Category Archives: Hedonism

Tom Hanks' first movie was really cheesy. Seventh-billed in a 1980 stalker "thriller" called He Knows You're Alone, the 24-year-old actor played a bushy-haired psych student who tries to impress young women at an amusement park with his alleged ability to spot the criminal type. There's absolutely nothing here to suggest that this seemingly affable but unprepossessing fellow would go any further than the other young actors in this defiantly talent-free film, none of whom was ever heard from again.

But the kid with a vagabond California childhood pressed on, soon winning roles on popular shows such as The Love Boat, Taxi, Happy Days and Family Ties and, for two seasons, on Bosom Buddies (he turned down Fantasy Island). As Hanks told Oprah Winfrey in 2001: "Several things always separated me from a herd of other actors. Whenever I auditioned for a part, I'd think, 'I'm probably better than 50 percent of the actors here, because half of these people are self-conscious in ways I'm not.' I would do anything I didn't care. But many would not make fun of themselves the way I'm willing to."

In 1984, he got his big break in cross-species love fantasy Splash, in which the wet embrace of unbridled hedonism on the part of Daryl Hannah's free-spirited mermaid proves more than a regular guy like Hanks can resist. Audiences immediately were drawn to Hanks' how-lucky-can-a-guy-get incredulity at being favored by this natural-born, unembarrassed sensualist. And they have remained drawn to him throughout the subsequent 35 years. The worldwide grosses for his films will shortly reach $9 billion, leading Time magazine to anoint Hanks as one of the nation's "Top 10 College Dropouts."

Hanks, who will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Jan. 5 Golden Globes, has been an anomaly among actors, and even more so among movie stars, since he arrived on the scene. Except for the flat-out funny guys like Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams, nearly all the dominant male stars in the 1980s and '90s were hunky tough guys, often with gun in hand, who were awfully good at causing and surviving mayhem. Most of them were conspicuously great-looking, especially with their shirts off, which in at least some cases suggested that they were putting in more hours at the gym than studying acting. It was the time of Arnold, Sly, Clint, Mel, Burt Reynolds, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis. Average Joes were out, hard bodies were in. So where was this pleasant, amusing, quintessential nice guy going to find his niche in Hollywood?

Hanks is the only movie star around today who projects a specifically American brand of decency, which suggests an implicit bond with common folk and a straightforward way of thinking and talking that harkens back to earlier generations. He's the only contemporary actor of stature whose manner, bearing and presumed sense of fair play suggest a link to revered actors of the past, particularly James Stewart, Henry Fonda and Spencer Tracy all of whom, it should be remembered, also were awfully good at comedy.

Both Splash and the even more successful Big, in 1988, branded him as a popular romantic comedy actor and farceur who provided a perfect match to young romantic comediennes. Swinging the other way into big-time serious fare, he starred in his biggest clunker of all, Brian De Palma's film version of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, in 1990, which Hanks dubbed (in his 2016 interview with Oprah) "one of the crappiest movies ever made." He was on safer ground as the boozy manager of a female baseball team in Peggy Marshall's very popular A League of Their Own.

In 1993, Hanks took the big leap from the safe sphere of comedy to the risky realm of a drama about AIDS, Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia. The performance, beginning with the youthful swagger of an on-the-rise attorney, passing through the initial shock of infection and gradual withering and deterioration, is acutely sensitive and moving.1255952Hanks won his first Oscar for the turn and doubled his pleasure the following year with Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump. The humorless, emotionally blank, athletically gifted idiot savant who manages to take part in an exceptional number of historical events is a role not softened by Hanks, whose maintenance of an almost Buster Keaton-like deadpan throughout miraculously works to the film's immense favor.

These two films launched Hanks' greatest decade. But as if these were not enough, there is a third role, from 1995, that in the long run will no doubt eclipse all the rest, because it will be watched and enjoyed for generations to come: Woody in the Toy Story series. How absolutely wonderful that part is, both in visual execution and vocal dexterity. To say that Hanks makes this doll come alive is an understatement; he's probably the most recognizable and beloved sheriff in film history.

To top it all off, Hanks began producing during this period, and his track record in this regard puts to shame many for whom it's a full-time occupation. In 2002, Hanks personally produced a little indie-styled project called My Big Fat Greek Wedding and walked away with something like $20 million for his efforts. And as an executive producer, he's had a hand in many television projects, including the long-running Big Love and, closest to his heart, several major history-oriented miniseries, including Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific.

If this man for all seasons has an Achilles' heel, it's in the realm of directing. He's tried it a few times, mostly on television but twice on the big screen, with That Thing You Do! in 1996 and, 15 years later, Larry Crowne. Both centered on small-town guys, played by Hanks, trying to make something of themselves, but neither gained significant creative traction.

Still, the major successes continued. Hanks wasn't sure he was the right actor to star in Saving Private Ryan, but Steven Spielberg proved him wrong. The Spielberg collaboration has continued apace ever since, ranging from the very fine (Catch Me If You Can and Bridge of Spies) to the not bad (The Post) to the terminally awful (The Terminal). It's supposed to continue with In the Garden of Beasts, in which Hanks would play the U.S. ambassador to Hitler's Germany before the war.

If any film proves beyond doubt Hanks' ability to hold the audience in the palm of his hand, it's Zemeckis' Cast Away. As a FedEx employee whose plane crashes into the Pacific, leaving him stranded on an uninhabited island, Hanks is obliged to become a new Robinson Crusoe and figure out how to survive. Aiding this effort is a volleyball nicknamed Wilson, with whom one might say the man established a good rapport. Few actors could pull off a performance as demanding as this and not overstay their welcome, but Hanks pulls it off as if it were second nature.

Although wildly successful, the three Da Vinci Code films seemed like time-wasters as far as Hanks' abilities were concerned, and his adventurous outings in the 2000s with such worthy filmmakers as Mike Nichols, Sam Mendes, the Coen Brothers and Stephen Daldry didn't quite jell. More successful were his studies of two portraits of real men of transport: as the seaman whose cargo ship is hijacked in Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips and as the pilot who landed his jet in the Hudson River in Clint Eastwood's Sully. And life simply wouldn't have been complete had not Hanks also taken on, and nailed, playing Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks.

In his latest film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Hanks catches the unique charm and charisma of yet another mild-mannered sage, Fred Rogers. What is it about this actor that allows him to range so far, from the innate goodness and likability of Woody and Fred Rogers, the vulnerability of an AIDS casualty and the blank slate of Forrest Gump to the deep sensitivity of his prison guard in The Green Mile and the unifying force of astronaut Jim Lovell in Apollo 13? Hanks really is the last throwback to pre-Vietnam War American masculinity, a stable guy you feel you can count on, a quietly persuasive moral force around whom people can gather, a man whose natural bent is to gradually gather consensus. He doesn't insist upon your attention, nor does he wear a visible ego. There's no mystery here Hanks is a good man, and you're glad to be in his presence whenever you can.

This story first appeared in a November stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

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Todd McCarthy Reflects on Tom Hanks' "Specifically American Brand of Decency" - Hollywood Reporter

The first time I ever cared about Ducks football was earlier this year, when I found out that Big Boi, from legendary Atlanta rap duo Outkast, had a son who played on the team.

Visions of Big Boi, real name Antwon Patton, gracing local stages on a weekly basis flashed through my mind. I imagined running into him at House of Records, or seeing him at Saturday Market with an oversized fur coat and gold chains. I pictured an Outkast reunion at Autzen stadium, where most of the students would lazily fumble through the last verse in Roses, and only know the chorus to Mrs. Jackson.

Its a privilege for Eugene to have a small connection to Atlanta rap royalty and that connection is finally paying off for fans on Friday, Nov. 29, at the McDonald Theatre, where Big Boi will grace the stage in Eugene for the first time since his son, Cross Patton, began playing for the Ducks earlier this year.

Big Bois career spans the better part of three decades. As Outkast, he and Andre 3000 released five studio albums between 1994 and 2006. In 2010, Big Boi would release his first debut album, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, which managed the near-impossible task of satiating both mainstream critics and underground hip-hop fans, who want nothing more than slick talk and bone-rattling bass.

The same experimentation that gave Outkast its stripes in the late 90s is evident on Big Bois later solo material as well. In 2015, he released Big Grams, a collaborative album with alternative darlings Phantogram, where Big Boi took a stab at psych-pop and mostly succeeded. This eclectic love for any sound that makes people move is what distinguishes Big Boi from other aging hip-hop acts.

Big Bois longevity as a relevant hip-hop artist is a testament to his strength as a lyricist. He seems to be everything at once: witty, cunning, funny, aware. He never sold out because he never had to. This authenticity has allowed Big Boi to seamlessly transition into an elder statesman of hip-hop. He even managed to perform at this years Superbowl halftime show and have it not be corny or controversial something not many artists pull off.

Big Bois DNA can be found in almost every subgenre of Atlanta rap. He was only one piece of the larger puzzle that is The Dungeon Family, a rap collective from the 90s that featured future rap luminaries Goodie Mob, Cee-Lo Green, Killer Mike, Sleepy Brown and an innumerable number of associated acts and offshoots. Through colorful lyrics and intoxicating southern slang, The Dungeon Family defined the sounds of Atlanta hip-hop before trap music gained momentum in the early 2000s.

But one cant exist without the other. The tragedy and hedonism we all love from our trap music is evident in early Outkast records as well. Big Boi has never shied away from the harsh realities that still plague the community he grew up in. In 2006 he launched a non profit organization to help youth in Atlanta called the Big Kidz Foundation. In 2010 he expanded the foundation to Savannah, Georgia.

Unlike the reclusive Andre 3000, Big Boi continues to release new music, with an album hopefully around the corner. Earlier this year, he released two new songs With Dungeon Family alum Sleepy Brown and Killer Mike. Yes, its true. The chances of a 2019 Outkast reunion in Tracktown U.S.A. seem slim to none, However, the chances of Big Boi putting on a one-of-a-kind show in the home of the Ducks is overwhelmingly high.

Via email, Big Boi had this to say about his upcoming performance in Eugene: Eugene is like a second home. Ive been waiting to perform for the Ducks crowd. Sco Ducks!!!!

Big Boi plays 8 pm Friday, Nov. 29, at the McDonald Theatre; $35 advance, $40 door.

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A Small Connection to Rap Royalty - Eugene Weekly

MANY of us remember with great fondness Maldons famous Victorian Evenings.

They started in 1984 through the auspices of Maldons Chamber of Trade Jon and Chris Wenlock, Trevor Parmenter and John Keeble being the key players.

The annual event became so successful that other towns followed suit.

Countless participants, locals and coached-in visitors alike, swamped the town every Christmas and it became the talk of the county and country.

The Maldon and Burnham Standard (then based at 107 High Street) ran a supplement to complement the event (I wrote pieces for some of those annual editions).

After many successful years, the time-honoured gathering eventually outgrew itself and stopped, much to the regret and disappointment of many.

But, Maldon being Maldon, a successor Christmas evening evolved, more recently organised by Maldon Town Council and with different themes.

Its a Flower Power Christmas this year, with a focus on the heady days of the Sixties.

The era in question was a wild decade of free love, but marred by the Vietnam War, the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

However, it also saw a man land on the moon and the test flight of Concorde.

On the domestic front, Coronation Street was first aired in 1960, audio cassettes were invented in 1962 and in 1966 we won the football World Cup (and we are still talking about it!).

The charts were dominated by the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones (their LPs could be bought from Caters record shop at Maldons 78 High Street).

All in all it was a time of modernity and fun-loving hedonism and it was later said that if you remember the Sixties, you really werent there.

Well, I was there (albeit I was only ten as it turned into the 70s) and I do actually remember what some things were like here in Maldon.

At that time we had a population of around 10,000, we had both railway and bus stations, we learnt to swim in the lake, and the major employers included firms such as Ever Ready, Sadds and Bentalls.

So as we enjoy the festivities in our High Street in 2019, lets take a nostalgic journey back to the mid-Sixties and focus, in particular, on the commercial hub of our town.

Thankfully, unlike other places, it still has an open road ensuring passing traffic can be drawn to what is on offer from our many and varied shops.

As evidenced by a local almanac of 1966, some of them have survived the intervening 50-plus years.

Take, for example, the butchers, Ansell & Sons, continuing in its timeless way at number 5.

There is also still a Wenlocks, albeit now at 77, as opposed to what is currently the Emporium building at 85-87. Another butchers, Buntings, remains at 89.

Most of the pubs are also still open including the Blue Boar (then a Trust House), the White Horse at 26, the Swan at 73, the Rose & Crown (now Wetherspoons) at 109, and the Warwick at 185.

And while Reeves remains on the corner of Wantz Road, we do lament the passing of other unique places, among them the high-class grocers, Collins at 9, Wells Upholstery at 19, the photographer M Seymour at 35, Knightbridge the tobacconist at 55, Balls the fishmonger at 119, Copsey the fish and chip shop at 199, and Frank Horton menswear at 50.

Then there was the Rendezvous chocolate shop, Nicholls toyshop at 120, Orrs Stores at 160, Leech the ironmonger at 43, Gowers at 57, the antique shops McNally (22) and Wells (11 and 17), and the Home and Colonial at 42.

There was much less traffic passing by in the Sixties, when the cars included Fords, Austins, Standards, Triumphs, Singers and Hillmans, some of them bought from Houldings, Ruggles, Does, Quests, Bates, Hunters and Gregorys.

The shoppers also wore quite different dress compared with today. You could easily identify the hippie sub-culture by their ponchos, moccasins, love beads, peace signs, medallion necklaces, chain belts, polka dot-printed fabrics and long, puffed bubble sleeves.

Both men and women wore frayed bell-bottomed jeans, tie-dyed shirts, work shirts, Jesus sandals, and headbands.

Those colourful garments might well make a re-appearance at this years Flower Power Christmas and it is good to know that the underlying shopping character of the Sixties can still be experienced today.

Not only that, but thanks to the injection of money from a number of local entrepreneurs, new outlets have supplemented the older businesses in areas like Edwards Walk, the Kings Head Centre, Brights Path and Wenlock Way.

We are really spoilt for choice in relation to specialist shops and services jewellers, gift shops, hairdressers, beauticians, clothes shops and there is a plethora of excellent places to eat of varied tastes and cuisine and to drink both alcohol and coffee and tea.

So at this years successor to the Victorian Evenings, soak up the hippie past (and, as Timothy Leary put it, Turn on, tune in, drop out), enjoy the present and look forward to a great Maldon Christmas. The event takes place today in Maldons High Street from 4.30pm until 9pm.

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COLUMN: Maldon was just swinging in those flower power days - Maldon and Burnham Standard

A few weeks shy of turning 70, the American actor Don Johnson can look back on a rich, never-dull career. I feel the same as I always have, he says, flashing that smile, 16 and unruly! He broke through in the 1980s as a swaggering Sonny Crockett in the TV series Miami Vice. Life on screen and off was fast and glamorous; Johnson has been married five times (twice to Melanie Griffith) and engaged in Olympic-level hedonism. But the work has rarely slowed, including roles in Quentin Tarantinos Django Unchained and now Knives Out, a slick, funny whodunnit from Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi). The film also stars Daniel Craig, Chris Evans and Christopher Plummer, who plays a successful crime novelist whose untimely death turns a dysfunctional family against one another.

It looks like you and the cast of Knives Out had a great time making it. Or was that really good acting on your part?I always say when people mention this that its kind of our job to make it look easy and fun. You have to look like that even with people that you could do time for any sort of heinous act you committed on them. But no, this was one of those joyous occasions where we actually did have fun.

One of the more serious ideas in Knives Out is whether you actually help your children by bankrolling their careers. As a father of five, what do you think?Oh, I could write many books on that. I think you destroy your children, I do. You start off wanting better for them than what you had for yourself, but the more you do for them, the more you cripple them. Struggle is the fuel that drives creativity, discovery and curiosity.

I had to overcome attributes youd think would be an asset Ihappened to be a very attractive young man

Do you speak from experience here? Your path to acting wasnt exactly straightforward, was it?Hell no. I had a horrible childhood, horrible. I had the quinella: abuse and parents who divorced when I was 12 years old and I was the oldest. I really was unhappy and I left home at 16. And when you leave home at 16 and you dont have a plan and you have to fend for yourself and put yourself through high school that builds a powerful character.

Why do you think you did make it as an actor?I always felt confident about my skills and my ability. I had to overcome some physical attributes that, on the surface, you would think would be an asset, because I happened to be a very attractive young man. But I was sort of androgynous at a time when androgynous was not necessarily the thing. I was young, skinny as a rail and had long hair and my features I was kind of a pretty boy. Thats not the way I felt about myself, but it was the thing I had to overcome to be taken seriously.

You dont hear many people, especially men, talk about the pitfalls of being too good looking.Yeah, it was a detriment in a lot of ways. In other ways, it was very helpful. Because when it did work for me, then it worked in a big way.

Did you expect to still be acting when you were almost 70?I didnt expect to live to 30, OK? So its all been gravy. I think I speak for all actors: [when] you finish a job, you almost always think, Well, that was it. Ill never work again. So every day is Christmas for actors. Either Santa was good to you that day or not.

How did you feel when your daughter Dakota said that she wanted to act?Thats a story in itself. I didnt know that she wanted to do it. She hadnt shared that with us. So shes 18, I think, at the time and Im going: OK, Ill just keep my eye on her and reach out and catch her. Ha ha, thats the last I saw of Dakota. She has the goods. Shes a wonderful actress, and in some ways better than her mother [Melanie Griffith] and me.

How do you get on with Dakotas boyfriend, Coldplays Chris Martin?Hes a lovely man, Ill tell you that. But its not my place; they have their own thing. It would be like asking Chris Martin: Hows Dons relationship with his wife?

Theres a photo of you and Donald Trump from the 1980s. Were you pals? I knew Donald for about 20 minutes. I mean, for a short period [long pause, sigh]. Well, it all speaks for itself, doesnt it? I had 20 minutes with the Donald and that was enough.

You were, however, friends with Hunter S Thompson. Could you ever just hang out and relax with him?Ah, I loved Hunter. I miss him every day. He was a gentle soul. He was also wild amen! And yeah, we could just hang out as long as you were willing to drink some whiskey.

But you dont drink now, do you?Oh no, I havent drunk liquor in I dont even know how long. At first, I had to avoid him for a while, when I decided that I wasnt going to drink or use any more. Then, once I was pretty comfortable, I ventured back. And he was so curious about my thing [being sober], but it wasnt on his dance card. Yeah, he checked the box that read: sex, drugs, rocknroll.

Theres talk of a reboot of Miami Vice. Was that show a blessing or a curse for you?Im really proud of the fact that I was able to overcome what has trapped so many other actors when theyve played an iconic role like that. I was able to separate Don Johnson from Sonny Crockett and take Don Johnson on a journey where others were willing to say: Oh, OK, let me check him out in this And thats not a small accomplishment.

Knives Out is released on 27 November

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Don Johnson: I didnt expect to live to 30, so its all been gravy - The Guardian

During the spring of 1976, senior advisers to Queen Elizabeth II approached the prime minister, Harold Wilson, with a problem. After almost 16 years, her sister Margarets marriage to the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones was in trouble. The princess had retreated to the Caribbean island of Mustique recently with her latest lover, Roddy Llewellyn, a would-be gardener almost two decades her junior. The affair was common knowledge on Fleet Street, and the palace wanted to nip speculation in the bud by announcing Margaret and Lord Snowdon were to separate.

Wilson believed he had the ideal solution to curb the media sensation this would cause. He had long been planning his resignation, so suggested that the palace break the news a day or two afterwards as it would be overshadowed by the political fallout. But he was wrong. For when Margarets separation was announced on 19 March, it made the front page not just of every British newspaper, but in countless papers worldwide.

Margaret was, after all, not just a princess. She had always been a star and darling of the gossip columns seen as naughty, witty, sexy and difficult in the public imagination. At a time when the monarchys image seemed unshakeably staid, she stood out. It was said that people dreamed of the Queen dropping in for a cup of tea and cake. Nobody would have said that of her sister. Margarets tastes ran more to coffee and a cigarette, or, in her later years, a large glass of whisky or gin. She was fun and that made her dangerous.

Even by the standards of the British royal family in the 20th century, Margarets life had a soap-opera quality. It was not a comparison she would have enjoyed, since almost everybody who met her commented on her herculean, world-class snobbery. But as the younger daughter of George VI, who was never realistically going to ascend to the throne, she was assigned her role in the drama at a young age and seemed incapable of breaking out. From the beginning, the press depicted her as the stereotypical younger sister: pretty but undisciplined. This was a clich, of course, but one from which she never escaped.

Born in 1930, Margaret was often described as the sharper of the reluctant monarchs two girls, and the more indulged. Even when she was a teenager, one visitor remarked that she was full of character and very tart. The diplomat Duff Cooper, who met her when she was in her late teens, wrote that she was a most attractive girl lovely eyes, lovely mouth, very sure of herself and full of humour. She might get into trouble before shes finished.

He was right about that. By the time Elizabeth got married in 1947, Margaret was already becoming the spoiled socialite who would dominate column inches for decades. The society photographer Cecil Beaton found it a challenge to take her picture, complaining that she had been out at a nightclub until 5.30 the morning before and got a bit tired after two hours posing. Her former governess Marion Crawford once lamented: More and more parties, more and more friends, and less and less work.

In some ways, perhaps, this reputation, which defined Margaret well into the 1950s, was not such a bad thing. She was an attractive young woman in her early twenties, so who could blame her for enjoying herself? What was more, Britain at the time seemed a tired, grey, threadbare country, still hidebound by rationing, still scarred by bomb damage, still run, by and large, by the old men who had won the war.

If the Queen, who succeeded George VI in 1952, appeared a breath of fresh air, leading her country into a New Elizabethan age, then Margaret seemed to bring more than a dash of Hollywood-style glamour. The papers breathlessly recounted how she would dance into the small hours with aristocratic friends. As one of her biographers, Tim Heald, remarks: Photographs from the time show an almost impossibly glamorous figure. Hats, bouquets, handbags are all apparently permanent fixtures, as is a wide seductive smile.

Too seductive, perhaps? Sexual morality was a source of immense anxiety in the mid-1950s. The headlines were full of so-called juvenile delinquents and the teenager was becoming a national obsession. As Britain moved from austerity towards affluence, commentators warned of the dangers of homosexuality, prostitution, teenage pregnancies and general moral degradation. It was against this background that, at the coronation in 1953, a few eagle-eyed observers spotted Margaret brushing a bit of fluff affectionately from the uniform of Group Captain Peter Townsend, her late fathers equerry.

Not only was Townsend 16 years older than Margaret, he was a divorced father of two. He proposed marriage and she was minded to accept, but when politicians and press alike held up the monarchy as an unimpeachable bulwark of tradition in a changing world, the match was bound to be controversial. Besides, it had not been so long since the abdication crisis of 1936, which some people thought came close to destroying the monarchy altogether. As prime minister, Winston Churchill was said to be dead against the marriage, and the People newspaper even claimed that it would fly in the face of royal and Christian tradition.

Polls showed the public in favour of Margaret following her heart. Yet this was a deferential age, not a populist one, and what the public thought was neither here nor there. After a two-year hiatus, Margaret duly fell into line. I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend, she explained in a statement in October 1955, adding that she was mindful of the churchs teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth. Her life might have been different if she had married the man she loved. As it was, it slid, slowly but inexorably, into tragedy. Before that, however, came the lurid saga of her relationship with Antony Armstrong-Jones, whom she married in 1960.

At first, it seemed a good match. They were both spirited, attractive, waspish and slightly raffish. They liked parties and a drink. And there seemed to be approval for her new beau. In an age when image-making was increasingly important, with magazines turning photo-journalism into a glamorous pursuit, the photographer had become a cult hero.

Only a few sceptics sounded the alarm. Armstrong-Joness friend and publisher Jocelyn Stevens openly told him he was making a terrible mistake. And novelist Kingsley Amis, in angry-young-man mode, thought it was a dreadful symbol of modern Britain when a royal princess, famed for her devotion to all that is most vapid and mindless, is united with a dog-faced, tight-jeaned fotog of fruitarian tastes such as can be found in dozens in any pseudo-arty drinking cellar in London. Theyre made for each other.

For a time, though, all went well. Still in her mid-thirties, Margaret, now the Countess of Snowdon, seemed perfectly placed to bask in the glow of Sixties London, the most swinging city in the world. She and her husband, Lord Snowdon, hobnobbed with fashionable actors and writers such as Peter Sellers and Harold Pinter, were seen in all the right nightclubs and struck precisely the right semi-bohemian note to be taken seriously by visiting American feature writers. As Time magazine famously put it: The guards now change at Buckingham Palace to a Lennon and McCartney tune, and Prince Charles is firmly in the long-hair set. And Margaret was a very visible symbol of change.

In many ways, this was a triumph of style over substance. The idea that Prince Charles was in the long-hair set now looks laughable, and Margarets supposed role as a bridge between royal tradition and swinging bohemianism was no less illusory. To her friends, she cut an increasingly spoiled, sulky and unhappy figure, especially as her marriage fell apart under the pressure of affairs from both parties. Rather than witty or spiky, many people now found Margaret downright rude. She was tiresome, spoilt, idle and irritating, wrote the diarist Sir Roy Strong. She has no direction, no overriding interest. All she likes is young men.

By the early 1970s, Margaret increasingly sought refuge in her villa on Mustique, the venue for her famously boozy parties. In its way, her chosen bolthole spoke volumes. While the Queen holidayed in the bleak, windswept, thoroughly traditional country estates of Sandringham and Balmoral, the sun-drenched Caribbean island exuded exclusivity, expense and hedonism. That was just as Margaret liked it. But with headlines in Britain full of strikes, bombings and three-day weeks, it made her a natural target.

When news of her separation broke in March 1976, the press turned on her with savage gusto. Thanks to the reform of the divorce laws a few years earlier, more marriages were breaking up than ever before. Yet the royal family was supposed to be different. Indeed, people actively wanted it to be different. Much of the monarchys popularity during Margarets lifetime had been based on its image as a happy, united churchgoing family, with the Queen and Prince Philip held up as exemplary parents.

Thanks to Margaret, that image seemed unsustainable. By April 1978, seven out of 10 people agreed that she had damaged the royal family and whenever her most outspoken critic, Labour MP Willie Hamilton, laid into her expensive, extravagant irrelevance, many listened.

The Queen and her family reflect as well as represent the community, said The Times two years after Margarets marriage broke down. They are exposed to the pressures of modern life like the rest of us. Peregrine Worsthorne of The Telegraph even suggested that the royal family should be seen as a normal family in a permissive age, complete with royal broken marriages, merry widows, disorderly divorcees, delinquent teenagers. He was joking, but in the long run, he was more perceptive than perhaps he realised.

For Margaret, the rest of her life was a sad story after the giddy glamour of her youth. Public engagements were often disastrous. Conservative MP Matthew Parris claimed that when she visited his constituency in the 1980s, she was on the gin by mid-morning and insulted the caterers at an old peoples home by telling them their coronation chicken looked like sick. As she retreated from the limelight, her place as the nations leading royal celebrity was usurped by the Firms latest recruit, Princess Diana. She died in 2002 following a stroke, aged 71.

The obvious question is whether things could have been different. A charitable verdict would be that Margaret was trapped by the conventions of the institution, expectations of the public and sheer bad timing. Born in a much more deferential era, she came of age at a time when the public were thirsting for glamour. She became associated with a supposed golden age of carefree hedonism and was then swept aside during the inevitable hangover. No doubt she was always doomed to struggle in her sisters shadow. History is littered with younger royal siblings who never found a meaningful role.

Yet people are not merely victims of history. Margaret may have found herself, through no fault of her own, cast in the most conspicuous melodrama of all, but she was her own scriptwriter. Nobody forced her to make her own part so dissolute, snobbish, haughty or rude. That was her own decision, and she paid a high price for it in the end.

Dominic Sandbrook is a historian who has written widely on postwar Britain. A new two-part documentary series Princess Margaret: Royal Rebel will be broadcast on BBC Two in September.

This article was first published in the October 2018 edition of BBC History Magazine

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Princess Margaret's Life: Where And Why Did It All Go Wrong? - BBC History Magazine

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL PARKIN

The Sunday Times,November 17 2019, 12:01am

Real parties happen rarely nowadays in my life at least. In fact I can count the number of serious, leave-it-all-out-on-the-dancefloor ragers Ive had this year on one hand. With several fingers to spare.

So I was rather pleased when I received an invitation to one last week. It ticked all the boxes: Brooklyn. Costumes. Warehouse. Strange goings-on. Conspicuously late finish. A rare opportunity for what you might call a proper night out.

My friend and I planned to go. We sourced outfits. We dropped our plans into dinner conversation to flaunt our nocturnal glamour. But then it reached 11pm. The night was cold. Dinner was heavy in our bellies. Brooklyn suddenly seemed very far and bed seductively near. You can guess how this went.

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Josh Glancy: a night of hedonism sounds tempting but I'd rather be tucked up in bed - The Times

Hedonism isnt necessarily the first term that comes to mind when thinking of senior care communities. Yet the word occasionally appears in research articles that relate to residential and community satisfaction, weaving in psychology, sociology and behavioral sciences.

Let me reflect on two foremost dimensions of satisfaction: pleasantness (hedonic), practicality (utilitarian) and thirdly on probability the governing influence on future changes being considered at and for institutions involved in senior care.

Hundreds of research articles discuss the impediments CCRCs and smaller communities face in attracting seniors from their beloved homes. Five reasons identified by AARP are fairly universal: Physical stress in moving; fear of losing ones independence; anxiety over leaving a community; emotional attachment to a family home; and fear of the unknown.

Depending on the source, 85-90% of seniors wish to remain in their own home. In the U.S., 10,000 people turn age 65 daily. Were lucky, my years in China tell me there the figure there is estimated at 50,000 a day.

That gerontology data influences both older institutions and planning for new senior stand-alone facilities.

But to what degree do we understand the hedonic paradigm as part of a strategy when proposing senior care platforms?

Let me be up front: Disparity in income has been a part of civilization since walking the dusty streets in an ancient Agora. Even socialism cannot diminish that difference.

But todays financially capable middle-aged people seek in retirement the amenities held prior to their senior days. Moving from that desirable environment, for whatever reason, should contain for new elders similar or improved amenities yet not neglect effort given to less financially able seniors.

Altering quickly an older residential structure to include modern touches is not done lightly or rapidly. Few in-place senior institutions have freedom to yearly expand their pleasantness (or hedonism).

Consistently present are encroaching and ever-present impediments. Impelling geographical, economic, governmental, licensing and other factors influence the choice of changing residential options.

Increasingly new senior structures proclaim faultless assurances in structure, physical and programs via marketing announcements. But which sectors within the continuum should be major vectors for the future?

Im undecided; aging and past experiences intrude. Which option? When? Where? What percentage? That is not a cop out. Its my bias, and there is no perfect answer.

Regardless of board decisions and corporate oversight, there must be a degree of new and continuing hedonism linked with minimal savings held by potential residents.

Studies aver there is a correlation between wealth and residing in a continuum of care institution, yet the lack of sufficient funding for many persons is the major detriment for joining a senior-care facility.

Additionally, reading and tallying only online marketing ploys, creature comforts meant as supplements become more dominant than pragmatic services.

Emerging statistics suggest that by their early 70s, 10-15% of todays younger middle-aged Americans will seek residential facilities highly comparable to their current lifestyle. In other words, hedonism and elegance must co-mingle with economically successful private lives of individuals, and the reverse.

Utilitarianism

There is no doubt that pragmatic economic factors have always been a major influencer of senior care development. But other dominant influences on elder senior residences have multiplied precipitously since I served on the board of a senior care enterprise in the 1960s.

Today, a duality of exterior national, state, county and city factors joins the human internal causes and effects senior residents and future residents. Extensive research on senior communities and people who live in them also has increased and shaped better understanding.

If one accepts todays increasing concern for the hedonic, that desire suggests pragmatic and utilitarian outside criteria should merge in individual residences. Whereas exterior influences affect future senior planning, interior planning criteria are narrower.

A city, for example, determines which criteria its commissions, planners, and other officials consider when approving housing and public residential facilities. Most of these macro criteria may be background noise to interior planning and individual residential units.

Satisfaction

Integrating conceptual dimensions of home is a key to creating increasingly important resident satisfaction. What are the semantic parameters that suggest the criteria for a home? Of course any concept of home involves a physical space, a utilitarian structure, and my concept of hedonism subsumed under an environmental platform with which the resident has an attachment. Oversimplified are touchstones as physical, spatial, societal dimensions. In other words, everyone is more comfortable within their national and local culture.

Space, safety and a sense of neighborhood increase loyalty to an institution. While the mission statements of in-place and future residential facilities may not overtly include value-driven terms such as friendliness, their existence matters and should be imbued in future strategies. All wish a retirement complex to be as close to a home ambience as possible.

I support programmatic change, but the impetus for a more home-like feeling could receive added prominence. There must be an improved visual, emotional, hedonic attractiveness as a key part of any utilitarian effort. There should be a mutual intertwining of options, never losing sight of a continuum of care, but with determined support for hedonic inclusion in senior facilities.

Probability

Probability is part of simply two dynamics in planning and meeting future senior care trends. Suffice it to say that in the healthcare industry, the onrush of the need for increasing care for seniors will not abate.

Many communities are land-locked, facing rejection of enlarging their horizontal footprints. Four major options exist then for accommodating new needs:

The theory of probabilities affirms no decision will be perfect. But hope that ends with a successful reality is the result of employing confident visions, giving probability a chance at success.

Herbert Hildebrandt Ph.D., Hl.D. is Emeritus Professor of the Ross School of Business, Emeritus Professor of Communion Studies (international) and former VP/Secretary of the University of Michigan. He is one of the founders in 1962 of Glacier Hills, Ann Arbor, MI.

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Hedonism in the neighborhood CCRC? - Guest columns - McKnight's Long Term Care News

The energetic Australian indie Bilched touches on subjects familiar to coming-of-age stories including youthful hedonism, awkward sexual encounters and the final days of school. By youthful hedonism I refer specifically to booze guzzling, weed smoking and pill popping: the three essential food groups for experimental teenagers captured in narratives of this ilk, which usually involve somebody falling into a swimming pool sooner or later.

However this Sydney-set feature shot in a tight 21 days isnt all vomit in the punch bowl then pass out in a bush. Theres also a reflective and perhaps even wistful element to it, somewhere beneath the beer stains and stubbed-out spliffs. Not enough to make the drama accessible to a broad demographic, though it was never supposed to be; this film is obviously intended to appeal to the same kind of people it depicts.

One of Bilcheds key authors is among that demographic: the writer and star, Hal Cumpston, penned the script when he was 18, reportedly over a 10-day period. The film was directed by his father, Jeremy Cumpston, who successfully infuses it with a vigour one associates with scallywags decades his junior.

We first encounter Hal as he is in a mad hurry to make a theatre audition, in a frantic introductory scene that reminded me of Nash Edgertons early short film, Deadline. From the get-go Bilched has an invigorating pep and pace, shot with the sort of bling that comes from a resourceful cinematographer in this instance Shane Kavanagh determined not to let fiscal frugality impinge on their ability to create splashy visuals.

The gold standard of cost-effective, cranked-to-11 aesthetic in recent years is director Sean Bakers turbo-charged iPhone-shot drama Tangerine, which makes even well-paced films like Bilched seem listless by comparison. Like Jonah Hills recent retro-flavoured coming-of-age pic, Mid90s, Bilched achieves an interesting aesthetic through Instagram-esque colour grading, coating streetside images with a striking but commonplace visual lacquer.

Hals audition is part of a bookend framing device, though the narrative is more concerned with the protagonists everyday life. His routine includes making wisecracks, talking back to teachers and engaging in schoolyard argy-bargy with frenemy Ella (Holly White). When Ellas father (Rhys Muldoon) leaves her home alone and tells her to not, under any circumstances, have any parties when hes gone well, we know where this is going: straight to the swimming pool and the kids whove had too much to drink.

In this universe the acquisition of alcohol and pot are tasks of monumental significance; historical turning points in which legends are made and/or reputations ruined. The script isnt slick or sly in the way of an adolescence-themed comedy with real wit, such as Superbad. Nor is it entirely sincere as a dramatic character study, like the recent and excellent Eighth Grade.

But Bilched is disciplined and punchy nonetheless, the film-makers demonstrating a reasonably good grasp on how to turn prosaic moments into amusing character-developing sequences. It is endearing in a funny sort of way: you kind of root for the protagonist, but also kind of want him to pipe down and grow up.

Rather than authentic drama, per se, Bilched has authentic attitude, the source of which is Hal Cumpstons distinctive stamp as writer and star. Its hard to say which is more effective: his performance or his script, partly because they are so thoroughly enmeshed.

Coming-of-age movies are more likely than other genres to have unconventional leads. The modern Australian spin on this category of film was spearheaded by a mesmerisingly weird performance from the boisterous and gangly Bruce Spence in the 1971 classic, Stork. Cumpstons performance isnt at that level but he is still is a rare find: grounded in the reality of this world and yet somewhat larger than life.

Its easy to forget his character is an aspiring actor, though it makes sense in hindsight given Hals performative personality and drama-seeking demeanour. Cumpstons presence, behind and in front of the camera, is a reminder that films can still feel fresh and spirited even if they arent particularly original. Despite the youthful hedonism, Bilched has brains and style.

Bilched is in Australian cinemas from 21 November

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Bilched review coming-of-age teen dramedy with authentic attitude - The Guardian

Over the past few years, numerous surveys have revealed that Millennials and members of Generation Z are less keen on the consumption of illegal drugs and alcohol than their immediate forebears. In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventions most recent Youth Risk Behaviour Survey showed that alcohol, drug and cigarette consumption have been falling consistently among American teens for at least the past decade. The study also showed that young people in the US are having less sex. Until recently, similar trends were being observed in the UK, where alcohol and drug consumption among young people have also been following a general downward trend for several years now.

Yet despite this, the number of drug-related deaths in both countries is on the rise. Back in August, data from the UKs Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that drug poisoning deaths rose by 16% in 2018. Last August,the CDC saidthat drug overdoses were estimated to have killed just over 72,280 people in the US in 2017, which represented an increase of some 10% on the previous year. All of this suggests that members of Generation X and Boomers are accounting for a growing proportion of both nations problem drug use and drug-related overdose deaths; a trend that appears to be being borne out both statistically and anecdotally.

Back in 2017, the UKs ONS revealed that people aged between 40 to 49 had the highest rate of drug misuse deaths across England and Wales for the first time ever in 2016. This led to people of that age group being dubbed the Trainspotting generation after the Irvine Welsh novel that was popular during their youth. According to ONS researchers, the emerging trend of older people suffering a higher a number of drug overdose deaths was down to the fact that many addicts in the 40 to 49 age group were beginning to lose lengthy battles with substance abuse habits that might have been begun decades ago due to poor physical and mental health.

In a more recent assessment released this August, the ONS said that people born in the 1960s and 1970s [were] dying from suicide or drug poisoning in greater numbers than any other generation. The ONS said that while the reasons for rising drug and suicide deaths in this age group were complex, a high number of those who lost their lives lived in some of the most deprived parts of England.

While it might be easy to conflate drug problems among Boomers and Generation Xers with the hedonistic times in which they came of age, other studies have also suggested that this might be too simplistic a view. In a paper published in April, researchers at Vanderbilt University in the US state of Tennessee noted that high levels of depression, suicidal ideation, drug use and alcohol abuse identified among middle-aged white Boomers was beginning to impact the youngest members of Generation X. Lauren Gaydosh, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Health and Society and Public Policy Studies at Vanderbilt, forecast that midlife mortality may begin to increase across a range of demographic groups, adding: Public health efforts to reduce these indicators of despair should not be targeted toward just rural whites, for example, because were finding that these patterns are generalised across the population.

Earlier this month, new figures published by the UKs National Health Service (NHS) revealed that the number of English pensioners aged over 90 being admitted to hospital after suffering from psychological and behavioural disorders following cocaine use had risen ten-fold over the past decade. This came almost a year after similar data revealed that the number of over-45s in the UK seeking medical attention after suffering serious mental health problems as a result of drug use had risen by 85% over the previous decade. Speaking with the Guardian at the time, Ian Hamilton, Associate Professor of Addiction at the University of York, said: [Older people] are more likely to have had longer drug-using careers, so they will need longer in specialist drug treatment. However, unfortunately treatment services are being directed to offer abstinence-based services rather than maintaining this group on substitute drugs like methadone.

Both ONS studies and the Vanderbilt paper suggest that rising problem drug use and overdose deaths among older people in both the UK and the US have little to do with them being children of the second summer of love or having grown up believing heroin chic was the epitome of cool. Instead, evidence indicates that the growing number of people experiencing problems with drugs in later life appear to be among the most vulnerable in society, suggesting that labelling them with nicknames such as the Trainspotting generation might at the very least be treating the problems they face with undue flippancy.

While it may be the case that some Boomer or Gen X drug users might have been living with a habit for decades, it would seem that many are pushed to use illicit substances as a result of the undesirable life situations in which they have found themselves, and not as part of ill-advised efforts to relive the hedonism of their youth.

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Misery, not hedonism, appears to be driving increased drug use among Gen Xers and Boomers - Illicit Trade

Bristol has long held a reputation as one of the UKs more formidable musical cities from 1970s post-punk pioneers the Pop Group to the 90s trip-hop of Massive Attack. In recent years, forward-thinking artists such as Batu and his Timedance label, as well as producers Hodge & Facta, have been perfecting an incisive gut-punch of a techno sound with regular DIY parties in the city.

And now comes electronic duo Giant Swan. Robin Stewart and Harry Wright met as skateboarding 11-year-olds, and formed guitar band the Naturals, immersing themselves in Bristols local indie scene. Later, formative trips to London clubs such as Corsica Studiosturned them on to the hedonism of the dancefloor, and they soon began to experiment with analogue setups, exchanging instruments for electronics.

Renowned for their shirtless, intensely energetic live performances, Giant Swans eponymous debut album plays like the distilled essence of their onstage act, featuring distortion, manipulated vocals and an ever-present, tub-thumping bass. Its music that implies chaos but is carefully engineered to engender an effervescent freedom in its listeners. As Stewart said in an interview: This is why we started doing it: because its fun. Long may it continue.

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One to watch: Giant Swan - The Guardian