When we think of the horrors of WWII, we think of exterminated Jews, the Blitz, Dresden, the siege of Stalingrad, the rape of Nanking, and the A-bombs.
But nobody ever thinks about actors!
Will no one consider the actors?
Actors, those selfless champions of charity and benevolence who wear superhero tights in front of a green screen and proclaim “I have the Kaligubrious Cubes, Malvalos — your reign of terror ends here!” then retreat to the hot tub in their trailer where they screw ten Russian whores five of whom are of age as they negotiate their next $20 million film role, this time wearing superhero tights in front of a green screen while proclaiming “I have the Salutanical Stones, Tharolous — your reign of terror ends here.”
But in fact WWII was very hard on German actors. If they stayed in Germany and performed in German propaganda films, a la Emil Jannings, they were rendered unemployable once the Hitler trilogy (Reich III: Revenge on the Juden) went from boffo to bust.
Funny enough, Jannings was one of the first “serious” (as opposed to Vaudeville) blackface film actors, appearing in the epic silent movie version of Othello. He could’ve survived that, career-wise. But appearing in the Goebbels masterpiece “10 Things I Hate About Jew" ended him.
For German actors who fled to America, life proved equally difficult. Take the case of Herman Bing. Born in Frankfurt in 1889, Bing became a popular character actor first in German films and then, in the 1930s, in slapstick American comedies. Fat, funny looking, he was a skilled comedic actor born to play nutty, wacky, lovable characters. But after WWII broke out, Hollywood no longer wanted lovable Germans. Stern-faced, villainous Germans? Sure. But for roly-poly Bing, the work dried up. Even after the war, he couldn’t find a job.
In 1947 he put a gun in his mouth and bunkered himself. It was his final sight gag, accent on the gag.
When actor Hans-Jörg Gudegast, son of a Nazi Party official, emigrated to America after the war, the tall, handsome, suave gentleman could only find work as evil Nazis. After all, his last name might as well have been “Heil-Mörgue Judegassed.”
So he changed his name to Eric Braeden, and he was rewarded with a lengthy film and TV career, most notably as the star of The Young and The Restless from 1980 to the present day (he’s the Nancy Pelosi of actors; find a profitable gig and remain ‘til death).
Last week Braeden, who’s 110 years old if he’s a day, went on CNN to slam the “orange idiot” (his highly original term for Trump) for daring to criticize Governor Newsom for his handling of the fires.
Yes, how dare anyone criticize a corrupt incompetent for being a corrupt incompetent. I’m no Trump fan, as you all know, but Newsom is on a level of foulness completely his own. Trump’s that circle of Hell where you stand in the boiling lava of the fiery lake; Newsom’s that circle where the lava’s used as an enema.
Braeden lost his home in the Palisades fire, so of course we all want to cut him some extra piano wire. But to respond by attacking the guy who was attacking the people whose incompetence helped create the disaster seems, well, a poor use of grief.
Funny thing about Braeden, the thing he’ll never discuss, is that in 1998 he led the campaign to ban gas-powered leafblowers in L.A. The sleepy hun had been jarred awake by beaners one time too many. “Das ist nicht gutiérrez,” he bellowed, as he ran outside to confront the Mexis:
Braeden: “Halte sie! You vill be quiet!”
Gardener: “Qué?”
Braeden: “You vill find some ozzer vay to remoof ze leaves.”
Gardener: “Qué?”
Braeden: “Ein STALK, Ein RAKE, Ein FUROR!”
Gardener: “Ay muy loco…maaaaalo.”
Marshalling an army of bored fat housewives, Braeden used his soap star clout to take the ban all the way to City Hall, where it passed, because back then, before BLM, L.A. politicos were more worried about BMI, the body mass index of obese female Young and the Restless fans. You get sat on by one of those heifers, you’re dead.
The thing is, though, after the ban passed, Mexis didn’t take it lying down. Siestas were canceled, sombreros were ordered tilted back, and (this is true) a hundred beans descended upon City Hall, setting up camp on the lawn outside and launching a hunger strike until the ban was repealed.
Not one nacho was consumed for two weeks, until the government caved in and repealed the ban. And on that day, so many burritos y fajitas y tacos were consumed in victory, our sewage treatment plants crumbled from overwork.
These days, Braeden will never mention his role in the ban.
Why does every generation of Germans always have to do at least one thing they try to revise from their history?
But funny enough, Bass and Newsom’s fire mismanagement led to exactly what Braeden sought in 1998: a total county-wide leafblower ban. The fires blanketed the city and surrounding areas with ash, and the County Health Department ordered a moratorium on the use of blowers or anything that might kick up dust and create even worse air-quality conditions for the elderly, children, and asthmatics.
Braeden got his wish, but he can’t talk about it lest someone remind him of those poor starving frijoles.
Now I gotta say, the six days (so far) of no leaf blowing have been heavenly. It’s kind of a Sherlock Holmes “dog that didn’t bark” thing. You never realize the beauty of silence until you’re robbed of it, and it returns. Waking up for almost a week to the sound of…nothing…has been glorious.
Wednesday morning I was concerned. The neighbor whose yard abuts mine has a gardener I nicknamed Howitzer Huevos. He uses a giant old-fashioned leaf blower model that’s as loud as a fucking tank. He chases down every leaf, from 7am to 8, and no sober human can possibly sleep through it (and sadly I’m sober this month).
Will Howitzer obey the ban? Does he have it in him?
Yes, amazingly, Howitzer was quiet as a mouse. He followed the law to the letter.
Bueno, bean.
But then, that same day at noon, my elderly neighbor’s gardener showed up. This is the neighbor who a year ago bitched at me because one of my trees (a small one) had a few overhanging palm fronds that were on his side of the fence.
“Oy, your TREES! Oy, they’re invading my yard. OY, it’s TREEblinka, I’m being Holocausted! It’s BABI YARD! It’s BARK in Belsen! OYYYYYY!”
As I wrote at the time, in Cali you can legally cut anything that overhangs your yard. Axel Foliage needed only to tell his gardener, who’s on payroll anyway, to cut the fronds; there was no need to trouble ME about it (I don’t have a gardener), especially as this was during the period I was crippled with gout.
So anyway, yesterday the old nuisance’s gardener showed up and blew the fuck out of everything, the law be damned. Mr. Green-Bean leaf-blowered so much, you could see the dust and ash flying everywhere. He didn’t even put the sprinklers on to wet down the particles first. No, he blew them with glee.
But I always try to look on the bright side of things: I now have leverage. The old man and the Sí violated a county health ordinance; they could both face severe fines (of course I took video of it). If that geezer ever again tries to hassle me about those fronds, I’ll let him know that not only will I report his ass for contributing to fire conditions during a state of emergency, I’ll sue him because the ash gave me asthma and emphysema and empanada and dust particles in my oygenflaygengezoit.
“You killed David Lynch, you monster! He died of emphysema right after your gardener blew up all that dust! YOU KILLED LYNCH!”
To be clear, I was never gonna cut those fucking fronds anyway. But now I have the moral high ground. Leverage that paints Maimonitrees as a polluter whose actions jeopardized the health of every old person and child on the block.
And there you have the difference between Dave the Jew and Nazis like Braeden’s dad. We’re all bastards, but Jews are smart bastards. We know you need a moral high ground for your wars big and small. You gotta play victim, not brute, defender of the chilluns, not gasser of them.
Yes, I’m an unconscionable dick, but my lessons are sound.
And here endeth this one.
If you enjoyed it, Buy Me a Beer!
Firstly, when you said Eric Braeden had been on The Young and the Restless since 1980 I thought you were joking. However, I looked it up and sure enough he has! That's incredible. These pretentious actors always talk about challenging themselves in the lofty artistic pursuit of the exploration of the human condition, but Braeden seems quite content to just job it playing the same character for forty-fucking-five years! Wow. And secondly, he looks amazing for 83. I just watched a clip of him near tears, lamenting his lost home and I swear you just need to dye his hair black and he'd easily pass for 60.
Anyway, to the point of your article, I love that Braeden campaigned against leaf blowers then the whole thing blew up (pun, sorry) in his face. We do always find those delicious, don't we?
Meanwhile, Mel Gibson lost his house last week that had, in his words, "lots of cool stuff" in it, and he couldn't stop smiling. In fact he was filming the Joe Rogan podcast when the Palisades was on fire last week and even said to Rogan at the time, "My house is probably gone." And he just shrugged -- and I believe him. Of course he had more money and won't be homeless, but I tend to think Gibson for all his faults wouldn't shed a single tear if he lost all his money and worldly possessions. Perhaps that has to do with his strict Catholic beliefs, I don't know.
Herr Herman Bing was one of the NICE, roly-poly Germans, and it cost him his life. Maybe there’s a lesson in that, maybe not