7/25/22
Newsletter52
The Crack of Dawn
At 4:45 it’s night.
When I was 21 I worked in a camera store here in Michigan. A goofy-looking young man brought in a roll of film to be developed. I put it in a yellow envelope and began filling out the info. I asked, “Name?” He said, “Freund. F-R—” I cut in, “—E-U-N-D?” Looking surprised, he said, “Yeah. How did you know that?” I asked, “Are you related to the cinematographer, Karl Freund?” He looked amazed, “Yes, he’s my grandfather.” I said, “He was a great cinematographer.” The young man could care less. Well, Karl Freund was a vitally important cinematographer to the history of film. He photographed several classic early German films, like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. He immigrated to America in 1929, quickly became a top Hollywood cameraman, then won an Oscar in 1937 for The Good Earth. He was hired as DP (director of photography) on I Love Lucy, immediately recognized that TV shows weren’t shot properly, and invented the three-camera set-up, which is how all sit-coms, news shows, and everything else, is still shot on TV.
Here's a problem we don’t have anymore: in 1972 there were two movies that were so good that they evenly split all of the main Oscars. The Godfather won: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay; Cabaret won: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. I agree.
Jews Gone Bad: Just lately we’ve seen two Jews go bad: Harvey Weinstein and Jeffery Epstein. But who can forget the murderer, David Berkowitz (my mother’s maiden name), known as the Son of Sam. Or the Purple Gang, the Jewish mob of the 1920s, located here in Detroit. They were so violent that Al Capone brought them to Chicago to execute the Valentine’s Day Massacre, the first mass murder with automatic weapons (Tommy guns), and a fad that’s really caught on. The biggest personal injury lawyer here in Detroit is Sam Bernstein. Sam is the grandson of Abraham Bernstein, the head of the Purple Gang. But the big winner is Baruch Spinoza, 17th century philosopher, who actually managed to get excommunicated from Judaism, which really isn’t possible. Being excommunicated from being Jewish is like being banned from being black. If you’re born that way, you’re stuck.
Which puts me in mind of an old joke: Why is easier being black than gay? You don’t have to tell your parents.
For no good reason, Charlie Chaplin was often accused of being Jewish, which he wasn’t. In the late 1920s Chaplin considered making a film about the life of Christ (which could have been funny). Upon hearing this, Christians went nuts saying that no dirty Jew could make a film about Christ, who was Jewish. When the press confronted Chaplin, asking, “Are you Jewish?” He replied, “No, I don’t have that honor.”
Here's a limerick by Kurt Vonnegut:
There was an old man from ‘Stambul
Who soliloquized to his tool,
“You took all my wealth,
You ruined my health,
And now you won’t pee you old fool”
Here’s a little poem by Kurt Vonnegut:
Those who write on heaven’s walls
Will mold their shit in little balls
And those who read these lines of wit
Will eat those little balls of shit
And a cloudless day has begun.