The Presidency By Way Of Temper Tantrum

I really wanted to get through one week without talking about Donald Trump.

Hold on a moment. I don't think that sentence fully conveys my feelings on this. Let me try again.

I really fucking wanted to get through one fucking week without fucking talking about fucking Donald fucking Trump.

Yeah, that's better. 

But get a load of this shit: 

On Monday Donald Trump demanded to be declared President.

Fuck the voters. Fuck the courts. Fuck the Constitution. 

Just declare him President and be done with it. Or have another election.   

As Trump put it on his "Truth Social" app, “Declare the rightful winner or — and this would be the minimal solution —declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!” 

"When Trump does something like this, it makes me love him even more,” declared Alex Jones so right there, you know this is, well, you know, crazy shit.  

Constitutional expert and Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe quipped that if Trump is trying for an “insanity defense” against the various investigations against him, “it won’t work.”

Apparently Trump's levels of irked have been raised because of some "new" stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Why the specter of Hunter Biden's laptop has ignited Trump's latest temper tantrum, well, I'm not going into it here. Suffice to say it's just more QANON bullshit and it makes sense to Li'l Donnie's toddler senses.   

Apparently unable to regain the Presidency by hook or crook, Donald Trump's strategy is to take it back by way of temper tantrum.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Only Murders In the Building

So last week, Andrea and I watched the season finale of Only Murders In the Building and we got the answer as to who killed Bunny Fogler. 

And the surprising answer tied back to a plot point introduced early on in the first episode of the first season.  

Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) first bonded over their mutual admiration for a true crime podcast called "All Is Not OK in Oklahoma" where host Cinda Canning (Tina Fey) investigates the disappearance and murder of Becky Butler.  

The fickle arrow of  suspicion for the murder of Bunny Fogler points toward Cinda.

Close but not it.

OK, if you haven't watched this yet and think you might, skip this part.

SPOILER ALERT MODE RED!!!

OK, the murderer of Bunny Fogler is...

SERIOUSLY, if you do NOT want to know, DON"T READ THIS! 

SPOILER ALERT MODE RED!!!

OK, the murderer of Bunny Fogler is Poppy White, Cinda's much abused, maligned assistant.

Who isn't really Poppy White. 

What the hell?

Now we are in serious spoiler territory. 

SUPER DUPER SPOILER ALERT MODE DOUBLE RED!!!

Poppy White is really...

Becky Butler! 

What the what?

Yep, the subject of the true crime podcast that first brought Charles, Oliver and Mabel together in episode one of season one is really NOT dead!

Damn!

And is the murderer of Bunny Fogler?!?!?

Double Damn!!!! 

And she would've gotten away with it too if wasn't for the liverwurst and marmalade sandwich.

The... WHAT?!?! 

It makes sense in context. 

Anyway, besides the murder investigation, other stuff was going on.

Oliver finds out the real father of his son is Teddy Dimas which sucks in so many ways.

Mabel gets a girlfriend. But Alice is not completely to be trusted. And we get some history on the source of Mabel's mental trauma. 

Charles is still dating Jan which is a surprise in that she is in jail for murder and attempted murder. One of those attempts was Jan trying to kill Charles with poison.  Charles does eventually break up with Jan although he sends his stunt double (Jane Lynch) to do it.  

The second season does seem to be spinning it's wheels a few times. "We've got 7 episodes of content and 10 episodes to make."  But if things moved a bit slower than they should, it's still good to spend time in the company of Charles, Oliver and Mabel.  

One person we mercifully didn't have to spend time with was Amy Schumer. Her turn as this season's celebrity resident of the Arconia was limited to the first of the season and that was all we had to put up with that.  Nothing against Amy per se, just she felt too intrusive and loud compared to Sting's understated but clever turns as the celebrity resident in season 1.  

The season ends with a time jump, a year in the future. Oliver has gotten a gig directing a new Broadway play and in the opening monologue of the play, lead actor Ben Gilroy (Paul Rudd) dies.

Mabel stands up in the audience and speaks for everyone watching at home, "What the fuck?!?!"  

Next week, we take a look at  season four of Stranger Things.  

All 17 hours of it! 

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.  

The Death of the Television

 A few weeks ago, I did a Tuesday TV Touchbase post on the "The Death Of Television" wherein I pontificated on the decline into irrelevance of network and cable TV. 

Today's post as a similar title but is of a more practical matter.

Today we address the death of the television that has provided entertainment here in the Fortress of Ineptitude for nearly 2 decades.

A few weeks ago, our television set began what I will call "futzing".  This futzing took the form of the screen dividing up in 5 horizontal bars with some distortions in color and breaking up any on screen graphics. This futzing would continue for a minute or three then would snap into normal focus.

This futzing could be fixed with a single whack of the TV in the right spot. My daughter Randie could always find the right spot to make that work. I alas could not. 

The TV wasn't dead yet but it was clearly going to die, sooner or later.  

Most red blooded American men would see this as a wonderful alternative to go out a spend big bucks to get a BIGGER better TV that didn't futz. I am not like most red blooded American men and found the futzing was a small price too pay to not have to pay any price at all for a BIGGER better TV that didn't futz.

Then the opportunity arose to replace the futzing TV with a a BIGGER better TV that didn't futz for the amazingly low price oif $0.00,

Let me talk about my father in law, John.  John has an extraordinary gift to find best prices on the best stuff.  He had a chance to replace his existing that didn't futz with a BIGGER better TV for a ridiculously low price. I don't have the exact numbers but it was like a $1,000 TV for like a hundred bucks or something. Which was all perfectly legal and involved no mobsters or anything. 

So he offered to give me his old perfectly functioning TV which is BIGGER than my old TV which as I noted is futzing.   

I was still reluctant because free TVs are not completely free. I know how the universe I live in works and I knew there would be obstacles.  

There were obstacles.

This past Saturday, my wife Andrea and I set out from the Fortress of Ineptitude to retrieve our free TV from her father's house. 

I thought I would just transport the TV in the back seat of our Camry.  But John suggested it would be better if I pulled down the back seat and carry it in the trunk. 

Well, yes, that would be a better idea.  

Except...

I don't know how to pull down the back seat. 

I paced around the Camry, poked and prodded for any miracle button that would allow me to pull down the back seat. 

So one price for this free TV would be my pride. Well, I was never big on self-respect anyway. So I dejectedly went back into John's house to confess to my wife and her father that I didn't know how to pull down the back seat.  

We all went outside to see if we could collectively figure this out. 

My father in law is 20+ years old than me but his mind is still sharp and he's quite a capable individual. But he too paced around the Camry, poked and prodded for any miracle button that would allow him to pull down the back seat. 

One was not to be found. 

So we did what red blooded American men are loathed to do: we consulted the manual. 

I looked through the manual's index scanning intently for any thing that might help us solve this mystery when suddenly there it was: Seat, Back, How to Fold Down For Extra Trunk Space.

Yeah! I was about to announce "Hey, I think I know how to do this!" Suddenly, Andrea calls out, "Hey, I got the back seat down!" 

So there was much rejoicing. 

We loaded the flat screen into the Camry and then spent some time visiting with Andrea's father for a couple of hours because we are horrendously out of shape and needed that long to recover from the exertion of loading it into the car.   

Eventually we returned to the Fortress of Ineptitude where Andrea and I unloaded the TV from the car to our home where we sat it down in our living room next to our old TV. 

We sat on the couch for about an hour to recover from that.

I cannot overstate this: we are horrendously out of shape. 

If I were like other normal red blooded American men, I would want to immediately swap out my futzing older TV for the BIGGER flat screen that doesn't futz and find myself some damn sportsball to watch. 

But no. 

We turned on the old TV, waited for it to stop futzing and watched a Dick Van Dyke movie from 1967 (subject of a future Cinema Sunday post).   

The next morning, I turned on the old TV, waited for the futzing to stop and watched some episodes of Hacks on HBO Max (subject of a future Tuesday TV Touchbase post).   

Part of me was getting sentimental about the old TV. It had been with us for so long and yes, it was futzing but it was not completely dead yet. What was the rush? 

Yes, there's a bigger, slightly newer flat screen waiting for me but I knew there would be obstacles. 

Unplug the old TV, move it out, move in the new TV, plug it in and let's go, right? 

That is NOT how my world works. 

I knew there would be obstacles. 

After lunch, Andrea and I began the process of moving from a TV that futzed to a newer, bigger one that didn't.  

Amazingly, the process went smoothly. The new TV with it's bigger, clearer image looked so gorgeous.

It sounded so... silent.

There's no sound. 

Why is there no sound? 

There should be sound.

But there is no sound! 

Why is there no sound?

Really...

WHY IS THERE NO SOUND?!?!?

How can there be a God to have such a mystery confound me so?

(Deep breath.)

(Sigh.)  

After some poking and prodding through the settings menu, I was able to find the magic button that restored the sound.

Manual? HA! I don't need no stinkin' manual! HA!  

So we have a new functioning TV that doesn't futz.

And like a true red blooded American male, I inaugurated our new TV with some sportsball! 

Nah, I'm kidding. I watched a couple of episodes of New Girl on Netflix.   

Cinema Sunday Replay: The Philadelphia Story

Today's Cinema Sunday is a re-post from March 1, 2020 which looks back on a classic film starring Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant.

I'll be back with a new Cinema Sunday post next week.  

Cinema Sunday: The Philadelphia Story

Hi there! Welcome to another edition of Cinema Sunday wherein I look at various movies that I've seen at various points of my life. 

After last week's dark turn with an unexpectedly dark Andy Griffith, I thought we should look back at lighter movie for this week's post. 

It's another comedic team up for Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I wrote about their collaboration on Bringing Up Baby from 1938 in a previous post on January 26, 2020.  

Today's spotlight falls on a movie from 1940 called The Philadelphia Story.  

The movie centers around the days leading up to the wedding of Tracy Lord (Hepburn), the elder daughter of a wealthy socialite family.  This is not her first go round on the marriage carousel. She used to be marred to C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) until they divorced two years prior.  

Tracy's wedding to George Kittredge (John Howard) is set to be the social event of the season with the Lord family rife with potential for sensational scandal. So with help from Dexter, a New York gossip magazine arranges for reporter Macaulay "Mike" Connor (James Stewart) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey) to infiltrate the wedding.  Dexter tags along, slyly grinning as chaos unfolds about him. 

There's a lot of class snobbery going on and not all of it from the socialites. Mike can barely stand the thought of having to hob-nob with these rich people who want for nothing and do little for it.  

George got rich the hard way by earning it and his stuffed shirt morality seems an odd fit with the far looser Lord family. 

Tracy has her own issues with being judgmental. She has little or no tolerance for the flaws of others. She views herself at a rarefied level of propriety above even her own family and certainly above her ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven. Seems Dexter liked to drink which Tracy criticized him for; such criticism served only to drive Dexter to drink even more. And so their marriage failed. 

Which is why Tracy thinks marrying George with his hard earned money and his morality seems like a good fit. Even though its clear that they are not a good fit. 

On the night before her wedding, Tracy does something rash: she gets drunk. And Mike, for all his class warfare against socialites like the Lord family, also gets drunk. And the two wind up connecting and having a really good time. Which includes Mike digging deep for all the poetry at his command to describe just how wonderful, how luminescent Tracy is. And it also includes a midnight swim. 

If you think "midnight swim" is a euphemism for sex, remember this was 1940. Sex wasn't invented until 1967.  

Anyway...

George sees Mike carrying an intoxicated Tracy into the house and assumes the worst, even though sex has not been invented yet.  



What happens next? Oh, I've told you too much already. Go watch it yourself. This is a wonderfully delightful movie and you will enjoy it. Unless you want things to get "blowed up real good", then maybe not.  

Virginia Weidler plays Dinah Lord, Tracy's much younger sister who has a wickedly acerbic sense of humor and a profound sense of self-awareness.  

Ruth Hussey doesn't have enough to do but her time on screen as Liz is really good. An effective counter weight to Mike's tendencies to wage war for social justice or pine for meaningful work as a real writer, Liz is refreshingly pragmatic. When pressed into service to infiltrate Tracy Lord's wedding, Liz is all, "Well, a girl's gotta eat." 

And I have to mention this bit. Donald Ogden Stewart wrote the screenplay which won him an Oscar. Upon taking the stage to accept his award, he said, "I have no one to thank but myself!"

The Philadelphia Story remains a remarkably funny movie. I've seen several times including just two weeks ago with Andrea. She enjoyed it a lot. 

It's Saturday #4

IT'S  Saturday.

IT'S  August 27th.   

IT'S  a quote from Bertand Russell.      

"IT'S a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go."

IT'S  ...

IT'S  the end of this post.  

Your Friday Video Link: Peter Capaldi Vs. Matt Berry

Ahoy there! I'm Dave-El and this is my blog, I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.

And since it's Friday, it's time for this week's installment of ..

YOUR FRIDAY VIDEO LINK! 

Today's video link is a strange affair. It's from a series of performances of actors reading letters. 

Today's letter reading features Matt Berry (What We Do In the Shadows) as Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire.  

And reading the reply to the Sultan by the Zaporozhian Cossacks is the one, the only Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who).  

Stay In Bed?

 I very much want this to be a thing. 

Can't deal with people? Just stay in bed.

The thing is I have such an overwhelming desire to make this scenario true, to just say fuck it all and just stay in bed. 

Oh just to be give up and stay in bed and not give a flying fuck about anything. 

Bed is my friend.

Bed is my only friend.   

But I can't just stay in bed.

Bills still need to be paid. 

So I will force myself out of bed to do what's gotta be done to make some dollars to pay some bills. 

But I don't get paid for this blog so alas this is all you get. 

Taking a break on Thursday but we'll be back the day after for Your Friday Video Link.

Meanwhile, I will honor commitments to be at work for the legal tender I need for all the bills I need to pay.

All the while daydreaming about bed.    

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Orville

So I just finished up season 3 of The Orville.  

Trying to describe what The Orville is or isn't can be a challenging exercise, particularly it's relationship to Star Trek.  Is The Orville a parody, an homage.  But over it's three seasons, it's best to say that The Orville  is it's own thing.  

Although rebranded as The Orville: New Horizons, much of season 3 builds on the work of the previous 2 seasons.  

The relationship of Isaac to the rest of the crew is impacted by the Kaylon assault on the Planetary Union in season 2. Yeah, Isaac was able to throw off the programming of the other Kaylon and help the Orville and the Union fight the Kaylon but not before many the deaths of many Union officers and citizens take place. There are those on the Orville who do not think Isaac should be forgiven. 

Being ostracized by so many on the crew, Isaac lacks an emotional response but sees this anger and hatred as a detriment to crew efficiency and thus decides to terminate his own existence.  Suddenly we are thrust into a deeply profound examination of suicide.  Yes, since Isaac is a machine, the crew can technobabble him back to life but it nonetheless remains a remarkably troubling and thought provoking episode.

Perhaps nowhere does The Orville demonstrate it's new found maturity more potently than in  "A Tale of Two Topas", written and directed by  Seth McFarlane. 

In season 1, crew member Bortus and his mate Klyden of the planet Moclus have given birth to a daughter.

Which is a problem because all Morclans are male, have always have been and will always will be according to Moclan biology, Moclan science, Moclan law, Moclan tradition, etc etc etc. 

You get the idea. 

Except...

It's not true.  Morclan births are just as likely to produce a female as a male. The myth that all Morclans are male is maintained by forcing gender reassignment surgery on females immediately after birth. 

Bortus is open minded enough to let Topa stay the way she was born, Klyden is a hard nosed traditionalist who insists that all Moclans are male and this is the way and no other. 

In the season 1 tale, there is a legal challenge which naturally Moclan law sides with Klyden and their daughter Topa becomes their son Topa. 

Which brings us to season 3.  

Because of Moclan biology (or simply the magic of TV aging all kids seem to go through),  Topa is a teenager who feels there is something wrong with him. Finding out the truth, Topa decides to return to being a female and asks Dr. Finn to reverse the gender reassignment surgery.

Klyden says no. The Moclans say no. The Union says no not wanting to piss off the Moclans who are the principal suppliers of Union weaponry.  

The crew of the Orville collectively pull of a con to allow Isaac (who is technically not an Union officer) to perform a reversal of the gender reassignment surgery.

Topa is the female she was born to be and she is finally at peace with herself. 

Her journey is not without price. True to his thick headed obstinacy, Klyden leaves his family and the Orville behind.  

A couple of episodes later in "Midnight Blue", the issue of the Moclan's cruel and short sighted oppression of females raises it's ugly head once more and the Union finally decides it's had enough of this shit and votes to expel Moclas from the Union. 

Klyden comes to his damn senses and returns to his husband Bortas and accepts Topa as his daughter. 

Special kudos to Imani Pullum who makes her professional acting debut as Topa.   

"Midnight Blue" is the episode with the guest appearance by Dolly Parton as a hologram version of herself who dispenses some very helpful advice and performs a song from her new album. It sounds silly on paper but it is a truly effective and moving sequence.  

Anne Winters joins the cast in season 3 as Ensign Charly Burke who as the tricky role of being a total bitch to Isaac without being completely unlikeable. During the Kaylon war, her would be girlfriend Amanda is killed before Charly could ever tell her she loved her. So Charly has zero love lost for having to working around Isaac. 

But Ensign Charly Burke has some mad engineering skills which are essential to helping Isaac recover from his self termination in episode 1. And in episode 9, she actually sacrifices her life to save the Kaylon race as a whole.  It's complicated but it was important. Charly was loyal to the Union to the last and her last thought was she would get to see Amanda again.

Dammit, McFarlane! Don't make me care like that!!! 

I would be remiss not to mention our favorite gelatinous engineer blob Lt. Yaphit.  Norm Macdonald completed voiceover work Yaphit prior to his death in September 2021, making it his final role. Yaphit could have easily been a one joke character but he became so much more. Norm will be greatly missed.   

If The Orville began as a lark, let's have some fun with the tropes of Star Trek where characters actually swear, get drunk and cite cultural references more recent that Shapespeare,  The Orville: New Horizons propels the show into dramatic new territory, unafraid to approach complex social and political issues such as gender identity, depression, suicide, racism, sexism, toxic nationalism and more.  

The Orville: New Horizons has moved far beyond the limits of parody or homage and most certainly it's own thing. And something that I hope that continues it's mission of exploration. A decision on a season 4 is not a done deal. 

I'm hoping for a positive outcome on that decision.  

Next week, we take a look the second season of Only Murders In the Building. Who the fuck killed Bunny Fogler? And why?

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.  

Everything All the Time All At Once

 A few years ago, Saturday Night Live put on a sketch centered on a cable news politics panel show where the assembled pundits are pontificating on Donald Trump's latest scandal. There is a certitude from most of these panelist that the latest scandal would be the one that would do Trump in once and for all.  Except one guy played by Keenan Thompson who had this refrain: "Ain't nothing gonna happen."

Over the course of the sketch are numerous flashback with these same panels asserting that this time Donald Trump is some serious trouble he can't get out and each time there's Keenan with  "Ain't nothing gonna happen."

My wife Andrea is frequently guilty of being like those panelist in that sketch, breathlessly anticipating whatever shit Trump is in now would be one that finally gets him in real trouble he can't get out of.

And I have to channel Keenan Thompson and remind her yet again  "Ain't nothing gonna happen."

Mind you, I do NOT want to be right. 

But so far, I have consistently been proven right.

But not for the fucking lack of any damn opportunity.  

With some help from Bess Levin at Vanity Fair, here is a comprehensive list of every single damn thing that is happening at one damn time that puts Donald Trump in actual serious legal jeopardy.   

1. The Classified-Documents Investigation

Treasonous shit? 

It appears Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, mishandled government records, and violated the Espionage Act.  

2. The Justice Department’s Criminal Investigation of January 6 and the Plot to Overturn the Election

Insurrection and election fraud shit.  

3. The Georgia Criminal Investigation
Election fraud shit.  

4. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Case Against the Trump Organization, Etc.
Tax evasion shit.  

5. The New York Attorney General’s Civil Investigation Into the Trump Organization
Property valuation shit. 

This is where the Trump Organization is accused of inflating the value of its assets when seeking loans and trying to impress people, only to deflate them when it came time to pay taxes. 

This is the case where Donald Trump showed up and invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions being posed to him by the New York attorney general’s office. 

There is of course numerous examples of Trump mocking people for pleading the 5th, citing if a person is not guilty, why plead the 5th. Yeah, Donnie! Why do that?

6. The Westchester Criminal Investigation of the Trump Organization
Property valuation shit. 

7. The DC Attorney General’s Criminal Investigation of January 6

Insurrection shit. 

8. The E. Jean Carroll Defamation Suit
Saying shit about people.

Author E. Jean Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he accused her of lying when she alleged he raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the ’90s.

Trump's defense against the rape allegation is that Carroll wasn't his "type". 

And his defense against calling her a liar is that he was President when he said it and as President, he can do whatever he wants, nyah, nyah, nayh!  

9. The Mary Trump Lawsuit
Defrauding people shit

Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, is currently suing him (and his sister Maryanne, and the estate of their late brother Robert) for allegedly defrauding her out of millions of dollars. Trump sued her back. Mary's response: “I think he is a fucking loser."

10. The House of Representatives’ January 6 Lawsuit
Insurrection and election fraud shit. 

11. The Eric Swalwell Suit
Insurrection and election fraud shit.  

12. The Capitol Police January 6 lawsuits
Insurrection shit. 

13. The Metropolitan Police January 6 lawsuit
Insurrection shit. 

14. The Michael Cohen lawsuit
Saying shit about people.

15. The Class Action Lawsuit Against the Trump Biz and the Trumps
Defrauding people shit.  

16. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund Voting Rights Lawsuit
Election fraud shit.  

17. The Trump Tower Assault Lawsuit
Saying shit about people.

Five individuals are suing Trump and others over the allegation that the Trump Organization’s then chief of security, Keith Schiller, hit one of them on the head when they were protesting outside of the company’s Manhattan headquarters in 2015. 

Last October, Trump was deposed under oath about the incident, and it was during this deposition that we learned he’s terrified of being killed by a piece of fruit.

WHEW!   

That's 17 things that we know about right now. And #1 on the list we didn't know about until a couple of weeks ago. 

There's no telling what new steaming pile of shit we'll have to deal with next from this moron.

And old shit seems to be come back including Robert Mueller's god damn investigation. It seems there's some duplicitous shit going on with a memo from the Department of Justice and then Attorney General Bill Barr deciding there was nothing in Mueller's report to charge Trump with a crime. 

I'm not sure of the details on this but it appears that Barr may have futzed with some details of Mueller's case to make that assessment? 

Who knows. We'll probably be adding that to the list before it's all over. 

One more thing to make us think: 

And one more time I will need to remind everyone, "Ain't nothing gonna happen."

Cinema Sunday: Sherlock Holmes

Normally when Andrea and I have a movie night for just the two of us, we tend to gravitate toward to more classic movies from the early to mid 20th century. 

A few weeks back while randomly jumping about Netflix, we can across a movie that piqued her interest so we gave it a go.

This week's Cinema Sunday goes all the way back to 2009. We were pulling ourselves out of the Great Recession and it seemed like life could only get better moving forward.  

2009 brought us Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr as the intrepid detective.   

Uh oh! An American actor playing an icon of British mythology? Well, Downey does affect a British accent that works well enough, subtle but effective. And he has the manic super smart thinking a mile a minute thing down that would come to define his turn as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. 

This movie begins with an ending.  In 1890 London, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson have cornered Lord Henry Blackwood just in time to keep his latest victim from suffering the same fatal fate of  five other young women  in a sort of cultish quasi-supernatural way.   

Inspector Lestrade arrests Blackwood. 

Later Blackwood is hanged by the neck in payment for his crimes.  Watson is on the scene to pronounce this murdering bastard is dead, deader than dead, the deadest of the dead, D-E-A-D.

So ends the last case teaming up Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Dr. Watson is engaged to Mary Morstan and moving out of 221B Baker Street.   

That is as they say that. 

Except it isn't.  

There's been a break out from Henry Blackwood's tomb.

And Blackwood has been seen lurking about London.

And Blackwood's enemies are perishing in mysterious, almost supernatural circumstances. 

Has Lord Henry Blackwood returned from the dead with mystic powers beyond those of mere mortal men?  

Well, he would certainly like you to think so and damned if he ain't making the case for it.

But thankfully Sherlock Holmes is on the case and he ain't having any of this supernatural bull. 

This version of Sherlock Holmes tends towards action hero that we may be used to in some other version. This Sherlock is not just about outsmarting people but outfighting them, sometimes as the same time. Whenever Sherlock gets into a fight with someone, the flight plays out twice: once when Sherlock deduces which specific parts of his opponent need to be struck and in what order. The second time is the actual fight and damned if the other guy doesn't go down like the proverbial sack on bricks exactly as Sherlock predicted.  

The relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson sparks with wicked incisive wit, the pair needling each other like an old married couple.  Holmes might be the smartest person in the room but Jude Law's Dr. Watson is more than capable of keeping up. 

The movie also includes Irene Adler, the only woman who is a match for Holmes.  Try as he might, Holmes can't help but be flummoxed by this beautiful, sharp minded woman. 

There is a subplot that intersects with the main storyline involving a dark garbed figure who is playing his own long game. Professor Moriarty is waiting in the wings for the sequel.

The "Person Who Was In That Thing" Department 

Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood) was Dr. Sivana in Shazam! and Sinestro in Green Lantern.

Rachel McAdams (Irene Adler) was Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange and it's sequel.

Sherlock Holmes casts our favorite consulting detective as an action film star but it doesn't sacrifice the intelligence, wit and eccentricities we've come to associate with the character. 

Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes is a bit weird but more than capable in the role.

It's Saturday #3

IT'S  Saturday.

IT'S  August 20th.   

IT'S  a quote from Douglas Adams.      

"IT'S a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

IT'S  ...

IT'S  the end of this post.  

Your Friday Video Link: Steve Martin From 1975

Howdy! I'm Dave-El and this is I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You.

And today is this week's installment of ..

YOUR FRIDAY VIDEO LINK! 

Steve Martin is enjoying a bit of a resurgence in popularity thanks to his starring role in the Hulu series Only Murders In The Building.

But back in the 1970's Steve Martin was a superstar in stand up comedy, selling out not just comedy clubs but entire stadiums.

What pray tell was the fuss about? 

Steve's appeal to young audiences was his deconstruction of the tropes of stand up comedy.  

A series of set ups and punchlines were out.

Just being weird was in.

Today we present a video from an appearance on the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson in 1975 where Steve is off on another plane.  

Rosie the Dog In Is It College Again?

Today is a bittersweet day here at the Fortress of Ineptitude as we bid farewell as Rosie the Dog returns to college for the fall.

Rosie is attending college for her degree in history with an emphasis on theological impacts on the development of civilization as it relates to religious dogma. 

We will miss Rosie around her at the ol' Fortress but we know the college experience is valuable for her, not just for her education but also for social development, particularly Rosie's close knit circle of gay friends she has made at college. 

Rosie is also taking our daughter Randie with her as her emotional support human. 

We will miss her too as well.  

Bad Joke Day

Today I'm going to tell a share a bad pun with my neighbor, Paul.

Hey, Paul what do you think of this joke?

And what is Paul's reaction to this joke?

Sorry, it's a low content kind of day. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Death of Television

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase takes a bit of a thematic turn from where I pontificate about whatever TV show I watched in the last week or so.

Today we're going to talk about the death of television.

Which is a bit weird because there are people who would described the era we're living in as peak television with more TV shows than ever, high quality productions of a dizzying variety of genres and perspectives on a growing number of new ways to deliver those shows.

But at what cost do we enjoy this wonderful bounty of entertainment?

As Alan Moore wrote in Miracleman, "In all the history of earth, there’s...never been a house of gods…that was not built on human bones."

OK, that's a bit too dramatic maybe but the lesson from that quote is still applicable.  

In other words, nothing great can be achieved without sacrifice.

For the achievement of peak television, is the sacrifice the death of television itself? 

A few weeks ago, NBC announced that the long running day time soap opera Days Of Our Lives would no longer be on the network. After being a fixture on NBC's schedule for nearly 57 years, Days Of Our Lives would be departing it's programming line up.

My wife Andrea used to be big fan of Days Of Our Lives . She followed the show during it's peak time under writer James Reilly who wrote the infamous serial killer storyline where it was revealed that the multiple murderer was none other than the wholesome and beloved Marlena Evans, portrayed by Deidre Hall.

Here's a photo of Deidre Hall.

OK, that's Deidre from her Saturday morning TV show Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.   

So anyway, exactly how did wholesome and beloved Marlena Evans become a serial killer?

Because she was possessed by SATAN!!!!

Seriously, that was direction they went with to explain Marlena's turn toward serial killer. 

She got to hover over the bed and shit before she was exorcised of SATAN!!!!  and the serial killer was back to being holesome and beloved Marlena Evans again.  

(On the episode Friends where Joey Tribbiani claims to write his own dialogue as Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days Of Our Lives, the writer who writes our Dr. Ramoray by having him dropped down an elevator shaft is played by actual Days Of Our Lives writer James Reilly.)   

Anyway, I digress...

Notice that I wrote "NBC announced that the long running day time soap opera Days Of Our Lives would no longer be on the network." I did not write that the show was cancelled.

Days Of Our Lives will in fact live on courtesy of NBC's streaming service, Peacock.  

TV networks are becoming less relevant, consigned to running more game shows, reality shows and sports.  Scripted programming is relegated to whatever is comfortable to an aging audience who just wants more procedurals. 

Producer Dick Wolf currently holds down 9 hours of programming on CBS and NBC with a trio of blocks centered around his Law & Order, FBI and Chicago franchises.

NBC which dominated with classic sitcoms like Cheers, Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends and The Office has totally given up on sitcoms.   CBS only has 4.  

Meanwhile, it's not just broadcast networks that are feeling the pinch. Cable channels are feeling the pinch as well.   

TBS and TNT have pulled the plug on all original content, burning through whatever obligations they have (such as the forthcoming 4th and final season of Snowpiercer) and who knows, perhaps not even then?  TBS is sitting on a complete set of episodes of Chad it now will not put on the schedule.  

Original content for the cable channel AMC appears first on their streaming service AMC+  before showing up on the cable channel a week later. 

While broadcast and cable networks become wastelands of homogenized new content or constant cycles of old content (like the ubiquitous reruns of Big Bang Theory and Friends on TBS), anything worthwhile is happening on streaming.   

Which is cool that these platforms exist to give life to this virtual renaissance of new shows but it's happening at the expense of fragmenting the viewing audience.  

Shows on broadcast networks are available to everyone.

Chances are your cable package provides a variety of channels that most people with cable have access to. Yeah, you might have picked HBO over Showtime but for the most part, you'll still likely have your choice of TBS, TNT, AMC, USA, FX and more.   

But to see certain new shows on streaming depends on which specific streaming service you choose to pay for.  And not everyone can or will subscribe to all the streaming services.

And the crux is this is TV you gotta pay for and since that's where the money is, content providers are moving more shows to those streaming platforms. 

Which is why Days Of Our Lives is moving from NBC to Peacock.

Or to paraphrase Alan Moore, "a house of peak television is being built on the  bones of broadcast and cable networks ."

In short, the death of television as we know it.   

 OK, next week we're back to the normal stuff of writing about whatever I watched last week.

Until then  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.  

Trump's Espionage-A-Lago

Before I get into this post about Trump's latest bullshit, I want to take a moment to reflect on Richard Nixon.

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned as the President of the United States. 

Nixon resigned because he didn't want to be impeached. The old "you can't fire me, I quit" routine.

Nixon was about to be impeached when enough Senators from his own party straight up said that his involvement with the Watergate break in and subsequent cover up was truly some bad shit.

Now the Republican Party was not on board with impeaching Nixon from the get go. When the first drip-drops of scandal first began to break regarding Watergate, Republican were still loyal to the leader of their party. 

But as provable, irrefutable facts began to pile up and Nixon's culpability became clearer and clearer, even his loyal supporters could see the reality and face those facts and determined Nixon needed to go.   

Which brings us to the the last seven years and life under the shadow of Donald Trump.

Time and time again, Li'l Donnie has been caught up in one scandal after another and another ad nauseum and time and time again, even as provable, irrefutable facts began to pile up and Trump's culpability in each of these scandals became clearer and clearer, most Republicans refused to acknowledge  reality and face the facts that Trump was damaged goods.

On a public stage with Vladmir Putin, accepting the word of an American adversary over his own government's intelligence operatives, an action bordering on treason? We all saw him and heard him and yet Republicans saw no harm in it.  

Coercing Ukraine by withholding aid for his own personal political gain? Absolutely proven but refuted by Republicans.  

Instigating a violent insurrection for his own personal political gain? Once again, absolutely proven but once more refuted by Republicans.  

The current investigations by Congress and by the Department of Justice into Trump's role in that insurrection even as sworn testimony under oath and tons of damaging evidence complete show Trump as violating his own oath of office for his own personal political gain? Republicans decry and undermine the process.  

And what of current investigations into Trump's business practices, actively cheating the system to manipulate the value of his holdings to gain investments of other people's money or avoid taxes? Republicans remain in lock step that it's all a politically partisan hit job with no merit.   

Time and time again, the default mode of the Republican Party is to defend this son of a bitch. 

Which brings us to the latest bullshit Trump is involved in. 

The FBI is investigating Donald Trump for a potential violation of the Espionage Act and that agents removed classified documents from Trump’s Florida estate earlier this week. Some of these documents may relate to nuclear secrets.   

There are laws regarding such material and it appears that Trump has broken those laws. 

Trump's defense of having this classified material border is rife with arrogance.  This is from a statement released on Friday:  “The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with classification authority delegated BY THE PRESIDENT, needs to approve of declassification is absurd.”

Trump's autocratic tendencies are on display here, putting himself above the laws and regulations that govern everybody else.  

Trump also had this to say: “Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved."  

Trump does have a point about the same sleazy people being involved. In each of these instances, well, Donald Trump is there. Same sleazy person each and every time.

Trump also claimed that Obama (specifically identified by Trump as Barack Hussein Obama) held onto classified material related to nuclear weapons after leaving office. This claim was made without any evidence.

The National Archives and Records Administration issued their own statements that the records Trump had referred to were not classified and are not under Obama’s control in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

Republicans are still rallying behind him and suggesting without evidence that President Joe Biden sought to weaponize DOJ against a political rival.

Which would be kind of funny if it wasn't so god damn typically hypocritical. Fucking Donald Trump spent his entire time in office trying to weaponize governmental functions for his own personal political gain.   

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York accused Biden and his appointees of “complete abuse and overreach of [their] authority and targeting their political opponents." 

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted, “We must destroy the FBI.”

“DEFUND THE FBI!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) added.  She also filed a motion from the House of Representatives to have Attorney General Merrick Garland impeached for... reasons?

Rep. Steve Scalise (La.)  suggested  without evidence, that some FBI agents went rogue.  “It concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue,” he said Thursday on Fox News.

Which was a bit much for even perennial Trump kiss ass Fox News host host Steve Doocy: “Steve, who went rogue? They were following a search warrant.”

Trump also planted the suspicion that FBI agents were planting evidence. Look, I've seen enough Law & Order to know the whole "they planted evidence" is the last resort of a guilty scoundrel. But that didn't stop Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) from running with it:  “Do I know that the boxes of material that they took from Mar-a-Lago, that they won’t put things in those boxes to entrap him? How do we know? Their lawyers weren’t allowed to see the boxes go.”

Here was another defense: the secrets in those secret documents weren't all that secret. As  Rep. Mike Turner put it,  “I can tell you that there are a number of things that fall under the umbrella of nuclear weapons but that are not necessarily things that are truly classified. Many of them you can find on your own phone."    

And where would a Republican defense of Trump be without some "whattaboutism". Yep, Hillary Clinton's emails shambled into the light from the Tomb of Republican Grievances. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) claimed there was no “media frenzy” over the 33,000 classified emails on Clinton’s private email server that she used while secretary of state.

Sigh! 

Well, yes there was a media frenzy over Clinton’s private server that arguably cost her the  2016 presidential election.  And there were not 33,000 classified emails. According to Politifact, “Of the tens of thousands of emails investigators reviewed, 113 contained classified information, and three of those had classification markers.”

And there is this suggestion that the secrets are not nuclear secrets but... something else? 

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asked,  “Was it nuclear? Was it ― heck, maybe it was aliens." 

Going out on a limb here but no, it's probably not aliens.  

So on one hand it seems that the FBI investigating Donald Trump for a potential violation of the Espionage Act should be a significant game changer, the one thing that may finally defuse the cult of personality around Trump that maintains a fever grip on the Republican Party.

On the other hand it seems that the FBI investigating Donald Trump for a potential violation of the Espionage Act  is just another fucking day at the office for the Republican Party.

And I think Richard Nixon looking in on all this from whatever afterlife he is consigned to would be appalled.

Or pissed off he could've gotten away with so much more.

Or surprised. "Wait! There are aliens?!? Nobody told me!"