Something About James Gandolfini Dying, Men, Loyalty, Abandonment, Betrayal, Love, Madness, And Other Crap

James Gandolfini was a really sweet man, who made it his job to show other guys - usually tougher guys - generally are, too:

In a 2012 interview with The Times, Gandolfini spoke about his role in the coming-of-age film “Not Fade Away” on which he collaborated once again with "Sopranos" creator David Chase. In the film about rebellious rock 'n' roll-minded teenager growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, Gandolfini plays Pat, a father, husband and WWII vet who provides a secure home life to an ungrateful wife, son and daughter. 

“This was an hommage to my old man," said the actor. "My father wasn't as antagonistic [as his character] but he was old school — Brooklyn, cement mason, bricklayer. He didn't understand me or my generation. He took care of his family, took care of his children." 

"What we as children didn't realize is our father was a man who had dreams, aspirations and maybe there were things he wanted to do and places he wanted to go and he couldn't because he had a family," he continued. "When I realized that as a kid, I wished I was a better son."

How many other people, in this Father-hating society, will admit they fucked up? By misreading the previous generation's men, they created chaos from the mistake?

I still fondly recall sharing a piece of pie with my father in a diner, after we'd watched "Cooley High" together, because he wanted me to understand how it was when he came up. (He'd had a heart attack, and his side of the family - who, unbeknownst to me, knew where I was - reconnected us in an effort to raise his spirits.) We talked for hours, about everything, but when it came down to what happened to he and I, my mother - our family - his head sank, hard, and I got an inkling of life's crushing power.

He didn't explain it, in detail, to me. He couldn't. In some ways, he didn't have to.

That intimidating man's body language said it all:

There was nothing he could do - not against the world.

A lesson I, too, didn't take that seriously - until my own family went awry,...

 

And Totally Screwed, Too,...

Life In The Fast Lane - surely makes you lose your mind:

HARTFORD — An attorney Friday compared the Women’s Gifting Table to Yale’s secret societies, while also taking aim at the government’s use of a grand jury to “force” people to talk during its investigation of the table.

 

Norm Pattis highlighted “sisterhood” and “empowerment” aspects of the table guidelines during the second day of a trial focusing on two leaders of the alleged pyramid scheme, as he and attorney Jonathan J. Einhorn continued pushing the “good faith” intent defense for their clients. 

 

Both have said the defendants, Guilford residents Donna Bello and Jill Platt, cannot be found guilty of defrauding the IRS and gifting table members if they felt they filled out tax returns correctly and truly believed monetary exchanges between members were tax-free gifts, not investments. 

 

“It’s not a crime to be misunderstood,” said Pattis, who represents Bello, and said table rules had a “Shirley McClain sensibility.”


Everything, all the time - Life In The Fast Lane, yeah:

Another side of Shirley MacLaine has emerged in a new book. 

Her daughter Sachi Parker says  that during a bizarre episode in the 1970s, Shirley was all for her losing her virginity. 

In a shocking memoir released this weekend in America, Lucky Me: My Life With – And Without – My Mom, Sachi says that the 78-year-old actress took little interest in her life until she was 17. 

Then, she and her boyfriend, Brad, were invited to the star’s California beachfront flat where she claims  she met Shirley’s sex therapist friends, Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen. 

Sachi says Phyllis told her mother: ‘It would be a fabulous opportunity for Sachi, to have her first introduction to sex with all of us here as a support group. We could talk about it afterwards and validate her feelings.’ 

As Sachi flushed with embarrassment, she says her mother declared:  ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. We’re all here to help you, sweetheart.’ 

Now 56, Sachi says that helpless to oppose the three ‘powerful’ adults, she ‘felt like Mia Farrow surrounded by the satanists in Rosemary’s Baby’ and they watched as she and Brad left for the bedroom.


Though I live for moments like this, we've been down this road too many times before. Let me guess:

Shirley denies everything, so no one will press further, Goodnight.

It's the NewAge:

Get used to it,...

Just Another Day Hanging Around The House With Cults

Just Don't Say That Word

"[Kathy Griffin] slayed the audience with a brand-new act that leaned heavily on Scientology skewering material. You see, one of Kathy's best friends was a Sex and the City writer/producer named Judy Toll, who died in 2002 from complications of melanoma. Toll joined Scientology in an attempt to network with bigwigs in the entertainment industry, but then swiftly realized that she needed to get out as fast as she could. Only prob? Anyone seeking an exit sign from Tom Cruise's House of Horrors needs, according to Griffin, 'a lawyer who specializes in getting people out of cults.'"

- From the website, Defamer

Oh, come now - this can't be true - because, like in Rosemary's Baby, everyone's been working awfully hard to assure me there's no such thing as cults (as a way to "help" me with my "problem"). And/or the cults that do exist are just working in Hollywood, and - ever since my ex-wife, Karine, declared she could walk through walls - I've only been imagining they're operating freely in the San Francisco Bay Area.

That's the whole story, right? I mean, Kathy Griffin's show was in New York, and my friends (all terribly "open-minded" San Francisco Bay Area types) wouldn't lie to me, would they? It's not like I can prove that cults have always like the Bay Area's "open-mindedness",... or anything. Or that the demand to be "open-minded" is cultish in itself.

Or can I?