It turns out that a few days ago, actor Antonio Sabato Jr., formerly of General Hospital and the original Melrose Place, has filed papers to run for Congress as a Republican in California's 26th District. You may remember Mr. Sabato from his speaking at the Republican National Convention about Donald Trump wanting to bring people together and building that wall because "that's what governments do," as well as interviews he gave at the time on behalf of Trump -- though more specifically his adorable opinions about President Barack Obama.
When talking to ABC News, for instance, during the convention he said that Mr. Obama was "absolutely" a Muslim, to which he added for emphasis in case you missed the creepiness, "We had a Muslim president for seven-and-a-half years." What he left out, of course, was any shred of evidence, an explanation why Barack Obama's birth certificate didn't count, and why being a Muslim would be inappropriate in a country founded on religious freedom even if it had been true. By the way, if you missed the interview, I'm sure it will be re-run over and over again during the campaign by his opponent to question his fitness for office. That opponent, by the way, will be Democratic congresswoman Julia Brownley. The hurdle for Mr. Sabato is not just that she's an incumbent Democrat, but she won her last election by 21 points. Okay, there's another hurdle. His fundraiser strategist Charles Moran told reporters that Mr. Sabato's message to the voters of the heavily-Democratic district in Southern California is that, as a Republican, he is “a member of the majority party who has good relations with the Trump administration.” Mr. Sabato might want to consider either another message or strategist. In an interview with Variety when announcing his candidacy, Mr. Sabato gave some insight into his personal story that perhaps pushed him into the race and his perspective on world affairs, He told the paper that “I’ve had fantastic directors who have said officially to my agents and managers they will never hire me again. They will never even see me for projects. That’s unfair. It’s just like communism.” Actually, this is absolutely nothing like communism, something you'd hope an aspiring congressman would grasp. Communism is a form of centralized government based on social economics and communal aspects of living. It has pretty much nothing to do with who someone wants to hire or not for a job. ("Pretty much nothing" is the polite term for nothing.) Where there are restrictions to hiring in a communistic society, it's because of national governmental control, not because people in a position to freely hire others think you're a crank. If anything, it's far closer to the Blacklist during McCarthyism which was a Republican-led reaction against communism. And against liberals. But even that was hugely different from what the confused Mr. Sabato is suggesting Because it too was tied to actual government hearings and coordinated efforts by right-wing organizations that put together literal books with detailed names in them that you specifically could not hire. Not just a case of a person in charge who has a choice but doesn't want to hire you because they think you're a jerk. By the way, a moment of digression. If in fact those fantastic directors did actually, really, truly tell his agents and managers what he claims, and it's not just a case of his agents coming up with a convenient excuse to explain to their client why he didn't get a job rather than saying that "They didn't like your audition," excuses which agents and managers in fact are known to make regularly as easy as breathing, then that would absolutely be totally unfair. Just as it's unfair that people in Hollywood over 40 (which Mr. Sabato is) have a hard time getting hired (as perhaps may be the case with him not being hired), and unfair that women over 30 have a hard time getting hired, and unfair why women who aren't thin and aren't gorgeous enough have a hard time getting hired, and unfair that black actors and Hispanic actors and disabled actors have a hard time getting hired, and more. Hollywood is overloaded with unfairness. That doesn't justify any of it, Hollywood is profoundly unfair in immeasurable ways, but it just explains that unfairness is not limited. It permeates the place. If that's in fact what's happening here. After all, checking the Internet Movie Database, it turns out that Mr. Sabato has been in six productions in the last two years alone, so clearly someone is hiring him. They may not be great projects or substantive roles (or may be, I don't know), but if this was actually communism, then instead of getting six film or TV projects you might instead be sent to the Gulag, or during the Blacklist you might have lost everything and been left destitute, or jailed. Then again, refusing to work with someone because of political beliefs. which is very unfair, is a totally different matter entirely from not wanting to be around a person who is intolerant, mean-spirited, and an outspoken bigot. Not that Antonio Sabato Jr. is any of those things. He may be a lovely man. It's just that sometimes when you talk, people can get the wrong impression. Which brings us back to his campaign. Who knows? Maybe he'll be able to convince Southern California voters that Barack Obama was absolutely a Muslim. And that Donald Trump, as he told the Republican Convention, is really just a swell guy who wants to unite all of us by building a wall.
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It's been too long since I've had a "Comedy Against Trumpism" video, and with Trump on his international trip, this seems like the right time to jump back. Since he is in Italy, I thought that that would be ideal but for whatever reason their video is blocked. So, here instead is Bulgaria -- yes, Bulgaria -- explaining why if it's America First, they should be second. I just read an article about the man-on-the-street reaction around Italy to Trump/ The bulk of the story is that most people talked to thought he was "molto pazzo" -- very crazy. With some adding "dangerous." But there was one voice of support they quoted, and it stood out to me.
“He is a strong man,” Frederico Placidi, a 42-year-old shopowner said of Trump. “It would be nice to have someone like him in Italy, I think." And all I could think was -- you did. Mussolini. Actually, I thought of two things. The other was George Santayana's famous quote -- "“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I had a somewhat unexpected occurrence yesterday, but much-appreciated because it helped assuage an awkward feeling I had.
I don't think it's really possible for most people, if anyone to adequate the feelings one has when a tragic massacre happens like that in Manchester. You can use the same cliched words because the feeling in universal, but that's about as far as one can go. And you turn on the television to get some coverage of what happened. But for me, that generally tends to last about 20 minutes, because at that point in the news no one has anything more to report. It's just the same words over and over, the same videos, the same experts and nothing new is being said. I understand the need that many feel for a sense of community, but I still want news, and if there isn't anything different to say, then I don't want it said over and over, for five hours. That's me. When there's news to report, report it. But there is other news happening, and I want to know it, to not only keep informed, but to keep it all in perspective. And the day after -- yesterday -- there was even more of the same, still going on, nothing new, but still being reported. Though as the day progressed, there finally was something new, with the investigation leading to an arrest. But mostly, the same things were being repeated. Out of curiosity, and with that sense of perspective, because I was in my car that has Sirius/XM Radio, I decided to put on the BBC World Service. If I was going to hear news about Manchester, I at least wanted to hear it from England. And to my surprise -- unlike in the U.S. on television...the story they were covering wasn't about Manchester! Nor was the next one! They did address it with the third story, but then I had reached my destination and left for lunch. When I got back an hour later, I put the BBC back on -- and again, they were covering something else. The next story was about the attack, but from a completely different angle than anything I'd heard on American TV -- it was a report on how to deal with children at such times. It was interesting and profoundly low-key. And then when that was over -- They went to a program about technology! And did a story on government innovation. There, in the middle of the storm, life was going on. The story was being covered. And being covered well. And in detail. But it was being covered when they had something to report and talk about. And done in a mature, thoughtful way that respected the listener. Yes, I know, this was "the Beeb," and that's their style, even during a tragic bombing in their country. But they covered it as Really Important News -- not the only news. And it was done wonderfully. Years back, when I worked in P.R. at Universal Studios, we released a film that starred Roger Moore -- who passed away today at the age of 89 -- which was a huge flop and remains little-known in his portfolio. But it was great fun and one of my favorite of his works. It was an adventure film with the terrible title, ffolkes (which was the characters last name, down to the lower case spelling). What made the move so fun is not so much the story (which is fine, but flawed), but that although it was an action-adventure, with Moore playing an expert called in to resolve a hostage situation on an oil drilling platform in the North Sea, and came right in the middle of his run as James Bond, it was a role that called for him to play against type. The character was an action hero, but one with a scraggly beard who was reticent, almost a recluse in his family castle, who was stiff, stilted, an overt and non-apologetic misogynist, and great lover of cats, who had assembled and trained his own team. And Moore seemed to revel in the role. It had a pretty nice cast, with Anthony Perkins as a bad guy, and James Mason. The film wasn't great, but an enjoyable popcorn film. But above all, it was worth having been made if only because it gave rise to one of my favorite lines in our department after the opening weekend box office figures came in and we had our Monday Morning meeting. The head of the department gave the dismal reckoning and then added, "Well...I guess all that's left to be said is -- That's all, ff-ff-ffolkes." When it later got released on TV, the name was changed to, I think, North Sea Hijack, so if you ever see that playing, it's actually ffolkes. Here's the trailer. It's lousy and doesn't give much a sense of the humor and adventure, and the video quality is poor. (And this description has the spelling wrong. It's lower case "f", for goodness sake!) But here it is -- Oh, okay. As long as I'm writing about ffolkes, and you have a slight idea of the film, I might as well post two other videos that are far-better quality and give a better sense of the movie, thought would have made little sense out of context. This first comes early on and has the character explaining his misogyny. And what he does love. And this is the very end of the film. If you don't want anything given away -- on the off-chance that you may see this one day (highly unlikely) -- don't watch. But if you're watching the movie and can't figure out how the end basically gets resolved, you're not trying very hard. A couple of notes. The title used below -- "Esther, Ruth and Jennifer" -- are the code-names of the oil drilling platform and two rigs he's been sent to rescue, or something close to that, if I recall correctly. And the woman you see below is one of the the team who helps ffolkes, much against his wishes (in one of the funnier scenes of the movie), and yet she earns his admiration for her great work during the mission. As you likely recall, I was in Lisbon last month attending the IFA Global Press Conference, put on by the group that runs that big tech show in Berlin I write about. I posted a few general overviews of the event, but for this month's The Writers Workbench column, I took a more specific look at the show.
As always, because I write the column for the Writers Guild of American website, and it gets coded there what with all the graphics and such, it's a whole lot easier to just link to the article so that you can read it there. It's a long piece, but happily not remotely at the level of my CES or IFA Berlin articles so you can rest easy. It's also not especially techie, just more of a round-up of the press conferences and a handful of the few products that were presented. Just click here and you're on your way. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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