Recently, my favorite comic book blogger posted pages from a comic book from 1976 including some of the ads. Including this ad.
The Six Million Dollar Man was Steve Austin, an astronaut and Air Force Colonel severely injured in a plane crash. But as we were informed in the opening narration each week, "we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster." It cost $6 million to rebuild Steve Austin which comes to about $35 million now. I was a big fan of the Six Million Dollar Man TV show, watching every episode. Most episodes were standard spy story boilerplate with Steve's bionics being moderately helpful to solving certain problems. PROBLEM: The enemy agent is behind that wall. SOLUTION: Steve jumps over the wall. Granted a grappling hook and a coil of rope could get Steve over the wall for a lot less than $6 million. Once in a while, episodes of the Six Million Dollar Man would venture into more fantastic stories. Like the one where we find out out that Sasquatch, the legendary Bigfoot of the North American northwest, is a super powered robot used by aliens secretly living among us. I got the Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure (not a doll, an ACTION FIGURE!) for Christmas. The version I got did not include the Back Pack Radio or the Bionic Transport and Repair Station. It did include the plastic engine block. And it had the bionic eye. The bionic eye was not very helpful. It made objects on the other side of the room seem like they were on the other side of a slightly blurrier room. As for the bionic arm, there was a button on the back that when pushed caused the arm to crank up. The hand was molded to grip a bar on the plastic engine block. I was not content to use the bionic arm to lift the silly plastic engine. I tried to use the bionic arm to lift our couch in the living room. Imagine the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach when I heard the heart wrenching crack from Steve's plastic arm succumbing to the weight of our sofa, now rendered unable to lift even the silly plastic engine.
Despite the damage to his arm, Steve remained a cherished part of my dwindling childhood years and still resides at my mom's old house in a drawer of my old desk. ______________________________ That's all for today. Until next time, stay safe and remember to be good to one another.
A week or so ago, a guy from Ohio died of COVID-19, mere weeks after posting that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax. Well, ain't that ironic? You might think that people might learn a lesson from that but then you're not Audrey Whitlock from right here in North Carolina. Here are three important factoids about this person. #1. Audrey Whitlock is a leader of the ReOpen NC Facebook group, which has close to 70,000 online members and has organized weekly in-person rallies demanding that the state reopen. #2. Audrey Whitlock has also tested positive for the coronavirus; she is an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient. As a person with the virus but not demonstrating any symptoms, Whitlock is right at the very core of why we're doing these lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing. People like her present the most unpredictable danger to those around her. #3. Audrey Whitlock does not give a fuck about the people around her. "I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion." I will point out that not one damn stay at home order has infringed on Audrey Whitlock's freedom of religion. There are no jack booted thugs beating down her door and arresting her for her religious faith. There are no autocratic spy networks shutting down her Zoom or Skype to prevent her from communicating with others about her faith. Audrey Whitlock is one of those alleged Christians that I wrote about here. What’s the point of being a “good Christian” if no one can see you doing it? There’s nothing in it for them to be a “good Christian” alone in their homes. They need to be seen making a spectacle of their faith in a public setting. “Look at me!” they proclaim in defiance of society and government. “Look at me, showing my devotion to my God!” What’s in it for them to stay home? Nothing. Audrey Whitlock's freedom of religion is not being curtailed. It's her public displays of being religious that have been hindered and have upset her so. Whitlock's trying to make her movement seem non-partisan by claiming that "political affiliation[s] all become irrelevant when you are fighting for freedom". But she has called for Gov. Roy Roy Cooper to be removed from office in November. Which brings us to the political component of these protests against stay at home orders. Whitlock and others like her are finding resources and support from political action groups like FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots. “Our forefathers fought for freedom against the abuse of power, and we will resist it at all cost,” Tea Party Patriots wrote in one recent Facebook post. But how do people, real people without a political axe to grind, feel about this? It seems that most people understand the need for stay-at-home orders to curb the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. Depending on the poll, between 58% and 81% of Americans were supportive of keeping current restrictions in place or even expanding them to the nation as a whole. So what pray tell is going on here? While most Americans have a grasp on what we're doing and why with stay at home orders, who are these people gathering for protests with their misspelled signs? What's going is this axiom by Rahm Emmanuel: "Never let a crisis go to waste." As I noted in this post, this pandemic presents opportunities for the political right to undermine the political left. A lot of the outrage on the part of people like Audrey Whitlock is being churned up by hate mongering rhetoric from Donald Trump and a variety of political action groups to gain political advantage in a scenario where Trump and various Republican governors have been slow or ineffective in responding to the health crisis. Notice how Li'l Donnie can't say enough bad things about states led by Democratic governors under stay at home orders. Trump tweets out for his base to "LIBERATE" these states. Then the Republican governor of Georgia wants to roll back these same stay at home orders and suddenly, Trump is concerned the governor is moving too fast. Trump doesn't want people sick and dying in a state that may actually vote for him this November. On the other hand, if you're in a blue state, then fuck you, fuck your Democratic governor and fuck the Democratic horse the governor rode in on. In a time of pandemic, Trump's political calculations remain in the fore front and those calculations run down to the corrupted Republican party and on down to people like that dude in Ohio who saw the coronavirus as a political hoax and it cost him his life. Or to Audrey Whitlock of North Carolina who sees that curtailment of her public displays of piety as a infringement of her religion. In a time when people are sick and dying, there should not be room for such calculations. Or for such confrontations. During yet another “ReOpen NC” rally in Raleigh yesterday, North Carolina health care workers in North Carolina a counterprotest. About a dozen nurses, doctors and other health care workers, wearing scrubs and masks, stood with their arms crossed in a formation allowing for social distancing. ReOpen NC protesters displayed their lack of class or empathy by heckling and harassing the health care workers who remained silent in the face of this abuse.
“My grandma taught me not to argue with a fool because onlookers can’t tell who’s who,” Amber Brown, a nurse from Kernersville. It's a damn shame that Amber had to take time to do this after working long hours in the fight against the pandemic. But God bless her for doing this. It shouldn't be coming to this. We don't need confrontations. We need to be better than this.
For today's Tuesday TV Touchbase, I'm going to look at TV series that came out last year on Amazon Prime but only last week did I have time to watch it, The Boys. The Boys is based on the comic book series of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. It's set in a world where super heroes are real, brightly colored icons of good and justice to the public at large. Away from the eyes of the public, these super heroes are mostly profane, self serving, arrogant pricks. These so called heroes are owned by Vought International, a powerful corporation that controls every aspect of these super powered beings. These super beings are marketed and monetized in every way possible. They are an insanely valuable commodity and Vought will do anything to protect their investments. At the pinnacle of the Vought super hero hierarchy is The Seven, a sort of Justice League for this world. This team is led by Homelander, a man with Superman level abilities and an American flag for a cape. He is also egotistical and unstable. Homelander, when he drops the smiles and the upbeat rhetoric for the adoring masses, is scary as fuck. There's an opening to join The Seven and the lucky winner of that break is Annie January, a blonde haired innocent from Iowa who as Starlight has high level energy powers and an actually sincere hopeful outlook that she just wants to help people. So naturally on her first day at work, she's sexually assaulted by a fellow member of The Seven, the aquatic hero known as The Deep. So begins the erosion of Annie's beliefs and aspirations. Meanwhile and elsewhere, we meet a Hugh Campbell, a young man, reserved and unassuming, a big fan of super heroes. Until one of them runs into his girlfriend, Robin. I mean, literally runs into her. At super speed. The slow motion impact of a person running at super speed hitting a human body is gruesome and horrifying. A stunned and traumatized Hugh is left holding Robin's hands. And only her hands. The rest of her is a bloody pulp. A-Train, The Seven's resident super speedster, only stops a second and then runs off. So begins the descent of Hugh Campbell into revenge and murder. Hugh gets a visit from a bearded man with a British accent and a blunt demeanor. His name is Billy Butcher and he wants to give Hugh a chance to get even with the super powered bastards who killed Robin. Except Billy doesn't say "bastards". Billy's favorite descriptive euphemism for super powered people ("Supes") and the people who enable them is "cunts". Billy brings together a couple of operatives to help in his mission against the Supes, The Boys of the title. They are working off the books without official sanction. The violence in The Boys is extremely graphic. Besides the death of Robin, Hugh gets covered in the bloody mess of another body when a Supe gets blown up. Fist fights usually result in someone getting pounded into a bloody pulp. You will get to see what kind of damage heat vision can do to a human body. It's not pretty. This series is also very emotionally intense. Hugh's sadness and trauma are palpable. Billy's rage is unrelenting. Annie's frustrations are continually knotted up tighter and tighter. The depravity of the Supes and their support team reaches down lower and lower. Homelander, all wholesome smiles with uplifting platitudes, is the worst of the bunch. He has absolutely no chill about anything that does not go his way. He is spoiled, petulant and expects nothing less than complete capitulation to his expectations. Billy Butcher hates all Supes but Homelander gets his most intense loathing. Billy's wife Becca disappeared 8 years ago after being raped by Homelander. Either abducted into hiding or murdered directly by Homelander or by someone with Vought, Billy's one driving purpose in his sad, miserable, angry existence is to see Homelander answer for this. Which makes the end of the first season particularly heartbreaking for Billy Butcher. I guess by not getting to The Boys until now instead of last year, I've spared myself the frustration of a year's wait to see how the end of season 1 plays out in season 2. The Boys is a challenge. It is a harsh look at super heroes, particularly for someone with a more idealized view of the concept. It is a brutal assessment of the human condition, of the price we are prepared to pay to get what we want, what happens to our beliefs and aspirations, even our faith, when that price becomes due. The Boys does what it does very well. But what it does is very brutal and unrelenting. _____________________________________ Other TV stuff: Saw the 2nd @Home edition of Saturday Night Live. A lot more production tricks in this latest episode with the home shot videos being obviously edited by professionals somewhere. The episode opened strong with Brad Pitt as Dr. Faucy provided pointed clarifications to Donald Trump's various lies and misstatements. Sunday was busy with all new episodes of Outlander, Killing Eve and Batwoman. More about those in a future installment of the Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Hi there, Whovians! This item came up on Twitter to compare a pair of Amy Pond outfits.
That one like my comment got was from my daughter Randie. Here's a thing from last week, a special on the BBC called The Big Night In, an all star tribute to the health care workers on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic. With an expression of thanks to the doctors and nurses doing there level best in this time of crisis is a lot of people who have been the Doctor.
A really cool tribute. I'm worried about David Tennant; he looks very paid and skinny right now.
Without any new Doctor Who on our TV screens, it's still great that we can still get some new Doctor Who in other ways. Over the last several weeks, Chris Chibnall, Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell have provided new stories of the Doctor. This time out, we have a new tale from Joy Wilkinson who wrote "The Witchfinder" for Series 11. This week, the Doctor offers Graham a chance to go where he wants to go. The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Graham where they need to go.
The Simple Things
by Joy Wilkinson
Graham wasn’t keen on bucket lists. He didn’t want to be ticking things off as if there’d come a point where he’d had his fill, and he knew that when the darkness loomed, he found as much solace in the small things – watching the garden birds, dusting Grace’s frog ornaments, hiding the TV remote from Ryan – as he would in bungee jumping off the mountains of Mars. But when the Doctor offered him the chance to go wherever and whenever he wanted, he knew exactly what to ask for. A small thing, and yet the biggest – a simple kickabout with the first West Ham team to win the cup. He’d dreamed about it for years. A quick trip back to the glory days of 1964 to tackle Bobby Moore on the training ground. Graham was fully prepared to fall flat on his face in the mud. It would be an honour and a privilege. But this… this was just bloody typical! “That TARDIS hates me,” Graham despaired. The TARDIS had turned up in a noisy, filthy factory corner, nowhere near Bobby Moore. “That’s weird,” said the Doctor, checking the sonic. “No it’s not. It’s exactly what I’d expect. It’s been like that ever since I brought my own cushion along, as if it’s a personal criticism. I tried to explain – it’s memory foam – ” “No, it’s weird because we are in the right place,” she managed to cut in. “West Ham. Monday 20th April, 1896.” “Did West Ham even exist in 1896?” Yaz asked, trying to give a stuff about football for Graham’s sake. “The place probably did, but not the football club,” said Ryan, who had tuned out as much of Graham’s West Ham trivia as he could, but had unwittingly picked bits up. “No, hang about…” gasped Graham, his eyes starting to sparkle. “Listen.” They tried to, but it wasn’t easy to hear anything with the CLANK-CLANK-CLANK of the factory racketing on. “This is an ironworks – that’s what they were called at first – Thames Ironworks F.C. That’s why they’re called the Hammers.” Graham’s heart was CLANKING now. “Surely it’s Hammers because of the Ham?” Yaz said. Graham shot her a withering look, but was soon sparkling again as he figured it out. “I never said which cup, did I? So it’s brought us to our first ever final against Barking – the Charity Cup. Last rematch after drawing twice. We win the trophy 1-0 in our first ever season – today!” “Keep it down, Granddad,” warned Ryan. “If the players are around, you don’t want to give the game away. If you jinx it and they lose, you’ll change the club’s whole history.” “Did they play here in the Ironworks?” Yaz risked another withering look, but Graham was too enthused to admonish now. “No, but they worked here, so they must be having a last kickabout before heading to the match. I take it back – I could kiss that TARDIS. I’m going to train with Charlie Dove!” “Or maybe not,” the Doctor was suddenly grave. “What does this place make, Graham?” “Ships, mostly. Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, if memory serves.” “Warships?” “That’s right. For the Navy. And some other countries – ” “How about for aliens?” He stared at her. They all did. She wasn’t kidding. They followed the trace the sonic had picked up, through the heat and cacophony of the ironworks to a large door that led into a vast workshop. Or that would have done, if it weren’t locked. A group of young men were hanging around outside, clutching a ball. Graham went quiet, like a shy little kid. The Doctor was still troubled – as were the men. “Have you got us locked out?” said the man with the ball. “It’s the only empty space. We need to get in and practice, but the boss won’t let us because of some big customer.” The whole team glared at them, suspicious of the strangers who seemed to fit the ‘big customer’ bill. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a bone to pick with them too. Wait there, won’t be a tick,” the Doctor sonicked the lock and slipped inside. Yaz and Ryan followed, with Graham last, eyes riveted on his heroes, still unable to speak for fear he might only be able to squeak. The gigantic room was indeed completely empty, until the Doctor revealed what was behind the perception filter. A leviathan of a spaceship. Iron-wrought like a WW1 dreadnought, but a very different shape, tooled for intergalactic skies not seas. Turrets rose on all sides, ready to be decked with alien armaments. A hundred canons at least. “Draconian Galaxy-class battlecruiser,” the Doctor breathed in horror. “Early model, but I guess it’s another seven centuries before they use them to wage war on humans. I didn’t know you’d crossed paths yet.” Before the others could get her to break that into bite-size chunks, another door opened and a man in a suit entered with a tall reptilian humanoid woman in a green robe. The gang needed no help to figure out that this was the boss with the big customer, who wasn’t happy to see them sniffing around her gunship. Before the Draconian could declare war, the Doctor was ready with her gambit, for once not even needing to fib. “Morning! I’m the Doctor – your fifteenth Emperor made me a noble of Draconia. That’s all right, no need to bow, just tell me what on Earth you think you’re doing building gunships here on Earth?” The Draconian frowned, but took her at her word and answered simply, “Where else should we build it? Our civilisation is too advanced to have our own people do such lowly labour. Our specialists will install the high-tech weaponry and systems, but the basic toil is best left to the basic species. It makes perfect economic sense for us both.” The boss blushed at being dismissed as primitive and was keen to keep face. “Why wouldn’t she come here? We’re the best shipbuilders on the planet, and we’re almost bankrupt. I’ll take work wherever we can get it rather than see our people starve.” The gang waited for the Doctor to lay into them both, to tell them the warship would be used against humans one day, and that any warship used against anyone was not good, and that humans weren’t expendable and exploitable by any empire that rocked up with a poxy chequebook… but the Doctor could see that the boss cared about his men, and that the Draconian was just a procurement clerk, and that warships would always be built by poorer worlds and used by richer worlds to destroy each other, and all of a sudden this nice day had nosedived and she felt the darkness loom and then she said – “Brilliant! Makes perfect sense… except that I’ve brought my mate Graham here to have a kickabout with the guys waiting outside, so would you mind letting them in for fifteen minutes? Go on, you can stay and watch if you pop your perception filters back on.” Graham never knew if it was the fifteenth Emperor’s honour or just the coolly authoritative way she said it that won them over, but before he knew it, the ship had vanished, the Draconian woman turned into another man in a suit, and soon the whistle was blowing and he was playing footie with Charlie Dove, and all the lads, booting the ball around the vast workshop, with Yaz and Ryan standing strategically to stop it hitting the ship. The Doctor watched alongside the Draconian, commentating in such a way as to pass on all the fundamentals (including the offside rule) and a whole heap of passion, so that when the time was up, the ground was laid. “Mind if I have this?” she stopped the ball on a rebound and booted it to the Draconian, who picked it up, curious. “Such a simple object,” said she – or he, as the big customer guise appeared. “And yet, it’s quite fascinating. May I take this back with me to show the Emperor?” Charlie Dove was about to protest – as was Graham, who’d hoped for a souvenir – but the Doctor cut in once more. “Please do. You never know, it might help you beat more people than a warship.” She grinned. So did Graham, realising what she was up to. He reassured Charlie that the team would be fine without their lucky ball and gave them his West Ham pin instead. “West Ham F.C.? That’s a good name for a team,” said Charlie. “Shame it’s taken.” “It’s not – yet. I – uh – made it up. You can have it if you want,” Graham stammered, as the prototype Hammers thanked him and headed off to their match – to win the cup. “Thank you!” Graham shouted, in the TARDIS, to the TARDIS, and to the Doctor and the universe, and whatever else had conspired to allow him to christen his favourite team. Who needed a bucket list when life could twist and turn and surprise you like this on a Monday morning? The Doctor smiled. She doubted a quick kickabout could ever lead to saving the Earth, but sometimes the simplest things were the greatest things – like her favourite race, and like those beautiful, perfect spheres, on the pitch and spinning in all the solar systems. And if she’d learned one thing about the future, and the past, and the present, it was that she never really knew what would happen next. Which was why hope would always win. ______________________________ Thanks for dropping by. Stay safe, be good to one another and always keep hope alive.
It’s always a bit of a roll of the dice to watch a sequel to a movie without seeing the first movie. Will the 2nd movie make sense without the context of the 1st movie? Will I understand the plot? Will I get all the jokes?
Which is why I’ve never seen a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III because I’ve never seen Richard I or Richard II.
(OK, that was a joke. No, it’s not a very good joke but hey, how much did you pay to get in here?)
Sometimes it doesn’t matter. If you saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn without seeing Star Trek: The Motion Picture, well, you didn’t miss much. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across Zombieland: Double Tap and I proceeded to watch it without ever seeing even a part of the original Zombieland.
Of the various horror movie monsters, I am not very enamored with zombies. I find the concept of zombies to be personally upsetting.Being a vampire or a werewolf might be damnation but there are some perks that go with the downside. Zombies are ALL downside.It’s all gross and icky and yuck!
Apparently, I am willing to tolerate a zombie movie if it’s funny and/or not completely about zombies. A year or so back, Andrea and I watched Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. My wife is even less enamored of zombies than I am but damned if she’ll watch anything that has Matt Smith in it.The class warfare and societal divisions that form the basis of the original zombie-less Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen are still present in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It just has a zombies in it. And young women, if they wish to advance in society and land a perfect husband, need to learn social graces such as which salad fork to use, ballroom dancing and how to kill zombies.
Which brings us to Zombieland: Double Tap.Yep, there are zombies and yes, they are gross and icky and yuck! And when they get hit by a shot gun blast, zombies are even more gross and more icky andmore yuck!
Zombies are not pretty.
But this movie is funny as hell. We open with 4 survivors who have set up home in the White House.
•Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) is tough, crude and anti-social. But he’s still trying to hold this group together as some kind of family unit.Such as celebrating Christmas even if he’s lost track of time and it’s November, not December.
•Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) has a rebellious streak and is seriously starting to chafe at living in the White House.Especially with Tallahassee trying to celebrate Christmas Day in November.(For “Christmas”, Tally gives Little Rock the gun that Elvis Presley gave Richard Nixon.)
•Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a geek nerd who probably shouldn’t be alive in this dystopian zombie apocalyptic hellscape but he’s made it this far by following a set of self-made rule which are helpfully displayed in 3-D graphics that float over his head every time he mentions one. (Columbus seems like it was gonna be a Micheal Cera role. I like Eisenberg as Columbus but it damn well does not rectify his horrible portrayal of Lex Luthor in Batman Vs. Superman.)
•Wichita (Emma Stone) is a sardonic woman who finds herself in a relationship with Columbus. When he propose marriage to her using the Hope Diamond that he found in the Lincoln Bedroom, she freaks out a bit.
I’m not sure why everyone is named after a city. If there’s a reason for it, I don’t care. It just sounds funny.
Also funny: Emma Stone in a zombie movie.
Anyway, to escape the pressure, Wichita and Little Rock book it for part unknown.
Columbus is depressed so Tallahassee suggests retail therapy. So it’s off to the mall where they find another survivor.
Madison (Zoey Deutch)is the epitome of every worst trope involving young blonde women who wear pink with vacuous thoughts expressed in irritating Valley Girl speak. She’s survived this long by hiding out in the freezer at a Pinkberry.
She’s spent a long time in that freezer and immediately demands sex from Columbus. And if not him, she’s willing to do the old dude.Well, Colunbus thinks, why not? Wichita is gone!
Nope! She’s back for some weapons. Seems Little Rock has run off with a pacifist musician named Berkeley (Avan Jogia; nice to see he's still working after the end of Victorious.)
This pisses off Tallahassee for three reasons: the dude is 1) a pacifist and 2) amusician and 3) he’s named Berkeley.And there are other reasons as well. Tallahassee never lacks for reasons to be pissed off about something or another
The good news for Tally is that trail to find Little Rock takes them to Memphis and Tallahassee is a big Elvis Presley fan and has always wanted to visit Graceland.Road trip!
Meanwhile, zombie are starting to mutate,becoming faster and harder to kill. Columbus names this new breed of zombies “T-800s” after the advanced cyborgs from Terminator 2.
For what happens next, go watch the dang movie. It's on Starz everyday on cable and streaming. It's a movie that's funny, scary and stuff blows up real good. If you need further incentive to hang in there and watch the rest of the movie, Rosario Dawson shows up in the middle and damn! She's awesome! I actually wound up watching it a 2nd time, this time with my daughter Randie who enjoyed the movie as well. If you do watch this, stay for the credits. A mid-credit scene looks back 10 years to the start of the zombie outbreak as witnessed by actor Bill Murray while he was doing press for the 3rd Garfield movie. (The existence of a 3rd Garfield movie means humanity was ready to die.) Also, that person warbling through Elvis's "Burning Love" over the credits? Woody Harrelson. I've heard that the reviews for Zombieland: Double Tap were mixed and that the box office was underwhelming. I guess die hard fans of the first movie were not too enamored. Or ten years is too long for a sequel and have people still care. Without benefit of seeing the first movie, I figured out the lay of the Zombieland in the sequel pretty OK and had a good time doing so. ____________________________ Until next time, stay safe remember to be good to one another and don't bogart all the popcorn. And watch out for zombies!
Hi there! Time to slap on the ol' Bat Head Phones for this week's Songs For Saturday! This week we're presenting... the BEATLES!!! Yesterday was my birthday. There's nothing more awkward or embarrassing that to have people sing "Happy Birthday To You". On the other hand, if a rockin' bank would come out and perform this birthday tune for me, now that would be awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, singing "Happy Birthday" to ME, give it up for... the BEATLES!!!
Coming up next is one my favorite tracks from the Beatles, "Hey Bulldog!"
About I guess 20 some odd years ago, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr got together for a reunion of sorts with John Lennon. Working from an old cassette recording of John Lennon at his piano, producer Jeff Lynne brought the Fab Four together for "Real Love".
"Real Love" was a sweet and haunting coda to the career of the Beatles. From the end of the road for the Beatles, let's end this post with a song from the beginning of their journey into legend. Here are the Beatles with "She Loves You".
I hope you've enjoyed today's post of some of my favorite songs by the Beatles. Until next time, stay safe, remember to be good to one another and always keep the music alive.
"Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Or as I like to put it, "Whatever doesn't kill you isn't trying hard enough."
Today marks the 57th anniversary of whatever hasn't killed me yet not trying hard enough. When I was a kid, I thought 57 sounded old. Guess what? It is! I feel like Keith Richards looks. Keith Richards has actually reached the age he has looked for the last 30 years. I have reached the actual age I have always felt like for the last 30 years. There is one burden that is lifted with age: carrying around fucks to give. The fucks I give about shit that used to bother me when I was younger are smaller in number and it is a liberating experience. As I mark this milestone in my time on Earth, I am currently without a job. I do feel some concern about this condition. I can't say I do not give a fuck about it but the amount of fucks I do give are smaller and easier to manage. Some people might take the opportunity of a birthday to reflect on what has gone before, how life has led them to their point in life and the possibilities that lie beyond the moment. For me, reflecting on the past is to play a dangerous game with regret. As for what possibilities that await me in the future, I have no idea. If the past week and indeed, the past few months have reminded me, life is what happens when you're making other plans. All this may seem bitter and cynical. I am aiming for pragmatic. I know I am in many ways a lucky person. I don't have a job but I have money in the bank, I have a severance package that will keep money in the bank for several months and there are possibilities of renewing my employment with the old employer but in a new field. I have a wife and a daughter and a house to live in that is paid for. And a car that is paid for. There are too many people in this world who do not have these assurances. Maybe I'm not one for looking back or forward. But looking around in the present, well.... It could be worse. And that is as uplifting and optimistic as I can allow myself to be. Take care, stay safe and remember to be good to one another.
I came back as a bag of groceries Accidentally taken off the shelf Before the date stamped on myself
Did a large procession wave their Torches as my head fell in the basket, And was everybody dancing on the casket?
Now it's over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want Or, I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do
They Might Be Giants, "Dead" from the album "Flood"
written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell
Well, it's been one week since I went from being busy and gainfully employed to being self employed, working at nothing all day.
It feels weird.
I am one of those people who on my death bed may actually utter my final regret as "I wish I had spent MORE time at work."
When dealing with depression, sometimes my only motivation to get up and deal with another damn day was going to work.
Now I don't have that motivation.
I have tried to create new motivation. I have decided that my new job is actually writing posts for I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. I want to commit to having at least done that much so I can say for sure, hell, I got something done today.
My other motivation is to catch up on a bunch of TV and movie stuff I've wanted to see. I finally have time to start watching "The Boys" on Amazon. I'll have more on that in a future edition of Tuesday TV Touchbase. (Spoiler: "The Boys" is some messed up shit.)
Another thing I've made it a goal to do is to interact with my digital "friends". I'm sure Chris over on Chris Is On Infinite Earths is wondering do I not have anything better to do that comment on his posts. No, I don't.
I have been looking for work, applying for other jobs at my former employer. You might think that I would want to run the hell away in the other direction from a company that summarily told me my job no longer exists.
OK, I am not happy about that which is a normal human reaction. But I'm endeavoring not to take this personally. I'm not the only one who was touched by the cold skeletal hand of corporate death. Sadly, this sort of thing is just part of the landscape in corporate America. Is it right? Probably not but it is what it is and my railing against it at this point won't accomplish anything and can only hurt me. I have an HR contact who says my record with the company is very good and there is a good chance of me finding something else within the company.
If not, I've got a good severance deal. I'm going to get paid for another nine months being self employed, working at nothing all day.
But coping with working at nothing all day right now is still a struggle.
My wife who spent about a year being self employed, working at nothing all day said that one plus of being out of work is you get to do what you want.
Which didn't make me feel as good as she probably thought it would. It brought to mind the song "Dead" by They Might Be Giants.
Now it's over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want Or, I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do
Filling my days with what I want to do is not that fulfilling. Binging "New Girl" on Netflix is not as delightful an experience as I might have hoped, no matter the wonderful winsome charms of Zooey Deschanel.
Then I started contemplating my expulsion from work, my purpose in life, of being "taken off the shelf before the date stamped on myself". I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, my job would be my job until I retired and/or died.
I fully expected this might happen if I actually reached retirement.
"Well, today is my last day. Yep, I'm ready for retirement. I've bought a boat that I named The Never Gonna Die and spend my time out on the water without a care in---ACK! ERK! My heart!"
And I would keel over and die.
Maybe it might happen if one of those options at the old job come through.
Or I might have to as a late middle aged man be forced to start all over at some different company where I will have to answer to some punk manager who is 25 years my junior.
And God help me, wear a paper hat.
At any rate, I feel has if I've been taken off the shelf before my expiration date.
And what of my old job? Am I missed? In a good way?
Or even in a bad way?
Did a large procession wave their torches as my head fell in the basket and was everybody dancing on the casket?
Not that I want a parade of former co-workers singing a chorus of "Ding dong! David is gone! David is gone! Ding dong! David is now gone!"
But at least that would mean someone knows I'm gone.
A loss triggers grief, including the loss of a job.
There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Here's something I've realized over the last week and I shared this with my therapist: the stages of grief are not necessarily linear.
Within a half hour of getting the news of new unemployed status, I had worked my way down to acceptance. Two hours later, I was back to depression. A day after that, anger hit me really hard for a while.
Pretty much every day, I touch on at least every point along the five stages of grief and not necessarily in order. I think that the five stages of grief are arranged in a circle. And what I think will happen is over time the size of the circle will shrink with each pass around the circle. Eventually, the circle will become so small that there is only room left for one stage left. Hopefully that last stage left is acceptance. Maybe I'll be OK?
I think I'll be OK.
Right now, only a week out into being self employed, working at nothing all day, there is still room in the circle for all five of them.
This may take a while.
Apparently, I have time.
Stay safe and everyone remember to be good to one another. Let's close this out with They Might Be Giants.
