Trapped in a world he was not designed to cope with, Dave-El (the true Kryptonian name of alleged Earth creature David Long) writes about comics, Doctor Who, Star Trek, politics, the absurdity of the human condition and whatever other nonsense that befuddles his unbalanced mind. This is.... I'M SO GLAD MY SUFFERING AMUSES YOU!
Christmas is almost upon us and here in the Fortress of Ineptitude, that means the annual watching of the Doctor Who special "A Christmas Carol" is also upon us so....
Your Friday Video Link this week is Katherine Jenkins with "Abigail's Song (Silence Is All You Know)" from that Christmas special.
We're less than a week from Christmas and I expect I may have a couple of books coming my way for Christmas gifts.
Today's post of Dave-El's Book Report is about one such book. But not one that I got last Christmas.
But the Christmas before.
Which I did not get to read until this year.
Between the basic responsibilities of life (work and stuff) and my excessive TV viewing habits (see the weekly Tuesday TV Touchbase posts) and movie watching obsessions (chronicled in my Cinema Sunday posts and my soon to be started Cinema Saturday as well), finding time to sit down with a book can be a bit tricky.
As much as I enjoy reading.
A few months back, we lost our internet here at the Fortress of Ineptitude for a couple of days which finally gave me an excuse to sit down with the book that is the subject of today's post.
The book for is The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family co-written by Ron Howard and his brother Clint Howard.
Ron Howard started his career as a child actor in The Andy Griffith Show and The Music Man and as a young man appeared in the film American Graffiti and the TV series Happy Days. He has gone on to become a prolific and award winning film director and producer.
His brother Clint was also a child actor on the 1960's TV series Gentle Ben. He was also Baylok in the Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver". Clint took some missteps that led him to drug and alcohol addiction which nearly derailed his life and career. Clint got himself clean and while he never achieved stardom, he continues to make a good living as a working character actor in supporting roles.
(And Clint always has a role in Ron's pictures. For example, you can find Clint working at Mission Control in Ron's Apollo 13 film.)
The Boys is more than just a book about the careers and lives of the two Howard brothers. It also a tribute to their parents, Rance and Jean Howard.
Born in the midwest in the heart of the Great Depression, Rance and Jean had their own dreams of becoming actors, of being stars of stage and screen. Stuff keeps getting in the way. Jean gets hit by a car in New York City and she requires a lot of time to heal but she never gets completely better; all through her life, she experienced pain and discomfort relating to those injuries.
Rance gets called up for military service just as there are growing opportunities in the nascent medium known as television. By the time he completed his military service, it was too late to get his name on the lists of agents and casting directors.
A chance encounter gets their young son Ron noticed for a film role and it is quickly obvious that Ron has a knack for this sort of thing, the instincts of an actor. Rance and Jean put their own dreams and aspirations on the back burner to make sure Ron had their full and unconditional support as Ron developed his young acting career.
And they echoed that commitment when Clint showed a similar aptitude for acting.
One of Clint's first acting gigs was on the Andy Griffith Show. That kid named Leon who was always offering his peanut butter and jelly sandwich to random people? That was Clint Howard.
Being on set as Ron's guardian, Rance would get the occasional acting job. Ron recounts the story of how Rance stepped in a moment's notice to play the role of an FBI agent in Mayberry.
As kids, Ron and Clint were oblivious to their parents' sacrifices. For the most part, Rance and Jean made sure their sons had as normal a life as possible for kids whose faces were on TV screens across the country every week.
And Rance and Jean also were honest arbiters of the boys finances. The boys were aware of how much they were making and their parents took only a small agent's fee (much smaller than other parents of child actors) and put all of the rest away for the boys for when they would be legally adults.
Lessons of frugality continued into adulthood. When Ron was old enough to buy his own car, Rance talked him out of an expensive sports car. Ron instead bought a VW Bug which still sits in the Howard family garage to this day.
Clint's slide away from sobriety owed less to his notoriety as a TV and movie actor and more to the times, the early 1970's interests in drugs. Clint tells how he thinks he's still holding things together as he graduates from high school but he recognizes his tenuous grasp on being really in control of his life.
When Ron married his teenage sweetheart Cheryl (to whom he is still married to this day), the two were driven away from the wedding by Clint who admits he was high as hell.
Ron chronicles his endeavors to move from acting to directing by scoring a chance to direct a movie from noted B movie producer Roger Corman. Ron is candid about his experience directing Grand Theft Auto and the mistakes he made and the lessons he learned. (One lesson: do not rely on Kentucky Fried Chicken for craft services. There are other options for better food at less cost.)
There a couple of acting gigs that I wish Ron had provided some more background on. He mentions his episode of MASH (he accidentally sat in Loretta Swit's chair and she made sure he knew that was wrong) and his turn co-starring with John Wayne in his last movie, The Shootist. But he doesn't elaborater on how those 2 roles came to be on his radar to audition for them.
The two brothers fire some good natured barbs at each other as they tag team the writing of the book, taking turns around sections of the book. (Clint ends the book calling Ron "Opie Cunningham".)
The Boys is a heartwarming memoir that shows what happens when child actors have a loving and supportive home. Yeah, Clint took a bad detour for a bit but even the best environment can't protect us from all our bad decisions. And Clint's recovery from that downturn owes a lot to that love and support from his parents and brother.
This book shows it is possible to grow up in Hollywood without being totally fucked up.
The Iowa State Capitol was home to the a statue of the goat-headed pagan idol Baphomet.
It was part of a display in recognition of....
Well, sort of.
The display was set up by the Satanic Temple which included the statue, an altar with the temple's "seven fundamental tenets" along with a seal surrounded by electric candles.
Perfect for the festive holiday season, you might say.
Baphomet and his accompanying display had permission to be there. The Satanic Temple filled out all the correct forms and followed all established procedures for setting up a religious display on government grounds.
You won't be surprised to hear that people were losing their shit over this display.
And yes it's the same hard line Christian folk who can put up Ten Commandment slabs and Nativity scenes on government property following the same rules the Satanic Temple followed to put Baphomet up for the display.
Christians are all for religious freedom.
As long as it's their religion.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered this nugget of wisdom: “My view would be that’s not a religion that the Founding Fathers were trying to create.”
Do I really need to enumerate the number of ways that sentence is completely stupid?
OK, I'll focus on just the big obvious one: I believe the Founding Fathers were creating a country, not a religion.
There was one Republican and Christian who took a more balanced view of this display. Rep. Jon Dunwell (R-Iowa) said the display was “objectionable” but that the application process for state Capitol displays (which are open to anyone) “do not discriminate on the basis of religion or ideology.”
Well, that sounds downright reasonable.
Perhaps reason and calm would prevail to...
Oh fuck that!
Michael Cassidy, a 35-year-old Navy veteran and former Mississippi House candidate, destroyed the display. Cassidy is a self described "Christian conservative who loves our nation and is committed to preserving the blessings of liberty bestowed upon us by the Founding generation.”
Cassidy said he destroyed the statue to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government. I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged. My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”
And guess where DeSantis is on the actions taken by Cassidy?
"No matter our objections to the beliefs of others, acts of vandalism on public property are never--"
Yeah, I'm lying. Here's what DeSantis had to say.
“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”
Acts of violent vandalism against things we don't like or disagree with is the American spirit? Well, sadly, he may be right about that.
By the way, DeSantis is blaming Donald Trump for this.
Well, how does that work?
An executive order "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" signed by Donald Trump in May 2017 which weakened something called the Johnson Amendment which restricted churches from declaring tax exempt status AND being forums for political discourse. Trump did this as a sop to his evangelical base to help the good Christians who supported him.
Of course it enabled the Satanic Temple to get tax exempt status.
What's good for the goose, etc, etc, etc.
By the way, I am curious. What exactly are these seven fundamental tenets of the Satanic Temple?
Before we get started with this week's Touchbase, we must once more must acknowledged some who passed away last week.
Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life On the Streets and Brooklyn Nine-Nine died at the age of 61.
Yes, I will say what I always say: the wrong people keep dying.
As Frank Pemberton on Homicide, Braugher approached the role with a nearly ferocious intensity. But it was as Raymond Holt on B99 that he became a truly beloved television icon. As the strict literal minded captain of the 99th precinct, Holt gradually warmed up to odd but effective goofballs under his command. He will be missed.
Andre Braugher died of lung cancer mere months after receiving his diagnosis.
Speaking of lung cancer, one more TV person to acknowledge but thankfully with a happier outcome. Kate Maccuci (Garfunkel and Oates, Duck Tales and Big Bang Theory) recently underwent surgery to for lung cancer. She's out of the hospital cancer free and with a positive prognosis for the future.
As 2023 draws to a close, I recently caught up on a documentary series that dropped on Netflix way back at the start of 2021.
Yep, that's the Tuesday TV Touchbase, always on the cutting edge of television culture, give or take three years or so.
History of Swear Words is hosted by Nicolas Cage and I could just stop right there, eh?
"You had me at hosted by Nicolas Cage."
The series explores the History of Swear Words (like it says right there in the title) through interviews with etymology experts, popular culture analyst, historians and entertainment performers.
Each of the 6 episodes explores the following words in depth for their own episode:
The series is informative.
And it is quite funny as well. And Nicolas Cage holds this series together with his trade mark intensity and his rapier sharp wit.
Let's touchbase with Jeopardy for a bit.
The big news that dropped on Friday was that Mayim Bialik would not be returning as host. Mayim made the announcement on her Instagram account that Sony informed her she would no longer be hosting the syndicated Jeopardy.
Which suggests she did not show herself out and does also suggest she may be available for Jeopardy projects outside the syndicated show?
I've always thought from day one after the tragic death of Alex Trebek that the hosting gig should go to Ken Jennings. But Mayim deserved better than she got from the trolls.
Celebrity Jeopardy finished up the quarter final games and is taking few weeks off before returning for the semi final games and the million dollar final. No one reached the embarrassing depths of Emily Hampshire but Kyra Sedgewick came pretty damn close. (Thank God she got the question about her husband Kevin Bacon correct.)
Meanwhile, regular Jeopardy is still not "regular". By the time this posts, the interminable Wildcard games will FINALLY be over. BUT we still have some more "stop gap" special games to get through before we ever get to the Tournament of Champions. I read one source that said it could be as late as April before regular games can resume.
While this is going on, our local TV station which carries Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune is not on our cable system. Tegna which owns WFMY is in a dispute with out cable carrier. There are ways to see WFMY live without cable but I am without a means to record those shows since Andrea and I are not available to watch when they are on.
We have been able to watch Jeopardy where the day's episode gets uploaded to You Tube but no one is doing the same for WOF.
Yes, I am still holding out with cable but I'm really thinking it might be time to cut the cord. I do like the simplicity of cable, of just watching whatever happens to be in front of me as opposed to the decision making process that goes into selecting stuff to watch on streaming.
Side note appropos of nothing: last week when I mentioned I was watching season 2 of Invincible, I forgot to mention I also caught up on the 1 shot tie in, Atom Eve. My God, is ANYONE in the Invincible universe every happy for more than a minute? Poor Samantha Eve Wilkins has powers nigh unto a god and all she gets for it is chastised, ignored, threatened and abandoned. Becoming Atom Eve should give her some freedom, some release to be her true self and use her gifts to help people and it just makes things worse?
OK, Atom Eve was a bit of a bummer but well done exploration of one of Mark Grayson's super powered friends.
Also, Andrea and I are at the midway point of season 2 of Quantum Leap. Over three separate leaps into three different people, Ben Song has encountered the same woman, Hannah, a science prodigy who knows Ben is leaping into these people and Ben and Hannah are in love! What? Whoa!
More TV? MORE TV!!!
Andrea and I have finished season 1 of The Orville. I've seen these episodes already but it's fun to revisit them. But this is Andrea's first time around and she's really enjoying it.
Even more TV? YES!!!! EVEN MORE TV!!!!!!
As if I do not have enough TV to watch, I'm now set up with the free streaming service Tubi. The shows and movies have ads but they're fairly unobtrusive. There's a helpful little widget in the upper left of the screen to alert that an ad is coming in 10 seconds and tracks how long that ad break will last (usually no more than a minute.)
I got Tubi as an opportunity to explore classic Doctor Who episodes. Also I've watched some old Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the little seen pilot for Greatest American Heroine (a proposed spin off from Greatest American Hero where Ralph Hinkley gives the super suit to a young woman.) There is a LOT to explore on Tubi. (I really do not need more TV to watch.)
And that is that for this week's Touchbase.
Next week's Tuesday TV Touchbase will be a special report edition as I look back on what I watched in 2023.
In 2024, future posts will explore the last season of Doom Patrol, the first season of Deadloch, the end of That Damned Thing (AKA The Crown), more Ghosts (AND even more Ghosts from the UK), the return of Night Court, Abbot Elementary and the final season of Young Sheldon.
And MORE!
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.
So NO Doctor Who Is NEW post this week.
After waiting for OVER two years to see what Russell T Davies was going to do with his return to Doctor Who (the announcement of his return was made in September 2021), we've blown threw the three 60th anniversary specials with David Tennant and Catherine Tate,
We stand on the threshold of a new era with new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa with a new special dropping on Christmas Day. (My Doctor Who Is NEW post on that will appear on Wednesday, December 27th.)
But let's take a moment and reflect on what we've experienced so far from the three 60th anniversary specials.
Whovians have developed certain expectations around anniversary specials. The template was established in 1973 for the 10th anniversary when Jon Pertwee's Doctor met his previous incarnations played by William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton.
There was a lot of expectations that at least somewhere over the course of 3 specials, Russell would find somewhere to do some version of a multi-Doctor story.
Well, he did but it wasn't what you're expecting. Instead of Tennant's 14th Doctor interacting with a previous incarnation, he teamed up with the next one, Gatwa's 15th Doctor.
The phrase "it wasn't what you're expecting" can be applied to everything Russell did with these three specials. The specials were a celebration of Doctor Who's 60 year history if you were paying attention.
The first special is a basic "alien threat to Earth" story that draws in regular people who are instrumental to helping the Doctor save the day. It's an archetype of a classic recurring motif in Doctor Who throughout both the classic series and the modern era. "The Star Beast" is a celebration of a basic truth of Doctor Who: the Doctor may be the star of the show but the heroes are the people who help them save the day.
Russell kept a tight lid on what the hell "Wild Blue Yonder" was about and all of fandom just KNEW there were big surprises in store. That would be where we would get the multiple Doctors showing up. Nope! What we got was a tribute to that classic staple of Doctor Who story telling, the "base under siege". From the 1st Doctor's "The Tenth Planet" to the 13th Doctor's "Eve of the Daleks", the story of the Doctor stuck somewhere and unable to leave until the threat is resolved is a long time element in the Doctor Who mythos.
And "Wild Blue Yonder" also acknowledges the undercurrent horror that lurks underneath the shiny veneer of a "children's science fiction program". Shows like the 4th Doctor's gothic mystery "The Horror of Fang Rock" or the 7th Doctor's "The Curse of Fenric" or Russell's own 10th Doctor adventure "Midnight" reminds us that the Doctor's journeys take him into the light as well as into darkness.
"The Giggle" gives us a classic recurring trope of the Doctor vs. an adversary with power, real power to shatter worlds and render life into dust. Any given Dalek story applies here as well as the original appearance of the Toymaker against William Hartnell's Doctor in 1966. Or any time the Master shows up and thinks the solution to what will make him happy is power! The Doctor beats power with wit, intelligence, wisdom and cunning.
Basically, the 3 specials revisit the tropes of Doctor Who both classic and modern but with enough twists to challenge our expectations.
Next week for the Christmas special, the Doctor and new companion Ruby Sunday go up against space goblins with the life of a baby at stake.
And how best to convey that threat than through a musical number.
Christmas is about a week away so today's Cinema Sunday is about a movie that gets trotted out around the holiday season even though it is not ostensibly a Christmas movie.
It's like how Meet Me In St. Louis gets shown around the yuletide season even though only one part of it takes place at Christmas. (And it's the most depressing part!) '
This week's post goes back to a thrice told tale a flamboyant and exuberant woman whose life is changed when she becomes entrusted with the care of her orphaned nephew.
This week's movie is from 1958, Auntie Mame.
The story of Mame Dennis was first told in a novel published in 1955.
The 2nd time was in 1956 when the book was adapted as a stage play starring Rosalind Russell who had optioned the rights to the book.
The 3rd time around was the 1958 Technicolor film which Russell, who had originated the role on Broadway and held the adaption rights to the book, arranged to take the starring role.
(The story of Mame gets told a 4th time on Broadway in 1966, this time as a musical and a 5th time as a movie adaption of the musical from 1974 starring Lucille Ball.)
So what is it about this story that keeps getting told and retold.
Perhaps that can be expressed in this quote from the movie.
"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death." - Mame Dennis
We begin Auntie Mame with a tragedy. In 1928 young Patrick Dennis is left orphaned after the death of his father, Edwin. He specified in his will that Patrick would go live with his aunt Mame but Edwin figured that would never happened as he eats right and exercises every day at the club and living with Mame would be a disaster.
(We see a headline about a wealthy businessman dying while exercising at the club.)
Patrick goes to join his aunt Mame in her lavish apartment in Manhattan where she is throwing a wild and free spirited party for her friends (artists, writers, actors, etc). Mame is immediately taken with this young boy who has arrived on her doorstep. She joyously wants to give Patrick broad and wild ranging experiences in life, to teach him how to not just live but experience the endless opportunities that life has to offer.
Dwight Babcock, a very conservative bank officer and trustee of Edwin's financial estate, has other ideas and per instructions left by Edwin is determined that Patrick receive a proper and disciplined education. So Babcock enrolls Patrick into a super conservative, uptight boy's school, the kind of strict structured education that is anathema to Mame's perspective on life. And she has limited options to counter that strict influence as she can only see Patrick on holidays and the summer.
Uh oh! It's the 1929 stock market crash and with her wealth all but evaporated, Mame takes a series of jobs which all end badly.
During one such job as a Macy's sales girl during the holiday season (Hey, look! It's Christmas!), Mame meets Southern oil baron Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside.
Well, gosh darn tootin' if Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside doesn't get all twitterpated over Mame and she in turn falls in love with him.
Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside wants to go travelling around the world with Mame on their honeymoon.
Which is ever so much fun until Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside falls off the Matterhorn. Don't worry! All he does is get a boo-boo when he scuffs his left knee.
No, I'm lying. Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside is dead.
While watching this with Andrea, she was really gobsmacked by this turn of events. Other than Patrick's dad dying and Mame losing all her money in the 1929 stock crash, Auntie Mame has been an otherwise fun lighthearted film.
Then good ol' Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside falls off the Matterhorn which kills him and Andrea is all bummed out.
So is Mame who is despondent and in mourning over her lost love. And the letters she's getting from Patrick are not helping her spirits. Babcock's influence is guiding Patrick into a more conventional personality.
And also into a different actor. Well, time has passed since little boy Patrick first turned up at Mame's door. He's a young adult now.
Patrick thinks having Mame work on her memoirs might be the perfect way to get her out of her funk. So he sets her up with a dictaphone, a typewriter, and a secretary, Agnes Gooch. He also arranges for a collaborator/ghost writer for Mame, Brian O'Bannion but he turns out to be a pretentious dick who's out for a quick buck.
Agnes Gooch hooks up with O'Bannion and gets pregnant. Mame continues to look after Agnes but does secure a new secretary Pegeen to help her with the book.
Meanwhile, Mame has another matter to contend with: Patrick's engagement to Gloria Upson. Upson is the sort of cookie cutter wife conservative men are supposed to go for: pretty, not too bright and ready to be impregnated with 2.5 children to fulfill her part of the American dream.
Mame is not happy with Patrick's choice for a wife but hey, if he's happy, she doesn't want to get in the way of that. Then Mame meet Upson parents in their "restricted" (meaning "no Jews") community in Connecticut and then Mame decides she is going to get in the way of that.
Mame throws a party and invites the Upsons. It's the sort of wild and free spirited party for her friends like we saw at the beginning of the movie and boy, Gloria Upson and her uptight, prejudiced parents are really offended by everything going on here, especially when they meet the very pregnant and (presumably) unmarried Agnes Gooch.
(Hays Code rules still apply and we find out Gooch and O'Bannion did get married even if both were too inebriated to remember it. But it's a plot contrivance that sorts out the arbiters of morality in the Hays office.)
Anyway the engagement is off but Patrick's OK with it. He's met Pegreen who is pretty AND very bright. They have so much more to talk about than he ever did with Gloria.
By 1946, Patrick and Pegeen are married and have a son Michael. Meanwhile, Mame is a successful publisher author and life is good and wonderful for everyone.
Except perhaps for Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside.
The film ends with Mame and Michael persuade his parents to let Mame take the child on a journey to India and the movie fades out as Mame tells Michael of all the wondrous sights they will see.
Rosalind Russell is perfect as the titular Auntie Mame, a woman with such an energetic passion for all that life has to offer. She is capable of feeling low and hurt as she does when the 1929 stock market crash leaves her broke and the gravity that pulls Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside off the Matterhorn leaves her alone. But she finds her way back to embracing the life.
I'm not one for doing that myself but I usually find such stories about people who do as abhorrently sweet. But Auntie Mame has an edge to it with Mame's repulsion at conservative standards on who can do what and where and when. Mame is not just about enjoying life for herself but seeing to it that others can share in the joy as well.
Or to quote Mame from the movie,"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death."
Evoking at the outset the chill of winter, here is Sarah McLachlan with "Full of Grace".
Finishing our playlist this week is Hayley Westenra with "River of Dreams" which is adapted from "Winter" section of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
Next week is the last ever Christmas holiday selection for Songs For Saturday.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.
After this past week's Tuesday TV Touchbase focus on Spider Noir , let's turn back to the clock to 1947 for a film noir about adult...
