When Deplorable Meets Adorable

Column by Douglas Herman.

Exclusive to STR

“Why are we in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate measures?” ~ Henry David Thoreau
 
So I had to meet Miss America again. If someone said to me, 50 years ago when I was a tongue-tied teenager, that one day I’d be hanging out with a former beauty queen for a couple of days, trying not to fall in love with her as I tried to capture every nuance on Hi-Definition videotape, I’d have said they’re high.  But you can see this same adorable beauty, who spoke truth to power. Yes, that Tasha Dixon, Former Miss Arizona who said Trump "came strolling right in" to Miss USA.

Tasha Dixon invited me to a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with her family in Phoenix. While her dad loaded ATVs and rifles with his elk hunting buddies, I spoke with Tasha and professor Stan Dale about her Hollywood prospects. Had anyone there in ultra-liberal, pro-Hillary Hollywood offered her any parts, any roles in TV or film, now that she risked her personal safety by speaking out against the alleged villainous, vengeful president-elect? Nope, she said, not any significant TV or film offers so far.

Hollywood is hypocritical to the max, although it portrays itself as progressive. In Hollywood, big budget violent movies predominate, especially around the holidays. Violent movies, filled with well-armed cardboard characters, like those so-called rebels portrayed in the latest Star Wars installment.  Or Fast & Furious sequels to Infinity. Hollywood loves these violent movies, where ALL problems are solved with maximum gunplay or superior firepower. While sanctimoniously supporting a candidate calling for repeal of the 2nd Amendment or the arrest, detainment or killing of an individual like Citizens for Constitutional Freedom spokesman LaVoy Finicum.

Oscar For Worst Actor?

Hollywood is NOT a meritocracy. Just the opposite. Having worked there in LA for several years, same as Tasha, I could clearly see that Hollywood is a Cronyocracy: Not what you know but WHO you know. “Nobody knows anything,” said fellow Hollywood scriptwriter, William Goldman, defining the place perfectly. Oftentimes great movies get made as much by accident as by intention. From Citizen Kane to Casablanca, great movies and great actors, get made despite the crass cronyism.

Hollywood pimped for Hillary, one of The Worst Actresses Ever.  Jolly little Hobbit, George Lucas pumped megabucks into the Clinton machine while recycling his space band of rebels Star Wars saga. But if you ask any Hollywood hypocrite, so-called progressives like George Lucas, how they felt about Madeline Albright endorsing Hillary and you would get a blank stare. Recall Madeleine Albright said in this interview that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children who died during the Clinton regime sanctions was worth it.  Seated directly behind war criminals Hillary and Albright was the Hollywood actor, Bradley Cooper, who portrayed Chris Kyle in “American Sniper.”  Had Hillary won, critics believe there would have been many more opportunity to make endless sequels to “American Sniper.” Call them Fast & Furious American Snipers.

“Could you work for the greatest Deplorable in Hollywood?” I asked Tasha, while old biker and college professor, Stan Dale held his MAGA hat in hand with his Santa Claus smile. Between NFL games on Turkey Day TV, we spoke of the film industry. Tasha appeared recently on Frontline just before the election, looking adorable, like one of those two broke girls. “Suppose you met him by chance; could you work for Clint Eastwood?”

“I never make judgements about anyone, friends or fellow humans,” she said. Wonderful remark and so welcome in this age of finger-pointing and spite. So unlike many of my so-called progressive family and friends. Because we preferred the blowhard to the unscrupulous career politician and certified war criminal, we’re somehow deplorable.
 
Deplorable in LaLa Land

I tried pointing this out to a wonderful old friend and fellow artist of mine in California. I said that Hillary was a war criminal and, as a US veteran, I couldn’t vote for someone who helped wreck a lot of little foreign countries. “But you’re a war criminal too,” said Bob with a smile. I agreed with my longtime friend and said there’s not a day that goes past that I don’t feel guilty for my small part in the Vietnam War. Only by getting up each day, trying to be better not bitter, and by making some small attempts at contrition and redemption keeps me from putting a bullet in my head.

Fellow Michigander and Hollywood heavyweight, Michael Moore, looking more and more like Jabba the Hutt, called for a massive protest recently of the Inauguration in January. Martin Sheen added his comment: “We stand for the defense of American values,” he said, beseeching electoral voters not to cast their votes for Trump. But I never saw Martin Sheen protesting the wars in Libya, Syria or Yemen for these past eight years, nor did I see him down at the Memorial Day ceremony on Santa Monica beach alongside Ed Asner, Ron Kovic, Mike Farrell and me. In an interview, Mike said: “M.A.S.H. could not be on the air today. They would not put it on the air.”

I prefer not to pick and choose my imperial wars to protest. They’re all detestable. If I’m called a deplorable or a Russian agent by those 17 US intelligence agencies, or called a fake news writer by the Pope and those poor hypocritical Hillary fans, tough rocks.

While in Santa Monica recently, I hung out with an old TV producer friend. We enjoyed coffee at Peet’s café on Montana. Peet’s is the trendy coffeehouse where I had cast some actors for my movie “Caution to The Wind,” and where I met Tasha Dixon for our Kindness Generates Kindness protest. Later, Adrian and I bicycled over to the West LA Veterans Complex for a holiday celebration and benefit buffet.  Had any of these enraged Hollywood liberals happened on that large gathering of veterans, and voiced their opinions, they might get a punch in the nose. Calling people traitors and scum, as Keith Olbermann did recently, will get you a swift kick in the ass if you leave your safe sanctimonious space.

We mingled among four generations of US veterans there and listened to a marvelous tribute band, Fortunate Son, play covers from the Viet Nam era.  I noticed a couple of old guys like myself stifling the tears when they played Have You Ever Seen The Rain? Adrian thanked me for my service, which always embarrasses the hell out of me. I love Adrian for dragging me out of my little boxlike existence whenever we hang out.  Even Thoreau had to leave his cabin sometimes.

I told Tasha Dixon that the overnight success in Hollywood takes ten years to happen. Or in Humphrey Bogart’s case, it took almost 20 years. The funny thing about Bogie and the so-called legacy news media, is how history often repeats itself. In 1947, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall flew to Washington DC as head of a concerned group of filmmakers called Committee for the First Amendment (CFA). President Truman invited them over to the White House to lunch.  Then the media turned on them. Turned on Bogart.

“We faced a hostile, sophisticated worldly press who made us look like stupid children interfering with grownup problems,” said actress Evelyn Keyes.  Bogart struck back at the media, who branded First Amendment supporters as Communist dupes.

“This had nothing to do with Communism,” wrote Bogart. “It’s none of my business who’s a Communist and who isn’t. We have a well-organized and excellent agency in Washington known as the FBI who does know these things. The reason I’m flying to Washington is because I’m an outraged and angry citizen who feels that my civil liberties are being taken away from me and that the Bill of Rights is being abused and who also feels that nobody in this country has any right to kick around the Constitution of the United States, not even the Un-American Activities Committee.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it, with the scapegoating of Russia and the so-called “fake news,” for the high crimes closer to home.

Adorable Tasha Dixon is a warm, wonderfully talented actress, but one of thousands here in the city of fallen angels.  You can view a YouTube video Tasha and I shot on location together a couple years ago. GREAT GHOST TOWNS OF THE WEST never sold to the Discovery Channel, mostly because I suck at sales and Discovery prefers fake Alaska families and bearded duck hunters to droll beauties.  Have a wonderful holiday.

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Douglas Herman's picture
Columns on STR: 149

Award winning artist, photographer and freelance journalist, Douglas Herman can be found wandering the back roads of America. Doug authored the political crime thriller, The Guns of Dallas  and wrote and directed the Independent feature film,Throwing Caution to the Windnaturally a "road movie," and credits STR for giving him the impetus to write well, both provocatively and entertainingly. A longtime gypsy, Doug completed a 10,000 mile circumnavigation of North America, by bicycle, at the age of 35, and still wanders between Bullhead City, Arizona and Kodiak, Alaska with forays frequently into the so-called civilized world of Greater LA. Write him at Roadmovie2 @ Gmail.com

Comments

Jim Davies's picture

Best YouTube clip I ever saw!
 
Are you sure though that it was "Writen by" your good self?

Douglas Herman's picture

Hi Jimbo,
  THANKS-! Yessir! I wrote most, okay, some of Tasha's best lines. And of course, being a very good actress, she ad-libbed even BETTER lines. Of course the old blue-eyed miner added his Excellent Unscripted lines.
  We shot the "gold panning" scene at Lake Pleasant, just north of Phoenix. I highly doubt much gold has ever come out of there. I took my camera out into the water, both there and at the Colorado River. Sorta cold as I remember. Tasha didn't really want to get into the water at the Colorado river there near Laughlin & Bullhead City. 

Douglas Herman's picture

Jim,
  Just caught your spell check. "Writen" means it's a pretty good Write. Surprised nobody caught my misquote of Thoreau. Should have been writen (sic) as:
  "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate Enterprises?"  
  No prizes for misspellings or Miss Quotations. Only in beauty contests, I suppose.
 
  
  

Paul's picture

I'm continually amazed at how people who were against war become for it, and vice versa. It's as if they attach themselves to a ruler, or even just a label, rather than consider the carnage. Why? I guess I am just missing the loyalty gene myself, so don't understand the concept.