Chamblee54

This content was posted October 19, 2016. … Pauline Bessie Kael was the rockstar film critic. James Richard Broughton was the radical faerie poet laureate. They were lovers, and had a daughter, Gina James. Pauline and James were not married, contrary to what some naysayers would tell you.
Much of the information in this feature is taken from online reviews of Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, a 2012 biography written by Brian Kellow. Gina James, also known as Gina Broughton, was not interviewed for the book. Neither did she participate in the making of Big Joy, a movie about James Broughton. (A wig store, Gina Beauty Supply was located at 25 W Broughton St, Savannah GA 31401. GBS is now “Permanently Closed.”)
Pauline Bessie Kael was born June 19, 1919, Petaluma CA, and died September 3, 2001, Great Barrington MA. She stood 4 feet 9 inches tall. James Richard Broughton was born November 10, 1913, Modesto CA, and died May 17, 1999, Port Townsend WA. Both used their birth name throughout life. Both had lives, before meeting in the late forties.
When she met James Broughton, Miss Kael was living what would later be called the bohemian life. After moving to New York, and being dumped for composer Samuel Barber, Miss Kael moved back to California. “Returning to the Bay Area with her tail between her legs in 1945, Pauline became involved with the incredibly effeminate avant-garde filmmaker James Broughton. He managed to impregnate Pauline but threw her out as soon as she told him, whereupon she moved to Santa Barbara to give birth to her daughter, Gina, in 1948.”
“Like her early career, Kael’s personal life was also fraught with failures. Kellow says “she had a habit of falling for gay men” earlier in her life because “they tended to share her passions and enthusiasms.” She had a daughter … with one of them, experimental filmmaker James Broughton.”
“For a time, during the 1940s, he lived with … Pauline Kael. She encouraged his filmmaking endeavors but their relationship ended after she got pregnant. … Pauline Kael thought that Broughton made the biggest mistake of his life when he turned down a studio film after winning the prize at Cannes.” (Apparently Mr. Broughton could afford this attitude. Regarding his movie The Bed, Mr. Broughton said “It was the only film I created that ever made any money.”)
“Which brings us to the strange tale of Pauline’s only child, Gina James. … In 1948, at age 29, Kael got pregnant after she “talked her way into moving in” with James Broughton, a bisexual poet living in Sausalito. By Kellow’s account, Broughton was furious at the news of Kael’s pregnancy; he felt trapped and tricked by her. One of Broughton’s friends reported that he kicked Kael out of his house. She moved to Santa Barbara to have the baby. The birth certificate listed the father as “Lionel James, a writer”. It is one of the disappointments of the book that Kellow shines little light on Kael’s passion — or whatever it was — for Broughton, on how she processed that cruel rejection and on whether Broughton ever recognized Gina as his daughter.”
This review of Big Joy continues: “But interviews with Singer, waxing poetic about his years with the artist, are balanced by reminiscences from Broughton’s ex-wife and his abandoned son. Rather than only celebrating silliness, I found it admirable that the directors didn’t gloss over the pain he caused his wife and children. After all, when you think about it, he spent all of his life unable to decide if he was gay or straight; leaving a lot of broken hearts in his wake.”
“We learn from Kael that he flirted with everyone he met. “He rode off into the sunset with some guy,” his wife, Suzanna Hart tells us. “That was very sad for me, but not for him, which was…very irritating.” In her segments, Hart keeps her emotions in check but you can clearly read the sadness and anger in her face. The son doesn’t have much good to say about his absent father and the two daughters (the first by Kael and the second by Hart) both refused to be interviewed for the film. Singer has a lot to say about their blissful decades together, but he also comes off a bit heartless when he shows no guilt over breaking up what he calls Broughton’s “loveless” marriage.”
The baby daddy leaves, and the struggling writer becomes a single mom. “… Kael’s relationship with her actual daughter was something out of a Tennessee Williams play, and not in a good way. Kael home-schooled Gina and, as the girl grew up, kept her close, as a typist, projectionist, driver and right-hand man, and she banished any friend who actively encouraged the young woman to break out on her own. Though she was in many ways a loving and committed mother, helping to raise Gina’s son and always living nearby, one senses a Gothic selfishness in her mothering.”
Gina James declined to talk with Kellow for his book, but the author says Kael and her daughter had a sort of symbiotic relationship. “Pauline did not type, Pauline did not drive — Gina performed both those functions for her. And Gina was a very good critic of Pauline. She got to see Pauline’s copy before anyone else did and she often had very, very important and influential things to say. But Pauline really wasn’t wild about the idea of Gina breaking away and having her own life apart from her, and she didn’t do anything really to encourage her in that direction as far as I can see.”
Amazon one star comment: And her poor daughter – what a fate – TYPING all that. Poor Gina, — I can see her – Kellow described sitting silently in some coffee shop while her mother raved on and ON with her pet directors.
“An affair with the experimental filmmaker James Broughton produced a child, Gina, whom Kael raised by herself, Mildred Pierce–like, heroically supporting them with a number of odd jobs, including running a laundry. Gina’s heart condition required expensive surgery, and Kael ended up enticing Edward Landberg, the owner of a local art-house theater, Berkeley Cinema Guild. They had begun as co-programmers. As Landberg tells it: “One day, when I was over at her place, I happened to graze her breast with my hand, and she kind of looked up and said, ‘What have you got to lose?’” Their marriage proved a fiasco, but Landberg agreed to pay for Gina’s operation, which Kellow suspects had been Kael’s motive all along…. Kellow shows more independence in assessing Kael’s treatment of her daughter Gina, whose ambitions to become a dancer or a painter she did little to encourage, preferring to keep her on “a silver cord . . . she had also grown accustomed to the steady, dependable role that Gina played—as secretary, driver, reader, sounding board—and she was loath to give her up.” Gina, for her part, was mistrustful of the dynamic she witnessed between Kael and her acolytes.”
“The closest and longest-lasting partnership of her life was with her daughter, Gina James … James considered speaking to Kellow, but finally declined, leaving a blank space at the center of this otherwise vividly detailed biography. Gina lived with her mother till she was over 30, typed up her reviews after Pauline stayed up all night writing them in longhand, and gave up both college and a shot at a dance career to serve as her mother’s caretaker, companion, and driver.”
“Kellow cites the text of the breathtakingly passive-aggressive eulogy that Gina delivered at her mother’s funeral in 2001: “My mother had tremendous empathy and compassion, though how to comfort, soothe or console was a mystery that eluded her … Pauline’s greatest weakness, her failure as a person, became her great strength, her liberation as a writer and critic . … she turned her lack of self-awareness into a triumph.”
“Gina lived with Kael well into her thirties … That she married and had a child, Will, seemed to catch Kael by surprise, though she ended up adoring her only grandchild, someone with whom she could watch action movies with.”
“Kael died in 2001, when Will was about 19. Unfortunately, and Kellow made no mention of this in his book whatsoever, there’s a horrible postscript, one that may well have been the reason for why Gina declined to be interviewed for the book. On October 6, 2007, Will, then 25, went hiking in the East Mountain State Forest in the Berkshires. He was an avid hiker, not to mention a devoted martial artist. He had a girlfriend. He never came back. Gina reported him missing, but his body wasn’t found for more than week, on October 15. … “authorities found camping equipment nearby and while cause of death has not been determined, foul play is not suspected.”
UPDATE These two comments were made to the original post. Anonymous Your piece on Kael and Broughton is rife with misinformation and judgements galore and unbelievably badly written. Get a life and stop spreading falsehoods. And next time you put your fingers to a keyboard do your due diligence! James’ son was NOT ABANDONED! He lived happily with the two of us after the divorce. You fail to recognize that James’ ex-wife was a classic fag hag who had been married to another gay man before her relationship with James. She had been in psychotherapy for years before they got together and for many years after they split up. James certainly did not spend the rest of his life uncertain about his sexuality. Read his autobiography COMING UNBUTTONED and you’ll discover how misinformed your take on him is. You have done a great disservice to your readers by publishing such homophobic nonsense. Joel Singer · Sterling Wilson Curious about this autobiography, I found the following from a Publishers Weekly review “Broughton forsakes introspection for literary gossip and name-dropping: Kenneth Rexroth, Pauline Kael, Dylan Thomas, Anais Nin. The birth of a daughter is dispensed with in two sentences. Broughton’s insistence on making himself the center of attention increasingly intrudes.”
UPDATE A journey down an internet rabbit hole uncovered this item. It is from “Remembering Harry and John“, by Mark Thompson on the occasion of Harry’s 100th anniversary. “I remember the night we were socializing at the San Francisco Art Institute at a gala tribute for James Broughton. Harry (Hay) and James had sparked briefly as Stanford University undergraduates, but didn’t meet again until fifty years later at a faerie gathering. Few people knew that James had fathered a daughter with esteemed film critic Pauline Kael during their bohemian Berkeley days, but Harry was alert to the fact. Kael and Broughton were having their own reunion at the moment when, with typical impudence, Harry interrupted the conversation by loudly asking, “So, who was the mother and who was the father?” The stunned silence was punctured only by the whoosh of Kael’s furious departure.” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The pictures are details of a panorama shot. “Fifth International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eleventh Annual Bathing Girl Revue, Galveston, Texas, August 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1930” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

This content was published September 24, 2012. … There is a terrific Backstory episode about the War of 1812. (Here is another one.) This is a conflict that is not much thought about, even during its bicentennial. It was not a good war for people of color. Native tribes fought with the British in Michigan, and were soundly defeated.
Perhaps the most famous product of the War of 1812 is The Star Spangled Banner, a.k.a. the national anthem. There are a few legends about writing this song that skeptical bloggers like to shoot down. At the 43 minute mark of the backstory episode, another aspect of TSSB is discussed.
It seems as though slaves were escaping their owners, and fighting with the British. Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key was a slave owner, and thought that the slaves would be better off with their owners. This is the sentiment behind the third verse of TSSB: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave · From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave · And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave · O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
The image of F.S. Key has been cleaned up over the years. This biography omits the third verse of TSSB, and does not mention his slaves.
Wikipedia told another story in 2012. “President Jackson nominated Key for United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in 1833. … In 1836, Key prosecuted New York doctor Reuben Crandall, brother of controversial Connecticut school teacher Prudence Crandall, for “seditious libel” for possessing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications in his Georgetown residence. In a trial that attracted nationwide attention, Key charged that Crandall’s actions had the effect of instigating enslaved people to rebel. Crandall’s attorneys acknowledged he opposed slavery but denied any intent or actions to encourage rebellion. In his final address to the jury, Key said “Are you willing gentleman to abandon your country, to permit it to be taken from you, and occupied by the abolitionist, according to whose taste it is to associate and amalgamate with the negro? Or gentleman, on the other hand, are there laws in this community to defend you from the immediate abolitionist, who would open upon you the floodgates of such extensive wickedness and mischief?” Crandall was acquitted.”
The Huffington Post has a story about F.S. Key, ‘Land of the Free?’ Francis Scott Key, Composer of National Anthem, Was Defender of Slavery. … “Buying and selling humans remained a respectable business in Washington City. The slave holding elite of the south had a majority in the Congress and a partner in President Andrew Jackson … To reassert the rule of law, Key set out to crack down on the anti-slavery men and their “incendiary publications.” Informants had reported to the grand jury about an abolitionist doctor from New York who was living in Georgetown. Key charged Rueben Crandall with bringing a trunk full of anti-slavery publications into the city.
In the spring of 1836, Key’s prosecution of Rueben Crandall was a national news story. In response, the American Antislavery Society circulated a broadsheet denouncing Washington as “The Slave Market of America.” The abolitionists needled Key for the hypocrisy of using his patriotic fame to defend tyranny in the capital: “Land of the Free… Home of the Oppressed.”
Key shrugged off his critics. In front of the courtroom crowded with Congressmen and correspondents Key waxed eloquent and indignant at the message of the abolitionists. “They declare that every law which sanctions slavery is null and void… ” Key told the jury. “That we have no more rights over our slaves than they have over us. Does not this bring the constitution and the laws under which we live into contempt? Is it not a plain invitation to resist them?” … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the social media picture in October 1936. “Rehabilitation client repays loan. Smithfield, North Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

@Swalter255 He died in a freak accident, he and another freak ran into each other
@shellbell_xo Her stubborness killed her- She should have never said “Over my dead body.”
@farrfoxhake He died in most unusual circumstances: He was winning an argument with his wife. She’s now serving 20 for manslaughter.
@JennifersEyebr1
Nobody liked him, he was a grumpy selfish man and won’t be missed. – Love, your family
@JordanISaBEAR
She is survived by her pet hamster that subsisted on her flesh for ten days after her death.
@ESCapeditiea
When attending, we will offer complimentry wooden stakes and chainsaws. Just in case.
@ShotoDan2016 He was a dedicated bomb defusal expert. Even his Parkinson’s diagnosis couldn’t keep him from his job.
@loustweet Wanted man found in concrete vat. Called a ‘hardened criminal’ by police.
@twitsnotnice
Joe is survived by two cats, who at the time of his death, weren’t on speaking terms with him.
@TayBar80 Due to technical issues, the funeral has been moved next door to McDonalds parking lot.
@iwputt19 Restaurant in piece
@rhealyrhealy John had plenty of supplies to survive being trapped in his home for 7 days,
but unfortunately, forgot to buy cat food.
@An_Enigma_2017 She died a horrid death when the green alien she coughed up and drank back down ate her from the inside out.
@NowhereManChild Local t-shirt printer falls into inking machine and dyes
@ShotoDan2016 He dyed, doing what he loved. He was a great hairstylist.
@Ollie_Llama …unfortunate beginner juggler decision to use weighted chopsticks…
@dragi_d It wasn’t his fault. He was left unsupervised at the strip club
@rllyfunnydragon R.I.P to a beloved Husband and Father.
He used to drive us crazy telling Dad Jokes. Now all he can make is Dead Jokes.
@JohnJTerrible He died peacefully in his sleep, unlike his passengers, who died screaming.
@MajorChaotic666 His pronouns we’re zee and zeer
@atch00s She always wanted to be tall and thin.
Unfortunately it took a sausage machine to make her dreams come true.
@Halloweeja Died texting while driving. A-hole always needed to have the last word.
@JohnJTerrible
Burial services end at 2pm. An additional hour is set aside for all who wish to piss on his grave
@EpicBngeWatcher He wanted everyone to comment, like, and subscribe to his funeral livestream.
@nosympathy82 Extreme sports athlete cheated death everyday slipped on a banana peel
@Megatallica118 26-year old male lost his head while brutally headbanging to Pantera.
Parents are really concerned.
@silkysoul She died dyeing her dying cat’s fur
@abtsag He was born he drank he was boring
@PwrFulWmn She accidentally read “topical” as “tropical” and chugged the bottle.
@SethFromThe716 Whoever is still holding his beer, you can put it down now.
@yabbahead Died from a lack of retweets. God rest his tweety soul
@xcdntlcsmnt Sad he’s gone, but glad he got the answer to his question ‘How much ice cream is needed for brain freeze to be fatal?’
@JeFiggins1987 He died doing what he did best.
Did I ever tell you what a great drunk driver Dave was? Well, up until that last time!
@JeFiggins1987 102yo Jerome Figgins died bedding his 18yo 7th wife.
It took plastic surgeons 2 hours to remove the smile from his face.
@SethFromThe716 He once said, “YOLO”, and that was all he did.
@BeatusVon “He died peacefully in his beautiful mansion, which is now for sale.
Further informations below.”
@robstewart100 You really can’t have Bacon at every Meal
@SethFromThe716 Oh well. The worms will eat a nice meal.
@lordtiddington After a life time of hard work and community dedication,
John was found with a bowling ball protruding from his rectum.
@RanNewMan77 the family requests that no one bring tuna casserole or fidget spinners to the wake
@kenny_whiteman Thought that the Kardashians could use a little more mainstream media coverage
@thewritetbkeys You can find his official obituary on MySpace
@FrankRLax61 in death, as in life, he lies here doing nothing while other people do the work,
and get stuck with the bill
@JoeCook80543637 died in mid sentence, while writing his final tweet. ” The secret to life is…..”
@BeverleyShaw17 Mother wishes her funeral to be held two weeks before she’s dies,
as she can’t bear to miss out on anything.
@hulga_hopewell Yesterday, some ugly annoying bitch died.
On Saturday; main street will be blocked off for a block party, all are invited.
@in_the_ruins He is survived by some grass clippings and an unopened packet of instant oatmeal.
This text was published August 12, 2017. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in January 1939. “Bar in Belle Glade, Florida”
©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah

This content was published June 20, 2024. … Donald John Trump is the son of Frederick Christ Trump Sr. The elder’s middle name is his mother’s maiden name. Elizabeth Christ Trump was born in Germany, and took over her husband’s business affairs when he died in the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Mrs. Trump later founded E. Trump & Son, the start of the Trump empire.
I learned this by googling “Christtrump.” A facebook friend posted a cover picture of CHRISTRUMP: Persecution of a Man by Christopher John Molluso. The cover shows a red necktie on the cross. The rood is lit by a shaft of sunlight, breaking through the storm clouds.
The self published book has this description: “… I suggest, in this exploration, a different Christ: by age 40, a Marine major, a fit Apollonion warrior, seen lean and sinewy in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment; at age 55, a scientist, analyst, and doctor, who never jumps to rash conclusions, hoodwinked by tendentious data sets from government labs, he’d solve all worldly woe by the application of crystalline thought; and finally, by age 70, a wizened, oracular leader, who commands all matters and the moment for the common betterment.” This person has little in common with Donald J. Trump, a detail that does not deter the pearl-clutching/eye-rolling public.
The book jacket has more information about the author. “Chris is a retired licensed psychologist and former government sex offender recidivism prevention specialist. He was a staunch libertarian and Ralph Nader supporter, to boot, until he felt a calling to help rescue this once free nation from seeming wicked onslaught and higher calling still to be closer to the redeemer, savior, and warrior Jesus Christ. Who knows where and when calling strikes? Maybe this book will inspire you to your calling.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in March 1941. “Children of a “squatter” family who were preparing to move out of the Camp Croft area. Near Spartanburg, South Carolina” ©Luther Mckinnon 2026 · selah