My good friend Mister Muleboy on his blog The Mouth O' The Mule has been somewhat critical of my lack of productivity recently:I'll be moving on to the films of 1928 within the next day or two.
Hang tight.
Ooooops; wrong blog.
Hell -- wrong blogger!
Things are a little. . . tough right now.
Actually, I've been working on an essay about "Special Achievements in Sound: 1927-1931" which has topped 1500 words so far and shows no signs of ending any time soon, as well as taking a couple of days to work on my next (unpublished) novel and spend some vacation time with Katie-Bar-The-Door.
But promises are not content and so to supply the demand I'll channel my inner Mule for a moment, knock off a quick post and catch you up with what's going on in the world of 1931 (we're well past 1928, my friend):
Herbert Hoover is a fat, insensitive Nero who fiddles while the American Rome burns and yet as a doctrinaire Libertarian I find this strangely comforting. The only thing that would make me happier is if a foreign army were to land on our shores so I could exercise my Second Amendment rights to accidentally shoot my neighbor. Rumor has it that that New York commie, Governor Franklin Roosevelt, is going to run for president next year. If as a result of his leftist meddling, he not only saves democracy but also creates an agency that keeps me employed for years to come, I am going to be so steamed, you have no idea!
It was another dis- appoint- ing year for Wash- ington baseball—first in war, first in peace, last in the American League. Okay, actually we were third but Griffith Stadium is a dump, Walter Johnson is no better a manager than he was a pitcher and Ben Ali is still thirty years away from inventing the best chili dog on the planet, so I hate these guys.
On a positive note, local jazz composer Duke Ellington seems to be making headway with New York audiences. His nightly performances at the Cotton Club are not to be missed and as a Washingtonian (by choice rather than birth), I take great pleasure in his success. Of course, local pride doesn't keep me from digging the work of another Washingtonian (Tacoma, Washington, that is), Bing Crosby, who had ten of the top fifty hits on the pop charts this year and promises to be a force for decades to come, that is unless he does something crazy like hawking orange juice and making Christmas specials on this new-fangled invention, television (it'll never catch on—why sit at home when you can go out?).Haven't been to any movies lately but here's a random picture of a good-looking broad, Anita Page, and because we always enjoy a drive-by comment from the distaff side, Clark Gable.
Hubba hubba.
