20 Years Ago, They Reunited For One Last Tour. Then, They Were Gone, One By One... Now They Are Reunited - In The Afterlife

This file photo shows, left to right, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who starred in the 1960 Warner Brothers' movie, "Ocean's Eleven."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


The Rat Pack is now all together again -
their Bishop was the last one to go, last year...

The 1960's Rat Pack, that is...

In 1988, only three of them had reunited, of course:
Deano, Sammy... and Frank. Always Frank. It was *almost* always about Frank...!
Frank Sinatra had, in fact, been the lone member of the Pack in ALL of its incarnations (something true elite groups should not have in their history, because then it seems to become a mere social tool for ONE SINGLE MAN; the Four Horsemen were always about TWO, at least - Ric Flair AND Arn Anderson, for example...)

Maybe, now, ALL of the members are reunited;
including members from the Original Rat Pack, from the 1950s
(Judy Garland, David Niven, George Cukor, among others...)

Only Lauren Bacall, once the "den mother" of the pack, will not be there...
Not yet, she isn't...

Hence the one true Rat Pack Reunion is still YET TO COME;
as each and every single one of our reunions with our loved ones
are yet to come too...


To which one can only say, verily...

Vivement le Jour du Jugement Dernier!

14 Years Ago...

The Rwandan atrocity - the 100 days of genocide - began, making hitherto and forevermore April 6th a date of infamy, remembered for all the wrong reasons. On par with September 11th - which it actually dwarfs in comparison in the sheer brutality of the tragedy as well as in the total number of casualties; the Rwandan Genocide is evidence enough that man is not just "intrinsically good". Man can commit the most abominable atrocities as well...

It is not just how many lives were lost back then either - it is of course about the unspeakable acts, all the actions that made it a genocide, the most heinous of all campaigns any group of men can ever undertake, that set what happened in Rwanda apart from 9/11 and any other recent tragedy that came with a considerable death toll.

A genocide is as bad as it can get; when brother kills brother for any ill-conceived concept of "cleansing" a piece of land - a huge piece of dirt.

This atrocity spawned a book, authored by one who was there and saw it all happen first hand, quite powerless to do anything about it. He titled his book "J'ai Serré La Main Du Diable" - hinting at the fact that unspeakable evil surely comes from the devil and the devil is, in fact, one of us... Surely, many human souls can only grow horns and a tail upon "crossing over", yes... General Romeo Dallaire is thus convinced he shook hands with one such soul on the unforgivable road to hell; and one couldn't agree more with the general.

It is said that he thought himself BACK in that hell, upon seeing, on a big screen, the film made of his book, starring Roy Dupuis (the same thespian -they call them comedians where he comes from- who played the late, great, maniacal Maurice Richard -on ice, he sure had that maniacal glare in his eyes- but that may not be implying anything at all...)

May everyone else only experience such a hell in that way only - via a movie retelling true shocking events, and not while actually living similar ones as they happen... again.

And may all the victims - all the souls who left this realm of existence amidst violence and chaos during the course of those one hundred days of HORROR... May they all, somehow, REST IN PEACE.

By God's Grace - they can.

+++

April Ausência - or Allo Allotropy...

Amusing, is it not,
that, quite recently,
when asked about
what favorite TV shows
I held dear to my heart,
out of the deepest
reaches of memory
came surging back
the British sitcom
"Allo, Allo"

Most of the cast
of Allo, Allo
might be dead now

A quick search on
IMDB.COM
should let us know...

That is not, of course,
the true subject
this month...

Merely a preamble to it,
as an explanation
for the alliterative title
of this month's post...
Followed by the round-up
- as usual...

First things first though:
APRIL = AUSÊNCIA
to me, now,
because this month
means a lot of things
ever since
a certain event...
Two years ago,
on this month,
as the purported to be soft
rains of April
swoop down my visage,
I attended the funeral
I knew to be inevitable
and wished never to see
become the sad reality.

April is, thus, Ausência.
Ausência, meaning
the absence of someone;
someone near and dear,
someone we always had there
or thought we always would
have, right there...

ALLO ALLOTROPY...
Because, now,
in "death"
the dear one exists
in more than one form;
his soul soared
into the starry ways
as his corporeal self
was buried into the ground.
Memories of the dear one
represent another form.
As will any photographs,
footage on celluloid,
or video film
or digital pictures...

True allotropy -
and real ubiquity too.

May all your dear ones
live on the same way
as mine.

+++




And be grateful that I resisted temptation
and did not go with "April Fools' Exits" instead
as a title for this month's compilation!

I keep my sarcastic streak in check
- more often than not.

Especially this month:
when the ausência hits home
and even an old favorite
like Charlton Heston
Moses/Ben Hur/Omega Man himself
passes away as well...

30 years ago...

In the spring of 1978, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia slaughtered some 4,000 people around the Vietnamese town of Ba Chuc, located just inside the Vietnamese border. Several months after the massacre, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The Western World condemned the invasion and subsequent occupation, but the Vietnamese people living in this frontier zone slept more soundly because of it. It is doubtful that any nation--Asian or Western--invades another out of entirely pure motives, but to stand before these skulls (and a series of photos too grisly to show here) elicited in me a high degree of sympathy for Vietnam's invasion. Given that thousands more Vietnamese had been killed all along the frontier before Vietnam launched its invasion, many locals only wished their government had acted sooner. 

We remember. And so will God - remember 

every single one of them - 

victims and victimizers alike - 

on Judgment Day.