The tales of the crypt have been told many times, the one below also. But I found the graphic illustration just fabulous and had to share it....as “she” clambers into the crypt. I added the article (below the illustration) which appeared in this format in The Fresno Bee on April 6, 1932 on p. 45.
Somehow the year of Rudolph Valentino's death is erroneously cited twice as being in 1925. But other than that, this is a fair telling of the familiar legend.
The latest delusion of those bullies who have been stalking, trolling and inspiring hatred of us for years on end... is that they believe themselves the, “Greater Valentino community.” Greater what? Greater abusers? In response to their absurd claim that they just want peace and quiet on their groups so that is why our names and our work can not be mentioned... I say who would ever, ever believe such absurdity?
We have asked only to have our work receive respect and acknowledgement and we have asked, passionately that people not engage in the cyber bullying campaign to silence us, led by Tracy Terhune.
I have thousands of pieces of evidence of that campaign and share just a tiny sampling of what they actually do contribute as collaborators. No one wants peace and quiet more than Renato and I. That is fact. But honestly, we fight on. We will not be silenced or intimidated and stand proud of our work in every way.
A few examples of the contributions from the "Valentino Greater Community"...to prove my points... My point that they contribute all the possible hate and sickness in the Valentino world today. So if you multiply these few examples below by thousands and realize the time frame for us has been since about 2009.... that is the reality.
***A few from Terhune's contributions: ( and these are excerpted from his blog and preserved on the server)
***(Below) From Eleanor Gribbin with Simon Constable/Etienne:
An fyi regarding those haters who continue to bombard this blog with evil comments. I do not, and never will aspire to be a part of or partner in their delusional belief that they comprise some “Valentino mainstream”. Based on the behavior of this “mainstream”, I would say it is more of a “Lamestream” or better said, “mean-stream”.
I guess according to their logic, if they could silence me and forever, if I stopped defending Renato and I against their idiotic lies about us and our work....then peace would reign in the Valentino world. I beg to differ. Peace would reign in Tracy Terhune's world. He is the one riled up issuing the orders. And based on his actions towards us over the past decade and counting, I would venture to say that no one in the history of the world has ever hated a book more that Tracy Terhune has hated Affairs Valentino. That is a real no-brainer.
The issue is that over the years since I first made the book public, I was proven correct on almost every point I made. No where is this more true than in my coverage of the theft of those Valentino court records, the shady cover-ups and subsequent thefts that occurred and the absolute, general bull-shittery that goes on. That is why Tracy Terhune hates Affairs Valentino so very much. He hates his own truth.
Some twelve years ago I was invited to Turin to speak at the Convegno Valentino, an international conference organized and hosted by the University. A week of speeches ensued, including mine. But those “lamestream/meanstream” personalities, who work so very hard to demean, impugn, defame and torture us... were not invited and did not bother to attend. I saw no Tracy Terhune, no Donna Hill, no Eleanor Gribbin, no David Bret and no Simon Constable. Crickets from their "lame-stream" corner of the Valentino world.
The book of the speeches delivered that week was published in Italian and maybe someday we can translate those because some were interesting. Some were fairly banal imo. But all I believe are still important in the Valentino history.
And when this book (see below) came out, David Bret led the "lame-stream" call to claim it was “trash”, “homophobic” and that we had something to do with it being published. For the record we did not.
I really do not think Rudolph Valentino's story is such a Hollywood story. When I think of where he lived, where he based his daily life, I think of New York City for some reason. This said, I think there is plenty of evidence that he enjoyed life in Southern California.
When Renato and I visited Castellaneta, the first thing I thought of when I saw how the city was perched on the Great Gravina (great canyon), was the similarity with the location of Falcon Lair perched on the edge of its cliff. Was this "Hollywood canyon", Valentino's gravina? I think it was and whether consciously or unconsciously, he recreated his childhood imprinting of "home" with Falcon Lair. Of course it was a last gasp event in his ephemeral life but there it was.
For me one of the most powerful images in Aurelio Miccoli's The Infancy of the Myth, is that of the boy Rudolph and his relationship with the gravina of Castellaneta. A place to escape with friends, scampering up and down the rocks, a hideout and a landscape of great action.
When his life closed in on him the first part of January 1926, did he gaze down into the canyon from Falcon Lair and find some psychological escape? I like to think so.
There are beautiful photographs of the Great Gravina in Castellaneta in The Infancy of the Myth. And it makes me wonder how any of the children who played there survived. There are also rare photos of the folks who populated the boy Rudolfo's early childhood. The photograph of the stairs inside his childhood homes, the alleys where he ran with his first friends living his first adventures... it is such valuable imagery.
I asked Renato why I had this visualization of New York City being Valentino's home in America, more than Hollywood and he replied, “ Because New York City was his Taranto and Hollywood was his Castellaneta”.
The Great Gravina of Castellaneta! (From The Infancy of the Myth by Aurelio Miccoli)
The question has been resolved for some time now by the careful research of Aurelio Miccoli, research from which we obtained a podcast interview with him on the subject which is available on Youtube at the link:
(also see below)
In the end we can legitimately say that Rudolph Valentino could claim the titles, "of the Marquises of Valenzina and of the Counts of Antognolla", even if the correct spelling of those titles was, perhaps, lost in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean when on that fateful day in December 1913 , the young Rodolfo Guglielmi approached the land which would give him honors, fame and glory.
AUNT LEONIE - by Aurelio Miccoli
If we were not discussing Rudolph Valentino here, “Aunt Leonie” would just remain a literary character from the pen of Marcel Proust.
In the opening of the first of Proust's seven volumes of the longest novel ever written, "In Search of Lost Time", his Aunt Leonie is the literary device allowing little Marcel to relive and describe, the fascinating world of childhood memories, those linked to sensations, emotions, smells, tastes.
Marcel Proust's character of Aunt Leonie, is that of an elderly lady who, since the death of her husband Octave, has lived as a recluse in her apartment in Combray, "in an uncertain state of malaise, physical weakness, fixed ideas and devotion". In short, she is a woman who appears severe but is actually very tender.
One of the most famous episodes of Proust's Aunt Leonie, is the one in which the protagonist, after having soaked a “madeleine” (typical French cookie) in tea, remembers how he used to eat it as a child on Sunday morning, before mass, with his Aunt Leonie.
Rodolfo Valentino also had an Aunt Leonie, who was his mother Gabrielle's older sister. Leonie, around the mid-1860's, was brought to Taranto by her parents. Her father Pierre Philibert Barbin, an engineer, decided to utilize his knowledge in the railway and infrastructure fields, engaging in a long and profitable job abroad.
He agreed to move to Taranto, in southern Italy, on behalf of the Società Anonima de Sclessin of Liège of which, as an engineer, he was one of the technical directors. Expecting many years of work, he brought his entire family to Taranto with the exception of his second daughter Marie Berthe Gabrielle who, since she was only nine years old, was left in France, near Paris, with Uncle Alphonse's family to complete her school year.
Pierre Philibert therefore initially settled in Taranto with his wife Marie Rose Willien, an Alsatian from Strasbourg, and his eldest daughter Marie Leonie, born in Villeneuve La Guyard on August 29, 1847.
Leonie reluctantly accepted the Italian trip and did not fail to demonstrate, apparently throughout her life, her French chauvinism; starting with the use of the French language to her importing all everyday goods.
Of course Taranto did not have the social and cultural vivacity of Paris, however Leonie over the years learned to live with the new environment. This was also thanks to the man who became her husband (1877), Francesco Galeone, a landowner of Carosino in the countryside south of Taranto.
Mr. Galeone was socially involved in various associative activities, and Mayor of Carosino, as well as councilor in the municipality of Taranto (1905). Born in 1840, he died on February 13, 1920 and on his grave his children and those who respected him, noted the extremely positive nature of his character with these words: "Elegant translator of Greek classics, expert farmer, tireless worker, exemplary head of the family, administrator of pious works, Mayor of Carosino, Councilor of Terra d'Otranto, Councilor of Taranto ".
Rodolfo's Aunt Leonie and her husband enjoyed a wealthy life as befits members of the landed bourgeoisie. Between the liveliness of the city (which at the time was not yet the provincial capital) and the amenities of the rural areas of Carosino, a town thirteen kilometers from Taranto; which at the time had only two thousand inhabitants.
Aunt Leonie and her husband Francesco Galeone had two children: Gaetano, a lawyer (born in 1878 and died in Taranto in 1957) and Giulio, a doctor of agriculture, (born in 1886 and died in Milan in 1975). Gaetano set out on a career as an officer and Giulio, who remained a bachelor, thanks to his background in agriculture, took care of the vast rural estate in Carosino.
Aunt Leonie's affected manners hardly suited the turbulent character of her nephew little Rodolfo. However, he appreciated the family Galeone invitations to the seaside, to their summer resort of San Vito, to the elegant beach of Taranto, and the rural trips to the large farm of Carosino.
The environment of the farm with its vast open spaces, large dining rooms, stables and various types of animals was the ideal place for the games of the three Guglielmi children, accompanied by their cousins Gaetano and Giulio, who were older than them.
However, according to what Rodolfo himself tells us, Aunt Leonie tried to prevent his mischievous misdeeds above all else and demonstrated a more severe side of herself in this. Rodolfo was once locked up by Aunt Leonie, as punishment, in a heavy oak cabinet from where he kicked and pounded his fists loudly.
His Aunt Leonie also looked at the unstoppable actions of the little Rodolfo with apprehension. "I liked to take mules to the drinking trough,” says Rodolfo, “put the bridle on them and drive the cart.” But this worried Aunt Leonie, as well as his mother Gabrielle who had "the constant fear that he would get a kick in the stomach ".
Aunt Leonie remained in Italy her entire life. She died in 1918, a few months after the death of her sister Gabrielle. She rests in the cemetery of Taranto, in the Galleon Chapel. In 1953, her children established a tomb in her honor with the following beautiful words engraved: "Bride and mother of high virtues, collaborator indefatigable of the fruitful initiatives of her husband, enlightened educator of her children Gaetano and Giulio ".
I have been called so many names that it would be a fat book to actually document them all. Seven years ago we made a little video where I read a long list of those names. Imagine how long it would be now? A full-length movie and then some.
And I have been accused of doing so many disreputable things, our work so grossly insulted by miserably jealous people who know so little yet act so grandiose. If I were to publish a book on the output of those jealous, brainwashed, Terhune psycho-phants it would fill a second fat book.
But there are points still to be made I think about this situation.
Point: Our books.
They are reports. Faithful reports on our research. And we share all our sources so anyone can check away and verify.
Point: Dom Caruso.
I remember when Dom Caruso and Renato were friends. He then ran a huge Valentino Facebook Page. He and Renato hit it off and had many conversations. Dom always referred to the “Unholy Four”, who he identified as Tracy Terhune, David Bret, Jeanine Villalobos and Donna Hill. This would have been around 2014-2015 or so I think.
The point here is that one day Dom referred to them as the “Unholy Three”. I asked him who he eliminated and he went away. He vanished, never answered my email and at the same time Cindy Martin appeared. Appeared with great authority over Dom's group to the point where she was in immediate charge. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.
Her first order of business was to delete Renato from the group with no explanation. So who did Dom eliminate?
Cindy Martin would refer to “us” knowing each other back in the day. No, I never did and never heard about her until that moment. She claimed she knew Michael. I am sure he did not because Michael and I gossiped a lot about the Valentino world. And the name Cindy Martin was never mentioned a single time. And Cindy Martin made reference to my causing her to lose friends in the Valentino world she'd had for 20 years.
I have been around for twenty years and there was no Cindy Martin back then. I allege there is not now.
How did Dom Caruso just hand over his group to a complete newcomer? He did not. And who did he eliminate of the “Unholy Four”.
Point: Accountability
On our accountability being questioned...I say we have more accountability running our own business. If anyone thinks “legit” publishers fact check a book they are mistaken. So many mistakes fly by in books and PhD theses and that is fact. There are many mistakes in Leider's Dark Lover and no one was or is accountable for those..
We have a wonderful, creative freedom to include as much material as we can. We are proud of our books, they represent a lot of work and the vicious attacks on them and us... are just boring, tired Terhune hate tag lines being parroted by brain washed trolls who want to silence us and who robotically obey said leader.
The Subject:
The other day someone asked Renato how we came to produce books on Valentino and Rambova. I was there and waited for his answer. He took a little while and said, “It's a spell.”
It is a spell. Imo a love spell. We do not so often put our personal life out there. And I think you all can see what happens if I mention a thing.
But Renato saw what pain I was in trying to survive Terhune and Bret and find some way to have the books be unharmed. He acted. He set up a publishing business in Italy and researched what he deemed to be the best print-on-demand service. He bought all the software, taught himself the technical aspects and started making my books. It was complicated and setting up a business in Italy is expensive and wildly involved.
That is a love spell. I think it shows in all the books we do, some to more of a degree than others. As corny as it sounds, our books are created from our love. That is the Valentino spell that came down for us.
We always respect how we met. In that mystical Mole, over Valentino, with Michael so excited about it all. Little could I have imagined then what the next decade of my life would hold.
I would say the next book is a tangible product of the love spell. Podcast is written, running an index and not more than two weeks away. Al fin! Thank you Michael for the love spell. Thank you for taking me to Turin to meet Renato.
As a matter of sourcing my comments about David Bret's disgusting treatment of Ms. Judy Lewis when she attempted to defend her father, Clark Gable, from his gross fiction, I post a few excerpts from his posts attacking her... the first two posted on December 18, 2009. I apologize for the offensive nature of this but that is what he does and apologize they are not so easy to read. Bret continues to send me comments under his name which I do not open because he does not get one minute of air time in our home.
Well this little monster (here follows) came in just now and I pondered whether to just toss it or address it. Going with the latter.
“Anonymous
has left a new comment on your post "To
Those "Miserably Jealous" Ones...":
Yes,
Zumaya and Floris are serious.....about their bottom line making
money off of Valentino's dead body. The books are careless and
slipshod. Poorly written and edited with invented sources and a clear
agenda to make Valentino seem as awful a human being as
possible.
This
is why no legit publishing house will touch them and they had to
invent a vanity press.”
If the stupidity above followed, then anyone writing about, say Abraham Lincoln or George Washington, anyone writing historically about an historical figure...are they making money of their subject's “dead body”?
And we did not create our own “vanity press”, we were forced into being creative in 2011. You see Terhune and Bret so trashed my online presence by then, before Affairs Valentino was even written...there was no hope. When Affairs Valentino came out, they swarmed it so badly I took it out of print out of fear.
So Renato and I got creative and figured out a way to have the book in print and available without the possibility of having people like this (above) exact their malicious attempts to silence us. We are proud of how we figured that out. It was not such a simple thing to do.
But to the author of this hideous comment I say this: I am seriously sorry for you because it must feel awful to be so angry all the time. And at people you have never met, do not know personally. You are programmed to hate us irrationally and no doubt a graduate of the Terhune school of hatred. You have all his familiar and tired old talking points. If you are not him, then imo you should really be worried.
We are doing nothing to you, whoever you are. If you do not like our books, do not read them. But no need to file your hate our way. Chill out, take a walk, buy yourself a healthy smoothie, pat a dog.
And fyi, I have never invented a single source in my life. I do not have to. Isn't that amazing? My citations and sources are all absolutely real and genuine. Maybe if you spent less time in such a bilious snit, and more time checking my sources you would see that it is all true. I am sorry for your extreme anguish and suffering. You seem to be the most miserably jealous of them all.
And sign your name to such an assault. Dare to be you when you hit someone and not “Mr. Throw the Stone and Hide the Hand.” Where I come from we call that being chicken shit.
To those "miserably jealous" ones....as a commentator just called them, I defend Renato and I and our work for the one millionth time with the following. When I posted the collages of the cover images of our books, I received a comment within three minutes. In reference to our books it said, "...and not one of them worth the paper they are printed on".
Well we do use expensive paper and print only in full color, but the content is still worth far more than the paper. But that comment, which I did not post, was so extremely bitter. It screamed bitter jealousy. How could anyone be that bitter? Maybe someone who has lost all, realizes they lied one too many times and their charade has been exposed.
Maybe they grew that bitter having locked themselves into those two awful Facebook groups, ignoring facts to drive their egos and agendas and to please the leader.
Our books are about content and in that I feel we deliver. I expose the administrators of Mad About the Boy and We Never Forget for their disgusting remarks about us and hope that every single member runs for the exit. And inre to Loretta Young and Clark Gable's love affair and love child Judy Lewis, she wrote me a letter I cherish. Shortly before she passed away. I did not read the post made today but I hope it was pointed out that David Bret tortured her for standing up for her father and mother and she denounced his biography on Clark Gable as total sordid fiction. When she died, Bret celebrated. She and I shared something in common once upon a time and it was not pretty.
I found this snippet (below) and thought I would not watermark it and pass it on to those over there in Valentino Flat World who might appreciate it. Maybe Eleanor Gribbin could use it to ignite one of those evening VSC odes to Rudy.
An FYI to Eleanor Gribbin: She might want to check p. 258 in Affairs Valentino and p.61 in the George Ullman Memoir to see that it was not Clarence Brown who directed Rudy in Cobra. I see she posted a cover image of Motion Picture "Director" to credit Brown for Cobra. He directed Rudy in The Eagle and the director on Cobra was Joseph Henabery.
Bill Self told me he interviewed Dr. William Rawls, the doctor who first examined Valentino in the hospital. I did not ask Self when that interview took place but I imagined it would have been in the 1950's or thereabouts.
Self told me that Rawls said they knew Rudy was a dead man when he arrived. This was because his abdominal muscles had a board like rigidity. This was a symptom of advanced peritonitis and when this symptom manifested, there was no turning the patient around.
A great deal is made that this all took place on a Sunday with the premise being that Valentino did not receive proper and prompt care because of this. I do not think this would have changed much for him at all, because of Dr. Rawls assessment.
I found it interesting Self interviewed Dr. Rawls. Maybe he thought Rawls kept some tissue samples. Sorry to be so direct, but when I told Self I was going to New York to go to Campbell's Funeral Home, he said to ask them if they had any photographs of Valentino while he was being embalmed. I guess he meant corpse snapshots of the procedure?
That freaked me out to be honest. I do not know if Self ever found what he was looking for and I did not ask about that at Campbell's. I would never.
But Rawls did say it did not matter if it was a Sunday or not, dear Valentino would never have made it.
I think there is something so ghoulish about collecting in that regard. Does not take a rocket scientist to see that.
I prefer to think of Valentino alive.
Some time in 2013, I opened a blog called, "Valentino Fugitive". I posted for a while and let it go. I exported the blog and found this first post today. Little did I know at the time, the situation with Terhune, Bret, et al would worsen and their bullying would go on and on and on. Here follows my first post written nine years ago:
"...Why should this first post be a lengthy explanation? This story is already old and it is not so difficult to read all the sordid details online. I stopped counting somewhere around five years into it and now just move into the future the best I can under the circumstances.
Suffice to say I am a mature woman of a certain age, not prone to create drama frivolously. In fact I would say the opposite is the case. I am rather anti-social by nature, avoiding conflict in every instance and definitely preferring to remain private in all things.
This has all been challenged lamentably as the result of my publishing my book, Affairs Valentino. Now, I find myself living my life in the shadows. They made it so. In no way do I feel I must defend my statements. Yet, suffice to say that no one could read such an enormous amount of death laden rhetoric targeting them and not take such a heinous threat seriously. No one could suffer the images posted about them; from their being heaved into Satan's Lake of Fire to enticements of suicide with links to nooses, stools and other frightening accoutrement of death. No one would endure the constant encouragement to commit their suicide and the ruination by defamation of friends and family without moving deep into a territory where these predators will never find them; both physically and psychologically.
They will not find me. I will see to that. For there were too many threats, for too long, too many perverse, violent images and aggressive campaigns to find me, ruin me on every level and yes the posting of my phone number and other personal information with the blatant intent to incite someone to kill me. All of this is documented and all of this happened. Years of bullying in its worst form; raging unchecked, with my receiving no help to stop it from neither police or online servers. The truth is; the internet is still a very dangerous and lawless land.
Their instability and malicious intent is all too real and the silence from their overlord and puppet master is deafening. It took me a while to connect their dots but I finally did. I guess that would be the only upside of online bullying; the trail.
Somewhere over the Alps, they believe I am. Am I? I will say that I am home for a moment..."home"... being a subjective concept at best these days.
The lies about me online are still everywhere, people still believe what they read. It is a mess that is nearly infinite in scope and virtually impossible to sweep clean. They must delight in that. But meanwhile I will not walk silently into the wastelands of this mental state they handed to me. I will not. From these shadows I will have a voice and have some measure of justice handed to them all for their threats, their attacks, their lies and abuse.
For now I turn to the mountains and plan my next move. Old age has taught me some things."
In reference to the previous post's subject of TRUTH and its effect I share this e-mail exchange between my dear friend Michael Morris and I. I was ready to close down all my social media and be silenced, run away... and this was his response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-NjQDWeJHA
A tad late with the Irish tribute to Rudolph Valentino, but better late than never... the above link as a nod to Valentino's first manager, true friend and mentor, Doug Gerrard, “Gerry”.
Gerrard is another genuine hero in Valentino's legacy who has been much maligned and misrepresented. I was honored to have been granted an interview with the Irish Douglas Gerrard scholar, Liam Muldowney, which we shared in the podcast. Enjoy! (photo credit to Liam Muldowney)
Here Gerrard with his great love, Anna Pavlova.
It seems a comment or two or three or ten were fired off my way with the claim,
“Didn't Simon Constable's research finally lead to tracking down Kabar's burial place to be at Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park Cemetery, Calabasis, CA? “
This was followed by restatements that I should give him credit for his “sleuthing” the location, etc. I replied that was ridiculous as it is a part of the Valentino legend and has been known about for a very long time.
I checked that and the subject of Kabar's grave and the Calabasas pet cemetery has actually been public since, February 3, 1929. This article appeared as a full page feature in the New York Daily News:
We included the image below in The Rudolph Valentino Case Files, and Renato secured the right to use it in the book from the French Cinemateque image collection. Surprisingly they had few images of Valentino in their files, and most were familiar ones. This was the most exceptional.
(Below) Valentino pays a visit to the set of Rene Clair's movie, The Crazy Ray (Paris Qui Dort). You can watch the film here:
https://www.berfrois.com/2013/03/the-crazy-ray/
and with a better version here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGwP3mYmE_c
Renato comments that considering the equipment they had then, some of the shots are incredibly well done. He also says the only reason Rene Clair and the cast were in Paris then, was because they were shooting the film. It was August when everyone leaves the city and heads to the seashore. They also stayed in Paris and filmed in August because in the mornings the streets were empty.
Do the administrators of We Never Forget and Mad About the Boy know David Bret hides behind all those million and one aliases on their groups? I contend they certainly do. I have documentation, which I have posted previously on this blog, that Tracy Terhune was passing information to Bret for his use on his killing blogs... as far back as 2010. And at that time, Terhune was asking Bret not to reveal he was the source of the information.
In 2019, Cindy Martin said all the defamation Bret writes about us for Tracy Terhune to post on his designated hit blog he runs against us, has to first be read and approved of by Terhune. So Terhune thinks Bret's disgusting and death-laden lies about us are acceptable? Apparently so. David Bret, David Spurr, Edel Man, Edel anything, Etienne, Nicole, Joey, Mrs. Trellis, Albert Bastista Morris and etc., are all the same person and I will add Tracy Terhune, in his endless complicity, to that list as being the same person as Bret.
Terhune hid any affiliation with Bret for years, even swearing on an affidavit that before 2010 he'd never heard of Bret. Fat chance of that. But a few years ago, Terhune and Bret became good buddies as Bret refers to it. “It” being their coalition from hell, their death-laden mocking of our ages, the “tick-tocking” by Terhune and his gloating that no one will “miss us when we are gone,” etc. etc,
So Terhune and Bret, what is the expression I am looking for... are “cut out of the same cloth”? It is frightening to me that the coalition of Terhune and Bret can create such a situation on those two groups for people innocent of who they really are. There is a reason readers of this blog post as “Anonymous”. A serious reason. Terhune allows Bret run about masked on his two groups at the risk of unsuspecting people. I think Eleanor Gribbin posting warnings about how Bret is not allowed on the group is completely fake. Just to let people know they would never allow such a fiend to be present. He always is and they know it. What is wrong with that? A lot actually.
Mad About the Boy and We Never Forget are “Bret-infested” and the administrators are perfectly aware, imo. Not minutes after I posted my previous post about Valentino and the piano, David Bret tweeted the following. (see below) Sad, isn't it? Not sad because his attempt to be witty failed so miserably. I guess the skeleton is obviously me. Zzzzzzzz. (How many death references about me can that man make in one lifetime?)
But sad... because this crap is tacitly approved of by Tracy Terhune and that should demean anyone's opinion of both men in a big way. And as a reader suggested to me I should probably say the following to Death Bret, “Thanks for making me the center of your world.” Wow.
But I want him to realize, I am in great health and will not become a skeleton for while. And even if I did, so what? Is there something wrong with that? But I do not find death hilarious and his years of death images do not frighten me, nor intimidate me. His cartoons and skeletons are stupid, boring in their predictability and are more testimony of a sick, sad mind.
In a previous post someone referred to a mention of Valentino and his musical aptitude. I excerpt for the record here, George Ullman's memoir with his piano reference. This took place after the New York opening of The Eagle.
p.218
“At this particular time he talked to me of his ambitions. One thing in particular, I remember, was his plan, immediately upon his return to Hollywood, to go in seriously for piano lessons, for which instrument he had a natural aptitude. He said that he intended to let no one, not even his closest friends, know of his work until he was prepared to be able to play commendably, regardless of the amount of time this would take. In this I realized two things. One was his love of the dramatic, and the other his boyish desire to spring a surprise on his friends.”
George comments that Valentino had a “natural aptitude” for the piano which implies he already played to some degree. He died before he could master the instrument and that should inspire me. Long ago, some fifty years ago, I was a student at a music conservatory in New York. I majored in piano. I played all day and practiced until late at night. I achieved a measure of accomplishment, had students and it was a huge part, if not my life then. I have barely played since then.... as in not at all. Renato recently bought me a piano and there it looms, like a haunting memory of something I lost but wish I could recover.
But if Valentino did not live long enough to work up a piece to surprise his friends, maybe I can take that as inspiration and feel encouraged to rehabilitate my piano playing to some degree.
His “boyish desire” as George called it, should inspire I think. Life is so short so I will get on it.
In regards to a comment I made on a previous post, I clarify I do not judge nuns sharing their marriage to Jesus. I made my comment as an observation about Eleanor Gribbin and Mary O' Bannon and their public "sharing of their marriage to Valentino". I do not judge them if they want to engage in a menage a troi with a man who has been dead for a very long time. I do judge them because of who they obey.
I would remind Mary O'Bannon, Eleanor Gribbin, et al, that the person they obey has mocked our deaths repeatedly, name-called my husband a million ways, told the world via the internet I am actually a bully and insane, repeated year after year that I am a trash fan fiction writer and according to Eleanor Gribbin's dutiful parroting, my books are "the ravings of a madwoman".
I personally think these “nuns” are not worshipping Valentino at all, but worshipping Tracy Terhune, their cult leader. Their mawkish adoration of Valentino exists to please him. I know it infuriates them when I say the word cult and lay it out as a cult construct. But you would have to be blind not to see how very many things they truly have going which are by definition, cult behavior.
i.e., the leader remains reclusive, leader guards the sacred relics, maybe a tomb, a grave. Leader remains reclusive so when he does appear there is an element of surprise and awe. The moment of his presentation of his relics reinforces his position and inspires a religious response. They have "seen the light".
The leader has a tier of people beneath him and as someone so beautifully laid out in a comment here, he sits a top a pyramid. But every single person beneath him must obey and he must not be questioned... if they do they are gone. That silent threat is ever present in a cult construct.
In my opinion, I think Eleanor Gribbin and Mary O'Bannon are just advertising Valentino based on his sex appeal to draw in members to please the leader. For me it is somewhat ludicrous to think they are being genuine in that sickening fawning about. I think its fake. It sounds so phony to me.
Cults are not always people into wearing black robes and having rituals, etc. I think there can sure be psychological cults which is the case here. I just wanted to clarify that I do not judge anyone for being a nun. But in this case I judge who they are obeying. Tracy Terhune is not Jesus and neither was Valentino.
Thanks for reading and thanks for your spicy and spot-on comments.
