On
my seventy-second birthday, I resist all anger as I have tried to do
for the past eleven years. The other day Renato commented how a child
born when the “barbaric opposition” began against us, would now be finishing primary school.
I
resist anger because as much as Tracy Terhune and David Bret accuse
me of being a hateful person, I am not. Being angry and being hateful
are two very different things in my opinion.
The
biggest challenge throughout this horror which they continue to
inflict.... is to resist matching their wicked states of mind. The hate runs deep in those two, i.e. Terhune and Bret are still writhing over a photograph I took eleven years
ago of my cat headed towards her litter box...and stepping delicately I might add on Bret's
biography of Valentino.
Well my cat was not incontinent and was able
to take that last step to do her business in the proper place. But
the hateful duo Terhune and Bret are still at pitch level outrage
saying she shat on the book and then peed on it. Nope she did not because she could not read.
With
that absurd level of hate being dished our way, it takes a really zen
state of mind not to match that and hand back more.
Some time ago a
fine author, Thomas McNulty, who wrote a biography of Errol Flynn... took a copy of Bret's Errol Flynn biography out into the woods with a loaded
shot gun and shot it to smithereens on camera. I am not alone. I share the link to his shooting. Enjoy. And his review is
articulate and worth a read.
So
I try to keep turning towards the positive to stay productive in the
face of Tracy Terhune's continuing to steal my web traffic and guide
them over to his murky world of make believe. Where he "makes" my genuinely
interested traffic online "believe" I am a monster and our books "not worth a dime", despite his bragging he keeps his copies in mint condition in plastic cases.
He
runs through the streets waving his fistfuls of papers screaming for
the villagers to see how horrible I am. Tracy Terhune make-believe I
say. Those papers are my manifesto of surviving him; my anger, my
rebuttal, my years of responding to his lies about me, Renato and all
of our books. And I give him a few more pages here today.
So
he can extinguish his torch, close that designated hate blog and get on with his own
life.
For
me it is my birthday and I am so happy that despite all of Tracy
Terhune's attempts to convince the Valentino world we are senile old
fools (Terhune's nickname for me is “Fool Zumaya”) .. we are
doing well and this past week Renato opened his Italian Rudy Facebook
group. And thanks to the modern miracle of online translators, we can
all read it. It has been a lively first week in the group with Renato posting his
great “finds” and Aurelio Miccoli sharing his outstanding research!
And
this past week I received an e-mail with notice there is a Rudy
mention in the book on Max Steiner. Steiner was actually in the
Masked Model touring show in 1917. And I know readers remember this
show as Rudy's vehicle out of New York.
It has always been thought
the show ran out of money and that is why Valentino was not in such a
show on the west coast. This week we learned what really happened. We learn from Max Steiner that
Rudy was fired along the way for a disagreement with the director.
Rudy made it to the west coast only because a few of his cast mates
made sure he had a place to stay in their hotels and brought him
food. It could not have been a very easy trip for him.
But
how exciting to add even that little detail to the story.
So
it is a happy birthday. Stay safe all!
Check
out (and join) the Venerable Renato's group and I love the title... which he borrowed
from the Venerable Lokanatha.