PLAYING TO THE CHEAP SEATS, AS USUAL

We'll start out with politica. We missed the chat shows but someone in the Majestic pokerroom mentioned that the Ford book seemed pretty good. His predictions apparently were very strong. He called a lot of stuff 8 years out as an old man. This isn't surprising. We've always like Jerry Ford around these environs and feel he got a bum rap which was only compounded by his entire inner circle going on tilt during the current "Presidency." No, we'll go further and also ask for help. It is no longer anywhere to be found in the New York Press arichives but Alexander Cockburn presented a pretty sharp piece of analysis he had done with some economics professor. They placed every U.S. President on a left-right continuum with all sorts of factors, budget allocation and distribution being the big one. It is recalled that it was adjusted for prevailing attitudes, so Van Buren was left of Jefferson, with the latter's slave-holding and the former's early abolitionist views accounting for the difference. Jerry Ford was America's most left-wing President, George W. Bush its most right-wing. Bush got sweet fuck-all credit for "Dr." Rice and Colin Powell. Was just more noise in the data. They were a minus, well, a plus geometically. Nixon was far to the left. Reagan was only slightly right-of-center. Clinton was not terribly left of Reagan. Grover Cleveland and George Washington were left-wing surprises also. Lincoln was left-of-center but not as far as you'd guess. It's a pretty facha bunch, so it wasn't at all surprising that Reagan was close to the middle. Set of souvenir Hummel figurines to the reader who can dig this thing up.

Strongest possible blog recommendation: http://www.fbird.com [go to "Harvey's Blog"]...It may be tough going for someone who isn't into finance, but if you know anything at all about it, this is the shit. Mad literary and super-caustic.

There is an outside chance this comment of mine didn't get past the censor, so here it is in all it's radiant glory. A bit sick of writing about politics. This is fun.

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Talk about movies, tio. I just re-read what I wrote and I realize that I fuckin walked out of a John LeCarre or Grahame Greene novel. Dissolute ex-pat gone native. Jack Nicholson plays me in the movie. Star is Colin Ferrell intrepid London Times Middle-East reporter who stumbles on some plot to launder Israeli and Arab money through a Pana bank. And the scheme has all sorts of international implications. Ben Kingsley is the Arab villain; G.D. Spradlin or William Peterson is the Nazi CIA villain. John J. O’Reilly is the NICE CIA man. He has a POT BELLY unlike the other CIA guy who benches 350 lbs even though he’s in his 60s.

Damn, I even know of a lake (Lago Arosena) about 100 miles out of the city, very close to Noriega’s old “summer cottage” with great bass-fishing, where the lakeside tavern sells a bountiful lunch for $2 with cold beer, yada yada. The tavern lady sez “Oh, no, Senor Kelso no es here…you mahst go awayyyy now…” But Colin Ferrell is stubborn, even after I curse him out and some San Miguelito thug throws him into an open sewer. I tell Evan or Akiva Goldsman that ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, NO ONE WEARS GUAYABERA SHIRTS. Only lame tourists. But they insist, the GUYABERA SHIRT on Nicholson is a sine qua non and they can easily take back the money they gave me for the idea. I give in, of course, because I’m a cynic and I need “drinking money” (though I swear to them I DON’T DRINK…maybe a cold beer for refreshement, but I prefer hot chocolate). Again, the “hot chocolate” is a total non-starter. OK, so Colin Ferrell earns my “respect” by not whining after he crawls out of the sewer. Luis Guzman plays the thug and he winks at Jack Nicholson as me as Colin Farrell shakes off the raw sewage World-weary chuckle by Nicholson.

Cut to Jack Nicholson DRINKING COFFEE, getting the Excel spreadsheets and the well-thumbed copy of International Impost And Tariff World out…y’all know the rest…

[Late, unpublished bonus for Kelso's Nuts readers: the name of the movie is BASS MASTER. The conceit here is that the Nicholson character, storied rogue CIA Economic Policy genius, in his alcohlic haze, is writing his memoirs -- badly -- in Spanish and has called the opus, EL MAESTRO DEL CORVINA. OK, OK. I admit it. I stole that one from Morris West. But not exactly. I don't think I missed too many cliches, but please feel free to add on the cliches. These movies are double-plus dumb. Every single one of them. New project is working on the "Hollywood satire" ABOUT pitching "Bass Master" to the studio; John Turturro plays me in that one...fill in your own joke...]

Somehow, this wasn’t really in the plan. I was kind of planning to go to Jim J. Bullock for the block, but this could work out…

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