Ross Perot

My political awakening happened during the 1992 presidential campaign.  Prior to 1991/92, I was mostly oblivious to politics beyond a knee-jerk reaction to the story of the day.  When the campaign began, I was in favor of Bob Kerrey, a Democratic Senator from neighboring Nebraska (I lived in Iowa at the time).  Kerrey had a dim view of Governor Clinton and I adopted that view.  As such, I was less than thrilled when Clinton won the Democratic nomination.  Enter Ross Perot.  Perot was a straight shooter who sang one of my favorite tunes: the government spends too much.  His TV infomercial was highly enjoyable though it was more diagnosis than prescription.  He ripped both Bush and Clinton, but more Bush as I recall.  However, he was also a bit of a crank, offering a nutty story about President Bush threatening to ruin his daughter's wedding.  Huh?  But for his inexplicable withdraw and then return to the campaign, Perot might have actually won.  Probably not but when you consider the alternates were Bush and Clinton, it was possible.  And that may be the spark that brought about the Trump Presidency.

 

Ross Perot wasn't a politician or a general, the two sources for presidential material throughout US history.  Even so, he won 19% of the vote in '92, 8% in '96, and started the Reform Party.  Guess who briefly ran for the nomination in the Reform Party in 2000: Donald Trump.  If a man who reminded me of Little Caesar - "Pizza pizza" - could win almost 20% of the vote after having left the campaign then anything was possible.  If Barry Goldwater's embarrassing defeat was a precursor to Ronald Reagan's two landslide victories, then one could argue that Ross Perot blazed a trail for fellow billionaire Trump to win the White House.

 

RIP

George H W Bush

I read an interesting article that described Bush well.  He viewed himself more as a caretaker than a leader.  He didn't have the vision thing.  Per the Constitution, the president enforces laws that Congress passes which is how he saw his domestic position.  He had spent his life preparing for the Cold War and then it ended in the middle of his presidency.  With no Soviet Union, the country was willing to take a risk with an anti-war Democrat.

 

The first opportunity I had to vote in a presidential election, I voted against George Bush.  He won despite me.  The next time around, I voted for him.  He lost.  I have a very bad record with presidential voting and it all started with Bush.

 

The most memorable thing about President Bush is Dana Carvey.  What a terrific impression.

 

RIP

John McCain

John McCain should never have become a politician.  He was a commendable, honorable, brave naval aviator who suffered for his country like few ever have.  But for his injuries as a POW, he might have followed his father and grandfather to become a navy admiral.  Instead, he ran for office.  McCain was an uneasy Republican, famously called a maverick thanks to his frequent clashes with his fellow Republicans.  He was beloved by the media while he trashed his fellow party members but, when it came time to run for president, the media that had so loved him turned on him; why vote Democrat-lite when you could get the real thing with Obama?  So long as he opposed Trump, the media loved him again.

 

RIP

Moore, Roger Moore

Roger Moore (1927-2017) has died.  I saw my first James Bond movie in 1977, Roger Moore's best outing as the character in The Spy Who Loved Me.  I became a Bond fanatic and Moore was instantly my favorite Bond.  In fact, he was probably my favorite actor at the time, which is funny when you consider his very narrow range.  While he was Bond, he was a hot commodity and had plenty of work.  When video stores arose with VHS, I always kept an eye out for Roger Moore movies.  Shout at the Devil, Sherlock Holmes in New York, The Naked Face, The Sea Wolves, ffolkes, The Wild Geese, and more.  I watched reruns of The Saint, his British TV series that was the basis of the disappointing Val Kilmer version which featured the saddest excuse ever for a cameo for Moore.  When I became more discerning, my preferences changed but Moore remains the first Bond to me despite following Connery in the role.  After he left the Bond franchise, at least 2 films too late, he vanished.  The last movie I saw of his in the theaters was The Quest, a Jean-Claude Van Damme stinker in which Moore played a dodgy aristocrat.

 

As Bond, Moore was the most humorous of the bunch and brought a tongue in cheek quality to the series.  My favorite of his Bond films is For Your Eyes Only.  It played like a Cold War thriller rather than a fantasy spy movie.  It was a nice return to earth after Moonraker.

 

RIP

Moon Walkers

Eugene Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17 and last man to walk on the moon, has died.  Of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, only 6 remain.  All of them are in there 80s.  Interestingly, both Cernan and Neil Armstrong - first man to walk on the moon - were graduates of Purdue University.  Cernan's space flights included Gemini 9, Apollo 10 - in which he flew the lunar module within 8 miles of the moon's surface, and Apollo 17.  Apollo 17 was the longest stay on the moon of any of the lunar landings.  For three days, Cernan and Harrison Schmidt vacationed on the moon, off-roading in a lunar rover and hiking the Taurus-Littrow valley in search of rocks.

 

With private companies now involved in a new space race, perhaps the remaining moon walkers will get to see mankind return to the moon and maybe places beyond.

 

RIP

Debbie Reynolds

The day after her daughter died, Debbie Reynolds is gone.  It has been a very difficult two days for Todd Fisher and Billie Lourd.  Debbie Reynolds' career peaked in the 50s and 60s.  As I look at her body of work on IMDb, I recognize only a handful that I have seen, many of those where she only had a supporting role.  Of her films, three stand out in my memory.

 

The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964): I saw this a couple of times, the most recent of which would be more than 30 years ago.  Though Molly is famed for surviving the Titanic, that is a small part of the film.  I was reminded of Beverly Hillbillies when I saw the movie, where Molly is mostly rejected by the established aristocrats.  I should see this again and test my memory of it.

 

Mother (1996): I have rarely found Albert Brooks funny but this movie was an exception.  I think that can mostly be attributed to Debbie Reynolds' role as his mother.  I particularly enjoyed her going out on a date and telling him not to wait up or something like that.  Brooks was his normal hapless self, which worked in this movie.

 

Singin' in the Rain (1952): The greatest musical ever made.  Not long after my father bought a VHS, he taped this movie.  My brother and I watched this and Star Wars (I didn't know that Kathy Selden was Princess Leia's mom back then) almost weekly.  Her takedown of Don Lockwood's (Gene Kelly) ego might have served as a model for Leia's scruffy-looking nerf-herder comments to Han Solo 28 years later.  The movie is a joy from start to finish, full of song, dance, and humor.

 

Carrie Fisher

When Carrie was two years old, her father, Eddie Fisher, left her mother, Debbie Reynolds, for Elizabeth Taylor.  Carrie smoked, drank, did drugs, and had a wreck of a personal life.  Her only marriage lasted a year.  She had a daughter with a man who left her for another man.  Children of celebrities often have difficult lives because they are in the spotlight.  Carrie's life was more difficult than most.  In this day and age, 60 is entirely too young to die.

 

I was 16 when Return of the Jedi came to theaters and Carrie Fisher rocked it as Slave Leia.  Interestingly, her strangling of Jabba was her best moment in a movie where her character was otherwise mushy and mostly besotted with an increasingly inept Han Solo.  Leia was at her best in the first movie and just diminished from there.  Even in her return in The Force Awakens, she has lost the fire that made Leia so striking.  Consider how Leia reacts when brought before Tarkin on the Death Star:

Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.

Completely at the mercy of her enemies and still full of fire, showing nothing but contempt.  She and Han instantly have a hostile relationship during the rescue:

This is some rescue! You came in here, but didn't you have a plan for getting out?

And the hits kept coming:

Someone has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, fly boy.

I don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on you'll do as I tell you, okay?

Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?

You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought.

What happened to this Leia?  In The Empire Strikes Back, her hostility toward Han continues but is just an increasingly transparent device to deny that she is in love with a scoundrel.  By Return of the Jedi, she was softened to where she is left sitting on a log with a cute teddy bear.  However, it is revealed that she is Luke's sister and should also be strong in the force.  Though her son, Kylo Ren, is strong in the force, Leia appears to have developed no talents in the intervening decades.  The character had so much promise at the start and, so far as we know, it came to naught.

 

Sadly, Leia is Carrie's acting career.  She had a couple of forgettable movies but, like Mark Hamill, never became a star outside of Star Wars.  Her best non-Leia role was undoubtedly the Mystery Woman in The Blues Brothers.  She had this sweet girl-next-door face combined with the homicidal fury of the scorned woman.  Awesome!

 

Considering her appearance at the end of Rogue One, Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia may live on as a CGI character.  It reminds me of one of her witty comments regarding Star Wars merchandising:

 

I signed my likeness away. Every time I look in the mirror, I have to send Lucas a couple of bucks.

 

RIP