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Charlie Don’t Channel Surf: The last thing I heard on the radio before I dozed off last night was this hilarious cat named Phil Hendrie (who you can catch weeknights from 7 to 10 on KNEW 910 AM) go on about how he was channel surfing recently and caught Apocalypse Now on TV. He then said something about this lauded war epic, this film that heavily influenced me in my youth, this work of cinematic genius that people still can’t believe didn’t win Best Picture, that I had never heard anyone say about it before: “Man, does this film suck or what!”

I had never heard anyone slightly criticize Apocalypse Now, much less say it sucked. It was, as they said when it premiered, the antithesis of the John Wayne jingoistic, glorified image of war. Why, this was the first movie to show war for the way it is.

“Yeah, right. Talk to any guy who was in Vietnam and he’ll tell you it sure as hell wasn’t like that. Sure it was a civil war and we shouldn’t have been there, but most of the guys who went over there did their jobs and fought bravely. We won just about every battle.”

“It showed us committing horrible atrocities. Look at history. Other countries have committed far worse atrocities than we have. At the end of World War II, Russian soldiers marched into Germany and raped every German woman they could find. Woman? Hell, any female over ten. Nothing was done to them. The U.S. executed forty of their own soldiers for rape.”

“I caught the totally uncut, Apocalypse Now Redux. How do you pronounce it... Re-Doo? That’s where they go to a French plantation. That’s where they have sex with Playboy bunnies in helicopters. Hey Francis, you should have called this Apocalypse Now Doo Doo.”

“What was that documentary Coppola’s wife made about the making of Apocalypse Now? She filmed Coppola filming Apocalypse Now and caught him fretting about how he felt the movie was going to be a real turd. Hey Francis, you made a real turd all right.”

You know what -- Phil’s right. Consider me an Apocalypse Now fan no more. Hell, Kramer vs. Kramer deserved that Oscar after all. No one remembers this movie, but it beat Apocalypse Now out for Best Picture in 1980.

Kramer vs. Kramer took place in a much more dangerous place than Vietnam (New York City before Rudy Giuliani was mayor). It’s where Meryl Streep’s character divorces Dustin Hoffman’s character and runs away “to find herself” or something like that and Dustin has to raise their kid himself. Then she returns to New York (back from Marin County, I guess) and there’s this great scene where even though the marriage is over, Dustin and Meryl try to reconcile as friends. They’re sitting in a bar and she tells him that she’s learned a lot while she was away. There’s a long pause. Instead of accepting this Me Generation psychobabble, he politely asks her, “What did you learn?” Then there’s a long pause, as she doesn’t know how to respond.

Next there’s a custody battle for the kid and Dustin has to hire Howard Duff as his attorney and... well, if you think about it, divorce has screwed up more people than Vietnam. Yeah, it was a more prophetic movie than Apocalypse Now after all.

Plug Away: K Chronicles cartoonist Keith Knight (who has a great drawing style) fronts a rap group called The Marginal Prophets, and they’ve just released a new disc called Bohemian Rap CD. Check out MarginalPhrophets.com.... I was at the Beach Chalet last month when my accountant turned to me and said, “Hey, look. That sign says that Susan Getz is performing jazz next door. I wonder if she’s the daughter of jazz great Stan Getz.” So we went next door and saw a new restaurant called the Park Chalet. Susan isn’t Stan’s daughter, but you can get her CD at SusanGetz.com. The Park Chalet looks like a pretty cool place. If the owners ever want to bribe me with food and drink there sometime I’d be happy to write a nice piece about it…. Surviving on the Streets: How to Go Down Without Going Out by Ace Backwords, one of the greatest books ever written (no disrespect to Dave Eggers, but it’s even better than A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) is still available on Amazon.com and Loompanics.com. I’ve reprinted excerpts from it in this paper and let me tell you, I couldn’t put it down. Order it today…. Remember a few issues ago when I wrote about Mike Wilson, the guy making a documentary titled Michael Moore Hates America, in which he tries to track down and interview the famous director? (Actually, he could have called it Moby Dick 2.) Well, it’s since played a few film festivals and gotten some rave reviews. Punch in the title of the movie then a dot and a com for more info. On a similar note, Fahrenhype 911, a documentary debunking Moore’s crockumentary is now available in video stores. Go to Blockbuster if you want to rent it, as the guys with ponytails who work at independent video stores probably won’t order it.

What’s Happening: Oakland has discontinued sobriety checkpoints because they were catching too many illegal aliens. Better to be politically correct than save lives, I guess (actually, don’t illegal aliens get hit by drunk drivers, too?)…. You may have noticed that this is the November/December issue of the Herald. Yeah, I got burned out publishing it monthly. The Herald started in July/August ’98 as a bi-monthly, then in March 2000 I went monthly. And I’ve wanted to stop publishing monthly since, oh, March 2000. I’ve got other, more lucrative things to do than the Herald anyway. It never became a big circulation paper like the Weekly or the Guardian, so I can’t spend too much time on it. Oh well. What are ya gonna do? Thanks for reading, though.###

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