Cinema Sunday: Too Many Girls

Sometime I encounter a movie completely at random and find myself compelled to see where exactly it's going to go. One such film was a 1940 musical comedy I had never heard of before was Too Many Girls.  

What got my attention was the leading lady of the movie:  Lucille Ball. 

Ball became an icon from her work in television starting with the classic I Love Lucy. But before the days of playing Lucy Ricardo, Lucille Ball was busy making movies. While she scored enough roles to stay gainfully employed as a movie actress but true stardom eluded her. 

Which is a bit of a shame because Lucille Ball was a wonderful talent with a beautiful singing voice. 

Another thing that got my attention while watching the movie was another familiar face with a distinctive voice: Desi Arnaz. 

It was while shooting Too Many Girls that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz first began dating and would eventually marry. The first building blocks of I Love Lucy were put in place during this movie.  

So what the hell is Too Many Girls about anyway?

Lucille Ball is Connie Casey, a flibberbegibbit heiress who announces her attention to settle down, apply herself and go to college. She choose to attend Pottawatomie College in Stop Gap, New Mexico, her father's alma mater. 

Pottawatomie College is a bit of a sad sack of a university in the middle of nowhere. No telling what kind of trouble a young girl like Connie might get herself into so her dad hires four Ivy League football players to follow Connie as her bodyguards. They are supposed to follow her secretly but Connie is able to spot one of them in a crowd. 

When the guys are not guarding Connie's body, they wind up putting their football skills to use for Pottawatomie College's really terrible football team. Which then becomes a national sensation as a really good football team with four Ivy League football players on the team. 

And Connie has ulterior motives for going to Pottawatomie College. Seems her latest beau is British playwright Beverly Waverly who has opted to live in the American southwest. 

Meanwhile, Clint, one of her "secret" bodyguards, has fallen in love with Connie which is in violation of his bodyguard contract with Connie's father.  

Stuff and shenanigans ensue and while I wasn't paying attention, Connie falls in love with Clint, there's a big game that Pottawatomie College wins, a big song and dance number and ta da! The movie is over.

Too Many Girls was directed by George Abbott who also directed the hit Broadway musical on which it was based.  

One of the changes from stage to screen involved the girls of Pottawatomie College wearing beanies. In the movie, wearing a beanie meant a girl had never been kissed; on stage, wearing a beanie meant a girl was still a virgin.  

Too Many Girls is a lightweight confection with almost no substance to it. There's not a lot for Lucille Ball to work with since Connie is pretty much a cipher, virtually a background player in her own starring vehicle. 

Too Many Girls is of significance only for it's role in bringing together TV's first power couple. 

Songs For Saturday: Allison Young

 

Today's Songs For Saturday will spotlight the sultry style of the winsome Allison Young who I recently discovered on You Tube.

Up first is Allison Young with Post-Modern Jukebox and their cover of the ELO classic "Mr. Blue Sky". 

Next up is Allison Young doing it all with a cover of "Sh-Boom" (Life Could Be a Dream)". 

You may recall "Sh-Boom" from the Cars movie. 

Next up is a classic standard from the WWII era called "I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire".  Robbie Jackson joins Allison for a spoken word bit. 

I first discovered this song in a perfume commercial about 25 years ago.

"I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" was written in 1938 but was first recorded three years later.  With lyrics that begin "I don't want to set the world on fire/ I just want to start a flame in your heart..." became especially popular after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

"I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" provided the inspiration for Roy Thomas in his WWII super hero book, All Star Squadron#1.

This  Allison Young has no connection to the character of "Allison Young" in the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.   As far as I know.  

Thank you for letting me share some of my favorite music today, Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.   

The Next Doctor Who

 It's been a minute since I've posted anything Doctor Who related on this blog so let's take care of that.

There is a flurry of speculation over who will replace Jodie Whittaker when she exits Doctor Who. 

Three things to consider: 

Thing #1: Nobody knows nothing. 

Speculations on casting the next Doctor have always been spectacularly wrong. 

When David Tennant left, no one saw Matt Smith coming.   

When Matt Smith left, no one saw Peter Capaldi coming.

When Peter Capaldi left, no one saw Jodie Whittaker coming. 

One can almost bet solid money that the next star of Doctor Who will NOT be Kris Marshall, Michaela Coel, Richard Ayoade, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Olly Alexander, Michael Sheen or any number of actors who have appeared on a plethora of short lists to be the next Doctor in the TARDIS. 

Whoever is the next Doctor will be someone not on your list.

Thing #2: Jodie Whittaker has not said a damn thing. 

Any speculation about the next star of Doctor Who has to be accompanied by the caveat that Jodie Whittaker's departure is a rumor. Jodie Whittaker herself has said absolutely zilch about her future vis a vie Doctor Who.

Given the flurry of rumors and replacement speculation, one might make the point that Jodie Whittaker' silence speaks volumes. It does stand to reason that if the rumors were not true, Jodie Whittaker would have said something by now to shut everyone up. 

Thing #3: Nobody knows nothing. 

Yes, I know I said that for Thing #1 but it bears repeating.  

Another Me

Back on Thursday, January 28, 2021, I wrote of a debacle involving a curbside pick up for food at a certain restaurant.  I have been back a couple of times for subsequent curbside orders.  I am a forgiving kind of kind but mostly it's my wife Andrea's favorite place to eat and me giving in to get food from there just saves me a lot of this:

"What do you want to eat? I don't know. What do you want?"
"What do you want to eat? I don't know. What do you want?"
"What do you want to eat? I don't know. What do you want?"

This past Saturday there was a bit of a glitch in getting my order.  

As it says in the banner for this blog, I am Dave-El which is the true Kryptonian name of alleged Earth creature David Long. 

Outside of this blog, I tend to conduct my life using the name of my alleged Earth creature status. 

In the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina where I reside, there are about a dozen people named David Long. It is remarkable the circumstances where I might run into another David Long. 

I'm in my car outside this restaurant for my curbside order. A waitress approaches my car. She's carrying a bag which looks a bit larger than I am expecting. 

I've been doing this for awhile and I've come to recognize what a bag with food for two people looks like. 

I pull up my mask and roll down my window as the waitress approaches. She says, "Are you David Long?"

"Yes, I am!" 

"Thank you for waiting. I have your order." 

"Miss, could you check that receipt for me?"

She reads off some stuff I did not order and yep, that bag has about maybe 4 plates of food in there.

"That's not my order." 

The waitress furrows her brow a bit at this. 

"You're David Long?" 

"Yes, but that's not what I ordered." Then I told her what Andrea and I had ordered.  

The waitress apologized and said she would check into this. As she started to head inside, something on the receipt caught her eye. Then she hurried to another vehicle in another curbside pickup parking spot. 

She gave that person her food delivery. Then she hurried inside and momentarily returned to my car with my correct food order. 

"I'm so sorry for the mix up before. It seems you were not the only David Long out here."

I told her I understood. With about 12 David Longs in the same area, it's bound to happen from time to time.

Right now on the planet Earth, there are 7,846,065,758 people. Even if I'm a one in a million type of guy, there are 7,856 people just like me. 

And half of them are named David Long.  

A Pandemic Milestone

 A few days ago, the United States reached a tragic milestone with 500,000 deaths due to COVID-19.

One half of a million Americans dead. 

Unlike the previous occupant of the White House, President Biden gives a damn about that. 

It did seem to me that when the death toll reached 480,000, it took awhile to reach the 500,000 mark. Perhaps this might suggest the rate of death is slowing down? That's just my perspective, my hope. Your mileage may vary.   

The vaccine roll out continue but has been hampered by inclement winter weather across the country. 

Also, it appears that Biden did not inherent a bad vaccine roll out plan from the Trump administration. Biden instead found NO vaccine roll out plan so Biden's team essentially had to start from scratch. 

Whenever I go out in the world, most people I see are wearing masks. Perhaps reality is starting to win out over ideology. Again, my perception. I know there are still too many who resist the vary basic decent action of wearing a mask in public. 

It bears remembering that this tragic mark of half a million dead could possibly been avoided with smarter leadership, more honest and more compassionate from the start. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Goes Wrong Show, Kenan, Jeopardy and WandaVision

 

The Goes Wrong Show

My wife Andrea and I have been sampling a show on Amazon Prime called The Goes Wrong Show, a British comedy series about woebegone efforts of the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society to put on a play for television.  

Each episode is about how the society attempts to produce a play which is beset by plague of horrors involving missed cues, malfunctioning props,  hastily re-written scripts, last minute cast changes and whatever else can go wrong in a live play.  

One play is about a murder trial. The big problem facing the cast is a courtroom set that is too small. It's like the tiny Stonehenge debacle in This Is Spinal Tap but done for an entire room. The judge, barristers, jury and defendant are all hunched over tiny tables on tiny chairs.   

The Goes Wrong Show comes from the same theater that created the Broadway sensation, The Play That Goes Wrong. 

I have not seen The Play That Goes Wrong but Andrea and I have seen productions of it's spiritual cousin, Noises Off. Noises Off is about the production of a sex farce called Nothing On where by the final act, every damn thing that can go wrong goes wrong.  Each production Andrea and I have seen of Noises Off has been a riotously laugh out loud event. 

The Goes Wrong Show provokes a similar reaction as I find myself quite literally gasping for air as the Cornley Society's latest play of the week goes completely and horrendously wrong. 

Keenan 

Andrea and I decided to give Kenan Thompson's new sitcom a try.

Kenan Thompson is Kenan Williams, host of a popular morning show in Atlanta called "Wake Up With Kenan". 

The morning show gives Kenan Thompson a chance to channel some of the wacky comedy we've come to know and love from his long tenure in Saturday Night Live.  

But all is not well behind the goofball facade. Kenan is not processing his grief over the death of his wife. He is in a constant state of denial.  The stresses of not accepting his wife's death ultimately spills out into his TV work where during a breakdown, Kenan Williams manages to offend working moms, stay at home moms and Beyonce! 

Insulting Beyonce? You need to step back, bro. 

Kenan Thompson does show surprising depth and nuance as his character slowly begins to crack the shell of his denial.  

Jeopardy

Last week, Ken Jennings finished his run of 30 episodes as guest host. Now we begin a run of various guest hosts. 

And quite frankly I'm not looking forward to that. 

I had no concerns that Ken would drive the Jeopardy into the ditch, leaving the legacy of Alex Trebek in shattered ruins. But I am surprised by just how quickly and completely I accepted Ken Jennings behind the host podium. 

All these other people coming in for their turns as guest hosts may have their own charms and talents to bring to the role.  But over the last 6 weeks, Ken Jennings has stepped up in a way I never thought possible to earn the right to be the heir apparent to Alex Trebek. 

Alex himself was adamant that the host is secondary to the show and to the contestants. I think this rotation melange of guest hosts undermines this concept and pulls the focus away from the contest and the contestants.  

I hope when all the dust settles on these guest hosts, I hope the announcement comes quickly to confirm Ken Jennings as the new host of Jeopardy. 

WandaVision

Do you know how everyone has been speculating that Wanda Maximoff is not completely in control of her Westview utopia?

That Kathryn Hahn's Agnes might be involved?

And that Agnes might be Agatha Harkness from the comics? 

Well, you know what?

Let's have songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez explain it!

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! 

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! 

I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! 

DAMN! 

And that is that. Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to keep it down, will ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here. 

Perseverance On Mars

 

The NASA Mars rover Perseverance safely landed on Mars last week.  It is without a doubt a major scientific achievement hurtling machinery from Earth across the void of space successfully aim it at another planet without wrecking it in the process.

But part of me wonders if we shouldn't be further along in our exploration of space. 

The main American impetus for putting humans on the moon in the 1960s was to be sure the Soviet Union didn't get there first. Once we proved that yes we can get to the moon and damn it, we did it first, the wind seemed to go out of our sails. 

Once we made it to the moon, we pulled back our goals to explore the space just outside of our atmosphere. And even then, we endured losses that were tragic, the loss of lives with two shuttle accidents. 

Then even those modest attempts were curtailed. We mothballed our shuttle fleet. 

Yep, we sent people into space to the International Space Station but we were hitching rides from the Russians. 

Again, getting Perseverance safely to Mars is no small accomplishment and is worthy of praise and respect.

But am I wrong to think we should've been here before now?  Did we lose our collective will to explore? Did we lose our sense of wonder? 

Do our Earth bound problems rooted in poverty, racism, ignorance and more root us too firmly to the Earth that we cannot see the value of imagination, of exploration? 

Cinema Sunday: They Came Together

 

Last week for Valentine's Day, Cinema Sunday put the spotlight on a romantic comedy, 27 Dresses. It was a moderately entertaining film that neatly checked off all the boxes of what one might expect from a romantic comedy. 

This week's Cinema Sunday takes a look at a movie that bludgeons all the romantic comedy boxes with a sledgehammer.  

They Came Together is a 2014 parody of  a romantic comedy film directed by David Wain starring Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd.

Molly owns a small-independent candy store, Upper Sweet Side, that is being targeted by CSR, a large candy corporation where Joel works.  

Joel lives with his girlfriend, Tiffany.

Tiffany cheats on Joel. 

Joel and Tiffany break up.  

Joel and Molly meet at a Halloween party. They fight. 

Then they go on a date. 

Then they break up. 

Then they date again.

Then they break up. 

Joel's back with Tiffany. 

Molly is engaged to her banker, Eggbert. 

Joel races to stop the wedding. 

Joel and Molly profess their love for each other.

Molly's ex-husband Spike is released from prison.

Joel fights Spike. 

Joel and Spike get married...whoops! 

Spike gets shot in the head. (Really!) 

Joel and Molly get married. 

No happily ever after: Joel and Mike get divorced.

Money problems. 

Molly's addicted to pills. 

But the movie ends with Joel and Molly deciding to give their relationship one more try. 

Whew!  

Every trope in romantic comedies gets pounded on with merciless abandon. 

A sex scene between Joel and Molly finds them madly pawing at each other as they stumble into furniture with lots of broken vases before they fall into the bedroom. One fade to black later, we follow a trail of clothing on the floor to the bed where Joel and Molly lay... still fully dressed. 

Molly's parents are white supremacists. Well, that's new. 

They Came Together is a veritable parade of "hey, it's that person who was in that thing".  Besides Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, other stars include Cobie Smulders, Christopher Meloni, Max Greenfield, Bill Hader, Ellie Kemper, Jason Mantzoukas, Ed Helms, Jack McBrayer and Kenan Thompson.  

Right in the middle of the movie, we get a music video with Norah Jones  with  Adam Scott  and John Stamosas recording studio engineers.  

There are lots of parodies of romantic comedies that can be found on Tik Tok and You Tube which is about the length a parody of the form can sustain itself.  Stretched out over the course of a whole movie, the premise of a romantic comedy satire becomes stretched a bit too thin. 

Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd have a fairly decent chemistry which sustains the film and they're back up by a murderer's row of modern comedic talent. 

They Came Together is not all that good of a movie but it is an interesting curiosity with more than a few good laughs along the way.   

Songs For Saturday: The Weeknd, U2 and Manfred Mann's Earth Band

 

Today's Songs For Saturday kicks off with a track from Abel Makkonen Tesfaye known as the Weeknd.  The song is "Blinding Lights" which was released in November 2019. I did not become aware of this song until I heard it this past spring while my daughter Randie and I were at our favorite frozen yogurt shop. 

My first impression was this was some long forgotten track from the 1980s. Which is not a bad thing since the 1980s is the last time music was any good, am I right? Imagine my surprise when I learned it was a more modern song. 

For our first Song For Saturday, here is the Weekend with "Blinding Lights". 

In keeping with the theme of "blinding lights", our next entry for today's Songs For Saturday is "The City of Blinding Lights" by U2 from their 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. 

We can't do a theme on "blinding lights" without including one of the most iconic tracks from 1970s album oriented rock.  

"Blinded by the Light"  was written and recorded by Bruce Springsteen in 1973. But it's the version from 1977 by Manfred Mann's Earth Band  that made an indelible imprint when it shot to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.    

Manfred Mann's Earth Band altereds some of the lyrics from Springsteen's original. For example Springsteen's "cut loose like a deuce" is replaced with "revved up like a deuce", a reference to a hot rod "deuce coupe". 

The line is frequently misheard as "wrapped up like a douche". 

The lyrics of "Blinded By the Light" have fueled many a late night weed fueled debate in many college dorms.

OK, that is that for this week's Songs For Saturday.  Remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive, even if you're wrapped up like a douche. 

The Lying Fuck Bastard Goes On Vacay!

 Texas is in the middle of a crisis. 

Trapped in the grip of a winter storm of epic proportions while the state's power grid is barely functioning or totally down, the people of Texas are facing a devastating situation of life threatening consequences. 

It's in times like these that leaders need to step up, to provide at best real solutions but at the very least project some damn empathy for those in harm's way. 

Or they can flee to Cancun, Mexico. 

Which brings us to our favorite lying fuck bastard.  

Ted Cruz headed to Mexico during his state's time of crisis. He blamed his kids.

“Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power, too,” Cruz said. Because his daughters’ school was canceled due to the weather, Cruz and his wife, Heidi, decided to allow them to take “a trip with friends."

“Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon." 

So not only is Ted Cruz fleeing Texas during their time of crisis, he is also condoning nonessential travel during the ongoing threat of the coronavirus pandemic.  

Ted Cruz is... c'mon, say it with me!

A lying fuck bastard.  

Now let's be realistic. There's probably not a hell of a lot that a US Senator can actually do to alleviate anyone's suffering in a time of crisis. 

But at least act like you give a goddamn fuck about the constituents who profess to represent during that time of crisis when people in Texas are literally dying. 

Flying off to Cancun, Mexico is a giant "fuck you" to the people of Texas.  

Cruz was well-aware of the danger to his constituents and even advised them not to go out. As he said in a radio interview, “If you can stay home, don’t go out on the roads. Don’t risk the ice. We could see up to 100 people lose their lives this week in Texas, so don’t risk it. Keep your family safe. Just stay home and hug your kids.”

Or hug them in Cancun, you know, or whatever.  

The Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa issued this statement: “Ted Cruz jetting off to Mexico while Texans remain dying in the cold isn’t surprising, but it is deeply disturbing and disappointing. Cruz is emblematic of what the Texas Republican Party and its leaders have become: weak, corrupt, inept and self-serving politicians who don’t give a damn about the people they were elected to represent. They were elected by the people but have no interest or intent of doing their jobs.”

As the Democratic Party went on the attack, the Republican Party came to defense of Ted Cruz.

Right-wing talk radio host Erick Erickson: “The fact that people think Ted Cruz, a United States Senator, can do anything about a state power grid, even his own, is rather demonstrative of the ignorance of so many people who cover politics."  

Dan Isett, a conservative Texas communicator: “If you’re big mad he took his kids on vacation, you’re just a partisan hack." 

Jeffrey Blehar, the co-host of National Review’s “Political Beats” podcast: “What’s he supposed to do, fly to Texas to freeze in solidarity or something?” 

Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro:  "The situation in Texas is not a real-time crisis that Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, can do anything about. Do they expect Ted to go there with, like, a blowtorch and start defrosting all of the pipelines?” 

Dinesh D’Souza, conservative crank, racist and conspiracy theorist:   “What could [Ted Cruz] do if he were here in Texas? I’m hard-pressed to say. If he’s in Cancun, that means he’s not using up valuable resources of energy, food and water that can now be used by someone else. This is probably the best thing he could do for the state right now.”

It seems that primary takeaway from this is that Ted Cruz is useless and might as well go to Cancun.  

Oh and one more thing: Ted Cruz is... c'mon, you know the drill...

A lying fuck bastard.  

Incensed To Censure

To anyone wondering why the hell the Republican Party is still so enamored with Donald Trump in the wake of.... well, everything...  consider what happened Monday night here in my home state of North Carolina. 

The North Carolina Republican Party's central committee voted Monday night to censure Sen. Richard Burr for his vote to convict Donald Trump after Trump's impeachment trial. 

"The NCGOP agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former President lies outside the United States Constitution," the committee wrote in a statement after its unanimous vote.

 Burr replied, "It's a sad day for North Carolina Republicans. My party's leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation."  

Never mind that most constitutional scholars concur that the United States Constitution does allow for the impeachment of government officers in or out of office.  The founding fathers at the Constitution Convention clearly did not give a President a get out of jail free card by fucking things up on his way out the door.

Sen. Burr defended his vote."The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of Crimes and Misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict.”

North Carolina’s GOP Chair Michael Whatley said Burr's vote “in a trial that he declared unconstitutional is shocking and disappointing.”

As I have said before, it's a standard go-to for Republicans to whine that something is "unconstitutional" for anything they don't like or agree with.  

Let's cut to the chase: the United States Constitution has fuck all to do with this rush by state GOP organizations to attack Congress persons who dared to hold Donald Trump accountable. 

It's all about loyalty to one man over all other considerations, loyalty to a man who has a 70+ million base of suckers engaged and enraged and the Republican Party is too scared of ticking them off further by offending Trump. 

  

ENCORE: Snow Day Dilemmas

Today's post is a reprint from Friday, February 27, 2015 called Snow Day Dilemmas.  Much has changed since I wrote that post. My boss is no longer in New Hampshire but in Nebraska. And decisions on whether or not it is safe for Andrea and I to drive to work have been rendered moot by "work from home".  

Today, my state of North Carolina will once more be the target of another ice storm, our second after one dropped a layer of ice on us Saturday, dropping trees and knocking out power. 

Decisions on whether or not it is safe to drive to work may be off the table but Andrea and I may still have our work impacted if the power goes off again.  

This encore post from February 27, 2015 seems almost quaint. Remember the before times, before the pandemic? 

_______________________________________

Snow Day Dilemmas

Dave-el here and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, the Polar Vortex of the Internet.

As you could probably discern from yesterday's post, snow has fallen upon the El Family Fortress of Ineptitude and also on the moderately significant surrounding suburban and metropolitan environs. A lot of snow. Well, for us. 

I live and work in an area of North Carolina known as the Piedmont. Piedmont is derived from two words: "Pie" which stands for "pie" and "D'mont" which is French for "Are you going to eat that?" For us, a lot of snow is about 3 to 5 inches. 

Up in New Hampshire where my employer has an office, they laugh in the face of 3 to 5 inches of snow. That's what they call a Tuesday. That's what they call a dusting. Of course, they have a lot more practice with snow as it begins snowing in New Hampshire some time after Labor Day. This winter has tested even their fortitude with several especially cold winter storms dropping snow that could be measured in yards. 

Where I live in North Carolina, snow is a less frequent occurrence. Even the appearance of a half-inch of snow...no, scratch that. Even the appearance of flurries sends everyone scurrying to the grocery store for milk and bread. That's a big thing around here when a winter storm or I should say "storm" comes around, the going forth and the purchasing of bread and milk. It's such a panic here that even the rye bread and that all organic crap milk disappears from the shelves. 

I've had this happen of a couple of occasions where I've really needed milk in advance of an approaching snow thing. I feel compelled to explain to total strangers, "I am not panicking in the face of what will likely be a mild atmospheric disruption; I am truly out of milk."  Wednesday night was one of those times. As the cashier rang up the milk, she said, "Getting ready for the snow storm, huh?" I have a daughter who loves milk, just loves it. She would mainline it right into a vein if she could. The only storm I'm preparing for is when my lovely angel discovers we're out of milk. 

Just as schools have to make decisions to keep schools open, start late, leave early or close down, yours truly has to face the disturbing dilemma of what to do about work. It seems like every damn company but mine is scrolling on the bottom of the TV screen with word of cancellations or delays. But not mine. 

Don't misjudge me, I like my job and where I work. Indeed the problem I have on snow days is not "Should I go to work?" but "Should I stay home?" Can I make a compelling case that snow has fallen into deep drifts of life threatening doom? My threshold for not going to work is, "Will doing this kill me?" If I can't justify that the conditions on the ground could do me mortal harm, I go to work or otherwise stay home in a pool of overwhelming guilt. Particularly when I find out that everybody else in my department made it in, including people who live near my fortress. If they can get out, I can get out. 

The major source of friction on this "Should I stay or should I go?" debate is my wife Andrea. When it comes to snow and ice, she is...oh, how can I put this politely?...a freakin' lunatic! For example, we had some places to be Wednesday night after work but Andrea wanted to go straight home and stay there. Why? BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO SNOW, THAT'S WHY! 

OK, let's do some math. From my wife's job to our fortress is about a 20 minute drive and she leaves work around 5:00. Now compare that piece of information to this factoid: the snow wasn't expected to hit our area until after 9:00. But she felt she NEEDED a 3.5 hour window of safety between her and the winter weather.  

To be fair, she once got stuck in what I would admittedly describe as nightmare-ish scenario. One winter many years ago, she got stuck on a road with a line of other cars that were not moving at all. The snow was coming down hard. Visibility was poor, movement was minimal. There was no clear, safe option to turn around. But here's the thing: from where she was stuck on that road, she could've walked to our house.*

*I later realized that I could've loaded up some provisions and walked from the house to the car to keep her company or even take her place while she walked back to the house. But this thought did not occur to me until later. Much later. This very moment, approximately 17 years after the fact. Yes, ladies, sometimes men are THAT slow.  

So I went to work and nobody was there except 3 people. All 3 of them live near where I live. I wonder if the same thought goes through their minds, "If the others are there, particularly that dufus David, and I'm not, that will not look good." I think I should approach them sometime and agree to a pact, that we all stay home for the next storm. 

OK, I've babbled enough about snow. I think a lot of people are tired of snow. Below I have a list that provides...

The 8 Stages of Snow

1. WOO-HOO!!! SNOW!!!!
2. Woo-hoo!! Snow!!!
3. Woo! Snow!!
4. Snow! 
5. Snow. 
6. Yep, snow. 
7. Snow, snow, snow.
8. Is the snow gone yet?

Before I wrap up today's post, here are some classic Calvin and Hobbes by the great Bill Watterson on the topic of snow and the clever things a sociopathic young boy can do with it. 

In a Galaxy Too Close To Home

Last week, Disney and Lucasfilm finally said enough was enough and sent Mandorian star Gina Carano packing.   

Also the United Talent Agency will no longer be representing her. 

Lucasfilm wanted to be in business with Gina Carano, developing a spin off for her Cara Dune character from The Mandolorian into her own series for Disney+.  

But damn, Gina was making it so hard. 

Gina Carano's posts mocked wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and repeating false right-wing talking points about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election have put her on everyone's bad side. Well, everyone with a brain and an ounce of empathy.  

Her latest foray into social media was an Instagram post comparing the current political climate in the United States to Nazi Germany.  

Naturally, Ted Cruz leapt to her defense. 

“Texan Gina Carano broke barriers in the Star Wars universe: not a princess, not a victim, not some emotionally tortured Jedi. She played a woman who kicked ass & who girls looked up to. She was instrumental in making Star Wars fun again. Of course Disney canceled her.”

It bears repeating as I have done so often on this blog that Ted Cruz is a lying fuck bastard. 

Here's some of what got Gina Carano canned.  

"Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors...even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?” 

So Gina thinks the antipathy towards her expressed views puts her in the company of Jews in Nazi fucking Germany? 

How is that different? For starters, your views based on lies have cost you your job with Disney and Lucasfilm. Whereas the Jewish people of Nazi Germany paid for their faith and their heritage with confinement to camps for purposes of torture and mass slaughter. 

The cost paid by the Jews of Nazi Germany was just a touch higher than your inconvenience of being momentarily unemployed.  

Gina Carano is partnering with The Daily Wire, a right-wing website, to develop, produce, and star in an upcoming film. “I cried out and my prayer was answered," Carano said about this deal, casting herself as a kind of quasi-religious martyr, I guess.  

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro praised Carano as “an incredible talent dumped by Disney and Lucasfilm for offending the authoritarian Hollywood Left.” 

No, Gina Carano got her ass kicked to the curb for offending basic human decency in an abhorrent repudiation of facts and history. 

Gina Carano is not the first actor to wail "woe is me" and compare her plight to being Jewish in Nazi Germany.  As I wrote on Thursday, March 23, 2017,   

Actor Tim Allen likened being a conservative in Hollywood to 1930s Nazi Germany, a comparison for which Mr. Allen received a sharp and well deserved rebuke. Of course, that response I’m sure only underscores his perspective of persecution. 

If Tim Allen equates being a conservative in Hollywood to 1930s Nazi Germany, he should be bear in  mind that unlike the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and more in 1930s Nazi Germany, Tim Allen still gets to walk the streets freely and still be an asshole in public.

The thing is there have always been conservatives in Hollywood and up until recently no one gave much of a damn about that. The problem is that conservatives insist on defending the indefensible since the advent of Donald Trump as President. Even now, as I wrote last week, Republicans continue to run towards the crazy, not as a part of any adherence to conservative values but as a blatant grab for political power. 

Conservatives in Hoillywood who use their fame as a platform to promote and espouse the lies of Donald Trump and the deranged Qanon fueled conspiracies need to be challenged. 

Gina Carano is not being censured for her values. She is being challenged for her lack of values.

Gina's perpetuation of Nazi propaganda puts her on the wrong side of human decency and Lucasfilm was wise to show her door. 

_______________________________

On the subject of people in showbiz being on the wrong side of things, the bad stories about Joss Whedon continue to pile on.

Writer Jose Molina (Firefly) said Joss used to brag about making female writers cry. 

"'Casually cruel' is a perfect way of describing Joss. He thought being mean was funny. Making female writers cry during a notes session was especially hysterical. He actually liked to boast about the time he made one writer cry twice in one meeting."  

Writer and producer Marti Noxon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) said "I would like to validate what the women of Buffy are saying and support them in telling their story. They deserve to be heard. I understand where Charisma, Amber, Michelle and all the women who have spoken out are coming from."

Michelle Trachtenberg followed her initial message of support for Charisma Carpenter with some new info, that there was a rule on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that Joss Whedon could never been alone with her in a room.  

Since Michelle Trachtenberg was only 15 years old when she first started on Buffy, I don't won't to think about why that had to be a rule. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: WandaVision, Snowpiercer

 

WandaVision

Is Wanda Maximoff the villian of WandaVsion? 

In the idealized, sitcom version of Westview, it is clear that Wanda is at the center of this construct but how much in control is she?

As we saw in episode 6, the further out from the center of the town, the population is less active, either engaging in repetitive actions or simply frozen in place. And the residents are painfully aware of their plight even as they remain unable to escape it. 

Vision finds Agnes in a car, staring straight ahead at lonely stretch of road that goes to nowhere. As established in previous episodes, Agnes is aware of her role in this hyper actualized reality but how and why? 

Meanwhile, the "return" of her brother Pietro is cause for confusion and concerned. Pietro is portrayed by Evan Peters who played the super speedster in the X-Men movies but not in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Wanda is surprised by Pietro's appearance in Westview and also by his "recast" with a different face.  

And Wanda confesses she is not entirely sure how this version of Westview came to be or how exactly she is doing what she is doing. But even without answers to how and why this world exists, Wanda is damn sure going to protect it and her loved ones within in it. 

When Vision breaches the Hex barrier that encloses Westview, he begins to disintegrate. In a show of power, Wanda expands the Hex field to reconstitute Vision and draws the SWORD encampment outside of town into her version of Westview.  SWORD becomes a circus and its agents are turned into clowns. 

While Wanda Maximoff is clearly at the center of this Westview creation and clearly there are unwilling participants in this fantasy land, it is not clear exactly what Wanda's involvement is. The best guess is there is another power at work, manipulating Wanda's powers and her grief. 

The most prevalent guess online is that it's Mephisto as work. New to the MCU, Mephisto is a long time antagonist in Marvel Comics as Marvel's version of the devil. 

Snowpiercer

There may be hope for the frozen Earth. The climate is warming enough to create snow. 

To know for sure we'll require SCIENCE!

As Snowpiercer continues it's trek around the globe, weather balloons will be sent up to collect data from around the world. 

This data will be transmitted to a science station in the Rocky Mountains. 

Someone who knows what the fuck they're doing needs to operate the weather station. 

Melanie Cavill is the someone who knows what the fuck she is doing. 

So Snowpiercer is diverted to a dangerous section of alternate track to get Melanie as close to that science station as possible. 

Here are the alternate scenarios of what will happen to Melanie.

1) Melanie Cavill will die on her trek to the science station.

2) Melanie Cavill will die at the science station if it is unable to sustain her upon her arrival. 

3) Melanie Cavill will die if resources run out before Snowpiercer can return a month later.  

4) Melanie Cavill will die on her trek back to Snowpiercer. 

Alex, Melanie's long lost daughter, arrived aboard Big Alice with a full head of disdain for her mother. As the moments tick down to Melanie's jump from the train to what the numbers indicate will be her certain doom, Alex is starting to know her mother better and begins to regret that their time together is growing short. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Wilford is giddy beyond all reason that the cards are so stacked against Melanie's survival. Never mind she is on a mission that is of utmost importance to everyone on the train and thus everyone on Earth. All he cares about is that Cavill stole Snowpiercer from him and damn it, she needs to pay for that. 

We're getting a good look at why Melanie Cavill thought it best to keep Snowpiercer and the fate of all humanity out of Wilford's hands in the first place.  Wilford is a cold, manipulative sociopath is prepared to have people die in deference to his own twisted needs and in service to his ego. 

Meanwhile, revolutionary turned political leader Andre Layton is juggling trying to hold Mr. Wilford's nefarious ambitions in check while still running a fragile society not fully healed from the fractures of revolution. 

To add to the number of things on his to do list is the unexpected return of Josie. Back last season when Melanie Cavill was still trying to maintain order on Snowpiercer with the fiction that Mr. Wilford was alive and well up in the Engine Eternal, Melanie tortured Josie to get intel to surpress the uprising from the Tail. In the course of that torture, Josie was frozen to death. 

Or it seems, appeared to be frozen to death. Josie is a medical car, her flesh burned by sub zero temperatures. Among the things pissing Josie off is that Andre is working with the woman who tortured her. 

Andre Layton is trying to maintain order and calm while getting assailed on all sides: the first class residents who resent losing to the tail during the revolution; the Tailies who resent Andre for being slow to deliver on the promises of democracy; pro-Wilford forces who see Wilford's return as a good thing; and Wilford himself. 

And he's now doing this without Melanie Cavill. Yes, she was his opponent in the revolution but Andre Layton recognizes that Melanie Cavill is someone who knows what the fuck she is doing. 

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Heard last week that Brooklyn Nine-Nine is on it's way out. Between the impacts of racial injustice protests against the police and the pandemic, the 8th season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine was seriously behind the eight ball. 

The good news is that Brooklyn Nine-Nine will get to make it's farewells but not in the current television season. Season 8 will not drop until sometime during the 2021/2022 cycle and it will be for only 10 episodes. 

Unlike the shock abrupt cancellation of Brooklyn Nine-Nine by Fox after it's 5th season, I am bit more magnanimous about this news. While I am grateful for NBC rescuing the show, I found the 6th and 7th season have lost some of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's spark and a kind of rote familiarity has settled on the proceedings. 

I was happy to have merely adequate Brooklyn Nine-Nine that none at all but I think it is time for the 99 to say good-bye and thankfully it gets to do so on it's own terms. 

OK, that is that for today's post. Until next time, remember to be good to one another and keep it down, would ya? I'm trying to watch some TV over here.