Before it's fully out, I already need another version of Jonathan Glazer's new production, The Zone of Interest, but retooled by Quentin Tarantino and called Oct 7. In that movie, the Hösses are still living next door to Auschwitz, "reaching their full potential" from the genocide over the wall, but then the Jews break free and kill everybody - men, women, and even the Höss children; soldiers and civilians alike. That leads to a media frenzy where we see and hear the Nazis howl about what "animals" and "savages" the Jews were, to commit such "barbarities" against those upstanding beacons of civilization, who the world should've been grateful to, for making that "hellhole" just a little brighter. Now that I can relate to, and need to see.
The Crack Emcee says get on it.
Maine’s tallest, skinniest, scummiest, pioneering punk rocker has died
Two days ago, one of my oldest white conservative friends comes over, toting a 12-pack of Milwaukee's Best Premium and asks, "What's up with the blog? It's getting awful black/white."
"Yeah, it's nothing - I'm just fucking with some 'white' people."
"Let me guess - Althouse."
"Kinda sorta. That whole Trayvon Martin thing threw a few of 'em over the edge, post-Romney, so I'm giving 'em a taste of their own medicine."
"Oh, alright, I see. I was wondering - but you're alright, though? You've been in bed a long time. Anything I can do?"
"Yeah, you can take me to go see Gravity at the biggest IMAX theatre you can find. It's only 90 minutes long, so I should be able to take it. I gotta see it."
"Done - anything else?"
"Naw, you're here, that's enough."
"You got any Willy Nelson?"
"Yeah, over there, go ahead and put it on. Hey - why is it, every time you come over here lately, you control the music?"
"Because, every time I come over here lately, I buy the beer."
"Good point."
And then we clinked our beers together, to the opening strains of You're Always On My Mind,....
Ha! Yesterday Chris Christie said Rand Paul & Co. seemed to want to make Republican politics personal - and then Paul let loose with that lame "Bacon King" jab that hit himself in the chin - so what's Pauly saying today?
“With Gov. Christie it’s gotten a little too personal, so we’re ready to kiss and makeup,..."
Considering everything - beer or no beer - that's a very interesting choice of words,...
The fact that I've read this, or something like it, on several occasions over the years - from the world's top scientists - and yet there's still discussion (and "investigation") is a living testament to the West's utter stupidity in the 21st Century. Great googly-moogly, England, one more time:
There is no case for further scientific investigation into the “manifestly nonsensical” mechanism by which homeopathy is supposed to work, the government’s outgoing chief scientific advisor has said.
I'll be celebrating this latest statement with morning cocktails, due to the time difference,...
My beautiful sister, Marva, has a great ear for music, which isn't surprising because we come from a musical family and she and I both have music careers. But what gets me right now, and the reason I wanted to do a post, is that her music selections can make me practically travel back in time to the '60s, without making it seem like that generic acid-tinged day-glo poster everyone else attempts to conjure.
This is the '60s as I remembered them, when I was a boy, aware beyond my years but with a view that was limited in scope. I didn't know what a hippie was, and though sex showed up early, drugs were still a long way off. Men drank beer, or whiskey, and the women wore sun dresses. Black people were so concerned with their image we dressed up to go to the supermarket. "Funky" was a really bad word.
Martin Luther King was alive and many men wore coveralls as a uniform of the Civil Rights Movement. The insurance man was a "very important person", warranting the dispersal of children and displays of silverware. We hid in silence from Jehovah's Witnesses. We took naps to Billy Graham.
Collard greens were grown next to rose bushes. I thought an iguana was a dinosaur. There were 13 kids in the foster home, with 5 dogs, several chickens and ducks, and a rabbit. We caught an opossum, and stared at his ugly ass all day, but he "played possum" and escaped that night. My foster mother ran down armadillos skittering from the gutters. She caught snakes with her hands and killed them with a gardening hoe.
(I'm only including this song, above, because it's co-written by my sister's good friend Jimmy (OO Soul) Holvay.)
Everyone kept plastic on Living Room furniture, and kids were forbidden to enter there except on special occasions. My Auntie Bessie's was considered extremely glamorous because she decorated it in blue. It was rare that we'd enter her home through the front door, and when we did it felt like someone had died.
One of my sisters had a crush on Elvis which seemed very weird. My cousin Ricky, who was lighter than the rest of us, owned a 45 of The Beatles that nobody would let him play. The old man had nude pinups of white women in the garage. We were forbidden to look at them and thought they were very exotic.
Everybody loved Bobby Kennedy and there was a profile of Abraham Lincoln in every house. Jesus suffered, hauntingly, on his cross at the top of the stairs. We kids ran by him as fast as we could, just to avoid his gaze. It never worked because we looked.
The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, and I Love Lucy seemed to always be on television, interrupted occasionally by I Spy (with Bill Cosby) The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Lawrence Welk. I don't remember when Petticoat Junction came on, but Bonanza came on Sundays. Cartoons started at 7AM, on Saturdays, and occupied a world of their own.
A family friend, Chester Moore, thought it extremely important that all the foster kids learn how to shoot pool, so he'd take us to the billiard parlor and teach us to aim. He got our Christmas tree cheap by saying we were orphans. He said he never saw a woman as beautiful as Cher. Chester drank too much, but he was the only one.
Momma R. made an outstanding peach cobbler, and, if you were going to McDonald's she'd ask you to pick her up some "hambuggies". Taco Bell sold "Tacahs". Jack In The Box just sold Jack In The Box.
My foster mother knew one dance, The Shotgun. She'd use her fingers to make pistols and when she "shot" us we'd laugh. She once fell off a Merry-Go-Round that had started moving while she was trying to secure me to a horse. I never got over the guilt and brought her gifts until the day she died.
I can't believe it took someone, other than me, this long to do a(nother) public presentation on the topic of how bad American music has become. Music used to be our strength. I used to brag that this was the only country in the world that could regularly put out consistently good music (of course, I was making a regularly scheduled contribution to it, at the time).
But now, with all the lazy thinking and bad taste out there - in music, other art, and even politics (how else did we get Obama?) - we've creatively fallen to the level of Europe, and whether we'll be able to get back up is debatable. (These douches even booed the obvious truth that The Dave Matthews Band sucks - Earth to everybody: they define the word "sucks".) My only real quibble with this guy is during the segment on band names:
If he can't appreciate the obvious genius of, both, the name and music of The Butthole Surfers then there's probably something wrong with him. (The same goes for Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, though Mr. Thirlwell wasn't mentioned: check out "Nail" - the best album by an angry Jew ever made.)
And, last but not least, my final objection with the presenter is another obvious one:
