Our Man in Vienna

Right to the Top

Keith Carradine went right to the top. He won the Academy Award for best song for I’m Easy from Nashville. Young and handsome with a wonderful voice and a talent for music and lyrics, he set out on a career as a singer. Unfortunately, instead of just singing his songs and playing guitar, as he had done in Nashville, he let his music producer talk him into being backed up by soft disco arrangements. The “commercial” aspect didn’t turn out to be very commercial. Actually it cancelled his singing and music out, and the two LPs did not catch on. Being watered down does not always insure success. So Keith’s two moments as a singer were It’s Been so Long and I’m Easy in Nashville.

                                                                        Keith Carradine

Keith more or less gave up on singing and composing, but continued reaching for stardom with good dramatic roles. Let me say here, no one could have done better in Emperor of the North Pole and Thieves Like Us. Those roles were made for Keith.

Boyish good looks become problematic when hair at the temples starts to get grey. Keith’s popularity diminished as his boyishness began to fade.

The acting was as good as ever, but stardom was no longer within reach.

 

Shenanigans and Success

She’s young and beautiful, and made every effort to garner a past as quickly as possible. After college, there was a short stint as a secretary, which she broke off to become a stripper. And stripping today means more than removing your clothes and underclothes one by one. The stereotypical climax of an act is bringing yourself to a climax.

She’s got a gaudy tattoo on her arm and her nipples are pierced. Well, that’s the fashion these days, like it or not! It signifies being frivolous and carefree.

She knows what it’s about, and she knows how to relate it. She wrote her memoirs as a sex performer, and they hit the bestseller list. Who isn’t interested in the ins and outs of a stripper? And after that, she wrote the script for a top Hollywood film. Not only did the film receive awards, but her script is also award-winning. And there are writing offers galore.

Her past is not a problem; it’s an asset. And you can’t really call it the past, since she’d like to go back and relive it.

Now you’re no longer an outcast if you engage in any kind of shenanigans. Shenanigans are a key to the inner sanctum – as well as wealth. As far as the motion picture business is concerned, the game has changed since the Stone Age of the Hays Code.

But one thing’s for sure, the lady has talent. She can write. No question about it. And she caught on. Her life has not been a life of struggle and it never will be. She’s got it made.

 

The Brokeback Wives

Ennis and Jack are two cowboys of the Sixties who fall for each other. Brokeback Mountain deals with their love affair over the years. Today homosexual relationships are less problematic. Gay Rights is an active movement and gays now not only receive equal benefits but are knocking at the matrimonial door.

In those days things were a bit more complicated, and I will grant you that the love of the two cowboys has elements of tragedy. It would probably be somewhat less tragic today. However, a man who loves a man but doesn’t want to be a homosexual would have problems at any time.

Question: Are erotic relationships often tragic, no matter what? Literature has been chock full of tragic love affairs and unrequited love over the centuries. So what else is new?

Sorry, my sympathies are with the women of Brokeback. The fate of these two desirable young ladies is presented en passant. The love of the cowboys is the thing. The ladies fall for Ennis and Jack and end up married to them with all the trimmings. The hubbies both prefer intimacy with a male to intimacy with a female.

I’ve been told, infidelity is an everyday occurrence, but a tragic love is a true tragedy. A woman who ends up in a household with a man who has yen for another man is just having a bit of tough luck.

Where the hell are we?

We’ve seen more than one male public paragon of virtue “exposed” as preferring the company of men to that of women. Mostly they are of the Born-Again Gay-Bashing variety, and they are usually to be found in the Grand Old Party. Such bashing is lowdown, or rather “lowest down,” as is using a wife as a ploy and decoy. My sympathies are entirely with the
woman. Her ruined life is the real tragedy.

 

to be continued . . .

– Herbert Kuhner