While channel surfing last night, I came upon an interesting, surprising fun fact. This-TV, 111 on Cablevision in NYC, was running Army of One (1993), starring Dolph Lundgren, who was born and raised in Sweden. Upon returning from commercial, a blurb was flashed at the bottom of the screen. Fortunately, there was no dialogue at that point, so the closed-captioning didn’t block it. Lundgren was a Fulbright scholar (1983) and was offered a place at MIT after earning a Master’s in Chemical Engineering, his father’s vocation, at the University of Sydney in Australia. Now in his mid 50’s, he was the European Heavyweight Karate Champion in 1980-81. He was Grace Jones’ bodyguard and boyfriend for four years, the survival of which may be his most impressive accomplishment. At IMDb, he has 58 credits as an actor, six as a director and five as a writer. He is a renaissance man - who knew? There are several quotes attributed to him. I found the following two the most interesting:
From Vanity Fair, 1995: “I was a movie star before having the chance to become an actor, so now I'm trying to backtrack.”
“Action films are an extension of Greek myths which have been around since Homer's The Iliad. Everybody's life has some mythical quality. You struggle against obstacles, you fight to get to a higher level and there are great loves. With an action film it's just more apparent. That's why people will always love action movies.”
Well done, sir.
I did not watch the State of the Union Address. Political speeches are a waste of time, not worth the paper on which they're written. I read only one op-ed piece on it, in the NY Post, by Jonathan Podhoretz, a conservative. It didn't say anything new. However, I was just listening to a bit of the Sean Hannity Show on WOR-AM, and he pointed out an amusing fact regarding Obama's comment of being embarrassed about how much less American women are paid than men. According to 2011 stats, female White House staffers are paid on average 18% less than their male peers, a median of $60,000 vs. $71,000. I just researched it on the web to make sure I had the numbers right, and an article at Townhall.com also took the President to task on his promise to spur job growth, citing the thousands that would be created upon approval of the Keystone Pipeline bill, which has been sitting on his desk for months. The piece also mentioned hypocritical positions on healthcare, the wars, and veteran benefits.
I was tempted to open up the book shop today -- until I got to the corner of E. 13th & Avenue Z and felt the icy wind. I'm getting stir crazy. The temperature is supposed to be in the 30's tomorrow. If the wind is calmer...
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
No comments:
Post a Comment