Delta

            On Monday morning I pulled the muscle in my thigh again during yoga. It didn’t cause me a lot of discomfort during the day but I did notice a tightness there when I was walking.

It was rainy outside and cool in the apartment. I did song practice with all the windows shut and I’ve stopped walking around in shorts and barefoot.

            I’ve been listening to the Jackson Browne discography. He’s got a shitload of boring songs among the few good ones and the only one I think is outstanding is “Doctor My Eyes”. He has this tendency to use very precise rhymes and it feels like he bends his message according to the rhymes he finds.

I recently finished listening to the Beck discography and he’s a much better lyricist in general than Jackson Browne. He’s not afraid of slant rhymes and some of his rap lyrics are stream of consciousness. Beck has an eclectic range of musical interests but I find that his songwriting has suffered since his success. I prefer his lyrics prior to his fame such as “Satan Gave Me A Taco” and the cynical “she’ll do anything to make you feel like an asshole”.
            Both of these guys and many others something when they get successful and try to maintain that success by contriving popular songs rather than being inspired. David Byrne stands out as someone that hasn’t fallen into that trap, though even his songwriting reached its creative peak a few years ago.

I got caught up on my writing.

I read WilliamWordsworth’s "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” a few times and made some notes:

To be “Lonely as a cloud" implies aloofness and a loneliness that comes from being above it all. He is brought down to earth by a sense of community that he longs for. He anthropomorphizes the daffodils immediately in calling them a crowd and seeing that crowd dancing. Dancing is mentioned in every verse and in the third verse he sees the daffodils as enjoying themselves. The daffodils represent his desire to be part of a community in a festive situation. In the first verse he mentions the loneliness of solitude but in the last he talks about the bliss of solitude that is found by accessing the inner eye. It's ironic because his delight in solitude comes from a memory of community.

I watched the 1983 made for TV movie “Murder Me, Murder You", which was the first pilot for Stacy Keach’s portrayal of Mike Hammer on the small screen. This had much better production values and better cinematography than the 1998 series, "Mike Hammer, Private Eye”. This one kept Pat Chambers the police captain as Hammer’s best friend as he is in the novels and all the movies, instead of captain Skip Gleason as presented in the final TV series. This story also had a proper Velda as Hammer’s secretary, in that she was a brunette and in love with Hammer. One actor besides Stacy Keach that is in this movie as well as the later series is Kent Williams, who plays basically the same character but with the name reversed. In the 98 series he’s district attorney Barry Lawrence while in this movie he’s Lawrence Barrington, also a DA. In both series he’s a thorn in Hammer's side and vice versa. Another common element on all of the series in which Stacy Keach played Mike Hammer is that they all had the same theme song, which is the beautiful jazz melody, “Harlem Nocturne”.

In this story an old flame of Hammer’s named Chris, whom he hasn't seen in twenty years comes to him asking for protection. She runs an all female courier service that transports highly sensitive documents and money internationally. Two of her couriers, Mickey and Janice, while carrying a briefcase meant for a leader in Latin America, are driven off the highway. One body was found and identified by dental records as Mickey but the briefcase is missing. Chris is about to testify about the attack and the briefcase in front of a grand jury and she fears for her life. She also drops the bombshell on Hammer that he has a 19-year-old daughter.

While testifying, Chris has a heart attack and dies. She did have a heart condition for which she took medication but Hammer discovers that the medication had been switched just before her testimony to a drug that induces heart attacks.

Hammer goes to see Isadora, who was Chris’s partner that the courier company and is now the owner. Because of the grand jury investigation she and her employees are not allowed to discuss the case that Hammer is investigating. But later, one of Isadora’s employees, the strikingly beautiful Paula, lets herself into Hammer's apartment and waits for him. She’s brought Hammer a file on Mickey and another on Janice and now she wants Hammer to do something nice for her. After they make love Hammer finds out from Paula that Mickey had once been a drug addict and had done porn. He puts two and two together and realizes that Mickey is Michelle, his daughter. Hammer sends Paula home because he has work to do but after she leaves her hears her scream in the hall. He opens the door and is shot at just as Paula collapses into his apartment, dead from a broken neck.

Hammer is also trying to track down his daughter Michelle and discovers to his dismay that she has been a junky and a porn star. In all of her porn movies she wore a mask.

Hammer goes to his favourite bar and there is a young woman there he’s never seen before. He rescues her from some punks that are harassing her and they dance. Later he brings her home and his place is so messy that she wonders where he’ll find his bed. He caresses her arm and tells her it shouldn't be a problem. She tells him she’s his daughter and he says, "I know."

The next morning Velda comes to tell Hammer his place is bugged. The cops pick up Michelle. It’s not safe at Hammer’s apartment and so Pat puts both her and Hammer up at his place.
            Hammer figures out that the missing briefcase must be with the body of Janice, whose dental records Chris had replaced with Michelle’s to keep her safe. He leaves Michelle with Pat but finds someone has already been looking for the briefcase there. He gets conked on the head and knocked out. Two cops come to talk with Pat and since they show proper identification he lets them in but gets karate kicked into unconsciousness and Michelle is taken. Hammer gets a call to bring the briefcase by 2:00 or they begin torturing Michelle. He still doesn’t have the briefcase but finally figures out that Chris would have hidden it in a body bag with his name. He brings the briefcase to the kidnappers and it turns out that the leader is Isadora, who is the one that killed Chris. The briefcase is opened but from under the $2 million Hammer pulls a gun. Isadora disarms him with a couple of karate moves. They begin to fight and Isadora’s wig comes off, revealing that she’s male. Hammer knocks her out and he and Michelle embrace but Isadora recovers and shoots at them, killing Michelle. Hammer shoots Isadora but she’s still fighting but finally he takes her out.

Isadora was played by Michael A. Andrews who was the winner of the 1977 Miss Gay America pageant.

Chris was played by Michelle Phillips of the Mama’s and Papas, who co-wrote California Dreamin and is the mother of Chynna Phillips.

Paula was played by Delta Burke, from Designing Women. She was quite stunning. She was Miss Florida in 1974 and won a talent scholarship in the Miss America pageant.