AH the Casbah! that haven in Algiers

AH the Casbah! that haven in Algiers, where Pepe Le Moko, transcended the North African scene, with his French brand of masculinity, far and away overwhelming Hollywood’s Charles Boyer  suave imitation.

Geronimo into his retirement on the Apache reservation, ignitinghis imagined love life as it could have been, if the sects of the Indians- Iroquois Mohawk  Sioux- had an open mindedness, reconciling their differences, for a scalping against the Devil  , comparable to the blitz toward Bagdad, Iraq…..

(General  Custer’s last stand.)

Parallel to America blockading, strangling the invasion of “Thief of Baghdad’” , the marauders taking safe borders of Jordan Syria aa large oil refinery, emulating the murderous brain neurons behind the 9/111 Ambush, akin to Pearl Harbor, seven decades earlier…

The Cyber Space devil making merry!

                                                                                      II      

Could the enemy be check mated as the Secretary of State articulates the high risk and danger to our way of life, if the Iraqitribes fail to reconcile their differences in time..

“The “Thief of Bagdad ” playing out on the road to Bagdad!

                                                                                     III

Sitting in his teepee, smoking his peace pipe, Geronimo playing out his life, recapitulating the masculinity of the Casbah……..Jean Gabin aka Pepe Le Moko, withnto a French HedyLamarr  in cyber space..

Geronimo remembering how he left the reservation in his Holy Grail quest to find himself. Hadn’t he fait acompli been the  defeat of General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn,  a surreal ambush, the pronounced military tonic of the well splendored uniformed cavalry, trapped by their ownoutlandishness, the Apaches into Rossini’s William Tell Overture, their bows and arrows dusting off Custer and his straight and narrow troops, to lay down their arms and surrender. 

                                                                                IVI

Geronimo’s success at Little Big Horn, spearheaded (forgive the pun) his blazing saddles to the Pacific Ocean, and the  Grail  toWestwood village, outside the University of California at Los Angeles.

Changing his tribal feathers for a student mask at theindoctrination of aggressive frat brothers “hello and good ye”.

A uniform that conformed to the laid back non aggressive pact they made with their “brothers” and “sisters” from sorority row on the other side of their campus reservation at Hilgard andLeCnte Avenues..

                                                                              V 

“Gaslight” was screening at the UCLAN freshman orientation,and thou Geronimo was in  disguise, he thought he could learn more of the white man’s burden, than say Pocahontas, beingncourted by John Arden. Buying a ticket, he became immersed in the housekeeping chores of Ingrid Bergman and her master ,imitated by Charles Boyer.

                                                                             VI

The suspension of time like a flick of a butterfly, streamingacross  sun lit beams, Geronimo scanned  the imagery and  sound track, reveling in the Village’s fresh air, mashing the ticket stub  at the curb.

Bergman later Identifying with Golda Meir(tv), grew bored with the film flack of thespian upscale haunts, met the Italian director Roberto Rossellini…... fell in love, casting their lot on the islandof Stromboli.  A daughter born to their destiny, after the release of their fated  “Stromboli”.

                                                                            VII

Living out the “Grand Illusion” among these WestwoodVillagers, Geronimo recognized the mortality for what it was,hitchhiked to Greyhound and bused back to the Apache reservation, setting up a rendezvous , burning smoke to his kimosabi, Tonto, living the good life, in New York’s uppityuppers in trendy Soho.

                                                                             VIII

Geronimo fired up his twigs, almost as though it was an S O S,to Tonto off his own Lone Ranger career in the Americas: radio being his forte “Hi yo Silver, the masked man (the Lone Ranger) playing out kimosabi to his Tonto, the Indian translating thesmoke  above the City that never sleeps

KICK ASSs, KIMOSABI

“The Thief of Baghdad” is paying  out                                                                            

   June 26, 2014 the City that never sleeps

Mortality Mortality

“Mortality Mortality”, said, the former Met first baseman,  Keith Hernandez, being interviewed on ESPN sports radio.

The impact of the passing at 54, the San Diego Padres immortal, Tony Gwyn. Twenty seasons, batting   338, second only toanother icon, Ty Cobb.

                                                                     II

What hath this manner of an immortal man ?  A tobaccochewing Hall of Fame outfielder,   whose son plays for thePhillies,   across the Continent , in the City of Brotherly Love.

Therefore hence thus a baseball star himself, Senor Hernandezcries “Mortality Mortality,” those tears dripping from his duct,in measuring the  glow of our constellation’s stars, in the end run of a “brother” named Tony Gwyn.

“MORTAQLITY, MORTALITY”

                                                                   III

Meanwhile on Ocean Parkway in the Flatbush section ofBrooklyn, between Avenues L and M, a cardiologist out of   theGuadalajara School of Medicine in  Mexico, was caught off camera, in our digital whir of cyber space, mimicking Jimmy Cagney on  hearing a patient’s storied recovery.

” Staying at the actor’s blue jays  flying squirrels farm house in Free Acres, New Jersey, after a 30 day coma from typhoid fever,when there were no drugs on the market,  to obliterate thedisease. .  

“Kissing up to me , mouthing their dirty confessions to the coppers. You got to forgive me Mom. But those dirty double crossers. When I get out, I’ll even it up. Tit for tat,” mimicking the Cagney dialogue. 

                                                                      IV

Harry, Sam, Jack and Albert’s primitive Warner Brothers studio, several blocks away on Avenue M, the other side of Coney Island Avenue, a hit away for Tony Gwynn, from the BMT local subway station, and the memorable run to Prospect Park and theproud  Ebbets Field, transplanted to the City of Angels ‘sChavez Ravine, a short distance from the Warner Brothers studio in Burbank.

                                                                  IV

“Mortality Mortality!   So help me God”    

June 22, 2014 The City that never sleeps.

Sitting in his wigwam on the Apache reservation

Sitting in his wigwam  on the Apache reservation, Geronimosmoking his peace pipe, restlessly grabbed his smart phone  ‘Ed O’Bannon, a 6’8” basketball power forward out of Lakewood,California, leading the Bruins to the 1995 NCAA championship,energizing coach Jim Harrick’s “five” to their first title, since  John Wooden ‘s yesterdays, his predecessor Wilbur Johns, putting  his alter ego into  Hall of Fame immortality...

                                                                                II

He remembered his own Ed Pauley Pavilion encounter with big Ed O’Bannon, his opening the pavilion door, Geronimo walking back from a lap around the Harry Trotter Ducky Drake track, Geronimo into the peace pipe smoke “sweating out his poisons”, from his retirement  tent , on the Apache reservation.

Ed O’Bannon was into his own sweats, standing at the open door, those deceptive eyes staring at the Apache warrior before him , his role of a power forward in the Bruins reenergized interdependence,  now that the legendary John Wooden  had retired, Harrick on his” wish fulfillment” list, filling the Pope’ssneakers.

                                                                           III

But in that moment at Valhalla, there was a metamorphosis ,these larger than life athletes masquerading, fighting out theiridentities on campus.

Ed O’Bannon’s five years in his role as a student athlete. At 17,still green behind the ears, venturing into the hallowed halls of learning, to become an NBA draft lottery pick, into the big time.An honor not much different that naming the Reseda post officeafter retired Coach Wooden. Yet in O’Banion’s pilgrimage or odyssey as a student jock, he failed to finish his Academics ….five courses unfulfilled…two years in the NBA, seven  as a journeyman in Europe. Five countries   fifteen coaches.

No Halley Comet, yet he felt in his tether, that his mission was becoming more transparent..

                                                                  IV

Fast forward….2009, transcending the Bruin turf, challenging the status quo. That the NCAA was a cartel: a monopolyexploiting student athletes..In  streaming television images and college logos:  a one way street.   Where or where is the mutuality?

The structured March Madness Sweet sixteen, appropriating these student players for the Cartel’s own    drives.. doubledribbles , shooting from downtown, scoring  an inevitable   “ w”, until confronting Ed O’Bannon’s own crusade.. ..

Where was the growth and development for their yearnings ,scorching the  gym’s chords for a Shangrii-la, that fulfilled theirdreams.

That they freaked out for a Frank Capra Jimmy Stewart “It’s a wonderful life” as  all those Ed O’Bannons stormed  the Citadel, treading the tight rope, as they sought to realize their price in the tough white shirt and tie of their elders,  that controlled their data base stats.

A hunger that Ed O’Bannon , standing in that Pauley Pavilion doorway, knew was his fate, as mentors Wilbur Johns and John Wooden knew were theirs.                                                                V

Joining his  crusade in the paint, Bill Russell and  Oscar Robertson  “Prisoners on  Shark Island”: their momentum entering a new phase, in the Federal  District Court of Oakland,California.

Would the female judge identify with the licensing agreements?The sleuth of images on CBS and Turner t v.  Turner streamingthose images into one of their corporate coffers.

Could Ed O’Bannon be Curt Flood in disguise? Suspending time, challenging baseball’s Reserve Clause. Players trapped into seven year contracts,  playing for the same team..

Where was 42? Ucla’s Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey a a St. Louis Cardinal Gas House gang  liberator whose Montagu Streets and Court, in downtown Brooklyn, fertilized  this vibesof Pauley Pavilion to be, those tennis courts, and Babe Ruth inhis camel flannel coat, walking down those freshly cemented sidewalks of the Westwood Boulevard campus..

“ Pride of the Yankees” as Ed O’Bannon relentlessly  “sweat” to get  a piece of the NCAA action.

A woman judge in  a cosmos, once dominated by the m ale of the species. Give O’Bannon his percentage. The Sultan of Swat at Ed Pauley’s cathedral to student athletes. 

Who knew on that12 o’clock high noon  day outside the Ed Pauley pavilion, that Ed O’Bannon in the prime of his day: thishis  6’8 inch power forward basketball student  jock’smetamorphosis would  play out his scholarship as an athlete,would  tear  part of his knee, in a pickup game.

Jumping up for a rebound, coming down awkwardly,  he tore his anterior ligament, and would be out for 18 months, the surgeryusing a anterior from a recent corpse in the medical school’s mortuary. He regained his form and his energy continued in  UCLAs 1995 March Madness triumph.

Triumphing in the sweet 16, 1995. Drafted in the top nine, by the New Jersey Nets (Brooklyn Nets) he was offered a three year deal  off the charts….. 30 million!

                                                                        VII

As the Circuit Court trial continues the examination ofamateurism .The whole enchilada and spectrum of NCAAcollegiate sports, demanding an x ray of the issue of  scholarships and who would get compensated for their lives outside the Pauley Pavilion….. students who attend  classes, checking out books at the Research  Library?

O’Bannon and his cronies  on the 195 trophy team , may be characterized as amateurs .

****How about revisiting amateur tennis….Tilden, vines, Don Budge, Bubby Riggs, Billy Talbert, Fred Perry, ……PanchoGonzales? Jack Kramer? Alice Marble? Sarah Palfrey Cooke?Pauline Betz? Althea Gibson? Margaret  DuPont? Helen Wills Moody? Helen Jacobs? The Aussies? Billy Jean King,  ArthurAshe, Baron Gottfried von Cram? The Czech players ? Lendl?**Martina? Steffi Graff?*****

                                                                        VIII

Today these larger than life tennis players. … Roger Federer, theMajoraca clay court “ Rafie” Nadal the Serbian grass court champ.….in today’s reality, a Pancho Gonzales would be able to name his own price. Lendl could be his coach. Even  JimmyConnors or  Herby Flam , both of UCLA, could name their own price.

Why  not an Ed O’Bannon?. Is the cartel undercutting these athletes vulnerability? Why in the first place do these players seeks a n id entity outside those of their classmates who find theirs, in pursuing their scholarship, wile the Ed O’Bannon(s)  pursue their roles in Pauley Pavilion. In pursuit of a better life than the one they accepted at birth. Why in the pursuit of reality, should they be held to that standard of consciousness?

******Isn’t “The Birth of a  Nation” playing out?*****

The promise of” Great Expectations” of their alter ego in theclassroom and library. Their pursuits are not as automated on  the UCLA quad. Why did Plato deny artists from proclaiming their art in the marketplace of Athens?( Royce Hal).

Therefore Ed O’Bannon(s) are redefining amateurism. He unlikePancho Gonzales is way ahead, competing in a moneyedreality..The NCAA can only reconcile their existence  with the Ed O’Bannon(s).

Call the NCAA by any other name but cartel is an aptcharacterization The planet is ridden with many aberrations but if amateur tennis decried its Waterloo in those  La Brea Tar P:its…..Ed O’Bannon, unlike  Alley Oops out of the  Tar Piss is on a merry go round, where grabbing the ring, requires practiceand aggression, grabbing the gold:  promoting a cyber space moment into contemporary college life..

To deny Ed O’Bannon his prerogatives as a  “laborer”,promoting the Bruin image, likeness, and the 16th Century video..Laboring for the school colors in the Coliseum , Rose Bowl,Pauley Pavilion …the common denominator  is collegiate“business”…..Coaches, cheerleaders, half  time acts. The Rose Parade. Indeed!

Amateurism is dead and done forever and ever….. Curt Flood is Ed O’Bannon. Baseball’s Reserve Clause was but a guise for abesieged athlete, being freed to bargain his services in a climate that recognizes his merits to the college. His guise as amateur isdead as Denny the Dinosaur and the Saber Tooth Tiger.

******”Viva Ed O’Bannon”******

                                                                                 IX

Geronimo   put aside his peace pipe, his smart phone lying at his moccasins, playing out his retirement  on the Apache reservation, reliving those  gigs fought on and off the Ed Pauley Pavilion six story  grandstands, of what was once the Bill Spaulding landscape for yearning “ pros” at UCLA...                                        

June 14, 2014, closing arguments the first week, Federal District Court, Oakland, California.

As Geronimo hoisted his peace pipe of a smart phone gone bad

As Geronimo hoisted his peace pipe of a smart  phone gone bad,his smoke signals to Tonto, sitting on his high rise balcony in  the Soho  reality scene of the Big Apple, the Lon Ranger’s kimosabi, translated the spacious puffs.

“Weapons of mass destruction?

Indeed! “

                                                                                               II

The Bagdad Iraq invasion by our forces, the toppling of Sadat Hussein ‘s statute is coming back to haunt us, as the tribal case systems failed to unite, their aftermath is  a disarray of a beleaguered surrender, the enemy blitzing thru turf, that was once Hussein’s own land grant.  

Supply lines  long gone , human live s dismembered, a reminder of blood baths  and loss of American lives, the account “All quiet on the Western Front”, a misnomer for an  ego trip gonebad.

                                                                                             III

The sins of  clamor have come back to haunt us. Thosecoexisting Indians like Geronimo and Tonto reading their own primeval smoke signals: the smart phones   floating  in the cyber space of bloody corpses. A military contractor’s  trip gone wasted.

The road to Damascus leads back  to Bagdad.

                                                                                            IV

“Weapons of mass destruction?

Indeed!”

Friday, the 13th of June, 2014.  The City that never sleeps.

Sour grapes Sour grape

“Sour grapes Sour grape”,  whispered California Chrome’s  ‘ the Mick’, the Chestnut’s eleven year old groom and saddle boy as he washed down the three year olds labored sweaty over heated body in his Belmont Stakes fate fatale.

The stable’s scent of hay and manure, transcending the  hundred thousand   plus afficiandos lost for words, as their “Great Expectations” came to nought, as the Derby and Preakness winner tried in vain to three repeat.

“But it wasn’t in  the cards, was it Chromy?” asked the Mick, purring his brush and pail wards, into the tired exhaustedflapping colt’s ears. His ingratiating affection, brought  ameasure of comfort and afterthought to the  to the unharnessedodds on a favorite  named  California Chrome.

“What could you have told  your admirers, those betters who took your odds on; freaking out, grasping the triple crown.Belmont being your last thrust.

“ After 17 years since Affirmed ma the miracle run 37 years ago…. Secretariat a year earlier , the groom’s brush cooling the perspiring horse breed ,   legs twitching, the nerves and vibrations out of any calibration with his un reined torso, the Duke riding shotgun in   director John  Ford’s “Stagecoach” at Monument Valley, Arizona..

                                                                       “

“So much lather on the networking of commentators, aging jocks. Totes, owners, trainers: their whole smorgasboard whirl of their enchilada “ spritz”.

The Mick brushing down the colt’s  stream lined  three year old majesty. .

“You are the greatest  , Chromy. Belmont Stakes and all, Boz’sCharles Dickens sound and fury hoopla, the ground squirrels aghast at the  sound and fury touting your magnificence. But itwasn’t meant to be, Cali”..

California Chrome neighed, and in his heritage, neighed again as though he was back at birth: on old man Ness’s farm,  when he first saw the light of day at Bethlehem, New Hampshire. The snow capped  Old Man  of the Mountain in the distance, the ski lift running their loop across the spacious range.

                                                                   III

“What could you do with your kick, around the final turn of a mile and a half? You had no explosiveness. Espinosa had left you run the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in a field of six or so  four legged steeds. But here the number was ten. Plus theextra half a mile.

“You knew this New York mile and a half track was longer…. As the saddle boy named Mick, was into his grooming, lathering down this once mighty winner, a magnificent armament of  racehorses, his Brooklyn born claimer buying the California Chrome for a thousand dollars that morning, when our eyes first lit on the colt’s stride and pedigree on old man Ness’s Bethlehem,New Hampshire bungalow colony ranch three years ago of a lifetime.

                                                                  IVC

“What did we know about the conglomeration of the breeding game.. We were working stiffs. Operating from our handy store... My mother and father leaving Brooklyn for California at age 7.My wife and I were following our dream.

“Go west, young man,” Horace Greeley ringing in our ears. What chance did our horse have here.? Eleven fresh steedesrunning against Chromy.. We hadn’t a lick. Not a lick. The odds were against us right from the opening bugle. The whole damn Belmont stage was stacked against us.”

                                                             V

                 

The second guessers at the pari- mutual windows, pocketingtheir  win place and show winnings, had little to say about the Great Expectations  that was run here at Belmont Stakes. The maddening crowd of Julie Christie, steam rolling the planet with unfulfilled dreams, visions of grandeur, and disappointments as reality set in.

The factors had matriculated a version, unlike the Preakness three weeks ago. Chromy had been pouted to a different test, and therefore those mile distances in his triumphs could not befactored on the tote board as an odds on favorite, could they..

“You are the greatest,” cried the stable boy named the Mick,liberating his eleven year old tears, his brush swerving across the colt’s legs. His tears and the bathing suds undistinguishable.

June 8, 2014. Some 24 hours after the Belmont Stakes….The City that never sleeps

Geronimo’s war paint was worn thin on his Apachereservation

Geronimo’s  war paint  was worn thin  on his Apachereservation, long  before  moral ambiguity  greased the tongue of  Victor McLaglen’s “The Informer”(1935)

                                                                                     II

Turning to his archives, the Apache Chief scanned the moment:Zanuck’s “Prisoner of Shark Island”, staring Warner Baxter….Peter Lorre’s “M” in his search for moral ambiguity.

Greta Garbo’s “Mata Hari” demonstrates the crackling war paint on his role, living  out his retirement on the Apache reservation.  The fury of the mob was inescapable for Henry Fonda’s  tossinga wrench in the mob’s lynching.. “The Ox bow Incident” 

                                                                                  III

Geronimo reveling in his General Custer heroics, knew nothing of the white man’s moral ambiguity. He sent up smoke signals to his learned kimosabi, Tonto, who for years made a career as an alter ego for the Lone Ranger. Episodic ”to be continued” infilm, radio for what seemed a lifeline of an annuity. 

Geronimo lit his bonfire. Using a worn out blanket from  Bogey’s “Petrified Forest” and the covered wagon bow and arrow ambush of General  Custer’s uniformed reinforcements in their wagon trains.                              

                                                                                 IV

Tonto in the throes of 20th century affluence, the digital revolution on hold, the planet engaged in the cyber space “cool”&awesome” data, boggling the mind into the Valhalla of director John Ford’s

“The Informer”

Tonto caught up in his mesmerizing role , saw the smoke signals from his So Ho  high rise balcony. An address which unlike theGovernor’s Island wigwam turf of that   tribe

that bartered  Manhattan Island to the Dutch settlers, for a string of pearls, necklaces and slave  bracelets. 

Translating Geronimo’s smoke signals from their base on thereservation, he scored “Moral ambiguity” into his “outlaw”idiom.

                                                                                 V

The Taliban freed an American, captured in their Afghanistanonslaught. Five “gringo” years on bread and water, the Yankee of Idaho, was released from captivity in a bargain, his life exchanged for five heavy duty prisoners  at  Guantanamo prison.

                                                                                 VI

Tonto wearing his Apache head dress, interpreted the moralambiguity as a challenge to his entire idiom of identifying with alter ego roe playing.

“The “Informer” with Victor McLaglen, Muni’s “Fugitive from a chain gang”. Peter Lorre in “M”.  “The Ox Bow Incident” starring Henry Fonda.

                                                                              VII

Meanwhile Geronimo in Apache ‘s  cyberspace, saw hiskimosabi’s smoke : the link of flicks he used to authenticate “moral ambiguity” on our minor planet. Fabric of flicks andscreen plays maturing, during the  golden  age of movies.

The argument t being that the prisoner was in no ways an authentic “Informer”: aA naive self pitying youth (“Red badge of Courage”) who gave himself up, surrendering   to the enemy. Therefore the once  fraternal company of buddies, who survived that stretch , could not authenticate the Sergeant’s capture.

“He voluntarily wished into his capture. He sought out hisTaliban. . Not a legitimate sacrifice. He was unable to come to grips with our authority. He had no “True Grit.”

                                                                             VII

The prisoner exchange is morally ambiguous? Doesn’t the 9/11 ambush of 3000 innocents beg the question.

How could there be a tradeoff? Where was his street cred in aone for five prisoner  exchange?

                                                                              IX                                

Geronimo into Tonto’s smoke…..….”Sergeant’s street cred up in the air”

June 6, 2014. D Day 70 years ago,   Normandy Beach, WW2.