One of the finest films released over the past couple of years never got its fair shake at the box office.
Reason is its length.
“George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” a documentary directed by Martin Scorsese and available from Netflix in two parts (of almost 3 hours apiece), is a great work and worth every minute.
George’s life as the Beatle who took to the east was filled with many memorable people including his mum and dad in Liverpool, his sister in the U.S., his close friends Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison (let alone the Beatles), his first wife Pattie Boyd, who moved in with their best friend Eric Clapton, plus Ravi Shankar and President Ford and a whole host of others including his remarkable second wife and former fan-club manager Olivia Trinidad Arias. Also interviewed in the movie is producer Phil Spector, currently serving 19 years for murdering Lana Clarkson — and who helped create our all-time wall-of-sound, twin-drum-unit favorite rock anthem, “Wah Wah, You Made Me Such a Big Star,” an arrangement that George confesses in the movie that he hated.
The last word belongs to his and Olivia’s son Dhani, who says he once had a dream after his dad died and asked him, “Where are you?” “I’m right here, ” his father replied.
With this movie, he sure is.
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Not so Sir Paul McCartney, who is nowhere with his manners these days.
In a profile the latest Rolling Stone promoting his new solo album, “New,” the former Beatle makes it clear that he and his wife of two years, Nancy Shevell, adore each other.
He cannot, however, resist telling the interviewer about the photo shoot for the front cover. “That was fun,” he says, going on about the photographer. “She was great, she was cool. I kept thinking, if this was the Sixties, I’d try and be pulling her. And it would probably be showing in the pictures … I don’t do that stuff anymore. I can think it, though. I knew she wanted that.”
The cover photo shows him with his eyes closed and fists clenched.
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Wandering in the Southernmost Keys Cemetery at 4th Street and Avenue A on Big Coppitt the other day, we encountered two marble tombs whose engraved inscriptions especially touched us.
One is the final resting place of Carl W. Weekley, 1908-2002, and Ana Louisa Castillo Weekley, 1919-2011. Also commemorated is their son Dennis M. Weekley, 1951-1973.
To their left is another double marble tomb whose epitaphs read: Jack Baron, 1926-2005 and Robert Lee Burton, 1930-2013. “No song unsung, no wine untasted.”
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Matthew Strunk is the man behind what will soon become the largest deep-water marina in the Keys. Phase one of Marina Village has just been completed on Stock Island, across Safe Harbor from the Hog Fish Bar, Captain’s Lounge and Tiki Grille.
It plans to integrate affordable dockside living, artisan workshops, a commercial fishing wharf and a community garden, plus new concrete docks to accommodate up to 15 100-foot vessels, three 200-hundred-footers and even some super yachts up to 300 feet.
“Access to a working waterfront is the central theme of our plan,” Strunk tells us. “And at this point I think everyone’s goal is long-term sustainability.”
Scheduled for completion in the village by 2015 are two more waterfront restaurants, an interpretive nature trail and 80-room boutique “fish camp” hotel.
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There are more than two million individuals incarcerated in America. Even if the legal system gets it right an unlikely 95 percent of the time, given the number of forensic experts who get away with nonsense because the defense can’t afford to hire experts to challenge them, that means more than 100,000 of those individuals are innocent.
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Howling for the Week:
“You have to be kicked out of the nest to learn how to fly.”
— Bird lore
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