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Mike's Pith & Wind - Beauty
I went to see Sean Penn’s movie Into The Wild recently. I’ve got a soft spot for Sean Penn because he breaks the Hollywood convention of movie actors all having to be handsome men (or women). Sean’s an ornery-looking bloke with a big hooter and shifty eyes - and a bloke with a very short fuse, if one is to believe what is written about him. Not only this, but as an actor he wanted to make only Worthy Films, which, given the amount of control actors have over their destinies, probably accounts for his temperamental disposition. All in all, evolving into a movie director seems to have been a logical career move in his case.
So, you’ll gather that when I say Into The Wild is Sean Penn’s movie, I mean it’s a movie that he directed rather than starred in. Having said that, Sean is by far the biggest star associated with the movie, so it’s become Sean Penn, the-star-who’s-now-a-director’s movie as far as the PR people are concerned. Hanging the hype on the director is probably the way it ought to be, but we’ve got used to a system where the actors, or stars, take pre-eminence.
It’s the same in the music business. I was watching a doco on Elvis the other night and reflecting on what a good-looking boy he was. But we forget that Elvis wasn’t just a pretty face. Elvis’ underrated rock and roll musicality combined with his obvious sex appeal saw him translate, and even champion to some degree, the kind of black music that was previously restricted to ‘race’ charts and stations. It’s unfortunate that Elvis’ visual legacy is mostly represented by his movies - his musical performances there are pale read more

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Dick's Toolbox - The disarmed forces
To my surprise the other day, I remembered that I had been in the army. I think this was in reaction to my wife’s blimpish remark that a bit of time in the army would instill some discipline in the dissolute youth of today.
Naturally I didn’t volunteer to become a member of Her Majesty’s New Zealand Armed forces, but found myself in bespoke jungle greens and ill-fitting khaki as a result of winning the only lottery in my life that I didn’t know I had a ticket in. Presumably they gave me a serial number, but I have forgotten it, something that I hope to be able to do with my current employee number in the near future.
This was the time of the Vietnam War, which would have been a cause for concern had I been in Australia. New Zealand did have a contingent of artillery as a token of the then conservative government’s respect for US pressure, and the limitations of a small military, read more