As you know, noted actor Paul Newman passed away recently. Newman had been married to actress Joanne Woodward from January 1958 until he died.
They weren’t your standard version of a Hollywood couple. In fact, at the time of his death, they had lived in Connecticut for many years.
Rio Natsume – Rio Bravo (November 20, 2008)
Line Communications/I-One
Catalog # LCDV-40343 – Region 2 Disc – 4:3 Aspect – MPEG-2
Running Time: 60 minutes
Nearly 50 years ago, in April of 1959, Academy Award winning director Howard Hawks released a Western or cowboy movie called Rio Bravo. It starredJohn Wayne as a Texas town Sheriff who has locked up a bad guy on a murder charge. The bad guy’s family hires a score of thugs. They intend to bust this guy out of the local jail no matter what.
Recently I watched the movie, The Hunt for Red October (1990). This is a real man’s movie filled with submarine warfare, geo-politics and its offspring – political brinksmanship, as well as great heaping gobs of pure testosterone. There’s no sex or romance in this tale, in fact there may not even be any speaking roles for women in the movie.
As the movie begins, we learn that the Captain of The Red October, which is the USSR’s newest and most technologically advanced nuclear powered submarine, has disobeyed his orders, and is heading for the United States. The question is – is he defecting or is he a madman who will bring about Armegeddon by firing nuclear war heads at major US coastal cities?
Sean Connery portrays the Russian submarine Captain Marko Ramius whose real mission is to defect to the United States and bring with him the invaluable submarine and most of its officers. We learn this from a discussion at a dinner in the Captain’s Mess aboard the Red October.
For the longest time, here at AoV, we’ve been visiting various Pacific and Asian beach resorts with a plethora of lovely Japanese Gravure Idols.
Bangtao Beach, Phuket, Thailand
We’ve been to locations from Phuket in Thailand to Palau, from The Philippines (Cebu) to Pattaya, and with assorted stops in Saipan, Guam, Bali, Hawaii, Okinawa, Cairns, and even Vietnam. We’ve discussed Art in Asia and Europe. We’ve talked about our favorite films, and some of our own travel destinations.
But you know which place hasn’t gotten any coverage in AOV? Africa is the answer. (more…)
Ah, it’s good to be home again. Transoceanic travels tend to wear one down; more about my travels later on in another article. Do any of you like that grizzled songwriter and singer named Willie Nelson? Have a look at some of the lyrics from one of Willie’s classic songs:
On the road again,
Goin’ places that I’ve never been,
Seein’ things that I may never see again,
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
Old Willie isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. but his words are in tune with my desire to go where I want to go.
Did you ever notice that most everything we like or need usually is a set; and is discussed, acquired, or possessed in pairs? You don’t go to the shoe store and buy two shoes do you? No, you buy a pair of shoes; in the same way you might buy a few pairs of socks. Arms, legs, eyes, balls, and boobs all come in pairs.
Some of our favorite expressions point toward our predilection for matched sets. Two pair in five- card stud poker is a great hand, Batman and Robin are heroic, salt and pepper are condiments we must have on the table, even meatballs and spaghetti always seem to go together.
Late last month I found myself in Newport, RI, to be a spectator for the sailing competition. As we drove past one mansion after another on the elegant Bellevue Avenue or as we walked Newport’s treasured Cliffwalk (the next two images below), above the rocky coast, history and the present moments seemed to merge.
