Those Quiet Moments: The Hum

                                       

I have a distinct memory of being a small child.  Kindergarten, or maybe pre, and being awoken in the middle of the night by something to this day I'm unsure of.   A low level, quiet, and distant humming. Barely there, but enough to make me get out of bed and wander the house, eventually looking out windows.  It was baffling, I found no answers, and went back to bed. 

This continued for years.  I have memories of being in elementary school, living in rural Wisconsin, hearing it, chalking it up to distant traffic and disregarding it.  Then later in life, I lived in places nowhere near highways, or even roads with frequent traffic and hearing it.  The Hum. 

The Hum.  Out there, lurking.

In High School, there I was, during the Witching Hour, peering out my bedroom window, head cocked to one side like a curious German Shepherd.  In Trade School, hearing it seep into my ear canals as I slept to a pause in my sister's basement in Kenosha, WI.  Oh, still getting up, walking the house, checking the windows, wanting, needing an explanation so rest could come.  

Wanting confirmation that I wasn't crazy, schizophrenic and hearing things that weren't there.

"What the hell is that?"  An eerie, consistent, and ethereal deep hum.  I told no one.

I heard it through the days in the 90's when my oldest was an infant, then the 2000's.....the break of the early 2010's, the year I lived in my brothers upstairs bedroom, following me like a magnet on an anvil.  Now, in Texas, it still sometimes crawls into my ears in those overnight hours when slumber cracks open and drops me out onto some kind of ledge...

It brings to mind the album cover of Manfred Mann's 70's album,  The Roaring Silence.  Just faint enough, but present enough to drive me insane.  Will I ever have an answer for that goddamn hum?

I have tinnitus now, after 20 years of working in a loud factory environment.  Bad enough that business took two knees and a pair of discs functioning capabilities, it had to screw up my ability to truly enjoy music. Then I had a severe sinus infection 10 years ago that reduced my hearing capacity in my left ear even further.  

But under that grinding, staticky, high pitched whine that is tinnitus' calling card, often in dead silence of night...

Welcome my son.  Welcome to the Machine.

Underneath all that.  The Hum does return, just to remind me that it's never going to go away.

But I guess I'm not alone:

Movies I Stayed Up Late For: Zorro

"Zorro" was a 1974 multi-country production starring Alain Delon, star of the internationally regarded Le Samourai and Scorpio, who made his biggest American splash as a pilot in the cumbersome Concorde:Airport 79.  

My put-upon sister took me to see "Zorro" theatrically during a late 70's re-release. I remember some serious swashbuckling activity, fantastic stunt work involving equine action, a lot of Alain Delon smooching, and the Oliver Onions song Zorro's Back, which was used to great effect a couple years back in the Wes Anderson and Luke and Owen Wilson collaboration, Bottle Rocket.   

After seeing the film, I ran around the living room, fencing air villians with a stick, my mom's afghan around my shoulders, as I became the Somers Village Zorro.  In reality, I was just an idiot. I've spoken in this blog about heroes I had as a kid.  French heartthrob Alain Deloin was one of them.  to this day, he's my favorite Zorro. Yeah, yeah, I know, the serialized episodes from back in the day, Antonio Banderas, The Gay Blade, etc, et al.  

No. It's Delon. 

This film enjoyed some great late night runs on our pre-cable television sets back in the day, and I eventually was able to track it back down on disc sometime in the early 2010s.  Of all the movies from my youth, this one is the one that I am still the most shocked I was able to locate on Blu-ray.  So join me in singing the long-forgotten (unless you happen to be Wes Anderson) classic: 

The Gobble Project : Turkey Noir

On TMC's terrific Noir Alley, Eddie Muller introduced the wife and I to 5 against the House.   It's an odd film about 4 college age kids (kids? well... two were in Korea, so they're on the GI Bill, but these do not look like college kids).  One's a rich kid, whose "genius" has his mind busy working on "systems" (that probably are not pertinent to his grades), another who is the typical fast-talking and annoying hanger-on that speckled the era, and movies about the time period (see: The Wanderers, Grease) demonstrate this fact.  You know these characters, crackin' wise constantly, and unable to shut up.

Then there's our two GI Bill boys fresh from the Korean skirmish, who are late for their law degrees, and one guy's quasi-femme fatale (a young and fresh Kim Novak).  

The rich "genius" has devised a plan to rob the then-famous Harold's club casino in Reno the week of Thanksgiving.  Which had me humming this ditty from my college days:

This planned activity is not a crime, says our young whiz-kid, as he has no plans to keep the cash. He just wants to see if he can pull this thing off.    Well, it seems one of the two vets has some head issues from the war that flicker early on in a violent outburst that began as defense of a friend.  (This is Brian Keith in a pretty stalwart performance).  He's decided he wants to keep the money, natch.  This unfortunately will put his buddies and Miss Novak in harm's way. Now, they're not such friends, anymore. 

Happy Turkey Day, Pals!!

A youngish William Conrad does a nice turn here as the casino employee victimized by the crime.  He reminds me of a young Orson Welles here, as this is long before Jake & the Fatman  and Cannon.  This all turns into a sloppy casino mess before the holiday can even be celebrated.  (Ocean's Eleven they are not).  

It's a fun little noir however, and it falls right into the Turkey Day Window.  Enjoy!!

The Gobble Project : Intro and Miss Peach of Kelly School

 As a kid, I really geared up for the holidays internally.  There was a sense of anticipation that began in mid-October and ran until New Year's Day.  When I reminisce on it, I get a warm fuzzy feeling, and visual images that aren't unlike being pulled into a time machine with the air swirling with Life Saver's Books, Holiday Specials, and the smell of Turkey.  

Nothing exists like bringing all those family members together.  As I got older, the heartwarming nostalgia became even stronger as family members began to live further apart and the re-connection created a real strong heartstring pull.  Besides family connecting and the dinners, the TV Special was a huge deal as a child of the 70's.  With the advent of cable and the addition of streaming, television has become so watered down, it's hard to know what's on, much less when.  This was not the case in those days.

   

Now, mind your reactions, the explosions of channels has caused cable services to really have to work at it to create a quality product to bring in and sustain an audience.  Quality has suddenly become a commonality, if you want people to watch what you're making.  Cable saved us from the onslaught of endless trashy reality shows, and streaming returned the cinematic feel to television.  

Still there's something to be found in the network and syndicated originals of the 70's.  Before frickin' Survivor and American Idol came along and ruined scripted material by washing it away. 

I was a huge reader of the comic strip in the Sunday papers.  Miss Peach was one of my faves as there was great wisecracking humor from the kids, and some nice life lessons that could be derived. 

Miss Peach made a minimized leap to television with some slight regularity and the occasional holiday specials.  My fave being Miss Peach and the Turkey Raffle. It aired at least once on WFLD 32 out of Chicago on Thanksgiving Day, and to see those characters come to life from newsprint to puppetry (Miss Peach was live action however herself) was kind of a revelation.  Here's a little history on how that happened: Flexitoon

I don't remember it with great clarity, but I couldn't wait to watch it.  And it carries with it a great air of nostalgia to this day.

The Witch of November

One of my favorite songs of all time is The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by my personal poet laureate, Gordon Lightfoot.  (He's a great story himself, you know, check this out).    Jack Black and Todd Louiso in the Stephen Frears piece, High Fidelity discuss its incredible nature as one of the greatest songs of all time about death.  Believe it or not, the released version was done on the first take.

    

Tonight in 1975, The Witch of November came early and resulted in difficult seafaring on Lake Superior and the Great Lakes in general.  It resulted in the sinking of the ore freighter, The Edmund Fitzgerald.  

I seem to have memories of the news of the disaster from early childhood and Lightfoot's melody hangs heavy in my heart to this day.  When I see footage of deep ocean waves on television, my stomach drops into a hidden trough in my abdomen.  When The Witch came through, the Great Lakes can take on those qualities, complete with rogue waves, and the ability to sink a ship in seconds. 

Memories of these newscasts still linger in my mind like a ghost in a haunted house.  

Old ghosts, but ones with power nonetheless. 

I wish peace to all who have lost loved ones to the beast of the deep so suddenly and with such dark circumstances. 

Here's a link to a list of memorial services for those sailors for November of 2022.  One is even virtual.

Well over 10 years ago, a young man named Timothy McCall of Indiana set up a great site dedicated to the ship and the wreck. Informative and empathic, it grows and expands with the times, please take some time to check it out here.

 Here are the names of the lost 29 men of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

And in-depth discussion of that night and the events from PBS Wisconsin.

Samhain Project 2 : Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

 I was genuinely surprised by TCM III.  I've done some research on the history of the series and this one is generally regarded as the weakest by many.  I have a hard time figuring out why that is. Now, don't get me wrong, it's far from perfect, and there are clunky moments probably caused by studio meddling, but I actually genuinely liked this film.  

One thing I enjoyed is the feeling I got that they were trying to blend the two distinctly different tones of Tobe Hooper's original and sequel.  To a degree I feel director Jeff Burr and crew had some success in doing so. 

Its gore from KNB FX is extremely limited, and I guess that's the case with the unrated version as well, (also allegedly from studio meddling, and wrestling with the MPAA).  Make no mistake, the film is grim enough in my view, but true gorenuts will be disappointed with its lack of gristle, as it doesn't even approach the splatter level of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

A nice cast of genre veterans and an early appearance by Viggo Mortenson, who does not appear to be slumming it, adds a professional vibe to it that could have been lost.  The introduction of Kate Hodge who has had a lengthy career (many will know her from the Brandon Lee film, Rapid Fire) is here along with William Butler (Tom in Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead) and Ken Foree (Peter from Dawn of the Dead), and much more. They do quite a bit with roles that could have been phoned in by lesser performers. 

Overall, Leatherface has a lot more going for it than the pundits give it credit for and I give it a Halloween recommendation.

Samhain Project 2 : Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane

1976 brought us The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, starring a very young Jodie Foster, in a performance that is required to carry the film.  The 13 year old pulls it off with panache.  Foster plays Rynn, who recently moved with her father to a village on the seaside east coast, probably somewhere in Massachusetts or Rhode Island.  It opens on Halloween night and carries through the fall and winter. 

Where is her father?  That's the question.  The property manager is a woman all too eager to know, but is belligerent about it, rude, and pushes Foster to ridiculous points of frustration.  Her son, a reptilian Martin Sheen, fresh off of Badlands, is a good looking dude who the town knows is no good.  As in perverted no-good, and has designs on young Rynn.

Little Girl was terribly mis-marketed as a horror film, like "anyone who goes into this little girl's home, DOESN'T COME OUT!!" type of thing.  Suspenseful it is, and all the cast members raise the material to the next level.  Rynn is uber-intelligent, but not so smart that she doesn't need someone to understand and even help her try to keep her life on the straight and narrow with dark happenings accumulating in the periphery.  That's where Mario comes in; a terrific teenage Scott Jacoby, and the two lean on each other through a growing storm of incidents.  You don't fear them as "homicidal" as some reviewers put it back in '76, you identify with them, and wish that those around them didn't have such negative intentions.

Little Girl is not a Halloween film. It's not even a horror film.  It's a lightly suspenseful character study, that deserves re-assessment to a certain extent.