panel of local talk show hosts from around the country in a spirited discussion led by former Springfield talk radio host Dan Yorke, now a fixture at WPRO in Providence, R.I.

Yorke went down the line of hosts quizzing them about the effectiveness as “revenue agents” who actively work to bring revenue into their stations.

“You should not get before the radio [microphone] if you can’t sell,” Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a long-time New York City talk show host, said. Sliwa is currently heard over WNYM.

Michelle Jerson, who has a relationship advice show on WKXW in Trenton, N.J., spoke of not only meeting with sponsors to help close ad deals but also arranging for special events such as cruises that bring money into the station.

Yorke and the panel noted their local shows actually sell more local ads for their stations than nationally syndicated programming such as superstar Rush Limbaugh.

The hosts also attested to the strength of local radio hosts. Larry Young of WOLB in Baltimore, Md. noted his station has the reputation of being the audience’s watchdog in city hall.

Heidi Harris of KDWN in Las Vegas, Nev. recounted how she effectively questioned claims made in ads for Sen. Harry Reid’s recent reelection bid. Harris, and other hosts at the seminar, said news sources come to local radio talk show hosts because of the decline in the reporting of local news by daily newspapers and television stations.

Throughout the two days, speakers urged seminar attendees to embrace the new technological tools the Internet offers them. Holland Cooke, an East Longmeadow, Mass., native and a radio consultant for McVay Media, presented a list of opportunities for radio hosts from podcasting to blogging to using services such as YouTube and creating products to sell from CafePress.com with no inventory to buy.

Vic Capone, a spokesperson for Apple, noted he doesn’t listen or watch anything in “real time.” He uses iTunes to download movies, music, television shows and radio podcasts and said the millions of iTunes downloads attest he is not the only person with this habit.

Other high tech services the broadcasters heard about included Paltalk that allows hosts to stream video from their studios and manage text and chat rooms with members of their audience for immediate feedback and the Tricaster, a mini-television control board, that radio hosts are using for the easy production of video.

With the opportunities offered by Web services, such as BlogTalkRadio.com – where 10,000 people currently have their own talk radio program with only a computer, some kind of microphone and an Internet connection – the question is how to attract listeners to a show or host.

As many of the speakers said ultimately it all comes down to the broadcasting talent of the host, understanding his or her subject and more importantly, the needs of the audience.

Laurie Cantillo, the program director for WABC in New York, said for a station to succeed it “must be great all the day.”

© 2010 by Gordon Michael Dobbs