Once every eternity...

Happy Birthday, Judy.

Some times ya just have to

On the front page of the Brattleboro Reformer the other day, there was this picture of some guy demonstrating a local optical company's new improved 3D glasses.










I didn't need to read the caption, I knew right away who it was. With his wife, he used to own and run a handmade chocolates shoppe downtown.

Now about 16 years  ago, I worked for a science toy store right next door to their shop. He seemed, in my opinion, to spend most of his time being a self-aggrandized  pompous asshole (and I wish I could think of another descriptive word to use, as I feel like I'm devaluating the word 'asshole').

Once, while standing in more than a foot of snow, we got into a screaming match out on the sidewalk of Elliot Street.  I was using a broom to move the snow, and he started yelling at me, hurling insults about my intelligence and so on and so forth (there was no shovel, so I was using the broom). He aggravated me enough that I let him have it. I then announced that I refused to play this game anymore and went inside the store. He followed me in, still screaming. That someone would stand up to his bullying must have sent him into a state of shock as he had stopped mid word with his face in an unbelieving contortion of venomous hatred. I remember it well. He hasn't forgotten, either. There were times when his was the only company hiring in town. I interviewed with Sally at least four or five times. She'd excuse herself after a bit and go to where Tom was sitting. He'd look over at me and scowl. Sally would suddenly remember that the job was already taken. Once, he wasn't there and after a long interview she said she wanted to interview one more person and that she would call. And she did. Same day. Asked me to come in for a second interview. This time Tom was there, saw me from a distance, and scowled and scowled some more. Oops! - he'd already given the job to someone else. Un-huh.

Last year, he and Sally sold the business. One day, about 6 months later, I saw him all dressed up in a bad cheap blue suit.  He was having an interview at my place of work, a grocery store. And now here he is, front page of the paper, practically gritting his teeth, looking uncomfortable, like he'd rather be someplace else, and more than a little humiliated. He'd fallen so far. And you know what? When I saw the picture I involuntarily yelled HOORAY! It's been 16 years, and as far as I'm concerned, it serves the bastard right.

Even the sounds of the German tanks

In 1950, just after I was born, my father, my brother and myself moved in with Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine in what had been my Grandfather's house. My Grandfather, who died two years before I was born (almost to the day), had been Swedesboro's Justice of the Peace. One small section of the house had a an outside entry door that led to a waiting room and then an office. You can see just a bit of it in this photo, which includes a little part of the screened in porch. The tall guy in front is my brother Lewis. I can't quite come up with the name of the little guy with the Mickey Mouse t-shirt, but he was my age (I was taking the picture).

 Uncle Bob had an ever present twitch of his head and neck. He would go into rages at sudden unexpected sounds and loud noises. Anything loud, even the tv or the record player. You had to be quiet and soft-spoken. 

Uncle Bob playing with my Brother Lewis,
 who was born in August of 1945.

                                                                                                                 

Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine
 on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ.

My father built his own house, and we moved in about a month before my eighth birthday. In this photo, I'm 9 years old standing in front of the garage at Dad's house. The  area just beyond the garage shows Lake Narraticon.

One day, not long after I turned 11, I was visiting with Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine. When I went into his office, Uncle Bob was at work. There were papers and notes everywhere. He told me that he was writing about his experiences in the army, and asked me to not mention it to anyone. And I never did - until now.

Uncle Bob's army photograph.

He then asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him. Uncle Bob never went to the movies. I happily agreed, and we drove down to the nearest movie theatre in Woodstown. The movie was one of those big budget pictures, and I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed that it was in black and white. Big movies in CinemaScope were usually in color. The movie was one of those all star cast jobs called "The Longest Day", about the June 6th 1944 D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy and the parachutists further into France.

I was surprised that Uncle Bob was able to get thru all the war noises without going off. On the way back home, he told me that as a young soldier he had landed at Omaha beach. He also let it slip that he had, at one point, been a prisoner of the Germans. He never mentioned any of it to me again.

Uncle Bob by his portrait painted in France during the War.

At his funeral, one speaker mentioned that Uncle Bob had started telling his war stories to my cousin Michael. I wish I could have heard them.

He had grown old gracefully, and with his dash of style.

Before he passed away, Uncle Bob took a trip with Aunt Lorraine to show her the battlefields and towns he'd been in during the war. On June 6th, 1994, he took part in the 50th anniversary ceremonies at Omaha beach.

 

Not long after, while visiting for the holidays, I noticed that he had a VHS copy of "Saving Private Ryan". I think it was the only video he ever bought. He told me that it was the only WWII movie that had gotten everything right. Even the sounds of the German tanks.



Oh, Jesus H. Christ...

Is this really what we've come to?

another Memorial day.

Ahh, Memorial Day. A few days back, the emerging Spring propelled itself from rainy getting warmer right into mid summer. And it's humid already. When I first moved here in 1995, there was one, maybe two weeks of high humidity in late July. Now it starts in the Spring. In the next several years, I expect we'll probably see a population shift northwards. And to think that a few years ago we still used to have killing frosts in late May. It wasn't considered safe to plant until Memorial Day. And one may permissibly now wear white without being horribly gauche. Interesting the color white - depending on the geography it can symbolize purity and virginity or death and transformation. K/Cool virginity just doesn't fit with the idea of summer. If you're lucky, it's time to get that escape of one week with pay. The rest of us no longer even try to dream. Where was I?

Memorial Day. Back when I was a kid, the new Federal three day weekends hadn't started yet. Memorial day was always May 30th. I guess it was in my mid teens that the observance of Memorial Day moved to the last Monday of the month. Most of the new three day weekends were celebrations. They became special sales weekends almost immediately. But to my mind, at least, Memorial Day wasn't a day for celebrations. Celebrations always seemed to be festivities of rejoicing. The darker more solemn meaning seems opposed to festive, ya know? Memorial Day was a day when everyone took off. It wasn't just government desk jobs that got the day off. Even grocery stores closed for the day No one seemed to be bothered by the idea that they would have to plan at least a day ahead to fill their needs. There wasn't that kind of a sense of immediate entitlement yet. And no one seemed to catch on that having special sales weekends meant that everyday workers began losing their rights - somebody had to work. In a local economy like this one, it means giving up further rights to a peaceable life so we can get those very important people with money, tourists, to spend it here and keep the part-time jobs flowing. It's an economy based on debasing subservience as a way of life.

Well, what I'd planned as a sort of jolly perambulation down the streets and alleys of memory didn't quite come off as planned, did it? Ah, well. at least one can wear white again.

Keeping busy

Several years ago, while unemployed, I started a daily almanac on a web site where I hang out. When I no longer had available time to keep it going, it was taken over by others. It now has a minimum of three people working on it. About a week ago, the fellow who was doing the daily birthdays gave it up and it fell back into my lap. Working on it has kept me fairly busy. Luckily, I saved many of my old "today's birthdays" files.  Here's an example from today's list:


G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) English writer, the Father Brown detective stories."Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."


Max Brand (1892-1944) - western fiction author


Josef von Sternberg (1894-1969) - filmmaker


Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel (1894-1989) - comedian/actress "Noel [Coward] and I were in Paris once. Adjoining rooms, of course. One night, I felt mischievous, so I ed on Noel's door, and he asked,'Who is it?' I lowered my voice and said 'Hotel detective. Have you got a gentleman in your room?' He answered, 'Just a minute, I'll ask him.'"

The list gets very long, so I won't publish it here - I just wanted to give you an idea of what I've been up to.  It's actually been a bit of a bitch to get it going, files spread out over two computers, changes in Windows 7 which have left me trying to figure out how to make the programs do what I want them to do, that sort of thing.

My wonderful fulfilling and rewarding career position as a grocery store cashier has me working from 1pm to 9pm today, so I'd better be going. I'll get back here as soon as I can - probably tomorrow. See ya.

The Hour is Nigh...

If you've been around the media portals recently, you've probably heard a prediction made by Harold Camping, president of Family Radio Network, which states that "The Rapture" (being taken up to heaven to be with the Lord) begins this evening at 6:00pm. I wonder if that's Daylight Savings Time? The Rapture is tonight and those who are left on Earth are condemned to live thru several months of Apocalyptic horrors until October 21st, 2011 when the Earth will be completely destroyed.

The media is in love with the story, especially considering that Mr. Camping has made the prediction before and his vision didn't quite work out as he believed. So, you ask, since he's been wrong before, why would he risk public embarrassment and the disillusionment of his money donating followers?

The truth, discovered after much research is this: it's a diversion. Camping is CIA. Lookit, "Family Radio Network" is three words - just like: "Central Intelligence Agency"!!! And what, you might ask, is this a diversion from? That Osama bin Laden mess.The Whites House keeps changing the story of what actually happened. But in every version they tell, the Central fact is that Osama bin Laden is dead. Buried at sea. You can't check anything, the evidence is gone.

Well, here comes the shocker: Osama bin Laden never existed. It's been a ploy all along. Back when the U.S. storm troopered its way intro Iraq, the soldiers ousted the Taliban and Osama and his men escaped over the only mountain pass into Northwestern Pakistan. The only one. Why weren't soldiers stationed there? It's simple. There was no Osama bin Laden. If his men escaped using that route, that would take away the do-evilers and their Taliban friends, Get 'em out of the country with the least possible amount of effort. There is no other explanation which makes sense. Bin Laden was a fiction.

Using this idea, the men who really run the country got the government to hand them billions of dollars for the undeclared war efforts. Billions, and probably more, something like a trigazillion bucks. Under the watchful eye of the Republicans, these men are bankrupting our nation. And no one seems to notice. The question we should be asking ourselves is "to what purpose"? Why do they need all these funds? What are they up to?

Some of you may think I'm pulling your legs, so to speak. But really, think about this for a moment: How do you know that Osama bin Laden existed? Because someone told you so? Because you saw it on ABC News? ABC News is a division of The Walt Disney Company. The rare nature documentary aside, The Disney Company doesn't deal with reality. They're entertainers, for Christ's sake. They package and sell dreams. Look it up. IT'S TRUE !!!

Okay, so it's now well past 6pm and I'm still here. There haven't been any earthquakes. Cars drive by on Putney Road. The Nuclear Plant is still intact. It didn't happen. Or did it? How would we know that souls had been ruptured?

To be continued...

(P.S. - the above information is obviously a very sensitive thing. If I just seem to vanish in a couple of days, you'll know. They're watching. You're next.)

Another reason to ban franken-foods and genetically modified seeds

It's not like we should have to have a reason to eliminate franken-foods and seeds, and this is kind of funny in an amusing way. Unless watermelon explodes in your stomach like an alien was in it. Here's the story from the AP:

---

Exploding watermelons! Acres of crops erupt      

Growth chemical used by Chinese farmers is permitted on grapes, kiwi fruit in US

Farmers clear out watermelons that had burst from their greenhouse in Danyang city in eastern China's Jiangsu province on May 13. Watermelon fields are a mess after farmers abused growth chemicals which caused the fruit to burst.        

By ALEXA OLESEN

The Associated Press       

5/17/2011 :

BEIJING — Watermelon fields in eastern China are a mess of burst fruit after farmers used growth chemicals in an attempt to make extra money but ended up ruining their crops, state media reported Tuesday.

An investigative report by China Central Television found farms in and around Danyang city in Jiangsu province were losing acres of fruit to the problem.

The farmers sprayed forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator, during overly wet weather and put it on too late in the season, which made the melons burst, CCTV said, citing agricultural experts.

White seeds

It said most watermelons sold at a wholesale market in nearby Shanghai were believed to have been treated with forchlorfenuron. Telltale signs are fibrous, misshapen fruit with mostly white instead of black seeds, it said.

Chinese regulations don't forbid use of the substance. It is also allowed in the United States for use on kiwi fruit and grapes.

But the report underscores how farmers in China are abusing both legal and illegal chemicals, with many farms misusing pesticides and fertilizers.

The government has already voiced alarm over the widespread overuse of food additives like dyes and sweeteners that retailers hope will make food more attractive and boost sales.

'Land mines'

The CCTV report colorfully described the watermelons as "land mines" and said they were exploding by the acre.

The report quoted Feng Shuangqing, a professor at the China Agricultural University, as saying the problem showed that China needs to clarify its farm chemical standards and supervision to protect consumer health.

Danyang farmer Liu Mingsuo ended up with eight acres of ruined fruit and told CCTV he couldn't sleep because he kept picturing exploding watermelons.

"On May 7, I came out and counted 80 (bursting watermelons) but by the afternoon it was 100," Liu said. "Two days later I didn't bother to count anymore."

About 20 farmers and 115 acres of watermelon around Danyang were affected, it said. Farmers resorted to chopping up the fruit and feeding it to fish and pigs, the broadcaster said.

Photo Find of the Day

Chicago, 1949. "Woman standing in office, smoking while modeling undergarments."

An early image from budding photojournalist and nascent filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

Look Magazine Photo Collection.

My God but I love this new computer. Posting to my blog now takes seconds.Chchch-changing a word happens lickety-split; on the old computer it took several minutes. And all these new thingys! And, of course, figuring out how to get around all these new thingys to get it set up the way I want...

A couple of good birthdays to note:

First, Happy Birthday,  Mr. Fred Astaire!

And Happy Birthday to Mr. David O. Selznick, who produced some of my favorite movies. He also first hired director George Cukor, and brought Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood. He was the kind of producer who built a fabulous jungle set at RKO for "Bird of Paradise", knowing he would use it for "The Most Dangerous Game" as well. And then he green lit one particular movie which also made use of the set before he headed off to MGM - "King Kong" (bless him). Then there was the time he burned down the last vestiges of the "Intolerance" set (used in Kong) as the opening scene in his magnum opus, "Gone With the Wind".

from the MGM "A Tale of Two Cities"

From "Dinner at Eight"

You don't really need me to identify this, do you?



I've got to get to work, so the last birthday I'll mention is:

And finally, the Found Pic of the Day:

Fed up with it already

This is going too far... The Wedding is over, damn it. Yet it's on the cover of almost every magazine this week, it's still showing up on tv, etc. It's over. Move on.

Photo find of the day

Okay, so I found this yesterday. ..

I've no idea what it's from.

I just like it.

So there.

Captions invited in comments area

Mothers

So every year, we get this Mother's Day thing. Great for selling flowers and cards. One of the reasons I like the Internet is that it took me all of a second (or two) to turn up the Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe. It does make interesting reading, you know. And it was responsible for what became "Mother's Day".


Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another countryTo allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.


Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.


In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

 Okay, you go girl!


The way I would prefer to spend the day would be with a showing of my 16mm IB Tech print of "Gorgo". Sailor boys, somewhere in the vicinity of the Irish coast,  find a giant creature. They capture it and hustle it off to Battersea Fun Fair where it's named Gorgo and is exhibited in a huge pit. What wasn't realised was that Gorgo is a baby. And Momma comes looking for him. It's great fun.



In my NYC days, I used to show it with "Now, Voyager".



Ah, such fond memories.
Happy Mother's Day, everybody.

Of OMG, WOW and frustration

Well, I finally did it. I got a new computer. HP desktop. It has Windows7 as its operating system. I love it. I am also frustrated by it. Everything is different. Sometimes the changes are simple ones. Others not so much. I spent much of yesterday setting up email accounts, only to have all of the work I did vanish when I updated to Internet Explorer 9. Suddenly, my only email option was my Hotmail account. I don't like Hotmail. It has taken what felt like an age and a half to find the Windows Live mail program (Stevil likes) but I did it. And made it my default email program. The work I'd already done was there. The spam filter is great. So far I haven't spent much time with Explorer9 - I only dloaded it about an hour ago. As for the rest of the computer, it's so nice to have a keyboard that works. Websites appear instantly. Videos stream properly now. So many changes - the only one I haven't figured my way around is to be able to see what is on my computer as a series of nested file folders. It's terribly old fashioned of me, but I like it - so there. Okay, back to exploring. I just wanted to see how posting to the blog was affected. And OMG but it's so easy now.

Here's today's graphics "just because".

Midgets for Coolidge 1924

And, I didn't post on May 5th as I bought the computer after work. So here's the graphic I had intended to use that day.

Ya gotta have Hart

Today, May 2nd, is the birthday of the man who wrote the lyrics to the above. His name was Lorenz Hart. With his songwriting partner, Richard Rodgers, he co-wrote some of the great standards of the American Songbook.



This personal fave is also beloved of someone who has gone missing from my life, Miss Magnolia Thunderpusy. Mags, honey, do show up soon, please.


Hart's lyrics often 'get' me. Or maybe I should say that I 'get' them.




I think my favorite of Hart's work just might be the following song. I couldn't find a version on You Tube that I really wanted to post. This is, or should be, a memory, a wisp of hope, a moment of longing, an admittance of loneliness. Sinatra comes closest to nailing it in this version, but is betrayed by one of those wow socko finishes that Nelson Riddle would arrange. Even still, it is the kind of song you know in your heart. It's for people who have been there. Maybe that's all of us?



Happy Birthday, Larry. We miss you.

Mayday! Mayday!

It's truly beautiful now - on my 6am walk to work the forsythias are blooming, both the star magnolias and

the cup and saucer magnolias are in bloom, as  daffodils, jonquils, and tulips perfume the paths I trudge; delicate birdsong twitter tweets are joined by the less prosaic musings of geese wafting thru the air. Trees have light green cotton candy tufts swaying ever so lightly in the morning breeze. Spring is here.

It's May the first. In much of the world, its a day given to celebrations to honor workers and men who were framed and killed in Chicago for trying to unionize to demand a 40 hour work week. And it's Beltane, the new season of growth, the veil is thin, magic can...... WAIT. WHAT? men killed in Chicago?

See, May 1st, 1886 had been set as a day for a general strike and protests all across the U.S. in favor of a 40 hour work week. The average work week at the time was 60 hours, while many worked 12 to 15 hours a day, 6 days a week. Child Labor was common. Thousand upon thousand marched. The bosses tended to feign surprise at the numbers of workers who gathered. In Chicago, 80,000 took part in the main protest.  On May 3rd, as one rally ended, hundreds went to Haymarket Square to protest the strike breaking "scab" workers who had been brought in at the McCormick plant. The police were brought in, they opened fire on the crowd of workers. Some say four were killed. Others reported hundreds. A rally was held the next day to protest the violence. Someone threw a bomb. The police said it was the workers. The workers said it was thrown by a Pinkerton paid tough. It exploded, sending shrapnel into the crowd of workers. The police backed up, aimed their weapons and opened fire - according newspaper accounts for a full two minutes and more. The number of dead workers was not mentioned in the press.

Eight men, labor leaders and organizers of the May 1st march and subsequent protests were rounded up on false charges, and put on trial for being anarchists who incited the mob to violence. They were condemned to die by hanging. One man killed himself first. Five men were hung. The world took note. May 1st, Labor Day was born. But not in the United States. Here, after the murder of workers of the Pullman Union, President Grover Cleveland, to pacify workers and get their votes, created and set Labor Day at the beginning of September. He did not want to place the day in aassociation with May 1st, International Labor Day, so that no one could stir unrest in memory of the Haymarket martyrs.

As the trials and executions ended, a new labor organization was started, the AFL or American Federation of Labor. In the early 1914, Henry Ford gave his workers a 5 day/40 hour workweek. The eight-hour day was realized for many more workers in the U.S. in 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act (under the New Deal) made it a legal day's work throughout the nation.




May Day, Los Angeles 1933

 

Lost in the rain and it's Easter Time too

This time of year was always a favorite of mine. The earth awakens, trees and flowers bloom. And, in my day, new Hollywood Spectaculars would be released, and the old ones would be shown on tv, free but for the price of a television set.  Now, you have to pay for cable, and then pay extra, to see those movies. At least in this case, we sold that part of our heritage to an American. Wonderful movies - the silent "King of Kings' in which Christ is first seen through the healing eyes of a blind man, and in which scenes of the resurrection turned from black and white to early Technicolor. Hmmmm. The 1934 Cleopatra. Or "The Sign of the Cross", a DeMille pic about which one critic wrote, "Preposterous, but the laughter dies upon the lips". Or, towards the end of the swords and sandals roadshows, an extravaganza called "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Tons of movie stars in bit parts. My favorite was John Wayne as the centurion who gets to say "Truly, this was the Son of God."



It's still the same old story...

When I was 10, "The King of Kings" was released. Directed by Nicholas Ray, its rebel with a cause was portrayed by young and handsome Jeffrey Hunter, who would later grow up to be better known as Captain Christopher Pike. Hunter was so young and beautiful that wags referred to the movie as "I was a teen age Jesus".

In this version, Barabbas and Judas were freedom fighters - the Jews were revolting. Against the Empire. The adult Jesus is first seen as He is baptised and a heavenly choir hums Miklos Roza's score, some of the best Holy music ever written.

This has been an awful Holy week. On Palm Sunday, as I was writing my blog entry, the Brooks House here in Brattleboro was petty much destroyed by fire and water. Everyone is safe. The facade is safe. But the lives the building's residents had created are gone. Also gone is the Community Radio station, whose studio was in the Brooks. I can't listen to most radio anymore, it's full of jingles, bleeps, buzzes, adverts and inanity. A cacophony of noise. Babel. And people who babble on.

Where I work, there is an ever present drone (audio not video). Kids screaming, cash registers ringing, distorted audio announcements, the sound of a hundred carpenters hammering. Do you know any carpenters? No, not them. Real folks. If they're any good at all, they're bringing in 30 some dollars an hour and oh, say, $70,000.00 per year. The average carpenter brought in $ 42,000.00 per year in 2008. Not exactly poor. A number of carpenters around here are woodworking artistes. Can you imagine having the time to carve even something simple, like a duck? Ever wonder how much Joseph, Jesus' human daddy made? Let's face it, a lot of things start to make sense if you think of Jesus as a trust fund baby. Just remember, the wise men who came to Bethlehem were from the East. The oil rich countries.

Jesus healed the sick, the blind, the lame, the crazy. At times, He was just a healing fool. And the medical and insurance industries got really bent out of shape about it. (Ominous music) He was changing the paradigm, he was dangerous. Something would have to be done. And what does this all wise holy man do? He heads right into his enemies city stronghold! Jes-us Christ! And along the way he made a stop to raise Lazarus from the dead. Beatitudeiful.

Have you ever noticed that Christ's preaching about giving is addressed to the rich and middle classes? He tells the poor to believe and they shall inherit the earth. i.e. dust, dirt. The poor will also inherit the kingdom of Heaven. Where exactly is that? It's in your heart. In other words, He isn't providing help to the poor, but is all for giving them something to believe in. Uh, huh. To keep them quiet. He is going off to His Daddy's house, the poor will remain. Always. Umm hummph. The rich are poor in Spirit, but are certainly getting everything else. The poor are strong in heart - they have to be. Otherwise, they wouldn't get thru lives of bleak emptiness. By working hard, and giving unto Caesar, they get pie in the sky.

 And if it's like everything else, the rich get lemon meringue while the poor get pot pie and 40 hours a week if they have a good union and can find a job that, being part time, hasn't already been taken by a trust funder. And those who don't work hard? They get damned to hell and eternal suffering. You don't get to die and find peace. 
 
Lazarus doesn't get a chance to die either. He'd already done that. He's out there somewhere, wandering around. Waiting.

I have heard that he started the Templars, who in turn started the Masons. And when the Templars were hunted down and killed, neither Lazarus nor the Templar fortune were to be found. Last I heard he got a job as an Easter Bunny at a mall, still plotting to take back and reestablish the Templar glory, a new world ordering of things. But beyond that I haven't heard much. Happy Easter, folks.