Happy Halloween!

Hope you all get to enjoy the festivities this evening! Alas, I'll be stuck bartending tonight in the ever enduring struggle to make my mortgage payment.

Yesterday's bad weather did have one bright spot here on campus, we got a double rainbow for enduring all the rain.

Jaunty!

The pianist Marvin Maazel, uncle of conductor Lorin Maazel, circa 1921 in New York. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

via: http://www.shorpy.com/

The Honeymoon Killers

The Honeymoon Killers (1969) is the result of Leonard Kastle's reaction to Bonnie & Clyde. Have you seen pictures of the real Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker? These were not beautiful people. They certainly looked nothing like Warren Beatty or Faye Dunaway. Kastle wanted to craft a crime movie that avoided ties to Hollywood glamour. So he researched one of the most infamous crime cases of the '40s: the "Lonely Hearts" murders.

Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez killed as many as 20 people in a scheme to bilk lonely women out of their savings. Martha and Ray were finally convicted of murder in three cases and sentenced to the electric chair. Martha was overweight and unmarried and destined to remain that way — until she communicated with Ray through a "Friendship Club." After trading letters with him for several weeks, they finally met, and it was love at first sight. She gave up her job as a head nurse at a hospital in order to be Ray's constant companion. But Ray's only source of income was in bilking lonely women out of their savings. So with Martha posing as his sister, Ray continued to ply his trade. Martha even watched as Ray married some of these women so that he could get closer to their bank accounts. But Martha's deep insecurity about her looks and her suspicions about Ray's philandering ways sowed deep conflicts, leading to arguments and eventually murder. In the most carefully documented case, Martha took a hammer and crushed the skull of a Florida woman who had drawn her entire savings out of the bank and accompanied Ray and Martha back to New York. Ray then finished the job by strangling the woman and burying her body in the basement of his house. Ray and Martha went to the electric chair while continuing to profess their love.

Kastle wrote a screenplay based on this story and then went shopping for a director. He found a young Martin Scorsese, who had recently scored with his debut feature film Who's That Knocking At My Door? However, with a total budget of only $250,000, Kastle became concerned as he watched Scorsese spend several hours trying to film a tin can in a bush — "It'll create mood," he told Kastle. Eventually Kastle decided they'd quickly run out of funds with Scorsese as director. So he fired Scorsese (!) and began looking for a replacement. He found no one. With the project poised to founder, stars Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler urged Kastle to take over the direction, and with no immediate alternative, he did. Never mind he had no directing experience whatsoever. He was a composer. He knew opera. But Kastle had a vision of what he wanted to see on film and he had the determination to see the project through to its completion.
The resulting movie is one of the most astonishing independent films of the past 40 years. It's uncompromising and brutal. It's stark and unsettling. Filmed in documentary-style in black and white, The Honeymoon Killers looks terrifyingly real. You feel guilty while you're watching it, as if you're peeking through a keyhole and seeing things you were never meant to see. True to his intentions, Kastle did not glamorize crime. He created a perverse and ugly love story that fascinates precisely because it's so perverse and ugly. Shirley Stoler soars in this movie. She gives one of the great unselfish, unglamorous performances in cinema history. (Her subsequent roles were few in number. Most people probably know her as "Mrs. Steve" on Pee Wee's Playhouse.) And Tony Lo Biano is excellent as Ray. (Soon after The Honeymoon Killers, he would star in The French Connection and The Seven Ups, and he would star in one of the best TV crime shows of the '70s, Police Story. But since then almost all of his performances have been in supporting roles.)

Stoler and Lo Bianco are surrounded by several fine supporting performances. Doris Roberts (who now stars in Everybody Loves Raymond) plays Martha's friend Bunny (looking very thin!), who urges her friend to begin writing letters to the Friendship Club. Mary Ann Higby plays a woman 30 years Ray's senior. She's so eager to be with Ray that she does whatever Martha and Ray request. And Kip McArdle plays a pleasant but insufferably upbeat middle-aged woman with a young daughter. She marries Ray and even remains upbeat with Martha prowling the halls of her uncluttered suburban home. In one the movie's most chilling scenes, McArdle confesses to Martha that she is now pregnant with Ray's child, hoping for Martha's advice and fearing that Ray won't want the baby: he was terrified that Martha would even find out the marriage had been consummated. We see Martha's face stiffen and we know things will soon get very ugly.

Strangely enough Kastle never made another movie — but not for trying. However, no subsequent projects ever came to fruition. That's our loss because he shows amazing skill in The Honeymoon Killers.

And now for something a little different....

Not quite 'pin-up', I admit, but the cute expression is rendered so well, I had to include it. By Hector Cedillo.

Ear Ear!

I adore these cute, behind the ear micro pinups from Ben Grillo. How small?!

Furniture hopping

I’ve spent this past weekend playing musical chest of drawers, Having been looking for a perfect 36”w by 36”h mahogany chest of drawers to it into the last available but of free space in my bedroom, I resignedly purchased a slightly larger piece in need of MUCH T.L.C. at our School’s rummage sale (solely due to the price tag of $30.00!)

I then spent Saturday shopping for a similar piece with a friend of mine for his child’s room after turning him green with envy showing off my. new purchase.

On Sunday I visited a new antique co-op I’d heard of but never been to, only to find the PERFECTLY sized chest in PERFECT condition marked down to only $200 AND I was fortunate enough to have another friend with a S.U.V. along to cart it home. Thus avoiding delivery charges

Long story short, three days of shopping, two purchases, many phone calls, two deliveries and one swap out later I find that I am now furnishing my friends home as well as my own. I should be getting a commission for this.

Edson Stroll

Attractive, dark-haired leading man Edson Stroll was born in Chicago in the mid-'30s and arrived in Hollywood just in time for television to have eaten away at most of the opportunities he might otherwise have had. Possessed of a deep voice to go with his good looks, he appeared in Westerns and adventure shows such as Tombstone Territory and Sea Hunt, plus a pair of Twilight Zone episodes, "The Eye of the Beholder" and "The Trade-ins," and the Elvis Presley vehicle G.I. Blues, in an uncredited role. He finally started getting leading parts in films in 1961, but those were in a pair of Three Stooges features, the too-opulent-for-its-own-good Snow White and the Three Stooges (playing Prince Charming) and The Three Stooges in Orbit. From there, his being cast as Gunner's Mate Virgil Edwards in the sitcom McHale's Navy -- playing the resident lothario of Ernest Borgnine's motley crew .

And BTW, YES I would.......

Louis L'Amour, then and now

Would you or wouldn't you?

Body Paintings in a Theater Show

In a theater show performers painted their body and perform in that theater show. Some old characters are painted by these artist. Body Paintings in a Theater Show.


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show


Body Paintings in a Theater Show

Sports Jersey Body Paintings

Sports Jersey Body Paintings. Girls painted in Sports Jersey. it looks real sports jersey. Two photos of each girl is presented here. Hope you enjoy this Sports Jersey Body Paintings.



Sports Jersey Body Paintings. Girls painted in Sports Jersey. it looks real sports jersey. Two photos of each girl is presented here. Hope you enjoy this Sports Jersey Body Paintings.



Sports Jersey Body Paintings. Girls painted in Sports Jersey. it looks real sports jersey. Two photos of each girl is presented here. Hope you enjoy this Sports Jersey Body Paintings.



Sports Jersey Body Paintings. Girls painted in Sports Jersey. it looks real sports jersey. Two photos of each girl is presented here. Hope you enjoy this Sports Jersey Body Paintings.



Sports Jersey Body Paintings. Girls painted in Sports Jersey. it looks real sports jersey. Two photos of each girl is presented here. Hope you enjoy this Sports Jersey Body Paintings.

Vegas, Baby, Vegas

Just got back from Vegas, so what better way to start back on the blog than with two from one of Vegas' finest, Jime Litwalk, who inexplicably works for Hart & Huntington.

You know you've been cataloging waaaay too long when...

...all the numbers you see in the marc record are repeated in your head by the voice of the Count from Sesame Street.

Guess who bought a new Televison......

As well as $200 in throw pillows(yes how far from butch can you get) Consumerism is alive and well within my soul as the construction begins to wind down and my credit cards still have some wiggle room before hitting their limits.....

Vasantham Central

Hello Everyone !!

Immortal Tattoos, Singapore will be featured on Vasantham Central on the 23rd October 2008 @ 10PM

This is the first ever appearance on the media (Locally) by Immortal Tattoos, Singapore.

Do check it out !!

Poll:

Now , how many of us have had relationships end in just this way????

via: http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/

YES! Even shaved bald with a brain transplant scar......

Born Earl Craver in Kansas in 1931, Cal Bolder appeared in several films and a number of TV shows from 1960 to 1968,. After attending college and doing a stint in the Marines, Bolder relocated to Los Angeles and became a policeman. A chance meeting with notorious agent Henry Willson (he gave Willson a ticket, but Willson was too enamored with the size of Mr. Craver’s biceps to care) got him into acting. Mr. Wilson came up with the name “Cal” short for California and “Bolder” to emphasize Mr. Cravers build.

Today, Cal Bolder is perhaps best known for his role in the campy 1966 horror film "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter". from which the picture above is taken. In the late 1960s, Bolder retired from acting and moved his family to Washington. In 2001, he published a novel, Last "Reunion", under his real name E. C. Craver,

Sadly, Cal Bolder passed away on January 19, 2005, from cancer at age 74.

The wicked Stepmother, Would you or wouldn't you?

I must admit to a strange fascination with the wicked stepmother from Walt Disney's "Snow White" I always found her much more attractive than the heroine. I always found Snow white to be much to0 childlike, causing me to look on her marriage to Prince Charming as something bordering on pedophilia......

Burt's literary endeavors........

Miss Emma R. seems to have some issues, as does the educational program of the state of Georgia, if this letter is any result of their training. Still putting all that aside. it is a novel approach, even if it is aimed (but seemingly not wasted) on "Burt Reynolds Sweet Reynolds"

One can only hope that Mr Reynolds was in fact kind enough to send her some candy or "jules".....