The Beautiful Mind, a Beautiful Day, Medical Matters

One of my all-time favorite movies is the 2001 semi-fictional biographical thriller A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe as John Naah, the Novel laureate (Nash really won that award) for economics who went through a serious protracted trial with his schizophrenia.  His"friend"of many years, a hallucination, was Charles Herman, played on screen by Paul Bettany.  The way the film portrays this character...one moment he's invisible and the next he's right up in your face...made a formidable impression on me.  If something like this happened to me, I would be very upset about what was going on in my mind...especially if there were a pattern of repetition to the phenomenon. How could I bring this experience up in conversation, possibly risking in the process being called crazy? In the Bible, following the resurrection of Jesus, his disciples were walking around, largely despondent and discouraged. Suddenly the risen Lord would appear to them out of thin air,  this being the part of the text that threw me back a bit.  I will need to be careful about what I observe in life and how to process and react to it.  I do know that, as far as I can discern, my home is relatively secure with any intruders unlikely to make an unwelcome appearance. So the only feasible alternative is...

Today I went with Melissa to consult with her physician's assistant dealing with the oncology following her 2024 cancer treatment and what the future plans are regarding appointments and procedures.  Also, we went to UF Health at the Oaks Mall where I had a lab blood draw and provided a urine sample.  We're dealing with this cancer ordeal arm in arm, loving and supporting each other through it all. I'm praying for complete healing, acknowledging the Lord's supremacy in everything.  Right now it's April 20th, 2026...let's see where the calendar takes us...

Early A.M. about Awards, War, ''allies", Exercise, Day Ahead

 One of the funniest commercials I've seen lately has a man standing behind a loud microphone on a lit-up stage, in front of a large audience, demonstrating his prowess at being able to access files online, only he seems completely unable to key in the proper password.  He awkwardly glances around, chuckles and grins as the AI-on-duty repeatedly notifies him of his failures, to the consternation of those standing around who will ultimately decide his public-relations career fate. Very funny...and a little sad. Yesterday evening Entertainment Tonight was obsessing on the previous evening's Academy Awards, and how Michael Jordan won best actor for the movie Sinners and ate an In-and-Out hamburger holding his trophy in the left hand. I am determined to stay away from celebrities and their overhyped shows that merit avoidance.  Yesterday I worked on reading a few more pages in Joshua Khan's tedious, depressing juvenile fantasy novel Shadow Magic.  I can't wait to be done with it, to say the least.  This afternoon I have an appointment for some chemotherapy infusion at the UF Health Davis Cancer Pavilion, preceded by a blood lab draw, urine sample and IV line.  Looks like Trump is trying to get other countries to pitch in and help the USA with the Straits of Hormuz, and they're coldly snubbing him in response.  Today it will stay cool outside with nighttime temperatures to dip solidly into the thirties.  May all go well with my family, especially Melissa, Amy, Anita and Keith, regarding their health and feelings.  I'll be returning to bed soon, hopefully to get some good sleep.  I'm not sure what to make of this prolific bombing campaign instigated by the current commander-in-chief, but I think that those countries that are turning their backs on us will have something to answer for what I'm inclined to believe is a wartime betrayal of America and our soldiers.  I think that many of them are rooting for us to lose, so that they can later smugly claim they "told us so".  Well, I at least am confident that I did right in changing my party affiliation.   The late Jim Rohn, in one of his podcasts, made a big deal about urging listeners to spring up out of bed hours before sunrise with purposeful behavior.  I did so this morning, running in place for 8 minutes after I started brewing coffee.  Now I'm finishing this blog article.  Soon it'll be back to bed and loudly growling, snorting and barking Peewee Daisy, with whom I plan to be exceedingly sweet and gentle...

Showed Up at Depot Parkrun, Walked a Lap

 Last night my sleep quality was relatively poor, and I woke up early today...and tired.  After exercising in the living room a few minutes, I waited until after six when Melissa woke up.  She drove us down to Depot Park, a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville.  The temperature was comfortably cool in the upper fifties this morning when the 5k race started at 7:30.  I was prepared to walk it smoother than before, although my speed was slower and I resisted going into a light jog at any point.  The last time I tried this it was a difficult trudge, so I feel I did much better this week.  My goal for future Parkrun ventures should be to walk enough to get a completed effort and get it posted online.  Now it's mid-afternoon and we're waiting for our Publix home delivery...I still have some more exercise, reading and study to come.  Speaking of sleep, I'm looking forward to more rest and relaxation today.  I'm tired of the news, especially that of this war against Iran.  Our friend Ethel stopped by and prayed with us a little earlier...bless her!  In pro golf, The Players Championship Tournament is now in its 3rd round today, and I'm enjoying following it on TV.  Tonight will be the Oscars on TV, with Conan O'Brien doing the presiding. There will be no resetting the clock ahead tonight, since we're already into Daylight Savings Time. Well, it's the birthday for no one I personally know, just NBA star Stephen Curry (at 38).  God bless you all... 

About Will Smith's Incredible Hulk Moment at the Oscars

The Incredible Hulk was a popular TV series in the late seventies and early eighties.  Based on the Marvel comics character, Bill Bixby starred as mild-mannered Dr. David Bannister, a scientist who accidently exposes himself to such an excess of gamma ray radiation that, in times of extreme stress and anxiety, causes his body to transform into a raging monster, the Hulk (played by Lou Ferrigno).  Not exactly Jekyll and Hyde...Robert Louis Stevenson's character actually changed into a completely different personality...the Hulk retains Bannister's moral compass and compassion. It's just out of control, stuck in a fight-or-flight mode...much like that we experience in our own lives when we're under tense and difficult circumstances, became angry or fearful, and our sympathetic nervous system temporarily gains supremacy over our thoughts and behavior.  And although this period may only last for a few minutes, we're often left with the consequences of irrational and antisocial public behavior.  This is what I believe happened to Will Smith at the Academy Award ceremony the other night when he rushed the stage and slapped (and immediately thereafter cursed at) comedian Chris Rock for making one of his trademark insulting offhand jokes, this one aimed at Smith's wife Jada for her shaven head (she suffers from alopecia).  He was already center-stage and under the spotlight, a favorite to win Best Actor for his dramatic performance in the movie King Richard and most likely already was feeling a bit stressed out. Soon after the incident Smith was very contrite and apologetic for his impulsive action, but will continue to suffer its fallout.  Just who is Will Smith...the soft-spoken and congenial gentleman so many have come to appreciate or the creepy violent dude revealed in that unfortunate moment before the world?  Both, I imagine, just as each of us have this duality...I just think most of us, although probably unpleasant to be around in those moments of extreme anxiety and anger, don't resort to physically violent behavior.  Instead, dramatic and sometimes profane language, extreme passive-negative behavior, or a total shutdown from interaction can be common reactions to those experiencing personal Hulk transformations.  I do find the media reactions to it all interesting.  After realizing the other night that the Oscars were going to show because of the Red Carpet pre-ceremony show, with outfit after gawdy, tasteless outfit touted as high fashion, I made it a deliberate point to avoid the awards...finding out about the Smith/Rock altercation later.  The reactions were divided between those praising Smith for defending his wife's honor and those condemning his violence.  And then the media ghouls went to work, digging up items in both Smith's and Rock's pasts and citing things they had said before.  Different celebrities went to work giving their own feedback, and then the ghouls researched them, digging up even more negative news to promulgate over social and mass media.  What a media circus, and a macabre one at that!  

Recently Saw the Movie Dances with Wolves

This past weekend Melissa and I decided to watch a movie at home together.  Being Netflix subscribers, we browsed through what was available and I noticed the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves.  Neither of us had seen it, and I knew it was critically acclaimed and won multiple Oscars, including Best Picture.  So in spite of the fact that it was listed as lasting for more than 3 hours, we settled down to watch it.  Kevin Costner starred in it, directing, co-producing and portraying the protagonist.  Adapted from the same-titled book by Michael Blake, Costner's character was that of Lt. John Dunbar of the United States (Union) Army, whose introductory scene in the Civil War has him lying in a medical tent with his injured foot about to be sawed off.  Somehow he manages to painfully put his boots back on and sneak away, but he realizes that he's liable to suffer a slow death from infection and decides impulsively at the start of a battle with entrenched Confederate soldiers to take a horse and ride to his death in front of their lines.  But miraculously none of the enemy soldiers' bullets find him, and his action spurs his own side to boldly attack, winning the confrontation and resulting in Dunbar getting the best medical treatment for his foot, a promotion in rank, decorations, and the choice of where his next assignment will be. Finished with the war, he chooses the westernmost outpost, deep in the northern Great Plains.  Eventually he is further assigned to a remote post in the middle of nowhere and which has been abandoned.  From here he faithfully performs his duties in solitude until he discovers he is not alone...there are Indians nearby, camped by the creek with many horses and tents.  And from here the story takes off about how this one soldier first confronts, then befriends...and finally joins the Sioux people, complete with buffalo hunts and a battle against their enemy, the Pawnee.  He also finds love among his adoptive people.  But Dunbar knows that the whites will be coming in great numbers here, led by his own Army...and the meeting of the two cultures can only go one way.  The movie's ending as expected is very climactic and I felt that both Blake the author and Costner the director and actor did a great job spinning a very compelling tale...no wonder it garnered those awards.  Still, I have some issues about it to discuss...

I remember, when Dances with Wolves first came out, from its description that it sounded an awful lot like the 1970 Dustin Hoffman film Little Big Man.  In fact, while the later story essentially was independent and stood well on its own, I kept noticing elements of the first movie that were incorporated into it...there seems to have been a lot of derivation going on.  Even the Pawnee Indians were depicted as thoroughly murderous and depraved in both movies.  Which brought me to another problem:  the Pawnee were shown to be collectively and individually bad while the Sioux were just wonderful in every way.  The white Union soldiers, when they finally arrived on the scene (except for Costner's character, of character), were dominated by cruelty, petty greed, fear, and bigotry.  Were these three groups really this distinctly categorizable?  I think not...I tend to believe, and you're free to disagree with me, that within different ethnicities of people there are both the good and the bad, and yes, sometimes the net effect of those different groups meeting one another will result in one becoming dominant, sadly at times even to the point of genocide.  But if I were a descendant of the Pawnee nation I'd really feel like my ancestors were getting a unfair, bad rap from these movies.  Nevertheless, I thought Dances with Wolves was great and Costner deserved all the accolades he received for it.  Still, it was a little difficult sitting through three hours of it...we decided halfway through to take a break and walk around the block...

Tueday's List: Past Oscars Best Picture Winners

With last Sunday night's Academy Awards, I decided it would be an appropriate time to list the past winners for Best Film...the Oscars go back into the silent movie era.  While compiling this list and reviewing the nominees, I noticed that in several years more prominent movies were nominated but relative unknowns won the award.   One of the more famous older movies, All Quiet on the Western Front, was a silent film that depicted World War I and its horrible trench combat from the perspective of ordinary German ground soldiers...I managed to see a little of it when TCM showed it last week and have placed it high on my list of movies I need to watch.  Then again, all of the below are most likely good movies...well, most of them I'm sure.  After each movie on the list I indicated whether I saw it in full or in part, followed by a 0-5 rating scale...you can see by the scarcity of "saws" that I'm not exactly what you'd call an avid movie fan.  I noticed something funny on the list: my longest stretch of Academy Award Best Picture winners that I haven't seen is for ten years, and it's the last ten years!  Yet I've watched my share of movies in theaters lately, and some of them had been nominated during this period...go figure.  So, here's that list of Best Picture winners (the year is for when they came out, not that of the actual award presentation)...

1927-28 WINGS
1928-29 THE BROADWAY MELODY
1929-30 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT...saw in part:5
1930-31 CIMARRON
1931-32 GRAND HOTEL
1932-33 CAVALCADE
1934 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
1935 MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY....saw:5
1936 THE GREAT ZIEGFELD
1937 THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA
1938 YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU...saw in part:3
1939 GONE WITH THE WIND....saw first half:3
1940 REBECCA
1941 HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
1942 MRS. MINIVER
1943 CASABLANCA...saw:5
1944 GOING MY WAY
1945 THE LOST WEEKEND
1946 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
1947 GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT
1948 HAMLET
1949 ALL THE KING'S MEN
1950 ALL ABOUT EVE
1951 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
1952 THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
1953 FROM HERE TO ETERNITY...saw:4
1954 ON THE WATERFRONT...saw in part:4
1955 MARTY
1956 AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
1957 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI...saw:5
1958 GIGI
1959 BEN-HUR
1960 THE APARTMENT
1961 WEST SIDE STORY...saw in part:3
1962 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
1963 TOM JONES
1964 MY FAIR LADY...saw:5
1965 THE SOUND OF MUSIC...saw:5
1966 A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS
1967 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
1968 OLIVER!
1969 MIDNIGHT COWBOY...saw in part:3
1970 PATTON...saw:5
1971 THE FRENCH CONNECTION
1972 THE GODFATHER...saw:5
1973 THE STING
1974 THE GODFATHER PART II...saw:5
1975 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST...saw:2
1976 ROCKY...saw:3
1977 ANNIE HALL...saw:2
1978 THE DEER HUNTER
1979 KRAMER VS. KRAMER
1980 ORDINARY PEOPLE...saw:3
1981 CHARIOTS OF FIRE...saw:4
1982 GANDHI
1983 TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
1984 AMADEUS
1985 OUT OF AFRICA...saw:1
1986 PLATOON...saw:5
1987 THE LAST EMPEROR...saw:3
1988 RAIN MAN...saw:4
1989 DRIVING MISS DAISY
1990 DANCES WITH WOLVES
1991 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS...saw:4
1992 UNFORGIVEN...saw:4
1993 SCHINDLER'S LIST
1994 FORREST GUMP...saw:5
1995 BRAVEHEART
1996 THE ENGLISH PATIENT
1997 TITANIC
1998 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
1999 AMERICAN BEAUTY
2000 GLADIATOR
2001 A BEAUTIFUL MIND...saw:5
2002 CHICAGO
2003 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING...saw:5
2004 MILLION DOLLAR BABY
2005 CRASH
2006 THE DEPARTED
2007 NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN...saw:4
2008 SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
2009 THE HURT LOCKER
2010 THE KING'S SPEECH
2011 THE ARTIST
2012 ARGO
2013 12 YEARS A SLAVE
2014 BIRDMAN
2015 SPOTLIGHT
2016 MOONLIGHT
2017 THE SHAPE OF WATER

Rock and Roll Elitism

I remember as a kid during the 1960s when the Grammy Awards would be shown on TV...and acts like Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, and Henry Mancini would walk away with the awards while the wildly popular rock and roll musicians of the time would be uniformly snubbed...it wasn't until 1967 when the Beatles were finally honored for their song Michelle and the Sgt. Pepper album the following year's ceremony.  But in subsequent years a funny sort of reversal would happen...corresponding to the rise in rock-oriented criticism in magazines like Rolling Stone...in which elitism stemming from music critics would invade this genre itself.  So while progressive groups like the Moody Blues, King Crimson, Yes, and Rush would be making history with their groundbreaking music and other acts like Journey, the Doobie Brothers, the Cars, and Bon Jovi were capturing the allegiance of masses of Americans, they have been largely shunned from admission to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, located in Cleveland, Ohio, was founded in 1983 and began inducting members two years later.  It appropriately took very little time for the musical innovators from the 1950s and earlier like Chuck Berry and Little Richard to gain admittance as well as supergroups like the Beatles and Rolling Stones.  Over the years the membership list has swelled in number...yet several of the inductees do not enjoy anything approaching general popularity and many of those refused entrance were important and extremely popular during their time.  Of the bands I mentioned before, only Rush, Journey, and Yes were inducted...and only just recently, almost as afterthoughts.  True, the Moody Blues are on the list of next year's nominees put out just four days ago, a list also including Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, the Cars, Bon Jovi, Kate Bush, J. Geils Band, Depeche Mode...among others.  The final inductees will be announced in a couple of months, but should I even care whether the Moody Blues, one of my all-time favorite bands, is selected?  And what about the Doobie Brothers, not even nominated...I just don't get this elitism...

To me, the essence of what rock and roll is all about is young folks listening to the records of their music idols and copying out and practicing the songs on their guitars and other instruments until they can completely cover them...and then coming up with their own original music...that's how the Beatles and the Stones got started and it has absolutely nothing to do with professional critics and music historians, noses upturned, sitting on their high and mighty thrones pronouncing their judgments on what is influential and artistic and what isn't.  Rock and roll is the people's music, belonging to the masses, not to an exclusive club of insiders who think and act like they know better than everyone else...

Watching the Grammys Right Now on CBS

I've been doing something this evening I have steadfastly avoided over previous decades: watching the Grammy Awards on TV.  It started at eight and, at this writing, there is still about an hour and a half left.  Late night talk show host James Corden is doing a good job hosting it...so far I've only heard one direct political barb against our new president, with Corden inserting it into an almost undecipherable opening rap/rant.  The nominees, by and large, are the usual bunch of established acts like Adele, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, Alicia Keyes, Carrie Underwood, Kanye West, Justin Bieber, Keith Urban, while a few new ones...most notably (to me) Lukas Graham and Twenty One Pilots, are talented and have some good music out there.  Most of the winners this year are no surprises...literally, they've been announced in advance, maybe so that an astonished, dismayed, and drunken Kanye West won't once again rush up onstage in anger in case Beyoncé fails to win in a category...as a matter of fact, I haven't yet seen our first declared candidate for president in 2020.  But there are a few categories, it seems, that will have to wait for the final announcement...so Trump's successor Kanye may be waiting in the wings somewhere.  As for Beyoncé, she is a consummate, talented performer with a great singing voice; my problem is how so intensely many seem to idolize her...then again, I grew up during the Beatlemania years and some folks were more than a little nuts over them, too.  And sorry, I've never been able to figure out Adele and her popularity...I think Regina Spektor should instead be a number one hits superstar, up for multiple awards. Unfortunately, she seems to be nominated for nothing this year in spite of her great album from 2016 titled Remember Us to Life.  I was very heartened to find out that the late David Bowie won multiple awards, including one for best rock song, Blackstar, which to me is truly the best song from 2016.  He also won for best alternative rock album, also titled Blackstar...

No, I don't care for much of the music being aired here on the Grammys...but I believe that the way this show has been conducted (so far) is far classier and more professionally done than were the MTV Video Awards a few months ago, one of the more unpleasant (putting it lightly) spectacles ever to disgrace my television screen...