[Kzyxtalk] Say qapla, Gracie.

[Marco McClean]

Subject: Say qapla, Gracie.

/"This thing that you do, Ted, where you come into a place and push 
people out, you should know those people worked really hard to build 
this magazine. They believed in it. And I get it, you've got your 
marching orders and you have to do what you have to do, but you don't 
have to be such a dick."/

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday, 2025-01-03) 7.5-hour Memo 
of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and 
KNYO.org (and, for the first three hours of the show, also 89.3fm KAKX 
Mendocino):
https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0625

I was still at Juanita's for that show, where her downstairs neighbor 
has had some health problems, so the tiniest of noises at night are hard 
for her, so you'll notice my mumbly-whispery tone, with the mic close, 
so it sounds like my hot breath is right in your ear. That explains 
that. Next few shows I'll be back in Albion, reading in my normal voice, 
unless you tell me you like it this way better. I don't have a preference.

Coming shows can feature your story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch 
or announcement or whatever. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to 
your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.

I've been doing my show on various radio stations every Friday night 
since February of 1997, when I stopped publishing /Memo/ on real 
newsprint. This involves 20-plus hours a week of concentrated prep and 
then a couple of all-nighters, one to get ready and one to go. If you 
appreciate the show and want to help me out personally, I could 
certainly use it. You can be sure I won't be spending your money on 
drugs or cigarets or candy:
https://paypal.me/MarcoMcClean

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a 
fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but 
worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, 
such as:

Rerun: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). I love everything about 
this film including the opening and closing credits, also the way they 
incorporate story text into the landscape. I've seen it at least ten 
times. I already identified with Walter Mitty from the James Thurber 
story when I was a little boy. And it's perfect how they used Sean Penn 
here; in fact everyone is perfectly cast. This movie, set at the 
corporate takeover and destruction of a fictional version of Life 
Magazine, came out very close after the time that a royal piece of shit 
from Florida named Claude "Hoot" Hooten bought up real-life KMFB, showed 
up one day, called a meeting, gave a little speech to everyone about how 
he just loved this little radio station exactly the way it was, and 
/what a lovely little town/, and so nothing would change and we were all 
gonna have such a lotta fun, and the next day he fired everyone, went to 
near 24-hour automation, affiliated with Fox News, changed the call 
letters to KUNK, and then immediately sold it off to somebody else and 
flew away. So you can grasp the parallels I saw between the film and 
fresh, raw events. Even without that, it's a great movie. It's a love 
story as well as being a trove of useful advice and indelible lines, 
like when Patton Oswalt (Todd) is sitting across from Ben Stiller 
(Walter) in the airport. They're eating cinnamon doughnuts. Todd says, 
"You know, you aren't what I expected." Walter says, "What did you 
expect?" Todd says, "I pictured you as this little gray piece of paper, 
but now I see you and it's like Indiana Jones decided to become the lead 
singer of The Strokes or something." Here, see for yourself, free:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmGf0W50DAk

It goes well, oddly, with both /Benjamin Button/ (and contains a 
reference to it) and /Mr. Nobody/, not the Val Kilmer one of that title 
but the one with Jared Leto, from 2013. Here are a couple of places to 
watch /Mr. Nobody/ for free. If one doesn't work, or they've removed it, 
try the other one. This is a magical, slow, dreamy, touching film made 
by a collaboration of studios from Belgium, Germany, France, and Canada. 
I think about Mr. Nobody every once in awhile, especially the part where 
the boy and girl are sitting next to each other on a summer resort 
beach, and the girl leans slightly so their bare shoulders just touch– 
and you're right back there, the first time you were with a girl you 
liked, feeling those feelings all over your skin (in addition to the 
tingly sunburn), and the butterflies in your stomach. And how vivid and 
precarious and important and mysterious everything was. The multiple 
overlapping timelines of the story, the character's three whole lives 
with three different partners, and the different kinds of joy and 
heartbreak of each one, especially the mentally ill one. "I love you. 
We'll get through this." No. You won't. And the reveal at the end, of 
the source of all of it.
https://watch.plex.tv/watch/movie/mr-nobody

The worst wreck of the Peter Pan story was not /Hook/, nor even the 
BBC's /Goes-Wrong Show/ version, but came in the otherwise wonderful 
teevee series /Once Upon A Time/ near the end of its second season, 
where they made Peter a psychopathic mind-controlling demon from Hell. 
When the characters of /Once Upon a Time/ went to Neverland, the series 
bogged down… although, I just looked up the review charts, and most 
other viewers seemed to continue to enjoy it at a consistent level then 
and for years after. I bailed when I couldn't stand it anymore, so. In 
my experience, the best Peter on stage was Lavender Kent in Gloriana 
Opera Company's production in Cotton Auditorium (Sandy Glickfeld played 
Tiger Lily the Indian princess), and the best film is 2003's /Peter 
Pan/, written and directed by P.J. Hogan, a story whose center is the 
innocent but fraught first-love dynamic between Peter and Wendy. Anyway, 
here's the original 1924 silent /Peter Pan/ film, found, repaired and 
restored. And look up and learn about Anna Mae Wong*, because she played 
Tiger Lily here; the 1920s were her heyday. (100 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOHp5AJxU18

And in the real world, police killed 1,251 people in the U.S. in the 
year 2024 (that we know of). Here's a short animation of that, that 
looks like bubbles in red sauce simmering in a pan, because it is.
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/

Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com