Bill Sparkman in Clay County, Kentucky.

I heard an article on NPR this morning about the death of a fella called Bill Sparkman in Clay County, Kentucky.

Bill Sparkman was a Census Bureau worker for Clay County and he was found on September 12th hanging from a tree with the word 'FED' scrawled on his chest; now when they say scrawled I don't really know what they mean unless it was on his actual bare chest which makes the whole thing even more macabre.

The people in Clay County overwhelmingly voted for John McCain in the election last year and have been protesting against President Obama ever since; they see him as a big spending socialist. To me, and to anybody from Europe that sounds comedic; we have lived under so called socialists, they have always been in our governments, and Mister Obama is no where near being a socialist; if he lived in Britain he would be on the right wing of the Labour Party.

But to get back to Bill Sparkman; he was, apparently, a man who had gone back to school to qualify as a school teacher and, indeed, worked as a substitute teacher; the census only happens every so often – five years is it or ten? - and he had started his census work recently; he had also been diagnosed with a form of cancer – non Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The FBI have said that his death is either a homicide, a suicide or an accident. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in all your life; how could a man accidentally scrawl something onto his chest and then hang himself – some accident!

Here is direct quite from Yahoo News: 'Al Cross, a former reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal who covered the area for 30 years, believes that the conditions underlying the murder go back much farther and much deeper - and are more local - than the spate of recent ire.'

Today I'm going to write about illegal alcohol in Donegal, Ireland; not that I know too much about it but I know what I want my characters to do in the next part of my novel. One of my heroins gets involved in the distribution of poteen and I want a little adventure to happen now so I'll get on with that.

Toodle oo!!

Polanski

Another wonderful Los Angeles weekend with wonderful weather, plenty of things to do and places to go to and the Los Angeles District doing its duty: you can forget the gang problem in LA they got Polanski.
I wasn't there so I don't know what happened so I have to believe what I read in the newspapers and form my own opinion; I saw the movie, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, recently which showed the behaviour of the star fucker judge who went back on his word so if I was Polanski I might have done the same thing.
Detaining Polanski in Switzerland is an embarrassment and stupid and for the sake of everybody's sanity should have been left alone; the hangers and the floggers will be delighted, of course, that he has been incarcerated because they have never erred, never done anything wrong and in a country where they put a young child in handcuffs because he was sexually curious Polanski doesn't stand a chance.
It's strange that the person who actually killed Sharon Tate, Susan Atkins, died the day before Polanski was detained.
But getting back to Los Angeles; there was a four month old baby shot in the head by some bastard of a gang member over the weekend; it's hardly on the news as it's full of Polanski so maybe the DA should look into troubles at home first.

The Three Sisters

Last night I went to the Odyssey Theatre, in Los Angeles, to see a production of Chekhov's Three Sisters; now people might not like Chekhov or might not like the play Three Sisters but I'm really glad I went.

It had been a long time since I saw any Chekhov and now that I'm older and a lot wiser it was easier for me to understand.

I remember seeing Chekhov plays when I was at drama school and didn't understand a word; nothing seemed to happen apart from a load of talking; how wrong I was.

The play last night had fourteen actors and actresses in and most of them gave excellent performances; a lot of the cast appear on TV and in films on a regular basis and it goes to show that there is a lot of talent here in Los Angeles.

Now I'm not going to write a review of the play but I could see at this lofty age that it was about the deterioration of the aristocracy in Russia being taken over by the bourgeoisie; there are a couple of servants in the play who were treated very well by the master and mistresses of the household but when the brother of the three sisters of the title married a middle class woman she treated the servants terribly; the upper classes would call their servants by name and their middle class successors by their job – as per this wonderful poem on the subject; read the explanation too (if anybody is out there reading).

"HOW TO GET ON IN SOCIETY" (1958), BY JOHN BETJEMAN
A devastatingly witty poem in which Betjeman mocks the nouveau riche middle class. The narrator is shockingly pretentious, yet uses a vulgar vocabulary. The final stanza provides the final evidence that, pronounced correctly, scone should rhyme with "gone".
soiling the doileys with afternoon tea-cake and scones.

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
Your kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.
Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.
It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me
Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know what I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?
Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

fish and chips

Well I didn't get the commercial – I mean that's it. The best thing to do as soon as you even go for a job is to forget it as soon as you leave the audition/interview/meeting – whatever you want to call it; it saves you grieving over what might have been because lots of times it turns out like this – never to be.
But I had a good day yesterday – I wrote 2,200 words of my new novel. The way I work is I have an idea, sometimes small and sometimes big, and then I start to write.
Whilst writing other ideas come into my head and I go from there. I have heard people say that they don't know what's going to happen next that they don't know what the characters are going to do and believe it or not this is quite true.
To me it happens like this – your character has to get from point A to point B and so you have to think of a way they get there; let's say they hitch a ride. That means we need another character who will be driving the vehicle and that character might say 'where are you going?' and the hitcher might say 'Hollywood; I want to break into the film business.'
The driver can just sit there for the rest of the ride in which case I would cut to another scene or he might say 'my sister goes to an acting class there; I'll introduce you.'
So characters just happen like that – the hitcher might fall in love with the sister or even get involved in a crime and rob a bank – who knows? The hitcher had to answer the question and the question leads somewhere. That's the way I work – other people might work other ways.
That's the way I wrote my last novel and it wasn't till I'd finished the first draft that I knew what it was about; as long as I know what the characters want.
That novel is called The Storyteller and it's for sale on Amazon.com – not .co.uk just .com. It's for sale in paperback and Kindle; not selling many paperbacks but a few on kindle.
I'm afraid that was the only place I could get it published as I couldn't get anybody to even read it but at least it's totally up to me editing wise as I don't have to answer to anybody.
Tomorrow (Friday) I'm driving along Pacific Coast Highway to a fish restaurant called Neptune's Net; it's a biker place just over the Ventura County line north of Malibu; it's a friend's birthday and a couple of us are going there for fish and chips.

My Favourite Gig etc.

I wrote this to a friend and he said you should get that published; well here it is copied and pasted.
I saw lots of the British groups in the 60s - I think I saw all of them except for The Who I had nothing against The Who - or The Big Three now I think of it - I just never had the opportunity; I saw groups - or bands as they started to call them - that I have totally forgotten. I saw The Undertakers, Vince Eager, Dickie Pride, Marty Wilde, Adam Faith, Mickey Most and even Jim Dale who turned out to be a decent actor. All of this when I was under sixteen or so and when I became of age I started to go to dance halls for the girls and the drink.
I would go on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and a lot of famous groups appeared in some of those places.
When I first started going the groups were trying to be like The Shadows who used to back Cliff Richard who was Britain's answer to Elvis so things were really ripe for The Beatles when they came along; it's strange that it all happened at once - people up north liked The Beatles and people down south liked the Stones all discovering rhythm and blues at the same time. Up to that time, apart from Cliff Richard, songs were written by professional song writers who would put them on the flip side of a covered song from America and we had people like Craig Douglas, Frankie Vaughan and Danny Rivers who would cover songs such as the ones sung by Gene McDaniels (whom I also saw) and Andy Williams,
I was always a collector of records and would buy as many as I could - one of the dance halls I would go to was The Ritz in Birmingham who featured top line groups. In those days groups like Brian Poole and the Tremolos would come along with a million dollars worth of equipment and you could hear every little tiny little bit of noise, tic and hic cup.
I saw everybody but really wanted to see Elvis; some groups I ignored like The Kinks - I think I liked them but if there was the chance of scoring with a girl you couldn't let a group get in the way.
There was a TV show called Thank Your Lucky Stars which would go out on ITV on a Saturday evening and it would be a show where New Bands and acts with hits would come and lip sync to their song; miming we called it. One week The Beatles came on; they had one little hit with Love Me Do, which we mostly ignored, but when they sang Please Please Me! on Thank your Lucky Stars that night it was like a bomb going off.
I was a really great Buddy Holly fan and the tune reminded me of a Holly song and the way Lennon stood there, strumming his guitar with his legs open like Elvis, looked great and rebellious and guess what - the next week they had been booked to appear at The Ritz; so when we got there the place was pretty full with blokes - not many girls - so when they played we could hear every word.
They were not like Brian Poole with their sophisticated equipment but had Lennon singing into one microphone and the other two harmonizing into another so the sound was better than having two mikes with different levels; they were heavily influenced by American black girl groups and I remember at the time Tony Orlando had a version of "Beautiful Dreamer" on record and The Beatles sang it using his same phrasing - after they had finished their act we went down to the bar and The Beatles came down too - my brother walked down with Ringo (his hair was combed back in those days like on their first LP) and whilst we weren't exactly with The Beatles we all had a laugh but one thing I do know is that there was something about them - you knew they had the bull by the horns and somehow, even then, you knew they were going to change the world; and they did.
I saw The Stones too - at the same place only this time we wandered into their dressing room and met them all; I chatted with Charlie and Bill for about half an hour; Mick was absolutely exhausted lying back on the couch and Brian Jones had about 3 girls around him; I can't remember Keith.
I found out that Bill and Charlie seemed to have the same taste as me; they liked Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. I was never much of a Stones fan as they covered songs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and The Beatles with their first three singles but I liked them as people very much and liked their attitude although they were never as funny as The Beatles. Over the years I liked one or two of their singles and once I worked with Chris Jagger, Mick's brother, for about six to eight weeks on a film at Elstree Studios - he was a nice guy but looked so much like Mick that he would never really have an identity of his own; he spoke a lot about Marlon Brando whom he knew so there I was within a few degrees of the most famous people in the world.
I saw The Beatles again after that but it was never the same; I saw them in a theatre when they were a supporting act - half the audience went home when they finished their set - and I saw them back at the Ritz where the noise of the girls and everybody singing every song with them made it impossible for us to hear them even though they were only 10 yards away.
I read a review on the Internet recently of Jerry Lee Lewis's Birmingham Town Hall concert in 1963: just a small review from the time and it mentioned that he sang ten songs altogether that night and that the police surrounded him when he left the stage for his own protection and when they took him out he couldn't remember the name of his hotel - so the cops had to drive him around till he came to one that looked familiar; some people from the audience, apparently, thought he'd been arrested.
I was at that concert; it brought lots of memories flooding back from the "good old days." And they were the good old days especially if you liked rock'n'roll; someone said to me recently that we had the best and didn't leave anything for the kids today except mediocre copies of true talent; maybe that's why they're so pissed, we took it all, the best music, the best movies, the best drugs... and they got nothing; I don't agree with all that but it's not without truth.
I didn't get any of the drugs but I experienced the best music; as I said I saw everybody except for The Who and Jimy Hendrix now I come to think of it but the best of all was Jerry Lee Lewis and the best evening was that concert in May of 1963; the first time I saw him.
Jerry Lee had been to England before and was, more or less, drummed out of the country; he came with a barely teenaged bride, Myra, and that kind of thing couldn't be tolerated then; might not be tolerated these days to be honest.
So we sat and waited for him to appear on that dark evening long ago.
Most of the people in the audience were male and most of them looked like bank clerks, office workers and the like; a lot of them would be what we would describe these days as nerds or geeks.
If I remember correctly he was backed by the group Sounds Inc who backed many of the American stars who came over to England. There were other acts, I'm sure, but I can't remember them; I think there was a Canadian comedian who was a kind of compare and I think it was Frank Berry as he was in Dr Strangelove.
The first song Jerry Lee Lewis sang was an up paced country song which he went straight into as he came onto the stage; he was wearing some light coloured cavalry twill trousers, brown boots, a dark jacket and a white shirt.
The microphone was placed on a floor stand half way along the key board so he had to keep putting his hand around it as he played the treble - a trick he has always done - and when he finished that first song he got a tremendous amount of applause; and then it started.
The next song burst the old building into life; it was an up tempo number, maybe Great Balls of Fire or High School Confidential but whatever it was, at the first instrumental break the audience went wild; I have never heard such rhythm in my life either before or since. On the middle piano notes he hammered away - chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung - conservatively dressed bank clerks rose slowly out of their seats - chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung - people with mouths full of bad teeth smiled broadly as they never had before - chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung - the bank clerks started to move awkwardly with weird looks on their faces - chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung chung - suddenly he put his hand around the microphone stand and started to play the high notes - clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink clink - then his jacket came off, he kicked the piano stool away and stood up and drew up to the climax of the song and the end.
The applause was deafening, everybody was on their feet waiting for the next one: the bank clerks, the office workers, the warehousemen - we stood there like a thousand clapping clitorises waiting to be caressed and caress us he did.
Straight into another song with just as much an exciting rhythm and it started all over again; at one time he was standing on the piano, jumping from it and he eventually ran off the stage to the cops. It was over. He was gone.

The Commercial

Just a quick line about the commercial; first of all this might make me look good if I get it but many people go for commercials and sometimes it's a bit of a leveller when you get there as you see lots of other people just like you; so in my case I hear a lot of English accents; this time it was for the father of a bride (so they were all around my age) and last week it was for a London gangster type; that commercial was for tyres or even tires and as far as I know they haven't cast it yet.
The other thing about commercials is that the temperature here was in the nineties, on Friday, and we had to go in suits – one or two people wore tuxedos – so if you see people walking around Hollywood in suits in sweltering weather the chances are they are actors going for a commercial audition.

a little look at the acting world.

Just a few lines today as I have to go up for a commercial in about half an hour – well I have to meet my wife, Margaret, for lunch at American Burger on Sunset and then go for the commercial.
Most days I write my novel – my second novel – so you could say my full time job is writing but I'll always be an actor; for good or bad. Most of us are caring liberal people and if we have an opinion about anything or laugh too loudly we are sometimes thought to be opinionated or even theatrical.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Some of my actor friends I have known for over forty years and I have seen some great talents wasted – I have seen a lot of no talents do very well too so we have to take the rough with the smooth.
I don't have much money at the moment as we are trying to put some money together to go to London in November for our grandson's baptism; my wife is not particularly religious and I'm not religious at all but it'll be a good get together with family and friends.
The reason I mention money is that the commercials we go for can sometimes be worth a fortune so you can suddenly be picked up off the floor to do the commercial which is followed by a good income for the length of the run of the commercial.
One commercial I did many years ago ran for six years; that was a bit of an anomaly as the contract, in the UK where it was shown, runs out after three years but it was so successful that they negotiated the contract with me again – look out for it on YouTube; just search for my name and Guinness Commercial.
So when we go for the commercial we never know – wish me luck you people out there who don't exist.
Is this blog slightly insane?

so many deaths

No ramblings today – I have to go to Burbank Airport to pick somebody up; then we are going to Chili John's in Burbank for – a chili!!
This gets me thinking as the guy that used to own Chili John's, Gene, died a few months ago from Pancreatic cancer which is what killed Patrick Swayze the other day; he was a great guy, Gene, and even though I only knew him for the last two years or so of his life I felt I had known him for years.
What I was thinking is that so many people – besides Gene – who are famous have died over the past few months or so - Farrah Fawcet was the first, but was overshadowed by Michael Jackson on the same day, and today I see that the Australian actor Ray Barrett died last week.
He was the fella in the BBC series The Troubleshooters and the voice behind one of the characters in Thunderbirds are Go. He said he owed his career to the pock marks on his face; he got them after suffering from acne as a teenager but when a journalist asked him how he got them he joked that he got them from catching himself on a barbed wire fence whilst helping fellow prisoners of war escape from the Germans during the second world war and was surprised to see that the journalist had used the story in the article.
Another person who died last week was Larry Gelbert the TV and screenwriter; he wrote the movie Tootsie and created the TV series, from the movie, MASH; I met him a few times as he was a friend of a friend. The first time was at a birthday party and he came up and introduced himself to me 'I'm Larry Gelbart' as if I didn't know; in fact I've found this quite often when famous people introduce themselves.
The other time I met him was at his house in Beverly Hills when he invited friends of the same mutual friend when she died and he was as charming as before coming over and chatting to me as he had with everybody else there.
I'm sorry this blog is about death – but nobody reads it in any case!!

This and that

Do you know I was thinking – as I write this into the abyss – that there is something different about people born in the years preceding the second world war; they lived through something I have never experienced – especially those living in Britain.
During a certain period during the war the Germans sent bombers over to Britain and bombed the cities. Can you imagine that?
Bombs falling out of the sky, people running for shelter and streets of flames as the buildings burned. When you returned from the shelter to your home it probably wasn't there; there was a famous singer in London called Al Bowley who didn't go to the shelter and consequently died in an air raid.
Last week in Glasgow two men who were born then and presumably experienced the blitz robbed a store of two thousand pounds – that's around $3,000. That's the sort of thing young tearaways do when they start in their crime career not two men in their seventies. They say that the new fifty is seventy but this is ridiculous!
A few days later in La Jolla, in Southern California near San Diego, an older man, very smartly dressed, carrying and using an oxygen tank, walked into a bank and held it up; as far as I know he is still at large.
Does this give us all hope? Not that I want to start a career in crime but it means it's never too late to start something new; is there an event in the Olympic Games I should start training for?

Hello!!

Well here I am on this blog; the number one entry and I'll learn what to do and how to do it over the next few entries - or I won't. If I don't you'll see that too!
As you may see here I am an Irish/English actor and a novice novelist who lives in Hollywood; Hollywood California, USA that is as there are other Hollywoods and Californias all over the world.
Of course I would love you to buy my novel, my Irish or rock CDs and come and see me on stage – but that is not the point of this exercise.
This will be a place for my musings and ramblings and I won't have a set time to blog; I'll do it when I feel like it and that may be once a week, once a day or even once an hour.
The other thing I'd like to say is that I'm just going to write on here and not tell anybody I know – I want to see how many people actually find me through the internet; it'll be fun if I can answer comments and I am encouraging as many people as possible to write a comment about anything and we'll see where it leads.
So I am at the mercy of the search engine spiders to crawl into this site and deliver you to me so it would be good if you comment – then I'll know if it's working otherwise I'll be writing to myself; I have to say that it wouldn't be the first time!!
Today is Monday September 14th and today we have heard of the death of Patrick Swayze; very sad when anyone dies and, of course, I didn't know him personally but he meant a lot to lots of people and there were people around his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame earlier – I live about half a mile from it.
There was a helicopter hovering overhead at about six-o-clock and then we saw on the news that it was the ABC chopper. We were planning to go to the 'In and Out Burger' on Sunset and I did wonder if there would be a crowd for his star and for the Kelly Clarkson live show that is happening on Hollywood for the Jimmy Kimmel show at the moment.