Songs For Saturday: Harry Styles and Lizzo

As we wrap up this year of 2022, this edition of Songs For Saturday will show I do actually know music from this actual year gone by.

Let's kick off with Harry Styles performing  "As It Was".     

About every 10 videos on Tik Tok sampled the chorus of this song so I had to give the whole song a listen.  Here's Lizzo and it IS "About Damn Time"!  

You know what this post needs?  

BONUS LIZZO!

Lizzo played James Madison's flute at the Library of Congress.  Which is good for 2 reasons:

1) It sounded beautiful!

2) It pissed off a bunch of racists! 

A double win in my book!!

You GO, Lizzo!!!

And that is that for Songs For Saturday for today and for 2022.

Until next time, here's to a Happy New Year, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.  

Your Friday Video Link: Doctor Who Song 'N' Dance - A Masterclass

 

Earlier in December, I posted Song 'N' Dance videos for DC Comics and Marvel. 

Today, Your Friday Video Link turns to Doctor Who.

From "The Power of the Doctor", the Master struts his stuff as Rasputin. 

Doctor Who: The Davies Premeditation

As I wrote on Wednesday, November 2, 2022....

Stepping outside the TARDIS on a cliff by a sea side to feel the sun one last time, the Doctor says to her next incarnation, "Tag! You're it!" and lets the regeneration energy fly. 

And out of the golden glow emerges....

David Tennant?

"What?"

"WHAT?!?!" 

In a split second, Jodie Whittaker was a footnote.

Ncuti Gatwa was forgotten?

David Tennant?!?!

"WHAT?!?!" 

In a post a few moments later, Russell T Davies reminded us Ncuti Gatwa was still going to be the Doctor. 

Just not the one we were expecting.

It seems David Tennant was not there as the return of the 10th Doctor but would be the 14th Doctor and Ncuti Gatwa would be the 15th. 

"WHAT?!?!" 

Well, THAT got everybody talking.

Well played, Mr. Davies.

Except for one possible misstep out the gate.

Explaining why Tennant's new Doctor is sporting a new ensemble instead of being dressed in the previous Doctor's garb as is usually the case, apparently Davies wanted to avoid negativity of all the trolls making fun of David Tennant in Jodie Whittaker's outfit.  

Damn! Fuck the trolls, RTD! 

Anyway, there's been a recent effort to remind us that David's turn as the Doctor is a temporary one and Ncuti Gatwa is still going to be the Doctor.

We've gotten a look at his Doctor's accoutrements as well as a look at the Doctor's next companion, Ruby Sunday.  

I like what Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor has going on here, the right blend of nerdy normal but eccentric.

  

But before Ncuti Gatwa can do his thing, David Tennant still has his thing to be done. 

OK, that sentence got away from me.  

Sunday, Christmas Day, we got this trailer.   

• OK, that looks awesome,
• It sounds awesome. Do my ears detect Murray Gold? 
• Indeed, what the hell is going on here? 

We've got a long time to a wait for answers.  

Doctor Who: The Chibnall Postmortem

I'm going to be honest, this has been a hard post to write.

I've intended for several weeks to put down in words my thoughts and feelings about Doctor Who with Chris Chibnall at the helm.

Part of me wanted to be snarky and reference how approximately 35 years ago, a chat show on the BBC featured a smart, outspoken lad named Chris Chibnall who did not have a kind assessment of Doctor Who at that time.  

Doctor Who was still under the watchful eye of it's executive producer John Nathan-Turner, a fan boy made good taking over the reins of this icon of British television.  Nathan-Turner's enthusiasm for Doctor Who did not always translate into good decisions. 

I wanted to dwell on the irony that when Chris Chibnall himself became the fan boy made good taking over Doctor Who four decades later, he inexplicably made the same questionable choices of the man whose work he had criticized 35 years before.  

But such an approach was not satisfactory to me. 

Look, the questionable quality of Chris Chibnall's  time as the head writer and producer of Doctor Who has been detailed at length in any number of Whovian blogs, TikToks and more. I wanted my look back over this time with the Doctor to be more positive.  

Things started off well when "The Woman Who Fell to Earth” drew a record setting audience for Doctor Who.  But even with that strong start, there were some questionable choices.

1) A Doctor Who episode with no opening theme music? Really?

2) A Doctor Who episode with no TARDIS? Really?

3) A Doctor Who episode with no Doctor? OK, the Doctor shows up early in dramatic fashion crashing into a passenger train to confront an alien menace. But the Doctor spends almost 90% of the episode not remembering she is the Doctor. Which seems like a misstep to me. 

The series had a new focus on history in episodes like “Rosa,” “Demons of the Punjab,” and “The Witchfinders” evoking the classic series.  

Therein laid part of the problem.  After a decade plus of  more thoroughly modern Doctor Who under Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, fans had a clear idea of what Doctor Who looked like, sounded like, felt like.  Chris Chibnall's turn towards classic Doctor Who was not what fans expected or wanted.   

I guess the worst assessment I have about the Chibnall era of Doctor Who was that it was underwhelming.  Even on a TV budget, Doctor Who under Davies and Moffat crackled with the energy of a near cinematic experience.  The show under Chibnall felt like it was just a TV show.  

The change in music didn't help.  Murray Gold’s big screen bombast was replaced by Segun Akinola's atmospheric minimalism.  Akinola's music wasn't bad per se, it just lacked a sense of wonder, power and tension. It was mostly generic.  

The emphasis on totally new worlds and aliens in Chibnall's first season with no returning enemies, monsters or even allies was commendable in one sense. Points for original thinking and all that. And Chibnall wanted to make the show accessible to new viewers so again, a noble objective, I suppose.  

But the total absence of anything from the Doctor's history made the new series feel disconnected from all that had gone on before. Doctor Who did not always feel like Doctor Who.   

Chibnall made a hard lurch sideways by the 2nd season towards playing with the shows legacy but mostly by cribbing from Russell T Davie's play book.

Davies had a psychopathic Master who was someone else in disguise then totally went all in for the evulz? So Chibnall brings in a psychopathic Master who was someone else in disguise then totally went all in for the evulz.

Davies blew up Gallifrey and killed all the Time Lords?  So Chibnall blows up Gallifrey and kills all the Time Lords.  

Davies wrote the Doctor as the last of his kind? So Chibnall makes the Doctor the last of her kind... and the first?

Oh God, the Timeless Child?!? OK, so Chibnall opens up the mythology of the Doctor so that William Hartnell's first Doctor is not the first and there are other regenerations preceding that. A lot fans did not like this development. I have to admit I am not a fan of the Timeless Child concept but I am not totally opposed to the idea. It's an idea that if accepted has the potential to open the Doctor's mythology to new story ideas; it's also an idea that can just be ignored going forward.  

Which quite frankly what the Doctor herself chooses to do at the end of the Flux storyline.

Oh God, Flux?!? So yeah, a lot things get tossed at the wall to see what sticks which has the potential to be a lot of fun. But it's potential is wasted with perhaps too many things tossed at the wall with not enough sticking to make any sense or have any real impact.  

You know how at the end of "The Pandorica Opens", Steven Moffat has all the Doctor's enemies show up? It's like Chibnall decided that yeah, he can do that too without any real idea why it worked the first time.  

When Chibnall wasn't trying to restore Doctor Who to storytelling more in line with the classic series, he's straight up borrowing from the playbooks of Davies and Moffat without a solid, meaningful story to go with those ideas. 

Let's talk about casting for a minute. Sacha Dhawan chews through copious amounts of scenery as the Master which is what the job description calls for. But Dhawan's plays the Master as a straight up super villain lacking any of the nuance and pathos of previous performances by John Simms and Michelle Gomez. Dhawan's Master is right up there with the mustache twirling villainy of Anthony Ainley's Master from the same run of Doctor Who that young Chris Chibnall said was not very good 4 decades ago. 

Sacha Dhawan's Master had possibilities. His Master impersonating Rasputin in "Power of the Doctor" was a particularly intriguing turn.  But mostly,  Sacha Dhawan's Master was a (excuse the pun) masterclass in wasted potential.   

And then there's Jodie Whittaker. We cut Jodie a lot of slack because she got a lot of undeserved bullshit just for being a woman and also she didn't have the best writing to work with. But if there was a determined effort to make the Doctor female, I am not entirely convinced Jodie was the best person for the job.  Oh, she was dynamite when the Doctor needed to be quirky and weird and do the talk fast technobabble but she never could quite pull of those moments when the Doctor needs to turn on the serious face kick ass moment.   

Not that Chris Chibnall gave her many opportunities for those serious kick ass moments.  

No moments for Jodie like, "I'm the Doctor and I'm going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below!" 

Chris did give Jodie this line: "Earth is protected by me and my mates!" 

Hardly the ego-centric line reading we got from previous Doctors. Another way Doctor Who did not feel like Doctor Who. 

OK, I feel like I'm being more negative than I wanted to be in this post.  

Let me say positive stuff about what others have been negative about: Yasmin Kahn.  A lot people complained that Yaz was underdeveloped and under utilized which may be true. But Yaz was consistent in her character and her actions supporting the Doctor. From her police officer training, Yaz knew how to take control of a situation and be the voice of reason. Yaz could be counted on to lead with a sense of compassion, to sense pain and loss in others. Whatever was lacking in her character development, I found Yaz to be a very positive addition to the Doctor's pantheon of companions.

I was a bit put off to hear that Chris Chibnall was not aware of the true depth of Yaz's feelings for the Doctor. Yaz's love of the Doctor was willed to life by Mandip Gill and the collective fandom.  Apparently Chibnall had no clue what his own characters were up to until he was forced to acknowledge it in "Eve of the Daleks".   

Not everyone agreed with Chris Chibnall's take on the Daleks but I found his Dalek episodes to be his strongest entries and on par with the Davies and Moffat eras.  "Eve of the Daleks" was a particularly strong and clever outing. 

So what were my favorite episodes under Chris Chibnall

• The Woman Who Fell to Earth
• The Ghost Monument
• Rosa
• Arachnids in the UK
• Demons of the Punjab
• Kerblam!
• The Witchfinders
• Resolution
• Spyfall Parts One & Two   
• Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror
• The Haunting of Villa Diodati
• Revolution of the Daleks
• Flux Chapter 2 - War of the Sontarans
• Flux Chapter 4 - Village of the Angels
• Eve of the Daleks
• The Power of the Doctor

Even those episodes have questionable leadership choices by Chibnall but eh, nothing is completely perfect. But these episodes were at the least entertaining and sometimes pretty damn good.

In the rush to put the Chibnall run behind us and to get to whatever Russell T Davies is up to next with David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa in the future, let's not hurry to bury the era of the 13th Doctor so quickly.  

My Chibnall postmortem is, "Eh, it wasn't ALL bad."  

Speaking of what's coming up next, well, that's for tomorrow's post.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The 2022 Year In Television

Every year around New Year’s when people are pressed to make resolutions for the coming year, I always make the same resolution: “I resolve to watch more television.”

 

I think in 2022, I may have really kept that resolution in the biggest, most dedicated way possible.

 

Just among Star Trek stuff, I had 5 series to watch.  

 

• Star Trek: Prodigy
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
• Star Trek: Picard
• Star Trek: Discovery

 

Prodigy continues to be a pleasant surprise for a show ostensibly made for kids with lavish animation, smart writing and nuanced characterization.

As much as I got a kick out of Strange New Worlds (Chris Pike is “Captain Dad!”), I think I have to say Discovery is my favorite of the current Trek series, a show that has experienced such remarkable growth and improvements since it’s questionable first season.

Unfortunately, Picard is the biggest disappointment with tone deaf characterization and incomprehensible plotting stretched thin over 10 episodes, Season 3 has a LOT to answer for.

 

Over on the CW, DC’s super hero shows are on a farewell tour. 

Batwoman was cancelled after 3 seasons but at least it got to end on a positive note with few dangling plot points left unresolved. 

Naomi was cancelled after 1 season that kind of tested my patience with a long drawn out plot line extended beyond it’s limits over the course of a season. 

Superman & Lois’s 2nd season swung big for a big plot line introducing a rather clever take on Bizarro and an unfortunately underwhelming big bad done in bad casting.

Of the CW shows, Stargirl was solid over it’s 3 year run with a deftly handled coda to cushion the blow of cancellation. 

Given the current status of the CW, I fully expect Superman & Lois to be cancelled after it’s 3rd season. 

 

DC was represented with a new show over on HBO Max with Peacemaker.  James Gunn’s wild take on Suicide Squad kept on going with this bizarre show that defied all sorts of conventional wisdom and proved to be perhaps the best DC TV show ever.

 

Over on Disney+ after the end of Hawkeye in 2021, we kind of gave Marvel series a pass until She Hulk: Attorney At Law.  This series was weird and charming and funny, all the stuff that sets off the trolls but made the show enjoyable to Andrea and I myself

Here’s all the shows that I watched that were ostensibly labeled as comedies:

• Hacks
• Only Murders In the Building
• Our Flag Means Death
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
• What We Do In the Shadows
• Young Sheldon

Hacks is a fun character driven show and Jean Smart is so damn good. 

Young Sheldon continues it's odd evolution away from the titular young Sheldon.  The best laughs and the best drama comes from nearly 18 year old Georgie Cooper's life changing situation with his 29 year old pregnant (almost but not quite) girlfriend Mandy and any scene with Annie Potts as Connie Tucker (Mee Maw) 

Of the shows on the list above, Our Flag Means Death truly defies all expectations and any kind of easy summary. I mean I could just say it's that show about gay pirates but it's so much more than that. 

Here’s all the shows that I watched that were labeled as dramas:

• Gentleman Jack
• Interview With the Vampire
• Killing Eve
• Law & Order
• Outlander
• Quantum Leap
• Snowpiercer
• Stranger Things
• The Boys 
• The Crown
• The Orville
• The Umbrella Academy

I stand by this as the best summary of The Boys: "People 'SPLODE!"  OK, yes, it is a violent, brutal satire on modern politics and media manipulation and it deserves all sorts of accolades for that. But never forget: "People 'SPLODE!"  

As a show that started as a sort of/kind of satire/parody/humorous homage to all things Star Trek, the 3rd season of The Orville was astonishingly good with some good sci-fi stuff going on while being remarkably mature in dealing with complex questions.  

The biggest disappointment on that list is the revival of Law & Order.  As much as I love to glom on to the classic series, this new series is done in by poorly conceived characters.  The new ADA is a feckless mess and Jeffrey Donovan's detective is a bull headed sop to L&O's right wing audience who don't understand race or why pronoun usage is important. 

NBC's revival of Quantum Leap has fared better in my opinion. Yeah, it got off to a shaky start but has found it's groove, building on the foundation of the original series but finding it's own unique direction.  

Of the shows on the drama list, Interview With The Vampire is really hella good and probably my choice as the best on that list.    

I'm still in mourning over the cancellation of Gentleman Jack.

 

And here are the shows that defied being labeled:

• Julia
• Kevin Can F**k Himself
• The Flight Attendant

Kevin Can F**k Himself was a unique blend of drama and sitcom but it was not a concept designed to be sustained over the long haul. The show wisely ended with a solid 2nd season where Kevin does indeed fuck himself.

As much as I like Kaley Cuoco's work in The Flight Attendant, I think it's 2 seasons make for a complete package.  

Andrea and I came to Julia for David Hyde Pierce and Bebe Neuwirth for Frasier nostalgia but the series take on Julia Child's launch of her iconic PBS cooking show was very engaging, at turns funny and moving.    

In the category of game shows, these remains a regular part of our viewing schedule:  

Wheel of Fortune

Jeopardy

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune

Celebrity Jeopardy

The celebrity editions are mostly for Andrea's benefit. For shows featuring "celebrities", I spend an inordinate amount of time being a crotchety old man yelling "Who are these people?"

Ken Jennings is settling in quite well as the host of Jeopardy and meaning no disrespect to Mayam Bialik, he really should be the solo host of the series.   

 

Under the heading of "as if I don't have enough new shows to watch", 2022 saw me catching up on TV series done gone by.  

• Bones
• Justified
• Librarians
• Lucifer

I finished up Justified earlier in the year and Andrea are now up to season 4 of Lucifer.  I mostly catch episodes of Bones and Librarians at random.   

 

And of course:

Doctor Who

More on Doctor Who in the next 3 posts:

• The Chibnall era gone by
• The Davies era to come 
• And Your Friday Video Link  

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week. Next week we're back with the season finale of Star Trek Prodigy. 

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.  

After Christmas Report Card

Well, we survived Christmas here at the Fortress of Ineptitude for another year.

Our granddaughter Rosie came home from college with her emotional support human, our daughter Randie.   

As per our annual tradition, we set forth from the Fortress to head about a half hour west to see the Festival of Lights at Tanglewood Park.  In addition to Andrea, Randie, Rosie and myself, we had a special guest, Randie's partner Aspen. 

Aspen is witty, intelligent and gracious and it was a delight to have them with us on our excursion to see the lights. 

I had a day off from work Wednesday which afforded Randie and I to make our father-daughter excursion to Madison for lunch at Bob's and a visit to see Bella the Cat at the Eclectic Calico.  We also took care of some last minute Christmas shopping for some requested stocking stuffers for Andrea. 

Bath and Body Works is hella expensive. 

I got an unexpected chance to have Friday off from work which gave me a chance to finish up some last minute wrapping and to batten down the hatches around the old Fortress.  A major cold front moved through the area with really strong winds and temperatures dropping into single digits. 

Also following our holiday traditions, we watched the Doctor Who special "A Christmas Carol" and on Christmas Eve, The Polar Express.  Meanwhile, Andrea got a bit tipsy on something called "Jack Daniels Downhome Punch" and was genuinely relieved when the train did not sink beneath the icy waters and drown all the children on board.   

On Christmas morning, Randie let us sleep in late.  Meaning instead of getting us up at 2 AM (which is technically Christmas morning), she let us sleep until 5 AM. In addition to clothes, I got two books, one by Steve Martin in collaboration with cartoonist Harry Bliss about Steve's movie career (which I finished by the middle of Christmas Day) another book that's an oral history of Big Bang Theory (up to chapter 2  already). 

Christmas dinner was not at the Fortress of Ineptitude for the first time since 2019 but I still had to cook. We loaded up ham with the pineapple and honey barbeque glaze and all the sides (along with Andrea's cherry cream cheese pie) to her dad's house to keep him company for the holiday.  Since my father in law's principal complaint was about the quantity (he thought I made too much) and not the quality, I will count it as a success.  

Anyway, that was an overview of our Christmas here at the Fortress of Ineptitude. 

If you were looking for the usual Monday post about what idiotic things that idiotic people are doing in the world, that will have to wait for another day.

Happy holidays, everyone!  

  

Cinema Sunday Revisited - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Since today is Christmas Day, I'm electing to take some time off from the blog which seems to leave the weekly Cinema Sunday post in the lurch.

I decided to go back and look for a Christmas themed movie post to slot in here as a reprint. 

This is as close as I could get to that mission statement.

From Thursday, December 26, 2019, the day after Christmas from that year, here is my write up about....

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Merry Christmas, everyone! The blog will have something new tomorrow and I'll have a new Cinema Sunday post next weekend.

_________________________________________

Most of my sci-fi fan attention has been directed over the years to Doctor Who and to Star Trek in its various incarnations. Stars Wars? Eh, not so much.

I enjoy Star Wars on a very visceral level. It looks cool! It sounds cool! But I don't tend to worry to much about the mechanics of mythology.  It is an attitude that extends to my wife and daughter as well. We're not ignorant of Star Wars mythology. We really just don't care that much.  

So this past weekend, the fam made its way from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

My review of the film? It looks cool! It sounds cool! 

But despite my efforts at willful ignorance of Star Wars minutia, I do have some concerns and they all start with Palpatine. 

Since the man's name is not even so much as mentioned in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the inclusion pf the former Emperor and Sith Lord as the big bad in Rise of Skywalker is a bit forced. Oh, all that bad stuff the First Order was doing, Palpatine was behind the scenes making stuff happen.

Supreme Leader Snoke? It appears Palpatine grew him in a clone lab! 

One of our new crew of adventurers has a link to the dark side of the Force? It seems Palpatine has been manipulating events to get control of his grand daughter.

Yep, Rey is a Palpatine. 

One of the more controversial plot points in The Last Jedi was that Rey's parents were of no importance or consequence.  Given Rey's quick adept use of the Force, Star Wars fan expected that she had to have some connection to the some element of Star Wars mythology. Is she related to Luke Skywalker? Obiwan Kenobi? Hell, maybe even Darth Maul? Yoda, for crying out loud?  

But the idea that Rey's story began with no connection to this sprawling mythology did serve to underscore a larger point made in The Last Jedi, that anyone can be adept at using the Force. 

But Rise contradicts the message of the previous film to tell us that Rey is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine.  

If some part of Palpatine's legacy or legend had been part of the previous two films, perhaps this revelation that Palpatine is still alive and Rey is his living descendant would have carried more power. Instead it doesn't seem to matter to Rey.  Ultimately, Palpatine is just another bad guy who must be stoppped to save the lives of millions throughout the galaxy.  Rey is not going to shirk that mission no matter who the pasty faced mummy in a cloak says he is.  

The return of Emperor Palpatine also serve to undermine a key point from Return of the Jedi. Darth Vader's turn againt the Emperor to save Luke Skywalker's life is a powerful moment. Killing Emperor Palpatine is the ultimate break to separate Darth Vader from Anakin Skywalker and find the redemption that Luke felt was possible all along for his father. Emperor Palpatine not being dead kind of diminishes the power of that moment.  

Is there redemption for our Dark Vader wannabe, Kylo Ren? I've had little patience for this impatient, petulant pretender to his grandfather's helmet but Adam Driver this time out makes Kylo less annoying for me somehow.  Kylo Ren's final epic battle with Rey changes things dramatically. Thanks to a fatal long distance Force intervention from Leia Organa, Rey is able to defeat Kylo, fatally wounding him. But then she uses the Force in a way she utilized earlier in the film to heal his wounds. Between Leia and Rey, Kylo Ren is finally gone and Ben Solo remains. 

Rey in her final confrontation with Emperor Palpatine accesses the highest level of power of the Force to defeat him but the effort leaves her lifeless. Ben Solo arrives to repay Rey's efforts, using the Force to restore her to life.  

Then Rey kisses Ben.

Yes, the Rey-Lo shippers will be all ecstatic over that one but I will counter that was NOT a Rey-Lo moment. It was a Rey-Ben moment. 

Then because Rey's injuries were more severe or Ben's just not as adept at using the Force to give life or the shock of actually being kissed by a girl probably for the first time ever, Ben Solo dies and his body fades away.  

Speaking of Leia Organa, Carrie Fisher's final performance on film is carried out by the use of previously unused footage shot for The Force Awakens with some judicious CGI editing. Fisher's untimely death sadly leaves a hole in the middle of Rise of Skywalker where a more forceful and direct role for Leia Organa would've done so much for this narrative. As such, Leia's final sacrifice to save her son relies on a body double and a voice over from a supporting character telling us what she is about to do. The patch job works as well as it can but still, it reminds us how much we miss Carrie Fisher.  

Poe Dameron gets better treatment this time out. He can still be reckless; his use of "light speed skipping" catches the Millennium Falcon on fire. But the bone headed thinking that severely undermined his character in The Last Jedi is not present here. 

Finn seems to have a mystery where he seems to just "know" stuff; the insinuation is that he might be Force sensitive.  

If you liked Rose in The Last Jedi, bad news but she gets jack to do in this film. Which feels like a victory for the anti-Rose trolls that came out in force in the wake of The Last Jedi.

And more bad news? No appearance by this guy.

Nope. No baby Yoda.  

Good news? Our buddy and pal (if only!) Lin Manuel Miranda has a blink or you'll miss it cameo as a Resistance fighter.

There are a lot of fun moments in The Rise of Skywalker with some genuine laughs. The bit where the burning Falcon has landed and everyone has escalating descriptions of just how much on fire it is is a particularly funny moment. 

There was some fun to be had at my daughter's expense. A lot of the action revolves around a planet called Exegol which every time any character pronounced it, it sounded like "testicle". So any time any one referenced the planet Exegol, I would translate it for Randie.

"I have the coordinates for the planet Exegol!" 
"Psst! They have the coordinates for testicle." 

"The ship has landed on Exegol!"
"Psst! They've landed on testicle."

"I've got to get back to Exegol!" 
"Psst! They've go to get back..."
"Psst! Shut up, dad!" 

Yes, a good time was had by all. 

And in the end, the movie does indeed end. The bad guys are defeated. Some people have died but many more get to live. And Rey, that lonely lost scavenger we met on a desert planet at the start of The Force Awakens has learned a lot and has made peace with her legacy, her place in the galaxy and her future. 

This trilogy is over and so ends this story of Star Wars. But in Rey, the saga of Skywalker will live on.  

Holiday Songs For Saturday #4: Sting & James Taylor

And lo it has come to pass.  We have reached the finale of this series of Holiday Songs For Saturday posts.

It's now Christmas Eve and everything has led up to this moment. After weeks of spending money you don't have to buy things that people may or may not want, Christmas Day is upon us. 

You're feeling a bit stressed.

You need to relax.  

Here's Sting to help you seriously chill out with "Lo How A Rose E'er Blooming".   

Not chilled out enough? Let the sweet melodious voice of James Taylor help you wind down with "In the Bleak Midwinter".

If you are still stressed out, well, that's on you. Sting and James Taylor did there best to calm you down.

And that is that for this series of Holiday Songs For Saturday. 

Remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.

And Merry Christmas! 

Your Friday Video Link: Peter Capaldi and the Christmas Truce of World War One

In Peter Capaldi's final performance as the Doctor in the Doctor Who Christmas special "Twice Upon A Time", the adventure ends at a special moment in history during World War I.

One Christmas Eve, soldiers on both sides laid down their guns for a holiday truce wherein the formerly warring armies ate together and sang Christmas carols together.

For Your Friday Video Link, here is Peter Capaldi doing a dramatic reading of some heartfelt correspondence from a soldier about that miraculous day.  

Merry Christmas and God bless us everyone.  

Christmas Is Coming

So Christmas is coming in about 3 days.

By this point, I have wrapped presents for my wife Andrea.

Some of them. As I write this, I have anxiously awaiting delivery of some more of her presents.  

As you read this, I have hopefully received them and wrapped them as well.

By the way, what about my daughter Randie? To be honest, Andrea takes the point on that. I am as equally surprised as Randie is on Christmas morning by her Christmas presents. 

Let me talk about gift wrapping. 

Here is my steps for gifts:

1. Buy shit
2. Put shit in a box 
3. Put some paper around the box.
4. Apply enough tape to keep paper from falling off the box.

Done! 

Is my gift wrapping pretty? Is it neat?

Hell no! 

Does it look like the work of a very deranged and overly stressed out elf who is going to cut a bitch if he hears "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" one more god damn time? 

Hell yeah!

So Christmas is coming and I may or may not be ready.

But Christmas comes anyway.

Be good to one another and try not stress out. 

Let's help out with that stress a bit.

Here's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" with Josh Turner and his band and featuring vocals by  The Ladybugs.

Thanks to Mark Evanier for recommending this clip.

Tomorrow's post is Your Friday Video Link with a beautiful yuletide tale told by Peter Capaldi.   

Elon's Twitter Fuckery and the Naughty List

With Christmas coming, it might be prudent to address the subject of what get's you on Santa's naughty list.

One way might be to spend too much money on a perfectly fine social media platform and turn it into a clusterfuck.

Yeah, Elon Musk is on Santa's naughty list for sure for the fuckery Elon is doing with Twitter.  

You know it would be bad enough that this fucking moron with too much time on his hands and too little sense bought Twitter in the first place.  

But Elon thinks he's smarter than everybody and determined to run Twitter his way. 

Elon has lifted restrictions on election deniers and purveyors of COVID-19 misinformation. Despite being dropped from Twitter for inciting an insurrection against the US Government, Donald Trump was welcomed back to Twitter.

So far, Li'l Donnie is sticking to his little corner of social media hell called "Truth Social".   

Anti-semitism, racism and homophobia are on the rise in Elon's lawless wild west concept of Twitter.  Say what you want with no consequences. 

Unless you say something bad about Elon Musk.

Several  journalists’ accounts had their Twitter accounts suspended including The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, The New York Times’ Ryan Mac, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, independent reporter Aaron Rupar and Mashable’s Matt Binder after they posted stories about Musk's acquisition of Twitter and his mismanagement of it.  

Bowing to public pressure, Must reinstated the reporters' Twitter accounts.  

Meanwhile, Musk has fired many Twitter employees, is refusing to pay rent for Twitter office space and tried to monetize the blue check authentication.  

That last one backfired badly. Instead of earning the blue check that proves you are who really are, you could buy it.

So you could launch @thisisreallyBurgerKing and for $8.00 buy the blue check and tell all your followers to fuck off. 

For now, I'm still on Twitter but I rarely post anything, mostly follow some people I like in the worlds of comic books & television, like and retweeting posts and occasionally commenting.   

But even that negligible presence, I don't like being part of Elon Musk's shit show.

Which is a damn shame and it's a lump of coal from Santa to you Elon Musk for fucking up Twitter. 

Update on this post after the graphic: 

So yesterday, Elon Musk posted this on Twitter:  “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”

Elon made this announcement in the wake of a poll on Twitter where he asked if should remain as CEO of Twitter and the resounding reply was "Oh hell yeah! You should resign!"  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The Guardians of the Galaxy and Dolly Parton

With Christmas Day coming up this weekend, the Tuesday TV Touchbase turns towards holiday themed specials. 

And we kick off with a doozy over on Disney+, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.   

This special is here to bring us the true spirit and meaning of the Christmas season as summarized in this song by The Old 97's in alien make-up, I Don't Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here).

You know, Santa should have a flame thrower.

Some of those bitches on the naughty list ain't getting the message, if you ask me.

Anyway...

Mantis is concerned about Peter Quill.  He's still bummed out that Gamora is gone and Mantis is also worried how Peter might react when he learns that his mad-god father Ego is also her father. Since it's Christmas time on Earth, Mantis and Drax go to Earth to get Peter a Christmas present. 

Specifically, they're going to get him Kevin Bacon for Christmas. 

Well, Peter has told them so much of Kevin's heroic deeds. Like how he saved a town through the power of dance.

Mantis and Drax are more than a little disappointed to learn that Kevin Bacon is only an actor.

"An actor? Ewww!" 

OK, having the sweet, naive and very literal minded Mantis and the dumb as a box of rocks and equally literal minded Drax navigating modern Los Angeles looking for Kevin Bacon is a recipe for disaster so of course hilarity ensues. 

Somehow, Mantis and Drax succeed in nabbing Kevin Bacon back into space as a present for Peter Quill.  

After Peter addresses how wrong it was that his friends brought him Kevin Bacon as a present like a pet from a pet shop (especially without poking air holes in the gift box), there is much bonding and lessons learned about love, friendship, family (Peter is happy that Mantis is his sister) and the true meaning of Christmas. 

In case you're wondering if we get any Groot, yeah, he gets turned into a Christmas tree and he doesn't like it.

Because he said so.

"I am Groot!" 

See! Told ya! 

Next up is Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas. Yes, Andrea and I really watched this and yes, it really is...

Well, it's a thing that exists.

The plot of Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas is that Dolly making a holiday TV special called Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas.   

Doing a show in Lake Tahoe, Dolly Parton is gobsmacked when it starts snowing. Lake Tahoe is a snow ski resort town so snow should be expected but Dolly thinks it's a miracle and decides then and there to do a TV special around a magic mountain Christmas. 

Now Dolly Parton is a beloved national treasure who is universally regarded as a sweetheart but all the people responsible for putting on this production seem to live in fear of incurring Dolly's wrath or something.  

The special opens in Dollywood with Dolly Parton leading a large crowd down a street singing "Go Tell It On the Mountain".  Dolly yells “Jesus Christ is born!” and everyone marching behind her magically responds with “Hallelujah! He is born!”

Dolly sings “He’s alive and I’m forgiven! Heaven’s gates are open wide!” An offering plate comes around and I pass it to Andrea.  

Then Jimmy Fallon shows up because this special is on NBC and when Jimmy sold his soul to the devil to become a TV star, it's required for Jimmy Fallon to be on every NBC TV special. 

Dolly and Jimmy perform their number at a Dollywood diner because yeah, this special is part (mostly) Dollywood infomercial. 

Then a musical dance number blows up as the producers and director bicker and Dolly thinks Satan is trying to get his hooks into Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas.

Which leads to a bizarre fever dream of a musical number called "Go To Hell" wherein Dolly consigns the devil back to hell with the power of song and Mountain Magic Christmas, I guess?

I can't even...  You know, I just can't....   You know? 

I forgot to mention Dolly Parton is visited by Willie Nelson. We know it's him because his bright red headband says "Willie Nelson". But no one else can see him for reasons? Is Dolly high?  

Having been super religious, it's time for Dolly Parton to burnish her progressive cred so Dolly performs “Whoever You Are, Be That.” (A country version of “Born This Way”.) Gays and drag queens, Dolly still loves you! Homophobic grandparents, just chill a damn minute! Dolly will get back to Jesus, OK?  

But first, Dolly and Miley Cyrus talk about Dollywood roller coasters. NBC viewers, pay up your money and go to Dollywood, damn it! 

And I am just scratching the surface of just how disjointed and bizarre this thing called Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas is. 

I think by the time it was over, part of my brain had melted.  

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, I will look back the year gone by in television. 

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.  

Other People's Money

Let me just say this up front: I do not understand cryptocurrency.  

OK, to be fair, I understand some of how it works and enough to know to stay clear of it. 

The crypto mania thing as a whole has taken a big hit in recent months and took a really deep dive with the collapse of FTX.com, a firm that promised investors safe and convenient ways of trading cryptocurrencies. ("We will protect you from the fuckery!")  FTX is down to nothing in the aftermath of the arrest of it's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas as U.S. regulators bitched slapped this lying, cheating motherfucker with a barrage of civil and criminal charges, including some good old fashioned embezzlement. ("The fuckery!")  

Right wing media had been claiming for weeks that since Sam Bankman-Fried donated money to Democrats, the Justice Department would not dare arrest him

Then Sam Bankman-Fried got arrested. 

NOW right wing media is claiming Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested to cover up sketchy shit done by the Democrats.  

Anyway, the main story here is that with the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the collapse of FTX and the general downward trend in the value of crypto, well, you would have to be a dumb as shit motherfucker of a god damn moron to get into crypto now.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. 

<sigh!> 

Earlier last week, Li'l Donnie made an annoucement that on Thursday he would be making a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!!"

Let me remind you that a few weeks ago, this son of a bitch announced he was running for President and since then has done fuck all to do any actual running for President. 

The biggest Trump story was his having dinner with anti-semites.  

So maybe the  “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!!" was going to involve actually something with his so far only theoretical campaign for President. 

Nope!  

In the grand tradition of Trump Steaks and Trump University, we got Li'l Donnie's latest grift, Digital Trump Cards.

For $99, you can purchase any of a selection of NFTs in the form of trading cards featuring Trump in a number of action poses as a super hero or a cowboy or an astronaut. 

So Mr. Really Big Brain Business Genius has decided now is the time to enter a market in a tail spin. 

In 2021,  Trump had said he “was never a big fan” of cryptocurrency — which, like non-fungible tokens, relies on blockchain technology. He also called digital money “a very dangerous thing.”

In 2022, well, he's OK with it. Of course it's not his money on the line, is it? It's the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging high school drop outs who form the core of his base who will fork over their $99 for his damn digital cards.  

Like most things with the word "Trump" slapped on the side like sub-par steaks, shitty vodka and shoddily constructed town homes, Li'l Donnie has sign off the use of his name and likeness for a boondoggle and as long as he's getting his slice of the pie, well fuck you if you're dumb enough to buy into it. 

Apparently there's enough dumbasses out there to buy $4 million of whatever the hell this is.   

Meanwhile, could Li'l Donnie be heading for... real trouble?

Long time readers of this blog know that as far as any actual legal peril that threatens to actually take down Donald Trump once and for all, my long standing refrain on any consequences he might actually face is "Ain't nothing gonna happen."  

I have zero expectation any of this will be different but (sigh!) here we go with the latest "real trouble" Li'l Donnie is in.  

The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol may be making a recommendation to the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump for  insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. 

Wow! That is....

...

Oh fuck! 

"Ain't nothing gonna happen."  

I mean, the January 6th committee may in fact make their recommendation to the Department of Justice and the DOJ may take all the work the House committee did and say, "Hey! It looks like someone may have committed crimes!" and then try to do something about it.

But it's Donald Trump.

It's god damn Donald mother fucking Trump and no matter what actually is done....

"Ain't nothing gonna happen."  

Trump's lawyers will keep things tangled up in appeals and delays and other shit as long as Trump keeps them paid with other people's money. 

And there may be enough of that on hand if Li'l Donnie can convince enough suckers to pony up $99 a pop for his digital card scam. 

Or collecting donations from his "Running for President" con.