The Florida Condo Collapse

Last week, a 12 story condo tower in Surfside FL collapsed into a 30-foot pile of broken concrete and mangled metal.  

The death toll kept creeping upward over the weekend as hope of finding survivors among over 150 unaccounted for people began to diminish.  

Efforts have been focused on the rescue and recovery.  But demand for answers as to how this occurred is growing. 

As I write this over the weekend, I am going to make some predictions regarding the events leading up to this tragedy.

1)  We're going to find out there were long overdue repairs that the owners of the building delayed trying to save a buck. 

2) Any kind of regulatory oversight was undermined by a repeal of laws or regulations designed to insure the safety of buildings and their residents or funding and staffing was gutted due to budget cuts in deference to tax cuts reducing the ability of those charged with government oversight. 

I've seen this sort of thing play out too many times to not anticipate some short coming in the name of cutting regulations or saving money. 

Maybe as hundreds of people anxiously await word of missing friends and family, it is too soon to look to blame someone. 

Maybe it is and maybe I am wrong. 

But if history is any guide, I do not expect to be proven wrong.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Gentleman Jack and Kevin Can F**k Himself

 

Gentleman Jack

I have sadly reached the end of the first season of Gentleman Jack. I say "sadly" because what a wonderful and interesting ride these episodes have been.

The season ends where I knew it would it end thanks to spoileriffic videos on You Tube but I don't know if I could've stood the pressure of watching this series and not knowing where Anne Lister and Ann Walker would end up. 

The last episode of the season includes Anne Lister's adventures in Copenhagen in the court of the Queen of Denmark. Am I reading too much into things to suggest that the Queen was flirting with Anne? 

Receiving word that her beloved aunt is at death's door, Anne returns to Halifax.  Hey, her aunt is not dying now, great. And Anne Lister has a beautifully set hill top reunion with Ann Walker who has extricated herself from Scotland. With Murray Gold's epic soundtrack welling up in the background, Ann Walker says she will marry Anne Lister and they move together for an "oh hell yeah!" kiss! 

The season ends with Anne and Ann exchanging rings in their carriage, entering a church to take the sacrament of holy communion together then off to Shibden Hall to plan their future together. 

Awwww! 

But there is still much unresolved that will need to be navigated in a future season. I feel sorry for those who watched this series in 2019 and still waiting 2 years later for a follow up. The word is season 2 is in production but not when it will be ready to be seen. I'm guessing sometime in 2022.

Anne Lister's efforts to do something with the coal on the Shibden Estate is still a tangled up mess.  The Rawsons are still stealing the coal from under her feet and her plans to start her own coal mining operation has run into a crap ton of problems. Since she used Shibden Hall as collateral to finance the operation, this puts Lister's estate at risk.  

Speaking of her estate, one of Lister's tenants is guilty of murder. Granted it was a good murder, more or less, as it was Thomas Snowden's drunk abusive father who Thomas fed to the pigs. The official story is that the old man ran off to America and to be honest, the family is better off for it. Thomas is a far better care taker of the property than his dad ever was and his mother seems way happier not being beaten every other day.  Thomas's visiting uncle threatens to expose some holes in the "ran off to America" story.  

And while Anne and Ann are heading off to wedded bliss, I'm sure Ann Walker's family is not going to accept this quietly. Between some of them just being judgmental moralists (ladies just don't do that!) and others just trying to finagle their hooks into Ann Walker's considerable assets and wealth, Ann Walker will likely still be in the bullseye of a lot of unwanted scrutiny.  

The quiet, beautiful end of season 1 aside, I suspect season 2 will have more than it's fair share of obstacles on it's way to "happily ever after". 

Kevin Can F**k Himself 

My daughter Randie and I watched the debut episodes of Kevin Can F**k Himself and we've reached on undeniable conclusion.

Kevin can just go and straight up fuck himself!

Here's the wind up: Kevin is a doughy man-child living in a brightly lit sit com with Allison, a wife who is way out of his league in terms of intelligence and looks. It looks like every other multi-camera studio shot sit com on network television. 

Here's the pitch: whenever Kevin is not around, the show changes into a single camera show with darker lighting and muted colors. Allison has had it up to here with Kevin's selfish lifestyle and she never gets anything she wants out of life. 

She hopes in vain for a better life with Kevin but those hopes keep getting dashed. So she arrives at a different goal: a better life without Kevin.

She's gonna kill him. 

Man, Kevin deserves to die. Caught up in his own petty desires in life, he blunders and barges through life with no concern for the consequences to Allison.

The only thing in their decrepit home that Allison cares about is the living room coffee table she got from Pottery Barn.  Kevin smashes the table and repairs it (badly) with duct tape. 

Allison wants a new house, Kevin has spent all the savings so there's no money for a down payment. 

For their 10th anniversary, Allison just wants to go out to dinner. Kevin wants (and gets) a wicked "anniversa-rager" party.  

Kevin brings home a dog as part of some wacky sit com scheme. Allison becomes attached to the dog. Kevin gets rid of the dog when it no longer suits his wacky sit com scheme, totally oblivious to Allison's affection for the dog. 

The scene shifts between multi-camera sit com/single camera drama are very effectively done. Kevin does some stupid, boorish thing in the bright lights of the sitcom then smash cut to Allison in muted colors and the dark lighting of her drama, once more alone and hurt as Kevin once more ignores her. 

Seriously...

Kevin can just go and straight up fuck himself!

I've linked up to a You Tube video featurette about the show.  

And that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.  Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Movie Monday: Luca

 

This weekend, the family settled in here at the Fortress of Ineptitude to watch the latest entry from Pixar, a film about sea monsters called Luca.   

Luca Paguro is a young sea monster living off the coast of the Italian city of Portorosso herding goatfish. Luca wonders about the world above the surface of the ocean. His wondering becomes exploration when he meets Alberto Scorfano, a fellow sea monster. 

Out of the water when they dry off, sea monsters assume human form. As humans, Luca and Alberto spend their days on a island, playing, exploring, having adventures.  

Alberto dreams of owning a Vespa so using spare parts from various pieces of junk he has collected, Alberto and Luca build their own makeshift Vespas which inevitably crash.   

But when Luca's super protective mother finds out about this, the jig is up as Luca is to be sent to live with his Uncle Ugo deep down in the ocean depths. 

Instead, Luca and Alberto run away to Portorosso. There they will get a real Vespa and explore the world.  

The boys are just in time for the Portorosso Cup Race, a chance to win the money they need to buy a Vespa.  In their way is Ercole Visconti, a local bully and repeat race champion.  

Giulia Marcovaldo, a young girl, befriends the boys who agree to form a team with Giulia to compete in the Triathlon, which involves swimming and biking and pasta-eating.

Yes, pasta-eating. The sponsor of the race is a pasta company. 

Luca and Alberto can't do the swimming part since exposure to water will revert their human forms back to sea creatures. So they focus on prepping for the bike and pasta races while Giulia will handle the swimming.  

There are complications. 

Massimo, Giulia’s father, employs the boys to help his fishing business. Lots of exposure to water to potentially reveal their sea monster selves. But the gruff, taciturn Massimo begins to bond with the boys who are very good at finding fish.  

Ercole just will not let up on his incessant bullying of the boys.

Luca's parents have assumed human form in Portorosso to find Luca and drag his ass back home. Not sure what exactly Luca looks like in human form, their clever plan to find him is to douse random kids with water. 

Meanwhile, the growing friendship between Luca and Giulia is causing Alberto to feel jealous.  Which leads to some drama and to both Alberto and Luca being revealed as sea monsters.  

Luca embraces a sort of European vibe with distinctive designs and quirky characterizations. I've never been to Italy but this films makes me feel like I've experienced the place.

Luca is a solid, good movie that may not rise to top of the Pixar filmography.  It is a simple story of a boy growing beyond the confines of his family, forging new friendships and facing challenges to those friendships. 

We opted to watch Luca on Disney+ instead of making a theater excursion and I think that was the right call to make. A simple tale of young friendship, Luca feels at home being seen at home. 

Cinema Sunday: Best In Show

 The Kennel Club of Philadelphia has been holding a dog show since 1879.  It takes place on the third from last weekend in November. NBC Sports rebranded it as The National Dog Show and shows it on Thanksgiving Day.  

All those wonderful and sometimes strange looking dogs, one might imagine there is some drama going on in the background, if not with the dogs themselves then with the people who have invested so much time and energy into showing dogs. 

It might make for an interesting movie. 

And there is a movie about that.  

Today's Cinema Sunday looks at Best in Show,  a 2000 American mockumentary comedy film directed by Christopher Guest who co-wrote the movie with Eugene Levy.  

Best in Show is presented as a documentary of five dogs, their owners, trainers and handlers who travel to compete in the fictional Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia. 

The movie intercuts between the various people and dogs involved as they prepare to leave for the show, their journeys getting to the show and the show itself.  

Gerry and Cookie Fleck (Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara), with their Norwich Terrier, Winky

A middle-class couple from Florida so deeply in debt, they are forced to sleep in a hotel's storage room. Also no matter where they go, they encounter one of Cookie's former lovers. The fact that his wife slept with so many men is disturbing enough for Gerry but all these guys seem to thing Cookie is still on the market and will kiss Cookie passionately while Gerry is standing right there. 

Also Gerry has two left feet. No, it is not a metaphor for his poor dancing skills. He literally has two left feet.  

Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock), with their Weimaraner Beatrice

God, I hated these characters, snobbish upper-class yuppies from Chicago who make a big goddamn show of not wanting other people to upset their dog when it's their own anxiety inducing behavior that is confusing and upsetting Beatrice.

Fearing Beatrice will become unhinged without her missing "Busy Bee" stuffed toy, Meg goes completely unhinged trying to find it or a suitable replacement.

Spoiler alert: Beatrice does not win the dog show. She is ejected for jumping up on the judges.

Harlan Pepper (Christopher Guest) and his Bloodhound Hubert 

Owner of a fishing goods store from North Carolina, Harlan is a quiet, affable man who wants to be a ventriloquist and is able to name every kind of nut. 

In this cast, Harlan is the normal one. 

Sherri Ann and Leslie Ward Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge, Patrick Cranshaw) and trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch) with their Standard Poodle Rhapsody in White (or Butch)

Sherri Ann and Leslie's marriage is a sham and Sherri Ann and Christy are sparking sexually.  All this becomes more apparent over the course of the film but really, it's obvious from jump.

Sherri Ann and Christy are really obnoxious in their desire to go for a three-peat at the dog show.

Scott Donlan and Stefan Vanderhoof (John Michael Higgins, Michael McKean) and their Shih Tzu Miss Agnes

Scott and Stefan are gay. This is not a spoiler or a major revelation. If they were any more camp, they would come with pup tents and canteens. 

You know, stuff for camping.

Anyway...

They love their dog, old movies and making fun of Christy Cummings.  

It's time for the dog show hosted by dog expert Trevor Beckwith (Jim Piddock) and commentator Buck Laughlin (Fred Willard). 

Buck has no clue how dog shows work.

Buck in fact seems to not understand how dogs work. 

Uh oh! Tragedy! Cookie dislocates her knee and Gerry's has to take over a handler with his two literal left feet.  

But Winky wins Best in Show!  YAAAAYYYYY!!!!!

After the dog show,  Gerry and Cookie return home to Florida  to record (very badly) songs about terriers.  

The recording engineer is yet another of Cookie's ex-boyfriends? Damn it!  

Sherri Ann and Christy  publish a magazine for lesbian dog owners called American Bitch. 

Harlan becomes a ventriloquist, entertaining sparse crowds with country music dance numbers. 

Stefan and Scott are in the process of designing a calendar featuring costumed Shih Tzu dogs appearing in classic movie scenes.  

Hamilton and Meg Swan no longer have Beatrice; they do not explain what became of her. I hate these people!

Best in Show has a very strange and quirky rhythm that takes a little getting used to but it is a very funny movie. The dialogue is mostly improvised and these funny comic actors are really encouraged to go as far as they can to describe their lives and motivations. 

It's worth the trip just to get to Fred Willard's Buck Laughlin who knows no boundaries of good sense or good taste to say whatever pops into his mind. 

Like this extended riff on bloodhounds.  

“Why don’t they put on one of those Sherlock Holmes hats on the Bloodhound and put a little pipe in his mouth? Are they ever allowed to do anything like that? Dress up the dog in a funny way? It would really get the crowd going. You know what I mean? The Sherlock Holmes hat with a pipe. I don’t know if you could make it look like smoke is coming out of the pipe.”

Or this bit which has nothing to do with dogs or dog shows.

"Excuse me if this off the subject a little bit, but just take a guess at how much I can bench press. Come on, what do you think? Take a guess. 315 pounds, maxing out at 400!" 

Best in Show has really funny performances and of course, dogs.

You can't go wrong with dogs. 

OK, that is that for today's Cinema Sunday.  Until next time, remember to be good to one another and don't hog all the popcorn, will ya?  

__________________

Coming up tomorrow, it's a new Movie Monday as I take a look at the latest entry from Pixar.  

Songs For Saturday: Pride Month Spotlight on the Music of Gentleman Jack

 

With the month of June coming to a close and along with it Pride Month, today's Songs For Saturday will spotlight some of the music from my television obsession, the HBO series Gentleman Jack.

We kick off today's play list with an extended cut of the opening theme music. 

The next track features haunting echoes of the opening theme but the tempo is decidedly not jaunty. This is from the sequence where Ann Walker is leaving to go live with her sister in Scotland and Anne Lister is facing the very harsh reality that she may never see her beloved again. 

I'm not crying! You're crying! 

Shut up! 

If you're getting a feeling of when Rose Tyler and the Doctor were separated by that dimensional wall, Murray Gold, master musicsmith of Doctor Who, is composer for Gentleman Jack as well.

Great! Now I'm thinking about Rose and the Doctor.

I'm not crying! You're crying! 

Shut up! 

OK, let's move on to a more happy occasion.

Here's Murray Gold's score for the the sacrament scene where Anne and Ann go to holy communion together to symbolize that they are by their reckoning married. 

Lesbians in the 1840's, y'all! 

It is a sweet and beautiful sequence. 

Damn it! 

I'm not crying! You're crying! 

Shut up! 

Next up is the series' ending theme song "Gentleman Jack" which written and performed, by O'Hooley & Tidow. The song was released in 2012, 7 years before the debut of the TV show.  O'Hooley & Tidow were inspired by the same historical record of Anne Lister, an early 19th-century Yorkshire lesbian gentlewoman, the same history that would inspire screenwriter Sally Wainwright in 2016 to develop and write the TV series Gentleman Jack that would debut in 2019.  

And that is that for today's Song For Saturday.

The next Tuesday TV Touchbase will feature my thoughts on my completion of season 1 of Gentleman Jack. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.    

Spider-Man's Greatest Challenge

 

And here is why this is Spider-Man's greatest challenge! 

Donald Quixote

Last week from upon his toadstool in Swamp Mar-O-Lago, Donald Trump called in to Fox News for a regular airing of his grievances,

During this call, Li'l Donnie identified the two greatest threats to America.

1) Canada.  Trump says Canada is very unfair. 

2) Windmills.

What the fuck is this guy's problem with windmills?

Trump says windmills "kill everything". 

He really will not let this go.  

Did a windmill kills his parents in an alleyway when he was young? 

What is this guy's deal with windmills?

Jimmy Kimmel would like to know. 

“Donald Quixote strikes again! Why do you think he hates windmills so much? Maybe they’re messing up his hair, I don’t know.” 

Kimmel's perplexed by the Canada thing but has a theory.

“What is his problem with Canada? I bet Celine Dion refused to sing at his birthday or something and he never forgot it.”   

Of all the things that Americans really have to worry about, Trump thinks the biggest threats facing us today are Canada and windmills.  

Anal Probing

 Today is a bit of a notable one here at the Fortress of Ineptitude. 

Today as well as tomorrow are my first vacation days from work since I began my job in January.  

And what pray tell is the reason for me taking time off from work?

Andrea is going to have a colonoscopy today. 

My wife is already prone to paranoia anyway. So it didn't help matters a few decades back when her dad turned out to have a tumor in his colon. 

Good news is that it was benign and at age 80 today, he is healthier than I ever was at 20. 

The bad news is that Andrea can now claim colon cancer runs in her family which gives her something to be afraid of. 

Andrea will tell you she doesn't like being afraid of everything but I think her life would not be complete if she wasn't worrying about something. 

She's been plotting this colonoscopy for over a year now but the pandemic had other plans. So when she wasn't worrying that COVID-19 might kill her, she was worrying that some undiagnosed colon tumor was plotting its deadly revenge against her. 

And then there's the colonoscopy itself. 

It's not a one day affair. 

It takes planning. 

Andrea has been on some weird ass limited diet since Saturday and Wednesday (yesterday) was nothing but liquids. 

And then today is colonoscopy which I imagine goes something like this.

Andrea is fond of reminding me that as I am older than she is, I over due for my own anal probing  colonoscopy.  

The whole thing is so undignified.

Some poor bastard who is lowest on the medical food chain has to look up your ass for a tumor.

Then if God forbid they find one, someone has to go up your ass AGAIN to get it out.  

And if they don't find anything, great, I have that experience to remember before the inevitable heart attack/dementia kills me anyway.  

Why has 21st century medical science not found a better way to check our colons? 

Well, I hope Andrea does OK with her anal probing  colonoscopy and they don't find anything bad up there. 

 

Juneteenth

Recently a measure passed Congress (with some Republican opposition, of course) and signed into law by President Biden to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

Juneteenth is the commemoration of when  Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, backed by 2,000 soldiers, arrived in Galveston Texas and issued General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, informing the people of Texas that “all slaves were free.”

A quarter of a million slaves were free two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and more than two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. 

June 19, 1865 marked the end of slavery in the United States of America. 

And no bad things ever happened to black people in America ever again, the end. 

Of course I'm being facetious. 

Even as Juneteenth gains federal recognition...

• The fight for voting rights rages on.  Republican led legislatures are waging war on the rights and freedoms of people of color to vote.
• A law against lynching is stalled in Congress. A law in the 21st century against lynching can't get passed in Congress.
• And lawmakers in several states have banned teachers from talking about racism.

That latter point is push back against something called "critical race theory".   

In the 1970s, a group of scholars and legal practitioners began exploring the role the legal system plays in exclusionary and discriminatory practices. Kimberlé Crenshaw who coined the term "critical race theory" was among another group that met in 1989 to build on the work begun in the 1970s.

Crenshaw describes critical race theory as attending "not only to law’s transformative role which is often celebrated, but also to its role in establishing the very rights and privileges that legal reform was set to dismantle.” 

In short, let's look at who we are, how did we get here and how can we do better going forward.

Seems reasonable enough to me. Who in their right mind could possibly be against that?

Republicans are all "we ain't putting up with that shit".

Egged on by (of course) Donald Trump, "critical race theory"  is an affront to American exceptionalism. It makes us look bad. 

So a number of laws have been passed in state legislatures to curtail, limit and restrict any classroom teaching on the subject of racism. 

It's not like our education system was doing a whole lot on the subject. There was certainly a gap in my education. 

Until maybe 5 years ago or so, I never heard of Juneteenth. 

I guess like most white people, we're taught Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves and that took care of that.  

Make no mistake: Lincoln was an honorable man who did a honorable thing. But the idea that with a stroke of a pen, slaves were freed is a legend.   

Juneteenth is an embarrassment to that legend. Slavery was too ingrained to be eliminated by any single action, no matter how noble. It took time. It took the Union winning the goddam Civil War over the Confederacy. It took sending Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, backed by 2,000 soldiers, to Galveston Texas  to tell the last slave holders to cut it out already.

Then it took years of struggle to gain acceptance that those freed slaves and their descendants were worthy of the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is a struggle that is not quite over. 

Conservatives do not care for this truth.  

Conservatives do love their simple solutions to problems. 

Lincoln freed the slaves! Problem solved! 

America elected a black President! Racism is over! 

Indubitably, it is never that easy.

But apparently the analysis and understanding of the struggle for freedom from discrimination is considered by Republicans as a message of hate for America.  

Understanding what may be wrong in America is not a repudiation of America. It is not a contradiction to love America and see that it can be better. 

Juneteenth is such a reminder.  The journey that began with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation culminates with the day when Maj. Gen. Granger rode into Galveston with the freeing of the last of America's slaves.   

Juneteenth is the beginning of a journey to challenge the ideals of America, to fight for and establish that  life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the right of all Americans regardless of the color of their skin. 

Hiding from our history and the effects on our nation today is the epitome of cowardice.  

Looking honestly and critically at who we were, who we are and who we are going to be is a process uniquely suited to American ideals, the freedom to make our lives better, our country better and our world a better place. 

A recently completed mural in Galveston TX celebrating Juneteenth 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Superman & Lois, Batwoman & iCarly

 

Over on Superman & Lois, we finally see whazzup with Morgan Edge and his sinister plans for Smallville. 

Turns out Edge is Tal-Roh, son of Zeta-Roh and Lara Lor-Van, making him Kal-El's half-brother. Oh hell no! 

Lara later marries Jor-El.  

In advance of Krypton's destruction, Zeta-Roh  sent his son to Earth with the Eradicator, a device created by Lara. 

Lara never intended for it to be used for the evulz. So why was it called an "Eradicator"? 

Tal-Roh lands in England and goes all "Brightburn" on the people who found him. Well, to be fair they were shooting at him. 

Tal-Roh is looking to resurrect Krypton using the Eradicator to supplant human "subjekts" with Kryptonian minds and DNA. Thanks to chunks of "x-Kryptonite" embedded around Smallville, the residents of the small community are perfect vessels for Tal-Roh's revived Kryptonians.  

Tal-Roh is raising up a super army.  

Superman gets his hands on the Eradicator and Lana Lang volunteers to channel Lara to help figure out how to reverse the effect on the subjekts.  

Superman and Lara have a touching reunion of sorts although Lara never offers up wanting to speak to other son, Tal-Roh, as a potentially non-violent way to stand down his Kryptonian army.  

Maybe she understands all to well that Tal-Roh is a lost cause?

Anyway, Lara is able to reverse the polarity on the Eradicator to reverse the effects on Tal-Roh's subjekts. But it will take an enormous source of energy to do that.

Superman says he can take care of that by generating a solar flare.

The solar flare power is a recent addition to Superman's power set in the comics and this is the first time I've seen it outside the comics. All that solar energy that goes to power Superman's physiology can be channeled into an energy burst but it leaves Superman drained of all his powers until his cells can recharge.  

Superman's got the Eradicator but is the target of a mid-air major heat vision beat down from Tal-Roh's army. Superman unleashes his energy burst, powering up the Eradicator in reverse and the Kryptonians are expelled from their human hosts who now bereft of their powers plummet to their deaths. 

Well, no they don't. They all just suddenly reappear on the streets of Smallville, dazed and confused.  

OK, that's convenient.  

Morgan Edge aka Tal-Roh and his super powered henchwoman Larr escape to plot for another day while Superman lands with a thud just outside the Fortress of Solitude with zilch by way of super powers. 

I guess with Edge's current big scheme brought low, we'll be back to weekly teen angst with the Kent Bros, Jonathan and Jordan, next week. 

Andrea and I have caught up to Batwoman through the May episodes and there is so much shit going on. 

Alice has found Kate Kane who thinks she's Circe, Black Mask's daughter. 

Alice detects Enigma's handiwork in this mess and abducts her to force her to restore Kate Kane. Ocean shows up and has other plans.  Every single damn time it seems like Alice might have some smidgen of hope of possibly being maybe a little bit redeemable, some shit happens to pull her back towards super psycho kill bitch.  

Meanwhile, Ryan Wilder, Luke Fox and Sophie Moore are arrested for being black. 

Straight up racism, Gotham style, y'all. 

Damn! 

Meanwhile, a new form of Snakebite is turning addicted Gothamites into fricking zombies. Zombies, man! 

Ryan, Luke and Sophie get bailed out and Batwoman has to go to work. Mary Hamilton's come up with a zombie cure but each person has to be injected with it.  While Batwoman is busting her butt to save zombies from themselves, Crows agent Tavaroff (who has been a total dick all season) straight up massacres the zombie victims.  

And when Luke tries to stop a car theft, Tavaroff assumes he's the robber, his cell phone is a gun and shoots him. 

Damn! 

I hate when a TV show makes me care.

But better to care than indifference. 

Which brings us to iCarly. 

The family used to gather to watch the original series on Nickelodeon back when daughter Randie was right in the middle of the demographic for this show. It was dumb fun with broad humor and mugging for the camera but it was good for it was, an inoffensive family show targeting pre-teens and early teens.

So this new iCarly lauching on Paramount+.  Who is this show for? 

Miranda Cosgrove as Carly and Jerry Trainor as her brother Spenser have refused to age much which I find is quite rude of them.  Nathan Kress as Freddie looks the most different but he's still the butt monkey of the show.  

Jeanette McCurdy's absence is addressed. Sam is following a biker gang.  Freddie's worried about Sam. Carly's worried about the biker gang.  

We get new characters, Harper, Carly's roommate, and Millicent, Freddie's adopted daughter from one of his two failed marriages.  

While the new show has the feel of the old show with groan worthy jokes and goofy antics, there are concessions that these characters are older and so is their audience. 

Harper's bi-sexuality is front and center. 

Spencer says damn it. Twice! 

Randie wasn't interested in watching this but my curiousity got the better of me and I gave the first episode a go. 

The new grown up iCarly is not a train wreck, it's entertaining enough I suppose. 

Then I wound up watching it a 2nd time because Randie was interested in watching after all.  She may deny it but I heard her laughing.   

Andrea and I are within 2 episodes of finishing season 1 of The Flight Attendant. I will post about that when we finish the season.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

It's Too Damn Hot

As time moves spring into summer, it's getting hot.  

It's too damn hot.

Here in Greensboro as I'm writing this, the temperature is 93 degrees. I think that's too hot but we ain't got nothing on Arizona.

Phoenix hit a record high of 118 degrees last week while Death Valley reached 128 degrees of too damn hot. This latest wave of heat in Arizona is just the latest peak in a trend that has been building for years.

Heat-related deaths in Maricopa County have been rising dramatically in recent years, with 323 reported last year, the highest ever recorded.

And if Maricopa County sounds familiar, that's the flash point for that bogus audit of the 2020 election. The unfounded belief in the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump already had enough of the Trump faithful hot under the collar before the triple digit heat wave struck.

It's the story that won't die. The Republican Party has too much invested in supporting Trump's egregiously false fantasies.

In Washington DC, the GOP are trying really hard to re-write history about the January 6th assault on the capitol instigated by Trump's rage fueled paranoia.

There have been unsupported rumors and unsubstantiated allegations that the riot by Trump supporters...

1) wasn't really a riot. It was just a friendly visit by tourists

2) wasn't really Trump supporters but deep state operatives there to make Trump and his supporters look bad.

Somebody should check in with Alan Hostetter.

Hostetter is a former police chief and a yoga instructor. On the way to the “Million MAGA March”, he made a stop in Arkansas to record his thoughts for posterity. He went on a rant about the mass voter fraud conspiracy theories he heard about from Trump.  

And this is what Hostetter had to say about those who done Trump wrong: "Some people, at the highest levels, need to be made an example of: an execution or two or three.  Tyrants and traitors need to be executed as an example so nobody pulls this shit again.”

Hostetter is one of six men named in a 20-page conspiracy indictment. The indictment alleges that these men coordinated their actions in advance to do exactly what we all saw happen on January 6th.

The intent of Alan Hostetter and others like him is clear, in their own words, in their own voices.  The plan was to act with force and violence if they did not get their way, to have the results of the 2020 Presidential election overturned and Trump kept in office as President. 

That was the plan and we all saw that plan brought to fruition with our own eyes on live television on January 6th.  

So why are Congressional Republicans so determined to soft pedal the assault on the Capitol that everyone saw? 

Because that is where the money is. 

Which is brings us back to Maricopa County.  

A recent poll found 51% of registered Republican voters think the Maricopa County audit will uncover the sort of information that could change the outcome of the election. The figure is identical among self-identified Trump voters. 

Trump's Big Lie still holds sway over the Republican Party which means GOP politicians who want to hold on to their phoney baloney jobs need to stay with the program and believe in the Big Lie. 

And that means re-casting the events of January 6th as good law abiding citizens speaking up against injustice instead of the reality which is a bunch of jack up thugs pissy over not getting their way staged a violent assault on the Capitol.  

The Maricopa County audit is just another way to turn up the heat on the Trump base, to keep them agitated and angry, fueling their darkest paranoia they were robbed. 

This "audit" is rife with all sorts of problems: 

• It's conducted by a firm with no experience auditing elections. (The company is called "Cyber Ninjas".)  
• A lot of time has been wasted chasing conspiracy theories.  For example, checking paper ballots for signs of bamboo  based on the outlandish theory that fake ballots were sent in from China.  
• The "audit" has failed to adhere to even the most basic standards of a normal election audit. 
• The audit has compromised the security of Maricopa County’s voting machines, potentially costing taxpayers millions of dollars. 

But guess who has weighed in on criticism of what's going on in Maricopa County? 

You know 'im, you hate 'im as that lying fuck bastard! 

Ted Cruz: “I think any effort to ensure election integrity is a worthwhile thing. I think it is bizarre how desperate Democrats and the corrupt corporate media are to avoid any scrutiny into the question of voter fraud.”

God, I do so hate that lying fuck bastard.

There have been hundreds of post-election audits conducted across the country.  

David Becker, head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research:  “There has never been an election in American history that was more auditable and verifiable, and also [more] audited, verified and scrutinized, than the 2020 election." 

President Skroob ordered the desert to be combed to look for voter fraud and so far...

"We ain't found shit!" 

But Trump still throws gasoline on the fire and people like the lying fuck bastard stir the cauldron and the flaming rage induced by the big lie just will not ebb. 

And the fire just keeps getting hotter. This past Friday, Mike Pence was heckled as a “traitor” Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual conference for his failure to overturn the presidential election.

The weather is too damn hot as it is. Is too much to ask for this damn conflagration of lies, fear and hatred to cool down once and for all?   

Cinema Sunday: The Perils of Pauline i

 

Today's Cinema Sunday takes a look at The Perils of Pauline, a 1947 fictionalized account of silent film star Pearl White's rise to fame, starring Betty Hutton.

The original The Perils of Pauline were serial shorts in the silent movie era starring Pearl White as the titular distressed damsel caught on the precipice of doom in various death traps revolving around saw mills, railroad tracks and the like. 

Although titled The Perils of Pauline, the 1947 film has very little do with The Perils of Pauline.  

The film tracks the life of Pearl White from frustrated garment worker to a member of  a touring theatrical troupe owned and managed by Mike Farrington. 

There's supposed to be a developing romantic relationship between Pearl and Mike but I'll be damned if I can see it as Mike is a pompous jackass whose view of himself is superior to his reality as an itinerant performer. He's forever ragging on Peal about some damn thing or another until Pearl has had enough and she quits. Miss Julia Gibbs, an actress in Mike's touring company, leaves with Pearl in solidarity. 

It's Julia who will lead to Pearl's role in silent film.  Julia takes a part in a silent movie, unaware her dramatic role is just a set up for slapstick comedy when she is unexpectedly bombarded with pies.  Furious at Julia's humiliation, Pearl storms onto the set and tells everyone off.  As she storms away from the set, Pearl barges through a number of other films in progress. On one of the sets, she shoos a lion away.  

Impressed by Pearl's fire and fearlessness, director George McGuire wants to make her a star. “She's gonna be the biggest thing in pictures!” he declares. 

Pearl does indeed become world-famous as the star of The Perils of Pauline with their death defying cliffhangers.  

At least that's what we're told. A brief montage of Pearl as Pauline in a variety of scrapes is pretty much all we get on this part of Pearl White's career.  

The story of how George McGuire went from seeing Pearl shoo away a lion to tying "Pauline" to logs in saw mills is never addressed. Any feelings of trepidation Pearl may have over being placed in death defying situations in a wild and woolly film industry with little to no oversight is never mentioned. 

Instead of the inside scoop on the making of The Perils of Pauline, we have to check in on that son of a bitch Mike Farrington, now working as a carnival side show barker. No one wants to see his overwrought dramatic slices of acting ham. People want to spend their money on movies. You know, stuff like The Perils of Pauline.   

Pearl gets Mike cast as her leading man in The Perils of Pauline. Pearl and Mike make a great team. 

While trapped in a runaway balloon from a stunt that goes awry, Mike declares his love for Pearl and promises to marry her.

Don't do it, girl! He's gonna break your heart. 

The press announces that world famous film star Pearl White is getting married which hurts Mike's widdle feelings and he calls off the wedding. 

Once a pompous jackass, always a pompous jackass.

Mike joins the army and goes off to fight the War! With any luck, the pompous jackass will get shot. 

No, damn the luck he doesn't.  

Pearl's doing benefits and films to support the war effort. After the war with serials on their way out, Pearl sets up shop in Paris to headline a nightclub act there. During a stunt that is part of her act, Pearl is severely injured. She will need surgery but it will be years before she ever walks again.  

Then Mike turns up. Pearl and Mike embrace and I really don't think I can go on and thank God, the movie is over.  

The "romantic" story at the core of this movie is a complete debacle. What the hell does Pearl see in Mike? When is he not being some whiny piss ant egotist who can stand the competition for attention? When is Mike Farrington not a pompous jackass? 

Betty Hutton is a bright and energetic presence on screen in the first half. But as the movie descends into melodramatic tripe in the last act, I wonder if Betty was thinking, "OK, this stuff is going to get me an Oscar!"  

Instead of spending so much time on this cliched nonsense, would it have hurt if the The Perils of Pauline  could've spent more time on The Perils of Pauline. 

Other than the balloon sequence, there is one bit in the movie that captures the on the fly nature of early movie making.  The scene involves Pearl as Pauline fleeing from gun men on horseback to catch a speeding train.  They've only got one chance to get this right because another train won't be along for another five hours.  

The film crew is making use of a train that just happens to be coming by at that moment. Pearl's leap from a galloping horse to a speeding train is a moment of reckless daring.  

The stories behind this kind of gonzo movie making is what I was most interested in.   

Instead we get the uninteresting story of Pearl's misbegotten relationship with a man who is all wrong for her. Pearl deserves better.  

OK, that is that for today's Cinema Sunday. Next week,this feature goes to the dogs.

Until then, remember to be good to one another and don't hog all the popcorn, will ya?  

Songs For Saturday: Steely Dan, Shirley Ellis and Elvis Presley

 

Hi there and welcome to another edition of Songs For Saturday, my weekly forum where I share songs I Iike.

Today we revisit a theme I've done before, "As Heard On TV".

First up is a classic tune by Steely Dan that has been put to work in promos for James Gunn's forthcoming movie for DC, The Suicide Squad. Here is "Dirty Work" by Steely Dan

Next up is a song that gained notoriety in commercials for the Galaxy Z Fold2 and Flip phone.  Here is Shirley Ellis with "I See It, I Like It, I Want It".     

"A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis Presley has been used for a lot of commercials; just last year it was a part of a Toyota TV as.  Here is the King himself, Elvis, with  "A Little Less Conversation".    

And that is that for today's Songs For Saturday.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.    

Doctor Who: The Doctor's New Outfit

 There's been a lot of rumors about Doctor Who but this news is definitely a surprise.

Jodie Whitaker shows off the Doctor's new outfit for Series 13.

Yes, the sonic wand is replacing the sonic screwdriver!

TAKE THAT, FAN BOYS!!!

OK, it's just Jodie goofing around on her birthday which was yesterday. 

And  we have Mandip Gil to thank for the incriminating photo.  

So happy birthday, Jodie!

Meanwhile, the latest word on Doctor Who is this:

1) Jodie will be sticking around through the end of Series 13.

2) Over the course of 2022. Jodie will  return as the Doctor for a couple of specials that will set the stage for her regeneration.

Again, nothing official. Just more scuttlebutt.

But it seems like sensible scuttlebutt. 

Thanks for popping by. Until next time, remember to be good to one another.  

 

Your Digital Pal Who's Fun To Be With: Casually Comics

 Hi there! Welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. 

You might be wondering to yourself, "What the hell am I doing here?" 

Look, I don't want to cop to having issues with poor self esteem but seriously, "What the hell are you doing here?" 

Hey, the internet is a vast, nearly limitless resource of information and entertainment and you wound up here?

Really? 

Don't you have better places to be? 

Well, I certainly think so and that brings us to this recurring feature I call "Your Digital Pal Who's Fun To Be With"!

This where I direct you to other things on the internet that are way more informative, entertaining and better put together than whatever the hell goes on over here.

Today's destination is "Casually Comics". 

Casually Comics is a You Tube channel hosted by Sasha Wood who is this person: 

Sasha is described as a "proud mom, nerd, lover of comics, nail art and life in general".  

Sasha has a deep love of comic books, even if certain comics veer off into strange directions.

Below is her take on "Mod Wonder Woman" when the Amazon Princess lost her powers and became a super spy character.

Here Sasha crosses over Mod Wonder Woman with an issue of Lois Lane.

Want more weird shit involving Lois Lane? Howzabout the time Lois married... SATAN?!?!?

Sasha's not just a DC fan. Here's her analysis of Gwen Stacy in Marvel's Spider-Man.

And she's not just into old comics but she reviews and discusses new stuff.

Sasha is knowledgeable about comics, smart and witty and hell, I'll admit I find her cute as all get out. 

Which is why Sasha Woods's Casually Comics is Your Digital Pal Who's Fun To Be With!

Sasha and Casually Comics can also be followed on Twitter.