John Clark Pro Se Blog

Actor, Producer & Writer

To Fly Again…

By John Clark on Posted in A SPACE FOR NOSTALGIA, COMMENTARY-Passing parade

Denied to me now, I’m afraid;  Judge Gold caused me to lose my Piper Cherokee 6.

However, that didn’t stop me from encouraging my son Ben to learn to fly it, and later – to keep him out of trouble and stop being a waiter – to consider a career in aviation.  That he did, became an instructor, married one of his students, and now flies international for Delta.  We don’t connect any more, but I hope he’s minding his Ps and Qs.

Went to the Huntington Library the other day with my first son Jonathan, and noticed the upcoming exhibit featuring the development of  U.S. Aviation, from its beginnings to the present.  What a glorious story that is!

Indeed, I whiled away the last ten dead years doodling for Wikipedia, and researched and wrote the story of the now defunct  and forgotten Glendale Airport, which was once the gateway to the West Coast. Frequented by the likes of Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, and the black Tuskegee Airmen, it later served as the training ground and repair station for thousands of WWII airmen and their fighting machines. The surviving classically designed control tower, surrounded by humdrum factories and warehouses, was acquired by the Walt Disney company, with headquarters nearby.  There many a movie was shot, and its current lack of maintenance and continued state of disrepair is quite shocking.  Shame on you, Walt Disney!  May one wish that the company and Glendale city provide funds and jobs to restore it?

Here, read this, it has such stories to tell.  Grand Central Airport, Glendale

At these times of hardship, us oldsters like to harken back to not so very long ago, to the years when America was industrious in manufacturing, and provided jobs for all.  When we were the New World, a shining light of hope for the less advantaged.

Perhaps our memories will help motivate and energize today’s youngsters to recapture the pride we’ve lost.  Pondering our history, at least they’ll get some perspective.

Jobs/jobs

By John Clark on Posted in MY STOCK MARKET

Ironic.  Growing mobs are descending on Wall Street protesting the huge amounts of money being made by insiders and professionals. Let’s have a look at Apple, and the lack of transparency on its inner workings, and how Steve Jobs protected his health problems, and how that effected Apple’s stock price.  Rumors caused it to jump around, while only insiders (call them friends) had the knowledge of how and when to jump in with leveraged trading.

Moving on, what now?  Check out what happened to Polaroid (Edwin Land, and the blue chip which recently went bankrupt), or Disney when Maria Bartiromo’s father-in-law tried to make a run on the ailing company (Walt Disney, and the company came back with renewed energy) or Kodak (George Eastman, and as we speak, the blue chip company nearing bankruptcy).

Time is near when there will be a sea-change in the technology of how computers will be run and their operating systems changed – using light beams, perhaps, and the next innovator will be on the scene. Then watch what happens to AAPL.  Goodbye.  But as an “investor” friend of mine breathlessly told me, I ain’t gamblin’ and goin’ short…because…because…the pot of gold lies in WHEN!

A Market Meltup on Wednesday October 5th, 2011

By John Clark on Posted in COMMENTARY-Passing parade, MY STOCK MARKET, Uncategorized

In less than 45 minutes yesterday, just before the usual dreaded down day close, Wall Street, as expressed by the Dow, went up 4%!

45 minutes? A concerted effort by market makers (aka “they”) is what this was. A scientific forensic investigation should be mounted to find out how it is that a huge market can act with all participants in concert with each other. Assume you’re a bear, like most hurting knowledgeable people are. Unless one has the money to be a “fundamental short”, it means put options. And how does the market fix it? Well, for one thing try and get a 3-month-out-option, the preferred one in terms of price and the ability to survive one reversal. They are simply not available. You are forced to either buy a 2 month out or a 4 month and longer, which are expensive. Why is this true (except for very active stocks)?

It’s called artificial rigging. Nothing to do with government, or regulators. “They” do it because “they” can, and “they” have insider knowledge, and work like a gang. And “they” are stealing our money, uncaught. Oh to have the privilege of roaming the floor of the stock exchange!

One could laugh it off by saying that Wall Street is wanking (masturbating) in a lengthening and expanding trading range, to a fantasy of future prosperity. The drop (droop?) will come for the mass orgy of the world’s participants.

Am I anti-semitic?

By John Clark on Posted in Judge Gold revealed. Am I anti-semitic?

August 11, 2006

People have often asked me this question.  They say “Look what the Jews did to you, Judge Arnold Gold put you in prison the day before you had to appear in court to start defending yourself in the cases brought by Lynn and Nicolette, then kicked you out of your house to sell it and pay for the fees of opposing counsel (who sued you in the first place) who were 1. your wife’s divorce designer attorney Emily Shappell Edelman (Jewish), whose killer tactics no doubt helped kill her client,  and 2. Nicolette Hannah’s vicious attorney (Jewish), James R. Eliaser, whose killer tactics deprived a small boy of his father, who, I discovered too late, concealed the fact that he used to be an employee of the judge’s law firm Pachter & Gold. By granting these attorneys’ wishes, the judge effectively created the loss of my small son to me and me to him, and the exodus of the entire Clark family, less me, to the East Coast, and the fracture of the Redgrave brand.

Then there was Family Court Supervising Judge Aviva Bobb, who I believe is Jewish, who backed Gold up, kept awarding new fees to Eliaser, and then refused to let me buy my guest house so that I could continue to live in Topanga, keep my dogs, and not store my belongings and not live in a trailer. Just a reminder here of my expectations that celebrity pandering could not happen in Hollywood’s hallowed halls of justice since we read this on their

An Appeal to the Second Circuit got me a negative review from Justice Miriam Vogel, also Jewish.

An Appeal to the Supreme Court, after I had written to Chief Justice Ronald George, who I believe is also Jewish, was turned down.

And the media, which wouldn’t stop, appeared to get more fodder from the site of Hebrew University, where one of their professors made me her target for an absurd made up story setting out to prove her totally inapposite use of me in a legal paper.  Her name was Hila Keren, and to this day, I have received no response from her.

And then of course, there was Lew Wasserman, the top Jew in Hollywood, from the old House Calls breast feeding case.

Well, my answer to this all-important question is that far from being anti-semitic, I am, perhaps surprisingly, PRO-Semitic, and HUGELY ENVIOUS of them.

I have always respected the culture of the Jews, and their education, which certainly exceeds mine. I look up to them, and their low numbers among the world’s population has always astonished me.  Always an outsider, I even believe I have the soul of a Jew. I have made a point of making close friends with Jewish people.  (In fact, more than one of my girlfriends was Jewish.)

I WANT TO BECOME JEWISH, so that I could be completely like them, recognizably the same, but without their religious beliefs, a secular Jew.

I believe that there is the APPEARANCE of networking and mutual backscratching taking place.  Of course, business is all about mutual backscratching, nothing wrong with that, but if I am right, I want to be a part of THAT network.

It is absolutely no coincidence that I believe I could then enter the places where Jewish mingling and socializing take place. Clubs, temples, agents’ offices and so forth, where right now I would be unwelcome and refused entry. Perhaps because I am no longer attached to a celebrity.

It was Adolph Zukor, that originator of things Hollywood, founder of Paramount Pictures, who ages ago gave this deathless advice to newcomers to the Hollywood scene: “Talk British but think Yiddish!” That was right up my tree.

To this end, I have entertained the thought of taking a hint from Careen Johnson, a struggling black bricklayer and funeral parlor assistant who, dying to become successful as an actress, changed her name to Whoopee Goldberg.  She was smart, it got her an Emmy, an Oscar, a Tony and a Grammy. And of course she had the great talent to back it up.

Now me, I could change my name to Clarkstein or Clarkberg, but would it help? Not bloody likely! If I became a Jew aspiring to become successful as an actor or a celebrity, I would surely be advised to change it back to Clark.

Don’t think so?  Look at Emmanuel Goldenberg, Muni Weisenfreund, Julius Garfinkle, David Kaminsky, Bernard Schwartz, Jacob Cohen, Joyce Frankenberg, Aaron Chwatt and Ephraim Goldberg.  They changed their monikers to Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, John Garfield, Danny Kaye, Tony Curtis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jane Seymour, Red Buttons and Frank Gehry respectively. And then there was Larry King (interesting choice, but what is wrong with “Larry Zeiger Live”?)

No, I’m afraid that that can only be my fantasy.

But getting back to the law, I did make a point of hiring Jewish lawyers, who always keep their original names perhaps as a badge of office, oh, and a Jewish press agent, thinking that would help.

The first to defend me was Melvin S. Goldsman, and Marci Levine, Esqs. of Freid & Goldsman, their names giving them away.

I fired them when I found that my Mel allowed his Jewish adversary to write a time sensitive stipulation to Nicolette that could have led to the cessation of hostilities, didn’t read it because he was out of the office and there’s no money in ceased hostilities, and told his secretary to tell me to sign it, which I did.  Boy, was I green at the beginning.  Perhaps they were old friends. Perhaps they performed regularly for the Beverly Hills Bar Association.

My next was Steve Mindell, Esq.  I fired him because he was about as  aggressive as my little son’s kindergarten teacher.  When I asked him to get Lynn to open a joint bank account with me so that she could pay her share of the upkeep of our joint property during the three years of my lone occupation, he simply told me she wouldn’t agree. When I asked him to get our joint stock portfolo released from the freeze put on it at the height of the dotcom bubble so we could cash out, again, he wouldn’t do it. It would have meant getting a court order, and he wouldn’t go to court for it. Nothing appeared to be happening, other than his endless bills.

So then I hired noted hit man Mike Kelly, Esq., a referral from a Topanga millionaire divorcee lady friend.  Of course, he’s Irish, (the worst kind, I hear someone shout – but that’s a joke). I fired him after stretched-out months when he alleged I was trying to get Nicolette evicted from her little house by not paying the property taxes, so that it would be sold by the taxing authorities. He didn’t read the 1-page notice, which had been sent over to him by her tricky attorney Eliaser, who I’m sure had read it.  It wasn’t for me, it belonged to another John Clark, on a rundown foreclosing property in South Central Los Angeles!

My last lawyer (apart from my Appeal lawyers, also Jewish) was a Cy Schaffer (also a Jew), to whom I paid $50,000.  In court, Judge Gold said he had made an order that I was not to use funds from a tax refund to pay this lawyer, and he should immediately refund it to me. Schaffer protested.  Gold hunted for his order, then said he couldn’t find it, and told him he could keep the money.  Of course.  Naturally.

So now I was out of lawyers because I got sick of their dishonesty and stopped believing in them.  More important, I’d lost six hundred thousand dollars to them, and had no more money. That’s how I came to represent myself in court, and had to learn what it is to be a PRO SE.

Having wised up, my first appearance before Judge Gold was over the unread-by-my-attorney property tax inquiry.  There was Eliaser, sputtering to the judge that I was trying to get his client evicted. I showed the court the 1-page notice showing it didn’t belong to me.  Judge Gold just smiled, and thanked me for being smart enough to catch it. I asked for a sanction against Eliaser for wasting the court’s time.  Not granted. Of course.  Naturally.

As for my Jewish press agent, a gentleman named Michael Levine, a self-styled media expert, I hired him to give me advice on handling the media now that I was suing Larry Zeiger -sorry, King. I got no advice at all; he refused to visit me at my house, but I did find that my money, about thirteen thousand dollars, went towards starting his new wannabe Drudge Report, aimed at bringing down the likes of Mel Gibson and Michael Jackson and maybe me and others who APPEAR to be breaking his moral code (chuckle chuckle).  Networking again, is my opinion. But unlike Red Buttons, I did get a dinner, several actually. It wasn’t until after I had dropped him that I discovered that he used to be married to King’s current wife by whom he had a child. I think he should have told me about that before I paid him a penny.

So thanks, Arnold Gold, but no thanks. However did you get your robe of office? Must be quite a story, which I tell if you click here, and then scroll down a bit.

If I ever get as drunk as Mel Gibson, I’m told that I tend to act out my Jewish fantasy while singing the freedom chorus of the Hebrew slaves in their banishment.  My God, the middle one looks like HIM!

But when I sober up, I get to thinking more about what “they” did to me.  Here I am, my possessions lost or stolen, alienated by my kids and my family (I face back East to see them), removed from my house and my wealth by quasi-military enforcers, and exiled from Topanga, my Homeland. Then these words come to me.

As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
. . . . . . . . . .
Our hope is not yet lost.

And Barbra comes to my rescue in song.

 

Richard Fine, Found Guilty of Moral Turpitude?

By John Clark on Posted in COMMENTARY-Passing parade, Links to Cases & Litigants, Links to Courts & Judges, Links to new justice

Our friend Richard Fine, (ex-Esq.) sat in one of the worst jails, the Men’s Central jail in Los Angeles, alone and ignored for a year and a half.  He believed in a cause, the cause of honesty and fair dealing by the exalted arbiters – Judges – who hold sway on the lives and well-being of our citizens.

How is it that this can happen here in California?  We are the only state of the union that has a special Court presided over by judges. If the State Bar determines that an attorney’s actions involve probable misconduct, formal charges are filed with the State Bar Court by the bar’s prosecutors (through the office of chief trial counsel). There, it’s considered whether lawyers have misbehaved.  The court hears the charges and also has the power to recommend that the California Supreme Court suspend or disbar attorneys found to have committed acts of professional misconduct or convicted of serious crimes.  When a finding is made, the decision then goes before the Bar, where they decide whether they agree with it.  If you see signs of self-dealing and conflict of interest, you will find it here.

Richard appealed.  What were his serious crimes?  Read the following, from the introduction to their Opinion and Order:-

Respondent Richard Isaac Fine appeals a hearing judge’s decision finding him culpable of committing 16 violations involving moral turpitude in multiple civil proceedings. Citing respondent’s “pattern of deliberately and repeatedly misusing this state’s statutory process for challenging a judicial officer’s qualifications” followed by a “campaign” of repeatedly filing meritless lawsuits in federal court, the hearing judge recommended respondent’s disbarment and ordered that he be involuntarily enrolled as an inactive member of the State Bar of California in accordance with the provisions of Business and Professions Code section 6007, subdivision (c)(4). Respondent attacks the legal sufficiency of the culpability findings and raises several constitutional claims for the first time on appeal. The State Bar urges us to affirm the hearing judge’s findings and recommendation. Following our independent review (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 9.12), we find that the hearing judge has fairly and fully reviewed the testimonial and documentary evidence, and rendered the appropriate findings. Although we reverse the culpability determinations on certain counts and find culpability on others the hearing judge dismissed, these modifications do not impact our ultimate recommendation. In addition to respondent’s pattern of misconduct over about a three-year period, his misleading and dishonest statements in his pleadings are a common theme throughout this proceeding. Based on the overwhelming evidence of respondent’s repeated abuse of the judicial process, we agree with the hearing judge that disbarment is the only appropriate discipline recommendation.

And so, by this decision, we can assume that they think that Richard has been immobilized, rendered harmless.  I disagree, for what they’ve done is to anger the electorate. They will rise up in protest when enough individuals have been deprived of their freedoms, a number which is growing by the day.

Meanwhile, Richard is now one of us.  He intends to file motions as an honorable Pro Per, seeking to immobilize each and every judge guilty of taking funds from Los Angeles County tax-payers, to which they were not entitled. And we can do the same, as he teaches us here.

Don’t forget that Judicial Watch has been doing its thing too.  It carries more weight than Richard Fine, and it would be most unlikely that one would see their West Coast lawyer Sterling Norris, Esq., who wrote and filed the paperwork, finding himself removed from the rolls of active lawyers.  They filed their original complaint back in April 2006, in the Sturgeon vs. County of Los Angeles case, and while it has been beaten at every turn, it remains to be seen whether they’ll take it to the United States Supreme Court. You can read the history of the twists and turns here.

Watch American democracy in action, because it’s fascinating and very very important.  The Supreme Court will most likely not want to dirty its hands and will deny consideration of the issue.  As a last chance, it will be left for action from the White House.  Obama now has a record of stepping into places usually avoided by his predecessors.  He recognizes that America has a stake in preserving the integrity of the Constitution and our Rule of Law and not just in name only.   It needs to be demonstrated as a significant arm of his foreign policy, and he does have a safe law degree.

MALE SEX PROBLEMS

By John Clark on Posted in A SPACE FOR REFLECTION, COMMENTARY-Passing parade

What do the names Weiner, Spitzer, Edwards, Schwarzenegger, Clinton, Gingrich, Strauss-Kahn, Woods, Boehner, Craig – the list goes on and on – what do they have in common? Why, an inability to keep their trousers zipped. Their stories detail the circumstances where men have lost sexual boundaries to the detriment of assorted reputations, and in some cases jobs and marriages. And to the intense glee of the media and the public in this most hypocritical of all societies.

And all they were doing was displaying an inability to control what Bernard Shaw dubbed the “Life Force”.   Mark Twain  wrote “The very thought of  it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything … to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax.”

Well, I have a solution to this, a solution guaranteed to curb this kind of uncontrolled behavior.

In Topanga, where I used to live, there existed the most wonderful of hangouts, a quite famous nudist resort that went by the name Elysium Fields. It was created back in the sixties by a Life Magazine photographer named Ed Lange, in memory of his mother.  I happened upon it when driving my kids to their first day of the new school term, and being asked to pick up some children at an address off the Canyon road. Imagine my shock when I drove through the gates on to the site, and was greeted by a lovely naked lady, 2 dressed kids in tow, stepping out of a trailer. I then looked around, and noticed a few equally naked people staking out claims on the grass, spreading their towels, and eying the nearby swimming pool, for it was going to be a hot day.

As I drove away, I muttered to myself that this was something to really think about. Should I join a movement to get the place closed down? Or maybe consider taking out membership? Curiosity and common sense prevailed, and it was the latter course I took. I remained a member until, after Ed’s death, there was a power struggle with his daughters, who chose to sell the entire estate to the highest bidder, a hotel magnate, I believe, his sole domain.

It was there I met a new English friend, Noel Pugh, an illustrator and sketch artist, who drew the logo for me that you see above.  He lived in a cabin by the pool.  I need to state that in all the years I went there, never did I see a single case of inappropriate behavior.  No exhibitionistic displays, or any man with an erection.  On one occasion I took a friend as a guest, a noted publisher of pornography, who on leaving said to me that he would never go again, because in his opinion, the place was anti-sex, and one big turnoff. It has a strange effect – compulsive urges just seem to disappear.

I frequently took my kids, and my wife, and truly believe that it gave all of us a broader and healthier outlook on life.

The likes of those men above, and many more, carry a huge burden.  Unable to cope with power conflicts going up against their inner demons, they feel an urge to go one step further, which might be fine, except it comes at the expense of others.  I guarantee that a sentence of a few weeks’ confinement at a nudist resort would cure them forever. The trouble is, there are few such places left. Perhaps because they impose a threat to the fashion industry, the entertainment industry, the advertising industry, TV shows like TMZ, Entertainment Tonight and the Playboy Channel, and tabloids like the National Enquirer and Daily Mail. Anti-American, but there it is.

D.A. Cooley obliged to institute lawsuit to recover money paid to Judges

By John Clark on Posted in COMMENTARY-Passing parade, Links to Courts & Judges

Sterling Norris, an ex-D.A., was perhaps best known for going after the criminal behavior of serial killers, the best-known of them being Ted Bundy.

Now he works for Judicial Watch, the public interest watchdog that looks after the best interests of the common public.

This time he seems to be going after the (alleged) criminal behavior of our judges in the California system of judgeships in Superior Court.

Read his letter and attached brief addressed to D.A Steve Cooley.

Cooley – April 13, 2011[1]

But here’s a thought…   Will Steve run again?  Will he care to undertake this huge responsibility during his endgame?

We got part of the answer.  He will not run again, and is endorsing his second-in-command, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Lacey, as “the most qualified leader to run the nation’s largest local prosecutorial office.”  He says he has “complete faith in Jackie’s skilled leadership and commitment to the office’s mission,” and is hosting a fundraiser for her on June 9 at the City Club.

The part he doesn’t answer is whether she’ll pursue the case against the judges. Also, whether this played any part in his decision not to run again for a fourth term.

MY NEW PLATFORM

By John Clark on Posted in A SPACE FOR FEEDBACK, HOW TO USE SITE

My web hosts for this site offered me the chance to migrate to a new platform, from Movable Type to WordPress.  I said yes, go ahead.  The result is what you see now, a big improvement, I think. The layout and design is so much more versatile. It explains why I have been absent for a while.  Another change, which I welcome, is that I now invite my readers to make comments, and interact with me.

There has been a problem which is to do with what is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  I don’t want to lose the positions in Google, for example, which have been in prominent places for a long time now. But one also needs to avoid any “404s” showing up, in other words a dead link.  This has meant the arduous task of tagging old entries with the “301″ tag, which means that the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is redirected to a different permanent address on a different server.

As well, there has been a problem getting the old internal and external links to work, especially the pictures.  Pictures and videos are all important these days.  Readers/subscribers have become more sophisticated, and expect all the bells and whistles to be available.  So we’re working on it.

Bear with me.  I’m no expert, and this is all a learning experience for me too.  But I want to get my story out in the best way possible.

The next stop will be an E-Book.  Stay tuned.

Charles Bronson’s Estate Sues Warner Bros., MGM

By John Clark on Posted in ACTORS' & DIRECTORS' CORNER, COMMENTARY-Passing parade

Of course, their suit is about residuals for past work performed by this actor. They should know not to cross him, even in death!

Maybe one day the unions will be able to negotiate that all income for all shows goes into a common escrow pot. From that account, revenue and expenses would be distributed equitably, according to a given plan administered by an independent fiduciary. As any accountant should know, debits and credits are supposed to balance. Another way to say this is that goods and services equal money, and money equals goods and services, the amounts fixed by governing contracts.
However, let no man or woman hold their breath. The producers maintain a stranglehold on this possibility, and the unions seem to be powerless to change it. Guess they retain better lawyers.

At the Chelsea Flower Show

By John Clark on Posted in COMMENTARY-Passing parade, My Family and Me

I just read in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail of the celebrities attending the annual Chelsea Flower show in London. Another opportunity to show off their hats.

I see that my old sister-in-law Vanessa was there with her daughter Joely. She named a rose in honor of her other daughter Natasha, who died as the result of a foolish escapade on the slopes of a Canadian ski run a couple of years ago.

I cannot help but ask her why she could not do the same for her young sister Lynn, who has just past the first anniversary of her death on the flats of Kent, Connecticut.

It could be named THE PRINCESS MARGARET ROSE (get it?).  For Lynn felt she was always the second favorite daughter in her family.