And of course, all the shamanic plant-gathering journeys that still go on to this day..

Movies with South American backdrops almost always seem to enter a deeper level of reality for whatever mysterious reasons..Werner Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, The Mission, Curse of the Spiderwoman, Burn!, which Brando always said was the best thing he ever did..

Funny story: Klaus Kinski, a gifted prima donna who made Christian Bale look like the ultimate team player, apparently drove everyone so crazy
during the filming of Herzog's films that the local tribesman came to Herzog and offered to kill Kinski for him..

I've never been to Compton but I've represented many defendants from Compton on crack cocaine cases in federal court in Colorado. The discrimination is very real.  

It was a good movie. The only consistently violent character that comes to mind was Suge Knight, and he has denied the portrayal. The group's manager, Gerald Heller, has filed this lawsuit against the film's producers and writers and Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Eazy E's widow.

In a breach of contract, copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit seeking  $110 million in damages, former N.W.A manager Gerald Heller is going after NBCUniversal, director F. Gary Gray, Legendary Pictures, the screenwriters of Straight Outta Compton as well as Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, the estate of Eazy-E and the rest of the infamous gangsta rap group.

Queen of the South

Ahead of its upfront presentation on Friday, USA Network has picked up its drama pilot Queen Of The South to series with a 13-episode order for a 2016 premiere. The pilot was developed and produced by Fox 21 TV Studios (then Fox TV Studios), which will now co-produce with Universal Cable Prods

Based on best-selling book La Reina Del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Queen Of The South tells the story of Teresa Mendoza (Alice Braga). When her drug-dealing boyfriend is unexpectedly murdered in Mexico, Teresa is forced to go on the run and seek refuge in America, where she teams with an unlikely figure from her past to bring down the leader of the very drug trafficking ring that has her on the run. In the process, she learns the tools of the trade and strategically positions herself to become the leader of the Cartel.  M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller (The Final Girls) wrote the pilot and are executive producing with David Friendly (Little Miss Sunshine) and Pancho Mansfield (Damien). Charlotte Sieling directed the pilot

(Disclosure: Two of Mayor Fasi's six sons, Charles and David, have been personal friends of mine for 25 years, which you ought to take into account when reading this comment, because I'm not necessarily unbiased.)

That is, those Democrats who supported Burns and Ariyoshi were and still are inclined to believe the corruption charges that were leveled against Fasi, while Fasi's supporters were and still are equally as adamant that those charges arose from a longstanding vendetta conducted against him by those two governors, in order to preclude the mayor's political challenge to Ariyoshi in the Democratic primary. (For what it's worth, Ariyoshi's attempts to keep Fasi out of the 1974 and '78 primary races didn't work.)

All of this played out during the decade immediately prior to my own arrival in the islands. And being highly aware of the internal acrimony but personally unfamiliar firsthand with all the sordid details regarding Kukui Plaza, I take great pains to avoid any appearance of taking sides in this ongoing controversy, which still simmers sometimes not so quietly underneath the surface of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, even though nearly 40 years have since passed.

I would further note that after departing the Honolulu Advertiser, James Dooley went to work for wingbat Malia Zimmerman and her right-wing (and now-defunct) Hawaii Reporter. That enterprise recently dissolved in some very bitter public acrimony when Malia's aging ex-paramour State Sen. Sam Slom (R-East Honolulu) apparently decided that she was getting a little long in the tooth for his tastes, subsequently traded her in for a newer model, and then pulled the plugged on its funding. Malia's now working for -- surprise!! -- the Fox News affiliate in L.A.

So, it's not like Mr. Dooley doesn't have an agenda of his own, or is without his own axes to grind. He was reporting regularly on Kukui Plaza for the Advertiser back in 1976-78, only to see the story he was chronicling unravel badly on him when the case went to court, and the state's primary witness against Fasi -- a developer who was admittedly the mayor's friend and crony -- subsequently recanted on the stand, saying instead that he had perjured himself to the grand jury under pressure from prosecutors, who were themselves eager to implicate Fasi in a bribery scandal. The case against the mayor was dismissed by the judge with prejudice.

(That witness also died shortly thereafter, leading to unsubstantiated insinuations from more than a few of Gov. Ariyoshi's supporters that Mayor Fasi - who was Italian-American -- called in some mob friends from back east and had him poisoned. From all indications, though, his death was from natural causes.)

I'm likely not going to read Dooley's book, but by all means, please enjoy it because he's certainly a good and entertaining writer. I would only caution you to take any of Dooley's allegations about local pols and even Don Ho with a grain of salt, a slice of lime and a shot of Cuervo, much as I do.

Though I found Mary most believable when she was insisting Henry was wrong for her, the rest of the family talked me into it while they talked her into it.  And I'm sure she will make things right with Bertie for Edith as part of her new happiness. I hope Edith takes Thomas off to be butler in the even-greater-house.

And Mrs. Patmore's house of ill repute...wish that would be a spin-off show.

Plus - puppy!!!!!