CRC Blog

20 Responses to “LOST DIARY”

1. LaZ Says:
   May 1st, 2009 at 3:39 pm

   I had no idea… I had no idea…

   we have to send someone in to take care of this…

2. California Yanqui Says:
   May 1st, 2009 at 5:42 pm

   What type of opera have you been working on CRC? Is it classical more traditional, or more like Pete Townsends kind? Tommy? Quadraphenia?

3. California Yanqui Says:
   May 1st, 2009 at 5:44 pm

   Your pictures say a thousand words without speaking. Classic hollywood craftsman home or bungalow. red doors suspenders and your cat. I’m guessing that’s not biker cat.

4. Anna Says:
   May 1st, 2009 at 5:51 pm

   Is that a young you. Looks like a scene from
   “Gulliver’s Travels” with Otto? I told you that my Uncle Dick, we called him that in the sixties before it was bad, gave me, “Mad Magazines” with a comic Gulliver and a goat head unbrella. No wonder I’m warped….

5. CRC Says:
   May 1st, 2009 at 9:39 pm

   I am 18 with my Burmese cat Guido on my shoulder. People thought I named him after the comic Father Guido Sarducci which always irked me. I named him after Guido da Arezzo a medieval music theorist and Benedictine monk. To help monks remember Gregorian Chants he invented the Guidonian hand, a widely used mnemonic system where note names are mapped to parts of the human hand. This transformed into our modern musical staff. I was a skulking loner, a Bohemian poet type. I was working on my experimental opera “Plato’s Cave.” Guido was my best friend. I would light church candles on the top of my piano, Guido would sit on my lap while I plucked at the keys to find what I heard in my head (mainly melancholic dissonance with sudden bursts of beauty). Occasionally, Guido would help me find what I was looking for by pressing a key with his paw (not walking on keys, actually pressing a key from my lap. I jotted down notes and poems to describe what I was hearing. Guido lived for 21 years. He was incredibly smart, but not fearless like Otto.

6. Dugsy Says:
   May 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 am

   Hello Laz, Cali, Anna, CRC & One and all; and a big Surf’s Up to brodda Barn!

   Now, I must agree with everyone but at the same time add, CRC is a survivor, that no one can deny…when I first looked at his picture, I saw an adventurous young lad, holding a very alert looking cat. He reminds me a lot of the character Robinson Crusoe. He too, was a survivor, an adventurer and a Jack of ALL trades. The only difference is, instead of a man named Friday, we have a smart cat named Guido, I state this with much respect.

   All For One, One For ALL

7. Anna Says:
   May 2nd, 2009 at 8:08 am

   Dick Whittington (also Dick Wittington) is a character in a British story that was adapted to the stage beginning in 1605 and became popular as a pantomime subject in the 19th century, called Dick Whittington and His Cat, very loosely based on Richard Whittington. There are several versions of the traditional story, which tells how Dick, a boy from a poor family, sets out for London to make his fortune, accompanied by, or later acquiring, his cat. At first he meets with little success, and is tempted to return home. However, on his way out of the city, whilst climbing Highgate Hill from modern-day Archway, he hears the Bow Bells of London ringing, and believes they are sending him a message. There is now a large hospital on Highgate Hill, named the Whittington Hospital, after this alleged episode. A traditional rhyme is associated with this episode, as follows:

   Turn again, Whittington,
   Once Mayor of London!
   Turn again, Whittington,
   Twice Mayor of London!
   Turn again, Whittington,
   Thrice Mayor of London!

   On returning to London, Dick embarks on a series of adventures. In one version of the tale, he travels abroad on a ship, and wins many friends as a result of the rat-catching activities of his cat; in another he sends his cat and it is sold to make his fortune. Eventually he does become prosperous, marries his master’s daughter Alice Fitzwarren (the name of the real Whittington’s wife), and is made Lord Mayor of London three times (the historical Whittington was elected Lord Mayor four times).

   I read the story of Dick and his cat. A drawing of the cat trying to wake up his young master asleep in the attic and when he is eating with the Persian Prince as a horde of mice come and take away all the food right before they were to dine. The Persian Prince was amaze at such a ceature and would paid anything for the cat. The drawing, painting were favorites of mine when I was young.

   You reminded me of the story and the “Whom the bell tolls for it tolls for thee”…

   Suppose to be true…

8. The Barn Says:
   May 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 am

   Now I know where your Uncle found the motivation for Marlon Brando’s character in Apocolyps Now cave scene!
   I think both of you, (You & Brando) are good method actors.
   From the light we always have to enter the dark at some time.
   Be well,

9. Anna Says:
   May 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 am

   Actually it was Robinson Crusoe in the Mad magazine, living 28 years as a castaway, the drawings were hilarious because all he had was goats. Do you think they got the word cruise ship from Crusoe?

10. CRC Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 9:48 am

    Also, it was the first and only time I was sporting a 6 pack.

11. Anna Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    Apocalypse Now is an American 1979 epic war film set during the Vietnam War. It tells the tale of two Army Special Forces officers, one, Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) who is sent into the jungle to assassinate, another, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

    I think CRC would be the young Captain Willard more than the Colonel. Anyway I saw that movie when it first came out and all I remember was it being a dark jungle, it went very fast for me, the movie.

12. The Barn Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    I saw it on my last week of basic training in the Army. I guess the brass thought it would motivate us to want to go and fight the Irainians. That was back during the Irainian Hostage Crisis.
    My favorite line in that film was Robert Duval…
    “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like….Victory!”
    Be well,

13. California Yanqui Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 7:11 pm

    “Also, it was the first and only time I was sporting a 6 pack.”

    What? I don’t see any beer.

    And since Barn brought up Apocolyps Now you can’t leave out Full Metal Jacket for that exquiste taste of boot camp and the surreal mickey mouse soung as they march into the burn out city just before they incounter the sniper.

    But alas back to CRC and the Pian he is feeling .. he needs to finish his opera.. I have one screen play that I have been trying to formulate since I left boot camp in 78. I ask Larry Gelbert once what to do if your stuck on a thought and tring to write a screen play and he told me to move on.

    Something to that effect, but I keep trying to formulate the story. At least I’m persistant.

    Yanqui

14. Dugsy Says:
    May 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    Cali, if you are passionate about your story, don’t move on, write on, man! I never heard of such a thing. Percolate, rather than formulate, before its too late. What do you love about your story? and write on! and don’t look back.

15. Anna Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 8:58 am

    Phan Thị Kim Phúc (born 1963) is a Vietnamese-Canadian who is the subject of a famous photo from the Vietnam War. The photo shows her at about age nine running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack. The photo was taken by AP photographer Nick Út.

    I saw that photo when I was sixteen. Napalm was used to destroy the vegetation. Anyway when i heard the word napalm, I heard the little girl screaming as the napalm burned her skin. She must have torned off her clothes and was running, or the napalm ate away part of her clothes………

16. The Barn Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 10:32 am

    That photo was burned in my mind as well, Anna. As was the monk who set himself on fire in protest of that awful conflict. War is never pretty, so I leave this on the positive note remembering the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
    Be well,

17. Roberta Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    There’s a red house over yonder, that’s where my baby stays. – Jimi

    Ah, the nostalga of old photos. I was in my high school yearbook a couple times last week. It reminded me to enjoy each day.

    You look like a thoughtful bohemian poet in this photo. Your soundtrack for the photo – I thought of – “The horror, the horror” from Apocolypse Now. Finish the opera!!! We want to hear it
    

18. Anna Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 6:58 pm

    I’ve been working on a huge horse, indian whatever painting for twenty some years, just keep adding to it. What’s weird is that the horse looks like Diamond and another painting, the little girl looks like my young friend Lyndsey, her mother told me. It was a black and white study of a Renoir but she does look like Lyndsey.

    Cali, Anyway put the story on the back burner on low and find people who were there, usually the truth is worse than the imagination. I don’t know Larry but that’s what I do.

19. California Yanqui Says:
    May 3rd, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    Thanks Anna, Larry Gelbart is a prolific writer he wrote for the series M.A.S.H. I met him and John Ritter when I worked camera for a pilot on comedy.

    “The Art of Comedy”

    I spelt his name wrong.
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0312205/bio

20. Anna Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 8:15 am

    I goggled Larry and figured he was the Mash writer which was based on the Korean Conflict but was actually loosely based on the Vietnam War. My Uncle Barney was in the Korean Conflict but he died not to long ago…..and Dolores’s brother was a sniper, but he’s brain damaged now but not from the war, freak accident or ……