La Strada - Fellini's Neorealistic Search For Survival

DVD cover for the digitally remastered
edition of Federico Fellini's La Strada

Well I've still got a couple more films to see, but in the next week or so I plan to post some thoughts on my predictions for the upcoming Academy Awards taking place on March 4th.

Since the 2018 Oscar nominations are out and I've unplugged from cable, I like to get fired up for Hollywood's penultimate night to recognize film excellence (and indulge in the shameless self-congratulatory celebration of rampant nepotism) by watching a selection of Oscar-winning films from previous years.

The last time I blogged about my ongoing exploration of the Italian Neorealism film movement was back on October, 4, 2016 when I spent my midweek birthday reflecting on Paisan, the second film of Italian director Roberto Rossellini's trilogy of films about the impact of World War II on Italian society.

The screenplay for Rome, Open City (1945), the first film in Rossellini's WWII trilogy, received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1947.

One of the co-screenwriters of that film who shared that Oscar was Federico Fellini.

While he also served as a co-director on Rome, Open City, as a director, Fellini would eventually go on to become one of the most acclaimed and influential directors in film history.

Elements of the neorealism style he learned under the tutelage of Roberto Rossellini on both Rome, Open City and on Paisan (released in 1946 and on which Fellini again served as screenwriter and co-director) can be clearly seen in the classic film La Strada (The Road) - the 1954 film which would help cement Fellini's reputation as a master filmmaker.

Last night I finally got to watch La Strada for the first time after a long wait to receive the DVD from Netflix.

Netflix's DVD service definitely offers an impressive selection of classic films from the Criterion Collection (many of which are not available to stream), but some are so popular among film buffs that when you add them to your queue, they're immediately labeled "Long Wait" and the service continues to send you the next DVD's on your list until your turn comes up.

I think I waited about three months to get La Strada delivered, but it was definitely worth the wait.

Roberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola play a father
& son searching for a stolen bike in The Bicycle Thief  

Many of the Italian neorealism classics like Rossellini's afore-mentioned WWII trilogy, or director Vittorio De Sica's classic The Bicycle Thief (1948) are, in part, characterized by fictional stories framed in a documentary type of style.

They're beautiful films no doubt, but there's nothing "pretty" or polished about them.

They're rooted in a cinematic style devoid of any of the escapist, "fluffy" Hollywood type of slickly-produced glamour that was so common in American films in the 1940's and 50's.


In Italian neorealism, many of the exterior camera shots of crowds, post-WWII Italian city streets and suburban landscapes look like gritty documentaries - intentionally grim portraits of a shattered nation trying to put itself back together again.

The storylines often revolve around a character's efforts to negotiate a dysfunctional government bureaucracy, or deal with the consequences of the behavior of embittered people whose humanity has been stripped by the ravages of war to illustrate how Italian (and European) society were decimated after the massive destruction that five years of war wreaked upon the continent.

Take Vittorio De Sica's classic 1952 film Umberto D (which I blogged about back in September, 2016) for example.

The film features Carlo Basttisti in the lead role - a real-life linguistics professor who had no acting experience and was cast for his "look" - he plays a kindly old widowed pensioner struggling to pay his rent and survive on a meager pension from the state which is barely enough for him and his beloved dog Filke to live on.

Pestered by a greedy landlord and marginalized by an uncaring civil government wracked by dysfunction, laziness and inefficiency, Umberto D is a harsh criticism of the Italian state and the way it treated many citizens with contempt - "the state" is basically like a character in the film, an almost faceless-antagonist that crushes the human spirit of a gentle old man.

The story, which chronicles Umberto's struggles to hold on to his dignity and humanity, is both heart-breaking and poignant; and at times, not easy to watch.

Zampano (Anthony Quinn) sizes up Gelsomina
after buying her in the opening of La Strada

In contrast, in La Strada, Federico Fellini brings an almost magical, otherworldly kind of quality to his story.

Even though it's set in the same post WWII setting that defines earlier Italian neorealism, the actual story is almost like a fantasy or fable.

But this ain't no fairy tale.

Unlike Umberto D, the film La Strada stars established actors Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina (Fellini's real-life wife) and Richard Basehart.

In one of his darkest on-screen roles, Quinn plays a crude, brooding, rage-filled, brute of a man named Zampano who has learned to eek out a meager living by traveling around the country in a ratty motorcycle contraption entertaining sparse crowds by performing as a circus "strong man".

It's a phony circus act where he pretends to use his strength to break a chain around his chest, but he knows how to "sell it", and the crowds are entertained and clearly appreciate the momentary escapist distraction that it offers from the day-to-day struggles of the post WWII landscape in which they live.

(It occurred to me that Zampano's cheesy performances might've served as a subtle metaphor for Fellini to share a sly commentary on bad films.)

The beautifully-shot opening scene of La Strada on a beach (an image Fellini would often return to in his later films like La Dolce Vita) introduces Gelsomina, played by Giulietta Masina, the second oldest daughter of an old widow struggling to care for her large brood of kids on her own.

A surly Zampano shows up at the house to inform the old woman that her other daughter Rosa, who he'd previously taken on the road with him, has died.

He never explains how she died and we never actually see her, but he pays the old woman 10,000 lire to "buy" Gelsomina as an assistant to take on the road with him for his "act."

Gelsomina gazes lovingly on Zampano as he sleeps

Eager to escape her dead-end existence, she willingly goes with him though her desperate mother leaves her little choice in the matter.

In light of the #MeToo movement I must say the whole setup was a bit creepy at times viewed in the context of the increased attention on the treatment of women in front of and behind the camera in Hollywood.

For example, Zampano cruelly beats the young girl a few times, and insists on sleeping next to her in the back of his ratty old motorcycle contraption.

But Zampano's intentions with Gelsomina are purely business (at first..) even though he is an unapologetic womanizer, he never tries to force himself on her even as she eventually develops sincere feelings for him and grows jealous of his womanizing - but this was released in 1954 and the story is clearly a fantasy.

The film basically follows their travels between small towns and villages with just enough to get by as she learns to perform in the act with her face painted like a clown, and learns to play a simple melody on the trumpet.

In the scenes of the landscapes they pass, you can see brief glimpses of the earlier Italian neorealism films of the late 40's in terms of images of a countryside still pockmarked from war - but the film doesn't really dwell on that in the way that films like the Bicycle Thief or Paisan do.

In La Strada, Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) & Zampano
(Anthony Quinn) entertain a circus crowd 

As director Martin Scorsese observed in a commentary about the film included with the DVD, the film's title La Strada (The Road) is an apt description of the road the characters travel with their little act.

Scorsese describes it as a metaphor for life; they visit a wedding in the countryside, a remote monastery and the city as well.

But the film takes a darker turn when Zampano and Gelsomina encounter the Fool played by Richard Basehart.

The Fool first captures Gelsomina's attention when she sees him performing a dangerous high-wire act in a town, and she later gives him a smile as he prepares to drive away in his car.

She's clearly captivated by his talent, looks and charm.

While the story offers little clues of the past, when Zampano and Gelsomina come upon a traveling circus and encounter the Fool, it's clear that he and Zampano have a history.

The Fool is everything Zampano is not, he's handsome, witty, charming and carefree, and he quickly recognizes a talent and potential in Gelsomina.

A recognition that flatters her but troubles Zampano, sparking a dark jealousy even though he's basically treated the poor girl like shit for most of the film.

When the Fool begins to teach Gelsomina some new skills so she can be his assistant in the circus, Zampano discovers it and becomes enraged.

The Fool (Richard Basehart) with Gelsomina during
a circus performance in which he mocks Zampano

The Fool only makes matters worse by taking a perverse pleasure in mocking, and provoking Zampano repeatedly.

Without giving away the ending, the Fool's own big mouth proves to be his undoing.

The tension that forms between the triangle of the Fool, the strongman and the clown (Gelsomina) leads to a violent confrontation that leaves the girl traumatized and scarred.

Having witnessed Zampano's capacity for violence and cruelty, she grows more terrified of him and increasingly detached from reality as she finds herself unable to cope with the Fool's unfortunate fate.

The ending is emotionally wrenching, but remains true to the Italian neorealistic form and gives expression and voice to a pessimism about the human condition that, in the context of the post WWII European landscape, is an honest one.

The end of the road for Zampano and Gelsomina in La Strada will never be confused with a classic Hollywood ending, but it is poignant, poetic and beautiful in its own way.

While it was one the most demanding film shoots of his career, ultimately it was a triumph for Federico Fellini, earning the very first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1957 Oscars.

Like other masters of Italian neorealism like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, Fellini had the courage to use his understanding of screenwriting and camera technique to look deep into one of the darkest chapters of human history.

And find beauty and meaning in both the struggle to survive, and the search for human dignity in a scarred landscape ravaged by war.

To The Faithful Departed

The Cranberries lead singer Delores O'Riordan

As a kid growing up in Bethesda, Maryland, I remember a big part of Sunday mornings in our family's home was seeing parts of the thick Sunday edition of the Washington Post spread about the house.

I can still smell the distinctive aroma of the newspaper as I paged through the comics section, and after Peanuts, the next cartoon I read was Beetle Bailey - it always put a smile on my face.

So it was sad to wake up this morning and read that cartoonist Mort Walker died on Saturday at aged 94.

He wasn't the only creative icon to pass in the past couple weeks, last Tuesday, Delores Mary Eileen O'Riordan, lead singer of the Irish alternative-pop group the Cranberries, was laid to rest in her home town of Ballybricken, Ireland near Limerick in a grave next to her father's.

The funeral, which appropriately featured recordings of her singing, took place in the modest parish church of St. Ailbe, the same place where O'Riordan sang in the choir and also played organ as a young girl.

If you happen to be a fan of O'Riordan as I am, and are interested, Miriam Lord wrote a very touching first-person account of the funeral in The Irish Times on Tuesday.

So in a very real sense, she was laid to rest in the same place where she started - there's something poetic and beautiful in that given her rise to global fame and the many countries she visited while touring with the Cranberries during the course of her music career.

Delores O'Riordan's unexpected death in a hotel room in London two weeks ago on January 15th at the age of 46 came as a real shocker to me as it happened on the same day that I happened to be down in Pennsylvania for the funeral of my friend Shawn's mother.

In fact I first heard the news about O'Riordan's death on the radio while I was on I-295 north driving back from the funeral with a friend - there was something disorienting about learning about the death of an artist I admired and whose presence I took for granted just as I was grieving the loss of a friend's mother who was such a part of the landscape of my high school years.

The Cranberries in Limerick, Ireland in 1993 just
before their rise to the pinnacle of their success 

Having lost my father to cancer when I was 28-years-old, I know from personal experience that one of the most difficult aspects of grief is trying to mentally process the simple fact that the person who was once a part of the fabric of your life has physically departed the reality in which you live.

For months, even years after my father's death, there were mornings when I woke up and thought to myself:

Is he really gone? Or was that just a dream and he's going to walk in the door any minute?


During my life I've had the pleasure of meeting a number of famous people I admired in person, but while I never had the chance to meet Delores O'Riordan or the other members of the Cranberries, I always felt like their music, in particular her voice, held a particular resonance for me.

She was an artist whose creative talent and efforts loomed large during an important period of my life; one who, at various times, inspired, comforted, uplifted and entertained me.

Like millions of other fans of the Cranberries, whose members include guitarist Noel Hogan (pictured above left), his brother bassist Mike Hogan (above right), and drummer Fergal Lawler (above center), my first experience hearing Delores O'Riordan's distinctive voice was the band's early huge hit "Linger".

The ethereal strings and introspective melodies combined with O'Riordan's powerful and haunting singing on "Linger" and their other early hit "Dreams" propelled their first album "Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Cant' We?" to massive popular and critical success - and helped define the distinctive sound that would help the Cranberries sell over 40 millions albums.

In late 1994 as the Cranberries were at the peak of their success, they released their second hit album "No Need To Argue" which topped their previous album in sales and produced the hit single that really propelled them into the stratosphere in terms of popularity - "Zombie".

3-YO Jonathan Ball (left) and 12 YO Tim Parry:
victims of the IRA bombing in Warrington in 1993

While I owned and was a huge fan of their first album, for me personally, "No Need To Argue" is the album that really connected me with the Cranberries on a deeper level.

It came at a time of transition in my own life after I'd been released by the New York Giants at the end of training camp in August of 1994 and made the difficult decision to end my football career and was beginning to express myself artistically and politically; and spending time thinking about what I wanted to do with my life.

"No Need To Argue" represented a distinctively heavier turn for the band, both in terms of lyrical subject matter and sound, and Delores O'Riordan wrote the lyrics and chords for the 4th song on the album, "Zombie", in her apartment to channel her outrage over the senseless deaths of 3-year-old Jonathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry (pictured above).

The two boys were both killed after the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated two bombs hidden inside separate trash bins along Bridge Street in a crowded shopping area in downtown Warrington, England on March 20, 1993.

Another 54 people were injured and a 32-year-old mother of two named Bronwen Vickers who lost a leg in the bombing died of cancer 12 months later.

According to Wikipedia's article on the Warrington bombing, 3-year-old Jonathan Ball had been in the area with his babysitter shopping for a Mother's Day card for his mom when he was killed.

Tim Parry's parents Colin and Wendy made the difficult decision to take their son off of life support in the hospital five days later after doctors determined there was no meaningful brain activity.

Tim Parry's father Colin speaking in public

The bombing sparked massive protests in Dublin, Ireland against the IRA and while the perpetrators were never caught, Colin and Wendy Parry became advocates for non-violence and started a charity called the Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Peace Foundation to promote peaceful strategies and education for conflict resolution amongst young people internationally.

At the time that the song "Zombie" came out, like many others I had no idea what the lyrics were specifically about.

In fact, Colin Parry himself said in a BBC article two weeks ago that he had no idea the song was about the death of his son Tim and Jonathan Ball until hearing about it in the wake of Delores O'Riordan's death.

In America in 1994, a lot of popular music was being defined by the heavier guitar-driven sound that defined the Grunge movement (bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Smashing Pumpkins etc.) and that sound was influencing my own guitar playing.

With "Zombie", the Cranberries demonstrated an ability to tap into that sound and mold it to their own distinctive style in a way that showed how they'd matured as musicians and as artists in terms of their willingness to begin to explore darker politically-sensitive themes in their lyrics like terrorism, war and loss.

Cover of the Cranberries' 3rd album

At the time I was playing a lot of electric guitar and I learned to play and sing both "Zombie" and "Empty" from the Cranberries' 2nd album "No Need To Argue" because I was drawn to the contrast of "Zombie's" soft introductory chord progressions and the relatively soft verses overlaid with acoustic guitar progressions, against the heavy distorted chords, pounding base and intense drums of the chorus.

The song got a lot of play on MTV at the time and I was also drawn to the imagery of the video with it's political themes on the conflict in Northern Ireland even though I didn't know the lyrics and song were about the Warrington bombing - the video has gotten over 610 million views on Youtube.


But it was the Cranberries' third album "To The Faithful Departed" that was the most personal for me.

After struggling with cancer throughout 1995, my father died on June 24, 1996, the same year the Cranberries released "To The Faithful Departed".

The band continued their embrace of the heavier guitar sounds, particularly on songs like "Hollywood", "Salvation", "The Rebels", "Electric Blue" and "Bosnia".

The band's musical sound, and Dolores O'Riordan's voice, along with the musical production value, continued to mature on this album.

And the lyrics explored a range of topics including war, reproductive choice, disillusionment with fame, war - and of course loss.

But the songs also explore fond remembrances of people (and times) past with a sense of love and joy; and while I never learned to play any of the songs off this album, I can say without a doubt that it helped me process the grief I was experiencing from the loss of my father.

Mourners carry Delores O'Riordan's coffin from
the St. Ailbe Church Tuesday January 23rd.

I've always found the ballad "When You're Gone" a poignant and touching mediation on love and loss.
  
The album dedication notes penned by Delores O'Riordan have always been something I go back and periodically read and reflect on because I'll always remember how the words helped me in a time of personal grief.

And to me, they now serve as something of a requiem to her now that she herself has sadly gone.

"To the Faithful Departed: This album is dedicated to all those who have gone before us. Nobody knows exactly where these people are but I know we would like to believe it is a better place. 

I believe it is a human impossibility to obtain complete peace of mind in this dimension, there's too much suffering and pain particularly for children. 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, for their's is the kingdom of heaven.' 

To the faithful departed and those left behind, there is a light that never dies" 

- Delores O'Riordan 

Brandon Griesemer's "Mistake" & America's Two-Tier Justice System

19-year-old Brandon Griesemer - free on bail the same
day he was arrested for making terrorist threats

It's hard to tell exactly what was going on in the mind of 19-year-old Brandon Griesemer when he decided to place 22 different phone calls to CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta two weeks ago.

As has been widely reported, the bespectacled grocery store clerk from Novi, Michigan made multiple threats of violence against CNN employees and used racial slurs against Muslims, African-Americans and Jews.

Just like Trump has. Repeatedly.

Given the scores of mass shootings and other unprovoked violent attacks that have taken place across the U.S. in recent months since 45's election in 2016, Griesemer's comments were disturbing.

In his first call placed on the afternoon of Tuesday January 9th, he told a CNN operator:

"Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down. Fuck you, fucking niggers." before hanging up.

In a subsequent call he said:

"You are going down. I have a gun and I coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to fucking gun down every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It's going to be great man. You gotta get prepared for this one."

Griesemer repeatedly ranted about CNN being "fake news" during some of the 22 calls he made to CNN between January 9th and 10th.

Inside the massive CNN Center in Atlanta

So it'd be easy to write this racist nut-job off as some kind of loose-cannon MAGA-Trump disciple who spent way too much time on Reddit with other alt-right trolls who get their news from a platform for white supremacy like Breitbart.

Trump retweeted a video GIF of him physically attacking a man with the CNN logo superimposed over his head.

Which he did on the morning of July 2, 2017, essentially endorsing violence against a news organization.

So it's possible Griesemer has (in a sick way) internalized Trump's repeated, childish vilification of CNN - as if the 1st Amendment of the Constitution is something he can turn on and off like a like switch as he pleases.

But there's clearly much more going on with Brandon Griesemer than internalizing and parroting Trump's disturbing narcissistic obsession with CNN reporting things he doesn't like.

It doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that the toxic rage Griesemer directed at CNN over the phone is likely indicative of something deeper.

I mean if you don't like CNN, why watch it right?

According to Tom Clearly's Heavy.com article on Griesemer, he lives with his parents and brother.

Brandon Griesemer graduated from Michigan's
Novi High School back in 2017

Anthony Luongo, a student who graduated from Novi High School with Griesemer last year, told the Washington Post that Griesemer was a Trump supporter who identified with Hitler and was openly reading a copy of "Mein Kampf "  before school.

As Cleary reported, Griesemer's father Mark Griesemer told WaPo that "this whole thing has been a mistake".

But both the FBI and a CNN investigator who traced the calls confirmed that the calls were linked to a cell tower near the Griesemer home.

The fact that he called CNN 22 times from the same number over a two-day period suggests this kid isn't the brightest pumpkin in the patch if he didn't realize that repeated threatening calls to a major global news media company could be quickly traced.

And if 22 calls over a two-day period was a "mistake" as his father suggested, how come the FBI was able to confirm that Griesemer also made threatening calls to the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor back in September? Calls that were confirmed by his mother in an interview with the FBI.

Was that "a mistake" too?

Once again, Trump, who immediately takes to Twitter after any terrorist attack committed by a radicalized Muslim anywhere on the planet (or, as in the case of Sweden, terrorist attacks that did not happen), predictably had nothing to say about Griesemer making a terrorist threat against his nemesis CNN.

But given that the terrorist was white, and was essentially espousing the same kind of racial hatred on which Trump's entire campaign and presidency is based, that's not surprising.

Timothy Caughman (left), killed with a sword by
James Harris Jackson (right) in New York in 2017

Remember when white Baltimore resident James Harris Jackson went to New York City and used a sword to fatally stab an innocent 66-year-old black man named Timothy Caughman last March?

He told NYPD detectives that the gruesome killing was "a practice run" for a planned killing spree against black men because he was personally repulsed by the idea of black men dating white women.

Millions reacted in horror, but Trump said nothing about the killing.

Just three months later in June, the horrific and unprovoked racially-motivated stabbing attack on a crowded light-rail train was committed by enraged white transient Jeremy Joseph Christian.

Remember that guy?

He's the homeless ex-felon who began shouting racial and xenophobic slurs at a 16-year-old African-American girl and her friend who was wearing a hijab - when horrified onlookers tried to intervene and stop him, he fatally stabbed two of them and seriously injured another.

Trump said nothing about that heinous racially-motivated killing either.

Judge Anthony Patti

As if violent terrorist attacks committed by people who share his views on race and immigration are somehow different than similar acts committed by people with dark skin who slander Islam by using it as a blanket excuse to slaughter and maim innocent people who don't worship or look like them.

Evidently Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti didn't find Brandon Griesemer's terroristic threats all that threatening either, on the same day the 19-year-old was arrested (last Friday) he was released from the federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan on a $10,000 unsecured bond.

That means he didn't even have to put up bail.

The judge just let him walk after admonishing Griesemer not to make any threats against anyone.

(Remember, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was held in Rikers Island for three years, including two years in solitary confinement on charges he stole a backpack - he was never charged and later committed suicide.)

Am I suggesting that Brandon Griesemer being released without having to put up bail hours after being arrested on charges of threatening to kill employees of CNN was a miscarriage of justice?

Not at all.

Griesemer was charged with making terroristic threats and will have to appear back in court on February 9th - time will tell if they make a case against him.

But to me, his release on an unsecured bond reflects America's two-tier justice system in America - one that views the accused very differently depending on the color of their skin.

After all, had a black 19-year-old who worked part-time at a grocery store and lived with his parents called Breitbart News' headquarters 22 different times over two days and threatened to shoot employees - he'd still be in jail.

And you-know-who would be sitting in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum indignantly tweeting about it right now.

Low Bar in D.C.

A dysfunctional galaxy far, far away

Predictability, there's no shortage of political leaders up on Capitol Hill this evening patting themselves on the back.

As journalist Niall Stanage observed in his scorecard for The Hill.com on the fallout from the latest compromise deal to keep the lights on in Washington, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are finding creative ways to spin this debacle as a victory.

For most Americans it's anything but.

Do the roughly 20 Democratic and Republican senators who met in Washington on Sunday to cobble together the framework for a deal to pass a temporary spending resolution to reopen the government deserve some credit for at least being willing to sit down and (presumably) talk like adults?

Yes, a measure of credit is due when men and women on opposite sides of the political spectrum are able to come together and demonstrate that the legislative branch of the federal government can function in a bipartisan manner to act on behalf of the American people. 

But that's what they're supposed to do, it's why they were elected in the first place - that's their job.

There's no disguising the uncomfortable truth that the fact that they had to be there at all on a Sunday just to keep the basic functions of government running is a pretty poor reflection of the ability of congress to put the good of the country first.     

After a bruising 2016 presidential campaign abetted by a floodgate of dark money that flowed from their conservative billionaire donor base, and overt voter suppression efforts in key battleground states like Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Republicans finally got what they've been pining after for years - control of all three branches of the federal government.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and
Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

But the chaotic, inexperienced narcissist they worked so hard to put into the White House proved to be as politically inept as he is racist.

In fact, last week as the government shutdown loomed, the orange-haired BLOTUS was rendered all but politically-neutered because of his own big mouth.

That's after he partially caused the shutdown by recklessly repealing DACA to score points with his base.

The actual work of keeping the federal government running was left to Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as Trump was essentially rendered irrelevant to negotiations to solve a manufactured crisis - one caused in no small part by his own chaotic buffoonery and total ignorance of how government functions.   

After a year in office, it's remarkable and disturbing that he still doesn't seem to understand that the power of the presidency is wasted when the majority of Americans despise you and disapprove of the job your doing.

With quasi-delusional sycophant advisers like Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway surrounding him, Trump still thinks he can lead the country by pandering to the 30-something percent of Americans who support him.

The global condemnation Trump generated dominated the headlines after the bipartisan meeting at the White House that was intended as an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to hammer out a deal on immigration to avoid the government shutdown imploded when he wondered aloud why DACA protections would be extended to nation's he dismissed as "shithole countries". 

As if that wasn't enough, as the threat of the shutdown loomed closer, reports emerged that porn star Stormy Daniels had been paid $130,000 by Trump's lawyer to keep her from speaking publicly about their years-long affair - this as the #MeToo movement dominates the cultural conversation.

Stunned lawmakers in the White House meeting on
immigration last week realize 45 is a clueless child

So in a situation where a normal president would be using the power of his or her office to put pressure on lawmakers to pass a comprehensive spending bill, Trump was essentially rendered useless.

Because his brand is so toxic and his disapproval rating so high that he was actually more of a political liability to the Republican leadership who'd grown impatient with his constant wavering back and forth on immigration.

So, yeah, this deal got done, but only after a three-day shutdown of the federal government.

And without any help from the guy who campaigned repeatedly on his supposed mastery of what he calls "the art of the deal". 

And as far as deals go, it's not exactly the kind of thing one brags about on one's political resume. 

The spending measure only keeps the government running for three weeks while Democrats and Republicans try and hash out their differences to pass an actual spending bill to properly fund the government for the next fiscal year.

No doubt Trump will use his Twitter account to boast about his signing the compromise measure he had no hand in negotiating, to reopen a government that shutdown on the anniversary of his inauguration.

As thousands of women, men and children across the nation marched to protest his presidency.

But it's a poor reflection of the GOP's ability to govern effectively considering the fact that they control the White House and both chambers of congress.

And it doesn't exactly boost the public's perception of congress either.

Especially considering we're only nine months from the mid-term elections in November and the only thing they've passed is a huge tax cut for the rich and corporations.

None the less, politicians will continue to milk this short-term spending compromise as if they just passed the New Deal; acting as if doing their jobs has become cause for celebration.

When the reality is it's a reflection of just how low the bar has slipped in D.C.

Gender Hypocrisy & Stormy Weather For Trump

Senator Corey Booker & DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen 

New Jersey Democratic Senator Corey Booker's intense grilling of Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday laid bare the lingering global resentment over Trump's recent dismissal of Haiti, Africa and El Salvador as "shithole countries" during a White House meeting last week. 

Perhaps more interesting was the subsequent indignant Conservative outrage over the optics of a black U.S. Senator calling out a white, blond-haired Trump sycophant on live TV.

Now it's probably fair to say that Tuesday's heated exchange was a result of both Booker and Nielsen feeling some frustration after a long and pretty heated hearing on Capitol Hill.

Democrats pressed her repeatedly to clarify whether or not she'd heard Trump use the words "shithole countries", and in her defense, Nielsen isn't some bubble-headed debutante who fell off a zucchini truck like Sarah Palin.

She earned her bachelor's degree from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and her law degree from the University of Virginia.

She was a special assistant in the White House under George W. Bush, and held positions related to legislative policy, cyber security and homeland security at the Transportation Security Administration, George Washington University and the World Economic Forum - and served as former general John Kelly's chief of staff when he was DHS secretary.

Trump flanked by Republican Senator Tom Cotton (left)
and Senator David Perdue (right) August 2, 2017

So at that testy Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Tuesday, Nielsen was smart enough to understand that Democrats were trying to trap her into confirming the deplorable language Trump used, and thereby cast Republican Senators David Perdue of Georgia and Tim Cotton of Arkansas as liars.

Both Senators were at the White House meeting last week and both claimed they didn't recall hearing Trump say those words.

I'm sure Cotton and Perdue's joint memory-lapse had nothing to do with Trump having invited both xenophobes to the Roosevelt Room of the White House (pictured above) last August to lavish praise upon them for their proposed bill to curb legal immigration to the U.S. by making selected work skills a priority for new immigrants and drastically reducing the numbers of immigrants allowed into the country each year. 

Nielsen was smart enough to do her best to avoid taking the heat for something Trump said, but she's also an experienced and loyal Washington player who wouldn't do anything to undermine her former boss at DHS John Kelly - who currently serves as Trump's White House chief of staff.

So she she did the "Washington Two Step" and became the third Republican attendee to lie about Trump using vulgar, racially-charged language to describe nations where the majority population are people of color by claiming she couldn't recall Trump using his now-famous phrase.

Booker, who was likely a little frustrated that Nielsen didn't take the bait, took the cue to lay into her, but he wasn't really laying into her per se - he was just doing the "Washington Two Step" as well by using her to publicly lay into Trump.

MAGA? Donald Trump with porn star Stormy Daniels

While he was only voicing the anger felt by people around the world over a sitting U.S. president openly allowing his own internalized bigotry to affect government policy towards foreign nations, Republicans quickly tried to turn Booker into the villain.

Conservative media outlets like Fox News criticized Booker for "mansplaining" to Nielsen.

National Review's David French haughtily proclaimed "Corey Booker's Rant Exposed the Left's Gender Hypocrisy". 

Which is actually kind of funny considering that porn star Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as "Stormy Daniels", is now on record as saying that she had an on-again, off-again affair with Trump over the course of several years - including when his current wife Melania Trump was pregnant with their son Barron and Trump was publicly fat-shaming her.

Last Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's lawyer David Cohen negotiated a $130,000 payout to Daniels just one month before the 2016 presidential election to buy her silence on her ongoing affair with the man conservative Christian evangelicals overwhelmingly supported for president last fall.

Remember Cohen was arranging the payout agreement with the increasingly-famous porn star as Trump raged incoherently about Hillary Clinton's ethical failings and emails - Clifford went public because (drum roll please...) Trump never paid her the money.

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens enjoying some gun porn

Speaking of concocted conservative outrage over "gender hypocrisy", Trump isn't the only high-profile married Republican to get caught trying to silence a woman to prevent her from talking publicly about a consensual affair.

Remember current Missouri Republican Governor and ex-Navy SEAL Eric Greitens, the guy who ran on a populist anti-establishment platform?

The Rhodes Scholar, humanitarian, author and former Democrat?

He's now frantically trying to apologize to state Republican legislators and rainmakers after it was revealed that he tied up his former mistress and took compromising photographs of her naked then threatened to use them to blackmail her in the event she told anyone of their affair.

Talk about "mansplaining".

As Allison McCann reported for Vice earlier today, the air is leaking out of Greitens' once-promising career balloon fast as Missouri voters were already pissed over his rolling back the minimum wage from $10 to $7.70 an hour, making it harder for women to access abortion services and blocking people's ability to file discrimination lawsuits

I mean seriously, what kind of delusional, right-wing narcissistic ape rolls back the minimum wage, curbs women's health care choice and makes it easier for companies to discriminate against workers then ties up a woman to blackmail her?

The kind of guy other Republican members of his own state legislature are now trying to force to resign from office just as it's looking like a massive blue wave is about to wash over the land in the upcoming November mid-term elections.

No wonder Conservative media outlets like Fox News and National Review are frantically trying to gin up phony overblown outrage over a sitting U.S. Democratic Senator asking some tough questions of a Department of Homeland Security Secretary who admits she's never actually met or spoken with a DACA recipient even though she's using her office to try and deport them.

Trump's got some balls complaining about "shithole" countries when Republican politicians seem to be doing everything possible to turn American into one.

Johnny Cash - 50 Years After Folsom & Beyond

Johnny Cash playing one of two live concerts at
California's Folsom State Prison January 13, 1968 

Friday marked the 50th anniversary of the recording of legendary country singer Johnny Cash's classic live triple-platinum album "Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison", which he famously recorded live at the California state prison of the same name.

The same concert which produced the brilliant live recording of his 1955 hit "Folsom Prison Blues" - which is arguably one of THE classic contemporary live American song recordings of all time.

Backed by June Carter, guitarist Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three, Cash played two different shows that day.

As Joe Rosato reported for the local Bay Area NBC affiliate on Thursday, to mark this important American music anniversary, Folsom State Prison officials rolled out the proverbial red carpet and invited members of the press to see Dining Room Two where Cash and his band performed two different live shows to about 1,000 inmates on a stage specially-constructed for the occasion back on January 13, 1968.

Much like other influential American country singers like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Cash famously cultivated an "outlaw" image with his often-black wardrobe, troubled personal life, moody personae and distinctive haunting singing style, but he never actually served time in a prison.

His own personal experiences of being locked up by the law were limited to seven different overnight stays in various local jails on relatively minor offenses related to alcohol - like possessing amphetamine pills (to which he was addicted for years), public intoxication and reckless driving.

But throughout his career, Cash maintained a soft spot in his heart for incarcerated prisoners and many of his songs explored the existential struggles of those who languished in jails isolated from friends, family and society - possibly Cash's way of expressing the regret, sadness and loss he experienced in his own life.

The Cash family in 1949, his older brother Roy is
on the far left, Johnny is on the far right

In 1944, when Cash was 12-years-old, his beloved older brother Jack was accidentally yanked into a table saw while cutting wood to support the family - while he somehow managed to crawl for help, his midsection was so torn apart that he died a week later from his gruesome injuries.

Cash idolized Jack, and according to his sister Joanne (pictured left, front right), the experience left him profoundly changed from the happy child that he was before the accident.

According his sister, after his brother's death, Cash became much more melancholy and introspective as he began spending more time by himself writing poems and songs.

He grew up in rural Dyess, Arkansas surrounded by music, the Cash family sang spirituals and gospel together both at home, and at the home of his grandparents.

Johnny first started singing publicly in church, but it was his oldest brother Roy Cash (pictured above) who first encouraged Johnny to pursue a career as a professional singer.

Roy Cash had started a string band called the Dixie Rhythm Ramblers in the late 1930's or early 1940's who played local venues in and around Arkansas, and even had a regular show on local radio  station KCLN for a time.

According to Rolling Stone contributing writer Mikal Gilmore's 2008 book "Stories Done", after the rest of the members of his band were killed during World War II, Roy's interest in music faded, but he continued to encourage his younger brother and actually introduced Johnny to some of the musicians that he first played and recorded with.

Cash was coming off of a relative low point in his professional career when he first approached his label Columbia records in 1965 or 1966 with the idea of performing live inside a prison.

At the time he was emerging from a struggle with addiction and it had been some time since he'd had a hit song.

Johnny Cash with his first wife Vivian Liberto

He was also facing backlash and concert cancellations from some conservative southerners over accusations that his first wife Vivian Liberto, who he met in San Antonio, Texas in 1951 when he was in the Air Force, was black.

Cash, a progressive who used some of his songs to share the plight of African-Americans and Native Americans, was forced into the awkward position of having to publicly defend his wife's race as white in order not to alienate his mostly-white fans.

You can judge for yourself, but from looking closely at a photo of Cash and Liberto, at the least, she does appear to be of mixed race heritage, and it's a pretty sad state of American society that people would criticize him because of the perception of the race and ethnicity of the woman he loved and the mother of his children.

Understandably, the hateful campaign put tremendous stress on their marriage and they eventually separated in 1967 -  so Cash had been looking for a way to both reinvigorate his career and reconnect with his audience for some time.

Personally, I'd be curious to know if the accusations against Cash over Vivian Liberto's race had anything to do with Cash's decision to enter a highly-public relationship with June Carter (pictured below), an attractive and talented musical prodigy who played four instruments who'd been performing publicly with her famous Carter Family relatives since she was 10-years old.

Aficionados of classic early 20th century American folk and bluegrass music (including your's truly) will obviously know that the Carter Family, A.P Carter, his wife Sara and sister-in-law Maybelle Carter (June Carter's mother) are widely regarded as country music royalty who shaped the sound of modern country music in the late 1920's - they are cemented as American music icons.

Cash and June Carter enter Folsom
State Prison on January 13, 1968 

June Carter was certainly talented, beautiful and successful in her own right, but given the southern (white) backlash over his marriage to Vivian Liberto in the 1960's, I think it's a fair question to ask if Johnny Cash was intrigued with the possibility that marrying someone with Carter's musical and racial heritage would have a positive impact on his own career.

I'm not suggesting he didn't love her, I'm just saying it's a fair question given the racially complex-nature of the U.S. and the divisive societal landscape of 1968.

Columbia executives were initially hesitant about the idea of Cash recording inside a prison before finally approving it in 1967 after an executive shakeup.

As Joe Rosato reported for WNBC, Cash originally wanted to play a live concert in California's San Quentin Prison in Marin County which houses the state's death row, but the warden never returned Cash's manager's phone calls.

So Cash suggested they contact Folsom State Prison officials instead, they immediately agreed - the rest is history.

The live version of "Folsom Prison Blues" became a top forty hit, the album shot to number one on the country music charts and even reached number 15 on the pop charts - over three million copies have been sold since it was first released.

The popularity of the album jump started Cash's career and because the album cost Columbia so little to produce, they eagerly backed his desire to record live in other prisons - he would record three other live albums from prisons including one at San Quentin in 1969.

"Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison" became so popular, fans and tourists began flocking to Folsom State Prison just to see it and the prison eventually built a museum outside the walls of the prison with photos of Cash from the day he recorded the album and other prison memorabilia.

Having been raised in rural Dyess, Arkansas during the Great Depression, Cash understood what it was to be disenfranchised, poor and on the fringes of society.

Dyess Colony residents in the communal cannery

Dyess Colony, or "Colonization Project No. 1." as it was originally known, was formed in 1934 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's massive Works Projects Administration (WPA) projects to help the millions of Americans whose lives were decimated and uprooted by the Great Depression.

The federal government purchased 16,000 acres of swampy, snake-infested "bottomland" in Arkansas' Mississippi County to be used as a resettlement colony for rural Arkansas farmers and sharecroppers who'd been ruined by drought and the Great Depression.

It was a planned farming community with 500 newly-constructed modest two-bedroom homes with an outhouse and a barn where rural families selected from a list were given a five-room home and approximately 20 to 40 acres of land which they had to clear.

The idea was that they would use their farming skills and labor to farm the land to be able to eventually purchase and own the land according to a loan repayment schedule managed by the state and federal government.

Residents were also given a mule with which to plow and work the land, a cow, groceries and supplies to farm and would be expected to pay off the loans and also receive a share of the profits from the local community store and cannery (pictured above).

Like most WPA community housing and farming projects, Dyess Colony was whites only - as with many New Deal projects and Department of Agriculture programs intended to assists farmers, African-Americans were often excluded based solely in the color of their skin.

Growing up in such an environment during the Depression it's not hard to understand why Johnny Cash had such a life-long affinity for prisoners, and a heart-felt sympathy for the struggles they faced which became the subject of so many of his songs - and part of his personae as an artist.

Books Through Bars volunteers

It's unfortunate that so many conservative politicians today lack the kind of compassion for incarcerated Americans that Johnny Cash had.

For example, last Wednesday morning I listened to an interesting segment on the Brian Lehrer Show on disturbing efforts by some New York state prison officials to severely curtail incarcerated inmate's rights to access information and educate themselves.

In a nutshell, a NY state prison pilot program would severely curtail prisoner's access to books.

How? By limiting them from ordering books from a pre-selected group of six vendors, some which censor the kinds of books prisoners can order, or charge exorbitant rates for books - or limit how prisoner's, or their families can pay for those books.

The segment is worth a listen if you want to click the link above to listen to Seth Pollack, an organizer with Books Through Bars, an all-volunteer non-profit based in Philadelphia launched in 2010 that provides books to prisoners that request them in seven states.

As the Guardian reported last Monday, here in New Jersey, some prisons are actually trying to ban inmates from reading Michelle Alexander's ground-breaking book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In the Age of Colorblindness"

Tyler Haire in 2014

How about the ProPublica article detailing the sad case of Tyler Haire and more than 100 other inmates in Mississippi jails forced to wait for years just to get a bed in a psychiatric facility to have their mental condition professionally evaluated to determine whether they should be hospitalized and given treatment or incarcerated?

As the ProPublica article reports, "A copy of the state's waitlist shows that as of August 2017, 102 defendants - accused, but not yet convicted of various crimes - were waiting in various county jails for forensic evaluations. One had waited 1,249 days. Another 1,173 days, still another 879." 

Haire was 16 when he was locked up and "spent his 18th, 19th, and 20th birthdays in the jail" awaiting an evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial for charges of attacking his father's girlfriend with a knife - even though he'd been diagnosed with seven different mental disorders as a child.

Mentally-ill people who haven't even been convicted of a crime by a court of law being incarcerated for years without proper treatment waiting to be seen and evaluated by a medical professional.

It's 2017 and Tyler is still waiting.

As Johnny Cash famously sang in "Folsom Prison Blues" - "I hang my head and cry".

21 Arrests, Anti-Immigration Theater & The Universal Sense of Justice

ICE agents outside a 7-Eleven in Los Angeles early on
Wednesday morning [Photo Chris Carlson - AP]

After ICE agents conducted raids on 98 different 7-Eleven stores across 17 states and Washington, D.C. early Wednesday morning, it's hard to fathom what career professionals within the ranks of the Department of Justice and Homeland Security are feeling about the agencies they work for.

Considering that thousands of businesses across the U.S. employ undocumented migrant workers, the 21 people arrested in the predawn sweeps is a drop in a swimming pool.

As a professional who works in the residential (apartment) leasing industry, I can tell you that a lot of the vendors hired to do different types of work on the various properties the company I work for owns wouldn't be able to function without undocumented workers.

Companies that handle everything from large tree removal, to interior painting, roofing, paving, or carpet installation all have at least some undocumented migrants on their payrolls.

If you consider businesses like restaurants, car washes, landscapers, farms, office cleaning companies, meatpacking companies or nail salons (and I could go on), all hire large numbers of undocumented migrants - and we all know it.

Citizens, police, politicians, clergy, tax professionals, medical professionals, journalists - we all know that undocumented workers are an essential component of the U.S. economy.

Is there anyone who honestly thinks that only legal U.S. citizens were out there across the midwest and northeast over the past couple weeks removing the hundreds of thousands of tons of snow that blanketed the country?

So to me, there's something disingenuous about American taxpayer money going towards hundreds of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement planning, staffing and executing predawn raids on 98 different convenience stores across the country targeting undocumented workers and coming up with 21 arrests.

Heavily-armed neo-Nazi Taylor Michael Wilson tried
to commit a terrorist act on an Amtrak train in Oct.

Remember, the people working those early morning graveyard shifts at 7-Elevens weren't terrorists.

These were people working long hours for low pay selling snacks, coffee, gas, cigarettes and lotto tickets to customers.

Consider the very real threats posed by rampant gun violence and domestic right-wing terrorists - who are responsible for far more deaths to Americans than terrorists motivated by a warped interpretation of Islam.

Why aren't we seeing Homeland Security agents fanning out in nationwide predawn roundups of these right-wing neo-Nazi assholes like Taylor Michael Wilson?

As NPR and other outlets reported last week, this violent racist douchebag (pictured above) was subdued by Amtrak personnel in the early morning hours last October in Furnas County, Nebraska after he was found in a restricted area of the passenger train trying to apply the emergency brakes.

In what's become an all-too familiar refrain that's pretty much the only thing never mentioned in the nearly-constant stream of idiotic tweets sent out by America's Very Stable Genius, Wilson was arrested with a loaded handgun, three loaded clips, another box of ammo, a knife, a hammer, tin snips, scissors, a respirator mask and a tape measure.

He also had business cards on him for the National Socialist Movement in Detroit, Michigan - and one for the white-identity Covenant Nation Church in Oneonta, Alabama - and yes, he was at the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia too.

A huge cache of rifles, ammo and white supremacist literature (if you can call it that) were also found in his apartment in a secret compartment behind the fridge - the weapons included AK-47's and American mass-murderer's weapon of choice, AR-15's.

Anti-government Rancher Cliven Bundy

Now if a radicalized Islamic terrorist so much as farts in a country thousands of miles away, Very Stable Genius is tweeting about it.

But when right-wing white domestic terrorists commit acts of violence here in the U.S. - nothing but radio silence from 45's otherwise active Twitter feed.

So in the same week that federal agents swooped down on 7-Elevens, Federal District Judge Gloria Navarro stunned observers by dismissing the case against rancher Cliven Bundy.

Yup, same guy who bilked the federal government out of over a million dollars in taxes and grazing fees and famously led a tense a standoff with supporters who pointed loaded weapons at federal agents, had the case against him dismissed.

As Robert Gehrke observed in an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, in justifying her dismissal of the case, Judge Navarro said:

"The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated." 

It's interesting to ponder the "universal sense of justice" in an an America where a federal court dismisses a case against Cliven Bundy for repeatedly breaking federal laws and inspiring anti-government zealot supporters to threaten federal agents with loaded guns, while hordes of ICE agents descend on convenience stores to attack the "threat" of employees working the graveyard shift at 7-Eleven.

From my standpoint those ICE raids Wednesday morning were little more than contrived anti-immigration theater meant to fire up the 33 - 36% of Americans who still support Trump at a time when he's being besieged on all sides because of his own incompetence and corruption.

Senator Diane Feinstein

The publication of Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury" only confirmed what many already knew about the unmitigated chaos of the Trump White House.

And sparked a desperate 45 to televise a meeting with lawmakers in which he contradicted his own position on immigration and didn't appear to understand the basic definition of a "clean DACA bill".



Meanwhile Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein releasing the 300-page transcript of the testimony of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee has only raised more questions about the ever-growing list of disturbing ties between Russian government operatives and members of the Trump campaign - including Trump himself and members of his family. 

With more than 30 Republican congressmen already having announced their retirement ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections and things looking grim for the GOP, it's not surprising that someone from the White House made a call to ICE to make some high-profile mojo happen to rally a clearly-rattled Republican base.

But make no mistake, like airline passengers being made to remove shoes and belts while going through TSA flight security in the wake of 9-11, the ICE raids were nothing more than anti-immigration theater.

Data from the Pew Research Center estimates that about 17.1% of the U.S. workforce ( 27.6 million people ) were immigrants in 2014.

Of those, about 8 million workers were here illegally, and that's probably a conservative number.

Those ICE raids on the 7-Eleven stores Wednesday morning yielded 21 arrests, so you do the math.

ICE agents take a man into custody in Massachusetts

If there was any "universal sense of justice" those raids would never have happened in the first place.

And the Republicans who've controlled Congress since 2010 would have long since gotten off their obstructionist asses and passed immigration reform legislation instead of vilifying the millions of undocumented immigrants that have been here for years.

Yup, they've controlled the legislative branch of the federal government for seven years. The result? Nada.

But alas, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and their Very Stable Genius lackey in the White House seem content with some occasional anti-immigration theater to titillate their base of support.

Meaningless red-meat for the far-right.

Bread and circuses to try and distract working class white Republican voters who got royally screwed by their own party's billionaire-friendly tax bill from realizing that the prancing orange-maned horse they so enthusiastically backed in 2016 is nothing more than an empty broken down nag.

One who's more interested in whining about immigration than actually coming up with meaningful, realistic, long-term policies to address it - and the wall doesn't count.

Even "Mr. Art of the Deal" basically admitted on Tuesday during his shaky televised meeting on immigration that his plan to wall off the entire southern border of the United States is delusional and unlikely to be passed by Congress - he sheepishly walked back his bedrock campaign promise to a much more modest "wall for a fairly good portion." 

Don't hold your breath waiting for Mexicans to pay for that either.