1

Five plus hours later…

My mother died because she didn’t go to the doctor. She had some ugly scab/rash on her leg and completely ignored it. This all happened in Connecticut, but when she flew out to California my sister insisted she see the doctor and she ended up in the hospital for a couple of days and then they sent her to a rehab center where she died of septic shock.

But she was strong, she believed she could beat anything. She literally thought she could will my father to beat cancer. She dragged him to L.A., he even had to go to the hospital here, and when he got home he died in a week.

So we never went to the doctor growing up, other than for checkups, unless we were bleeding profusely. Even if we were diagnosed with something, my mother told us to get out of bed and go to school, to stop being a lazy bum, literally.

So I don’t know how to go to the doctor. What’s worth the effort. And this has gotten me into trouble, serious trouble, but I’ve gotten better over the past couple of decades and…

I’m brushing my teeth ten days ago and I feel a tickle, with a bit of pain. Kind of like blowing air on an open wound.

Well, this was new. But this tooth… I could buy a car for what I’ve invested in it. And just two months ago I had a bit of pain and the dentist adjusted it and…he told me it would take three weeks for the muscles to calm down, and then I’d know…and he’d know, because if it didn’t work, I’d come back.

BUT IT DID WORK!

Ah, so satisfying.

But now I have a completely different symptom, this tickle pain.

So what the hell is going on here? I whip out the stimulator, the Waterpik, and I feel the pain, but I figure maybe there’s something lodged inside the gum, who knows, and with a bit of work I can fix the situation.

Now it got a bit better, but then… Let’s just say it never went away.

I started to freak out before Labor Day…because what if it got bad over the holiday? And the dentist does not work on Friday. And when in the hell am I going to schedule this anyway, I’m booked so solid, needing to go to three eye appointments a week for three weeks for my macular degeneration.

Now my heart doctor is all about the teeth, saying a problem there can lead to a heart attack.

And there was that story back in May, about that Haitian man rounded up by ICE who died of a tooth infection in custody. So it does happen.

And one of the last things you do before going to sleep is brush your teeth. And I feel the pain and my anxiety goes sky high. One night I futzed with it, with the Waterpik, and I got so wound up I couldn’t fall asleep for hours.

So…

I think I’ve got it under control, it’s not that bad, I can cope. And then Tuesday night I’m brushing and I hit the spot and I jump! This thing ain’t going away. But it’s only when I brush there…

So I’m lying on the couch, trying to read a book, but I can’t, because I’m wrestling with my tooth…what is it, should I address it?

And then I think of OCD therapy… What would the reasonable person do, would they get it checked out? I wasn’t sure what the reasonable person would do and I’m thinking about it and the OCD therapist says if it’s unclear, take action right away. And right then and there I decide I will do so.

But I can’t go to the dentist on Wednesday, I’ve got an eye appointment and then a podcast in Malibu…

And Thursday I’ve got a shrink appointment and then an SXM pre-tape, but I tell myself, if I have to cancel my shrink appointment I will, it will be within twenty four hours so I won’t have to pay for it. As for the pre-tape…the engineer is going out of town for weddings two weekends in a row, and when will we find time to do this pre-tape if not Thursday, I’m booked solid next week.

So I can barely sleep thinking about if I can get an appointment, and when it will be. And if I push it to next week, then they’ll think the problem is not that bad, they won’t take me seriously.

So I get up in the morning and call and…

They can see me at two p.m. on Thursday. Well, that’s going to be really tight. Can they do it a bit later? No, take it or leave it. I told them I’d take it, I’d be there.

And I got the engineer to start fifteen minutes earlier today and…

I was anxious. Because how bad was the pain this morning when I brushed? Not that bad.

And I’m so uptight about going back for a problem. I returned so many vinyl records that they told me not to shop at one store anymore. Believe me, they were defective. People’s love for vinyl? God, no surface noise, no skips, no warps…digital is fantastic!

And I’m getting more and more uptight about taking up the dentist’s time. But I’m thinking of the OCD therapist’s advice. For social anxiety he says to go to a restaurant, order a glass of water and then leave without ordering anything else. It’s all about exposures.

So it’s not like I’ve been back to the dentist a zillion times, if there’s no problem now…

2

So the dentist comes back from lunch and he’s walking past my room and he says ROBERT! The last time he called me “the philosopher,” and when I ran into him in the loo that day on my way out, he insisted we go to lunch. I was going out of town for three weeks, but how was this going to work? How would I schedule it? And what if we went for a meal and we ran out of things to say? But, if I never reached out for lunch he might hold it against me.

Now dentistry is different from how it used to be. In that you rarely see the dentist. Unless you complain about pain to the hygienist, you don’t see the doctor until you get x-rays, which could be every other year. The dentist is the Grand Poobah.

And I’m so anxious about taking up this guy’s time, but he comes in, sits down, and we B.S. for twenty minutes! This is the most expensive dentist in the world, or so Irving says. I figure he’d be hit and run. But no! We’re talking about Israel and immigration and Trump and the homeless…

Okay, I’ll run with this.

And then, all of a sudden, he jumps up, says he’s got to go to work! And he leaves the room, but comes back less than a minute later, the other patient doesn’t need him, so he stands there and almost as an aside asks me…”So, what are you here for?”

And I’m telling him and I realize I’ve been so distracted that I’m not conveying this story well and he gets in my mouth, pokes around and says he finds nothing.

But then I tell him exactly where I feel the pain and he pokes there and I do feel it but he says he doesn’t see anything. He tells me to stop brushing there! That he can’t see a problem.

Now this is my worst nightmare, that I wasn’t justified in coming in, I was wasting his time. But we did have a good talk, but I was saying…

I was worried about an infection, that’s what happened with two other teeth. And I’m so old, and I’m so reluctant to go to the doctor, not feeling entitled, I’m gonna get this infection and DIE!

He says he doesn’t see anything.

But then he goes back in and sees a tiny crack. And as we’re just about to wrap it up, he says he’s going to call in Justin, the periodontist, for a reading.

And I love Justin, but now I’m wasting his time too?

And Justin comes in and it’s like old home week and he looks in my mouth and only sees this tiny crack and then says…we should take a CT scan, to see how low this crack goes, to see if there’s any bone loss. He doesn’t expect any, but to be sure…

And now the cash register is ringing in my head. Used to be you had to go to a special office for a dental CT scan. But now they’ve got these small machines that fit in an office, and they have one here and one at the root canal guy’s office and I don’t know if they’re de rigueur, if they’re everywhere now, but I do know they charge a fortune for the test, they’ve got to pay for the machine and…

In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m gonna do this, I don’t believe in saving money on my health.

3

So this Russian woman is the technician. Conversation is not easy. But eventually the test is completed, I get shown to a room, Justin comes in and wakes up the screen and there’s a percentage bar, he says the images are being rendered, they’ll come right up.

And they do.

Well…the crack does go pretty far down. And there is a bit of bone loss. And I’m going to need an implant eventually, but I can wait.

And as we’re discussing how long I can wait, what symptoms might occur to bring me back, the Russian woman weighs in.

She’s manipulated the image, turned it around, and not only is there more bone loss…

There’s an infection.

Turns out she’s a periodontist too!

And now I have to schedule implant surgery. When in the hell am I going to do this? I am booked solid, September is nuts!

And then Justin says he can do it right now!

But before that he brings in the dentist, who is wowed, taken aback, says he missed it, but there it is. But at least he was smart enough to call in Justin for a deeper look.

And then they come in with forms on an iPad, they need my credit card to go downstairs and get drugs from the pharmacy, and the bill…

I could tell you the amount, but you’ll go insane. You can probably get it done for fifty five or sixty cents on the dollar, but this guy went to Harvard and the dentist is a magician, he’s saved teeth other dentists said were goners, even the root canal guy thought the dentist couldn’t save one tooth.

So they’re numbing me up and Justin says he may not be able to place the implant. He’s going to remove the old tooth, get rid of the infection, but there might not be enough bone left, and if this is the case I’ll have to wait another three months after this heals to get the implant post, and then wait another three months after that for a new tooth.

So Justin is surprised how deep the crack went. And he’s scraping out the infection. He puts this stuff on it that makes it turn white, so he can see all of it, and then I’ve got to bite down on a piece of cotton for five minutes, which turns into fifteen, and Justin comes back and…

He touches my tooth, or what’s there now anyway, and I go wild! There’s a sharp pain. He can’t believe it. Then he assumes the novocaine was metabolized by my body and he’s got to shoot me up with more.

Which he does, but the pain remains.

Then he gives me more and a nerve block.

The pain remains.

Then he shoots me up with more novocaine.

The pain remains. But at this point, I say it’s not terrible, maybe I should endure it. But Justin says no, he’s got to drill four more times, and he’s going to shoot me up exactly where the pain is.

How many shots have I gotten?

Definitely more than ten.

And this happened the last time I had an infection, the endodontist had gone on and on when I had my root canal, how he’d never ever shot someone up with this much stuff.

So I’m super anxious, I keep asking Justin, are you sure you got all of the infection?

He keeps reassuring me, says it’s the bone that’s sensitive, and he implants the post and then after a break he packs in cadaver bone, and stem cells, and then he sews it all up and we’re done.

4

Except for one final x-ray, which is going to be taken by the Russian.

Earlier she seemed reluctant to talk, but now it’s almost seven p.m., I thought she’d want to book, but we get deep into conversation.

You go straight into dental school from high school. And she had TWELVE YEARS of training! But still, she needs two years of dental school here to get her U.S. license.

Now she was born in Moscow, but grew up in Ukraine, but went to dental school in Moscow, because she had a Russian passport and it was much cheaper, four grand a year for tuition, and she’s in the U.S. on political asylum, it’s all legal, and…

So what exactly is it like living in Moscow?

Well, it’s super-clean. And restaurants are better, unless they’re the tippity-top. And there’s plenty of nightlife and the subway has no dirt and goes everywhere… It started to sound like a paradise!

So I asked her about the downsides…

Well, you can’t be LGBT, no way.

And there are certain books you cannot read, and if the police find one in your home… Well, why would they be searching your home? This turned out to be not so infrequent, whereas in the U.S. there must be a specific reason. Then again, a neighbor could have turned you in.

And I’m going deeper into her life, her parents, romance, but ultimately she takes the x-ray and it’s PERFECT!

Or so they say.

5

Now you might expect me to be in pain and complaining, going through all this, spending all that money, but I’m THRILLED! Because I went to the doctor! Yes, I didn’t go right away, but within ten days I made an appointment and stuck to my story and it turned out there was an infection.

I’m not gonna say I would have died from it, but who knows?

Have I broken the curse, am I no longer my mother’s son, can I go to the doctor without an obviously broken bone or blood all over the floor?

I HOPE SO!

Maggie Rose has a new album, “Half Moon.” Hers is a story of survival, the big breaks never happening, yet slogging away and building an audience. Listen to her, she could be the new Brandi Carlile.

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/maggie-rose/id1316200737?i=1000788833265

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/52a9a53e-ecbd-4363-902b-d01482e40a1e/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-maggie-rose

That’s a real story you know.

You think these artists make this stuff up out of thin air, but you’d be surprised how many songs are inspired by real life. Kinda like “He blew his mind out in a car/He hadn’t noticed that the lights had changed”… This was Tara Browne, a Guiness heir. I didn’t know this until Bob Cavallo told me Browne’s favorite act was the Lovin’ Spoonful and they were hired to play Browne’s twenty first birthday, during which he was given a Lotus Elan as a present. Paul McCartney was there, Mick Jagger too, although they didn’t perform. And then Tara Browne lost his life in a car wreck…

And it turns out “People’s Parties” was about a very specific party, held by hairdresser Ara Gallant at his New York apartment. Appollonia van Ravenstein, a Dutch model, was the woman who put a lamp shade over her head as she cried… It all had to do with Jack Nicholson and sex, but Jack was not at Saturday night’s party…

This person celebrates her birthday with a party every year at this time, always in a different location. This time high in the hills above Los Angeles, so high that there was limited parking and you had to give your car to a valet halfway up the hill and take a van up to…

The kind of house that you see in movies, the kind you don’t think anybody really owns, certainly not anybody you know, but she did…it was an investment property.

Now when you’re in your twenties and thirties you live to go to parties. That’s where the action is. Back in my day the alternative was staying home and looking at the four walls. You had to go out to meet people, make connections, get ahead.

That’s what everybody is trying to do in L.A., get ahead. It can be tiresome. But one thing about being my age…you’re over the hump, you certainly wouldn’t turn down an interaction that would pay dividends, but you’re no longer on the hunt. You’re hanging out, observing.

And there’s a view from downtown to the beach. The only person I know who had a view this good was Q, but his house was in Bel-Air, and he’s no longer here.

“All the people at this party, they’ve got a lot of style”

You have to put on your look. Which is never elegant in L.A., it’s hip.

“They’ve got stamps of many countries, they’ve got passport smiles”

Most people there probably had a passport, they’d been places, done things, but the guest list was not that exclusive. Assuming you knew this person. But how many people outside L.A. know this person?

Not that there are not mass parties elsewhere in the country, but the clientele is different.

No one is old, even if their age is. Everybody’s got a young and hip attitude. And having gotten inside the velvet rope, no one has airs, no one is acting superior, then again, how many of these people do you actually know?

So, we went upstairs where the food was. And I saw Paul and Jerry over my shoulder, a very friendly couple I hadn’t seen since the beginning of summer. And I’m loading up my plate with fare and I’m walking out by the pool to talk to them and a woman comes rushing by and knocks over my plate. Why she was in such a hurry, I do not know. But she did stop and apologize, and stunningly my clothing escaped unscathed. But after assessing the mess Paul and Jerry were nowhere to be found.

Nor was Felice.

Now if a party is small enough and you lose your partner, your bearings, you feel out of place, like people are focusing on you, judging you. It wasn’t that bad, but I was feeling unmoored, and then upon reconnecting with Felice she proposed we sit down, which we did, at this tall table with high chairs.

And then people came to us.

At the beginning of a party you’ll talk to anybody you know. Just to feel like you deserve to be there. And the funny thing is a lot of these people you only see out, you don’t connect with them at home, may rarely hear from them in e-mail, but when you run into them it’s like old home week, and they update you on what they’ve been up to, both personally and professionally.

“Some are friendly, some are cutting, some are watching it from the wings”

The people watching was fantastic. Who exactly were these people and why were they there? Felice couldn’t get over the four fiftysomething women sitting on a bench at the top of the stairs staring straight forward, not speaking and not moving. What was their story? We postulated.

“Some are standing in the center, giving to get something”

Everybody’s selling. Hyping you on their new project. Introducing you to people, some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.

And then Jeff Ross shows up. At the end of our podcast he insisted we were now friends.

And it’s like old home week. And then the birthday girl comes along and says Jeff roasted her and I’m talking to Jeff’s friend, who tells me about designing the logo for Woodstock ’94 and writing a new song with Paul Williams and when we’re done I do a little business, I tell him I’d like to do a podcast with Paul Williams.

And then Jeff and he disappear.

And I breathe a sigh of relief. These people I share intimate moments with, how do I continue when I see them? Especially women.

Like I was at Harold’s house years back and I got into this long conversation with Fawn Hall. We seemed to be connecting, I mean conversation with me is never light, I get right down to the real nitty-gritty, but what does Fawn Hall want to do with me?

So years later, more than five, we’re playing rock trivia at Branca’s house up in Beverly Park and Ms. Hall is there. I avoid her. What, I’m going to go up to her six or seven years later and say REMEMBER ME?

But we had shared that moment. And when the game is over, when we’re noshing on food, Fawn comes up to me and says…AREN’T YOU GOING TO SAY HELLO TO ME?

I was positively floored. Oh, she remembered.

I guess in a world where everybody professes to be a winner, I don’t feel like one. What’s so special about me, I’m certainly not an Adonis, I’m not rich, I am interested in your story, I do give good conversation, and only at this late date have I realized that makes me special, because everybody else is so narcissistic, selling, and no one wants to reveal their warts, their inadequacies.

So Jeff and I are buddies. But are we really? We didn’t go to summer camp together. What exactly are we going to talk about? It’s good he’s moved on, because I’m flummoxed, I don’t know what to say next to continue the conversation.

And at some point I have to find a bathroom. Now this is a big house, and the facilities are not obvious, and it seems that whenever I do find a WC there’s a queue.

So I end up downstairs in the theatre, whereupon I run into Howard Paar, who I haven’t seen in ages. He ran the O.N. Klub…where you danced to turn of the decade ska (from the seventies to the eighties), and he’s there with this woman who used to work at Epic and the last time I saw her was at this same yearly party, prior to lockdown, she was recovering from a divorce. She seemed to have crawled from the wreckage into a brand new car.

And we’re talking about whether we go out or not. She does, Howard doesn’t. Used to be you went out and saw bands.

And we’re philosophizing about the modern music business and then the bathroom is open and we call it a day and when I finally wend my way back upstairs Felice asks where I’ve been, that there’s got to be a story.

And then Jeff reappears. Asks me if I had a good summer. Says he officiated at his nephew’s wedding back east. And tells me he’s going out on the balcony for a smoke and to come with, he’s got a story to tell me.

And as he’s puffing away, he tells me he was at this John Mayer show in the Hamptons and he shared a joint with Paul McCartney. They were sitting right next to each other. He didn’t think Paul knew his name, but Paul had gone on record that the bald guy who insulted people was his favorite comedian.

And they got busted by the usher and Paul mentioned Tokyo and then I told a couple of my own Paul McCartney stories and then a guy came up and…

That’s the thing about being famous. People want to come up and talk to you. And Jeff was being nice, but now we were bonding, truly connecting, who was this interloper?

And these fans always want to impress you, right up front, to earn their connection. And this guy is going on and on and I’m standing there thinking that prior to decades of psychotherapy I would have told him to get lost, but in this case I didn’t.

And then another guy came up. Acted like he had portfolio, but after demanding our attention and taking our time it turned out he did not.

So finally I can go one on one with Jeff again, and we’re talking about the Beatles and Wings and we move on to his career and I find I’m giving him advice. And I start to wonder, does this have to do with my anxiety? Fearful of quietude, do I always make it about the other person, afraid of empty space?

But my advice is all positive. How the roast thing is great, but the Netflix special was transcendent.

And then Jeff’s looking over my shoulder…oh, I’ve bored him. But no, they’ve gathered to sing Happy Birthday.

And when they’re done, what do I do, continue to talk or move on?

But Jeff hands his phone to someone in the vicinity and tells them to take a picture of us.

So I guess he does enjoy my company.

And then I tell him to be unafraid of judgment. That when he reveals his true self, then we can connect, and that’s what it’s all about, what we’re all looking for, even Fawn Hall.

And Jeff looks me in the eye and says “You get it.,” and on that note I tell him I don’t want to take up any more of his time, and it was great seeing him… You don’t want to glom on to celebrities, you don’t want to be a hanger-on.

So I mosey on back to our tiny table and Herbie Hancock is standing next to Felice.

Now the funny thing is I’ve sat next to Herbie Hancock before, at a Jacob Collier show at the Fonda. He didn’t seem interested in talking to me and I wasn’t going to talk to him, figuring he had no idea who I was.

But now it was a convivial atmosphere…

Nah… I don’t need to know any more celebrities. I’d like to do a podcast with him too, but I don’t want to sell myself, convince him.

So he’s famous, never mind talented, but it’s not uncommon to be up close and personal with household names in Hollywood, actually, it’s nearly de rigueur.

But not if you live in the suburbs. Not if you live anywhere else in America other than New York.

But New York is different. The society there is much less fluid. And who your parents are and where you went to school count, whereas none of that matters in L.A., here you make it up as you go along, try to create something out of nothing, that’s what everybody there was doing. All independent contractors as far as I could tell. They were hustlers, going from project to project, doing their best to keep the balls in the air. The key is to sustain, and stay in the game, but that’s easier said then done.

And that’s when Felice looked me in the eye and said, “Are we done?”

And we went downstairs, exited the front door, took an E-ticket van ride back to the valet parking stand, waited for our car and when we got home…

“People’s Parties” was playing in my head. It had been so much fun going out. That’s the thing, you walk out your front door and you have no idea what will happen.

Like Saturday night.

I’d be lying if I told you I remembered much from the first season of this Guy Ritchie series. It didn’t quite gel. Or maybe it was just hard to suspend disbelief and get involved. But it wasn’t so bad that I wasn’t going to check out the new season, two and a half years later.

Now I was surprised to find it was only number four on Netflix’s chart, I thought there would be more hunger to see this.

Well, number one is “Death of the Pastor’s Wife.” I thought that was a series, but turns out it’s a documentary, albeit with three episodes. I’m burned out on these true crime docs. The best was “Capturing the Friedmans,” and now there are some good ones, but too many involve cheesy re-enactments and less than satisfying endings and I haven’t watched one in eons.

Turns out number two is a documentary too, although only twenty eight minutes long. I didn’t recognize the title, “Instadocs: The Decoy Plane,” about Trump’s secret escape from the Turkish airport… I guess there’s train-wreck value there, but not for me, I read about it, it’s enough. If I want to be pissed off by Trump’s behavior all I have to do is turn on my phone, but it is interesting that he took Natalie Harp along and left everybody else vulnerable on the Qatar-gifted plane. There’s a conspiracy theory that Karoline Leavitt leaked the Harp story as retaliation, but I can’t get my knickers in a twist over that, even if it is true.

Turns out number three is a docuseries too! “Earle Meets World”… Turns out that’s the story of the podcaster Alix Earle… Netflix is criticized for going down-market, but I guess that’s what most people want to watch…

Now all you’ve got to know about the plot of “The Gentlemen” is it involves highfalutin’ drug dealers.

But it’s done in that Guy Ritchie style…you know, with writing on the screen, but less occasional humor than in most of his projects. But Guy Ritchie directed the first two episodes of the new season, and you can feel it. The editing is sharper, the cuts hit you harder.

Thank god the main character Eddie Horniman’s brother Freddy gets less screen time this year. Cocaine addict Freddy just never rang true to me, and the performance was too broad, it chewed on the scenery.

But Eddie, played by Theo James, comes from a noble family. He’s relatively internalized, a veritable intellectual, always plotting, one or two steps ahead of everybody else.

As for his sidekick Susie Glass…

She’s the day to day majordomo of a drug syndicate.

And the two of them banter and interact… It’s almost out of a thirties movie. There’s really not a lot of sexual tension, but it’s more than a brother/sister relationship. And Susie has to remind Eddie that ultimately he works for them, the Glasses. Whose paterfamilias, Bobby Glass, is in jail.

Ray Winstone plays Bobby Glass.

Ray Winstone… He truly gained notoriety in “Sexy Beast,” even though he’s got an arm’s length of credits over half a century.

So there’s all this dope dealing action, involving farms in Italy as well as the U.K., but ultimately Susie and Eddie go to visit Bobby in jail.

It’s kind of a country club jail. But I wouldn’t quite call the trappings first class. Bobby has his own cabin, on the river, with a sauna and a grill, and Susie, Eddie and Bobby are in the sauna, shvitzing and…

You’ve got to realize, Ray Winstone is not vain, he’s not taking a GLP-1, he’s not stick thin like a Hollywood actor, rather he’s got a belly and appears closer to a bear than a human…well, not exactly, but you get the point.

And I’m watching Bobby and that’s when I’m reminded…IT’S RAY WINSTONE!

Ray dominates the scene without overpowering the production. He’s just so electric, so confident, that his performance oozes into the far corners of the screen. He demands attention.

But he can be warm. He can be friendly, familial.

But you can always see the fist in the velvet glove… Then again, sometimes he takes the glove off that fist and the intensity…

So, Bobby’s got ears everywhere. You can’t have an interaction without him knowing, it’s uncanny. And he’s got rules. Like not dealing cocaine. And he’s always going on about the big picture.

The issue is whether Bobby is caught in the past, or whether he still sees the landscape best and his advice, his guidance, should be adhered to.

Eddie thinks the former. That Bobby has been out of the game for too long. And he convinces Susie, Bobby’s daughter, of this.

Now Susie is played by Kaya Scodelario, not a household name in America, but she started as a teen in the U.K. show “Skins” and has a slew of credits.

And the thing about Kaya/Susie is she’s beautiful, but she doesn’t trade on her image. And she radiates intelligence, but this is not an American sitcom where the woman is brilliant and the man is a dunce. No, Susie and Eddie are a team…they’ve thrown in together in the marijuana business. Susie is willing to learn from Eddie, but she possesses her own wisdom, her own insight.

And this is a gangster show. In that there’s a code of honor and image is paramount…

Now the supporting cast is great too. Joely Richardson as Eddie’s mother Lady Sabrina.

And Giancarlo Esposito/Gus Fring as American billionaire Stanley Johnston.

And Benedetta Porcaroli as an Italian pilot/Mafia liaison. She’s vulnerable, but can take charge too. She’s not as beautiful as Susie, nor is she a bombshell men salivate over, but she’s integral to the story.

And most of the action takes place outside the prison. Bobby Glass is talked about, what he would think, what he would say, but they only check in with Bobby in person now and again.

Until…

I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that ultimately Bobby Glass finds out that Susie and Eddie have not obeyed his instructions. How does he know? That’s another issue.

But he confronts them…

I’m still thinking about this performance a day later. I can still feel the intensity. Bobby starts somewhat calm and then ramps it up and…

God, it reminds me of my father, when he got pissed. All you could do was stand back and watch the show, you knew that something you’d done had made him angry and nothing you could say or do now would calm him down, you just had to let him blow off steam…

But Bobby Glass knows exactly where he wants to go, what he wants to say. And he’s going to tighten the noose. This ain’t no dignified lawyer type, Bobby is a street guy, and he knows the street, and he knows intimidation, and he knows how to earn respect and maintain power. He knows the game, he sees the game, and as long as you understand that, agree with him and follow his guidance, he can be an almost fun hang. But when crossed…

It goes on and on. Ray as Bobby is so intense, your hair is blown back like in that old Maxell ad. Your body is frozen in place. You’re just enduring it waiting for the ultimate conclusion, what Bobby is going to say, how he’s going to resolve the situation and his anger.

This scene would work even if you never saw the rest of the show, that’s how powerful and spot-on Ray Winstone’s performance is.

And it doesn’t seem like a performance, it seems like Ray truly is Bobby Glass, and he’s pissed and is going to let you know it and make damn sure you never cross him again.

There’s a self-confidence you don’t see in wannabe gangsters. The kind dealing dope on the street corner, or behind the scenes with a bunch of runners. Bobby Glass built the game, he has endured, he plots strategy, no one does it better, GOT THAT?

I CERTAINLY DID!!!