Musing of the Moment: Old Movies

I've been watching some old movies on Turner Classic Movies over break, and I've come to one solid conclusion: Grace Kelly is hotter than the hinges off the gates of Hell. 

I watched Rear Window the other day. 

I put out a query on FB about movies that came out before 1980 that any young person should watch. Here's what the mind hive of friends produced:

• Rear Window
• The Maltese Falcon
• Taxi Driver
• Blazing Saddles
• Dog Day Afternoon
• 12 Angry Men
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Airplane!
• A Clockwork Orange
• Alien
• Rocky 
• Enter the Dragon
• Star Wars IV: A New Hope
• Godfather I and II
• The Blues Brothers
• Animal House
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Saturday Night Fever
• Grease
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• The Shining
• North by Northwest
• The Graduate
• French Connection
• The Sting
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Cool Hand Luke
• Casablanca
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Roman Holiday
• Poltergeist

I've seen most of these except for the following: Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Close Encounters, Cool Hand Luke, and Roman Holiday.

The one movie I would add to that list is Life of Brian. 

Music Friday: "Swingtown" & "The Joker"

The Steve Miller Greatest Hits album is one that evokes some memories. 

Here are two songs that can get you grooving. 

Music Friday: "Lazy Eye"

A band that I've been getting back into listening to more often is Silversun Pickups. 

I was reminded of them via a discussion on a FB group I'm a member of that talks about grunge and 90s alternative rock. The question asked in the group was something along the lines of what is a current band that reminds you of 90s alternative rock, and I said this band. 

Here's a tune from one of the two albums I have from the band, Carnavas.  

Stay Positive: Cannery Row (the Movie)

Last night I watched a film that I taped from Turner Classic Movies. It was the 1982 film Cannery Row starring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger. 

I remember my friends and I renting it and watching it on VHS. After watching it, we later made beer milkshakes that the novel made famous. 

It's not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it made me want to read the two novels it is based on, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. They are Steinbeck novels, which are very much of their era.

And I've always liked Steinbeck even though in some literary circles Steinbeck is seen as "too easy" for literature professors. And there's also the stink that is attached to Steinbeck because people read his works in middle school and high school, such as my son having to write a literary analysis paper this semester about Of Mice and Men. 

Despite the literary snobbishness aimed at Steinbeck, he's an excellent writer, who actually could write literature that has humor in it. 

Music Friday: "Nothing Can Hurt You Now"

I hold that Glossary is one of the most underrated bands of the 21st century. It's just straight-up rock-n-roll with great lyrics. 

Here's a tune from the 2007 album The Better Angels of Our Nature.  

Musing of the Moment: Considering 8 Mile

The movie 8 Mile came out over twenty years ago, but I never watched it until last night.  

I like Eminem but not as much as to watch the movie way back then or to buy any of his CDs back when people bought and listened to CDs. 

I watched the movie last night and enjoyed it. 

The film takes you on the journey of hero made famous by the work of Joseph Campbell. The white kid outsmarts the rap battles dominated by black guys after a number of setbacks. 

The minor gaffe in the movie though is making Kim Basinger, who plays B-Rabbit's mom, try to have a consistent Southern accent. And she's not good at it. 

Why? 

The movie is set in Detroit. 

Music Friday: "One Last F.U."

An album I acquired earlier this year that was a new release was Should've Learned by Now by the great band Lucero. 

Here's the opening track from the album and a live performance of it.  

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Eggy Spaghetti

It has been a long time since I made this makeshift dish that one of my fraternity brothers showed to me decades ago. 

It's basically a scrambled egg and spaghetti mash-up that is great to eat after a hard night of drinking. 

I didn't have a drunken night, but I have lots of leftover spaghetti, and I didn't feel like eating it with my homemade pasta sauce. 

Ingredients

3 eggs

A healthy dollop of sour cream

Leftover spaghetti

Avocado or canola oil

A healthy sprinkling of parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Process

Grab a couple of good handfuls of leftover spaghetti and put it in into a cast iron skillet. Chop up the spaghetti with a spatula, so the pasta is in smaller pieces. Heat the skillet to medium and coat the pan and pasta with oil.

Crack your eggs into a bowl and add in the sour cream, which makes scrambled eggs fluffy. Add in salt and pepper. Blend with a fork. 

Once the pan is hot enough, pour the egg mixture over the spaghetti and treat it like scrambled eggs. Sprinkle a healthy does of parmesan cheese on top when you plate the dish. 

Sunday Hangover: Georgia

SEC Champions.

Unfortunately, I don't think that'll matter to the playoff committee because Washington, Michigan, and Florida State are all undefeated and Texas beat Alabama in the regular season. 

Regardless, I enjoy booting Georgia out of the national championship hunt, and Alabama is the champion of the SEC. 

After Georgia's initial drive, I was concerned because they marched right down the field. Then the defense got it together. 

The pass to Jam Miller for a touchdown was beautiful. 

Roydell Williams did well as the lead back with McClellan out with a foot injury. 

We probably won't win the mythical national championship, but the coaching job by the staff this season is admirable. 

Alabama is likely to have four guys go in the first round of the NFL Draft - Latham, Turner, Arnold, and McKinstry - but I expect the Tide to be part the expanded, 12-team playoff next season if all goes well. Milroe is going to grow even better I suspect, and the OC will develop game plans to take advantage of his talent. 

Roll Tide.

Since Alabama is not in the national playoff hunt, I'll start growing my beard of mourning. 

Addendum: My son informed me this morning that Alabama made the playoffs and will face Michigan in the Rose Bowl. 

I'm very surprised, but I look forward to the twelve-team playoff starting next season. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I doubt I'm the only person in the U.S. who does this, but when I change from one pair of shoes to another pair of shoes, I often have the Mister Rogers song in my head. 

"Won't you be my neighbor?"

Since Moscow Don is likely not immune to being sued for his critical part in the Jan. 6 insurrection as related by NPR ("Appeals Court Says Trump Isn't Immune for Jan. 6 Riot Lawsuits"), I wonder how may class-action lawsuits can be lodged against that fascist wannabe goon. 

I hope that white-supremacist grievance merchant is buried in even more lawsuits. The more the better. He's a serious threat to our country. 

And the people who support him are delusional morons. 

Even worse are the people who will vote for him who know he's a fascist-in-the-making, but they vote for him because of whatever issues he supposedly supports. In reality, he's a Republican in name only, a RINO. 

He's not really conservative except for the far-right social-issue dog whistling he does on a regular basis. 

Music Friday: "Ghost in the Machine"

I had no idea Dawes has put out a new album recently. Misadventures of Doomscroller came out sometime in 2022, so it's new music to me. 

Counter to their previous releases, this album has sort of a jammy feel to it. I like it. It's different. They have fewer songs on the album, but they're just longer and feature some solid instrumentation.

Here's one of the songs that caught my ear right away after listening to it. 

Sunday Hangover: Auburn

I enjoy watching Auburn students cry. 

This season's Iron Bowl was frustratingly glorious. 

4th and goal from the 31, and Milroe throws a dime to Bond in the back corner of the end zone. Apparently, the name of that play is "gravedigger." 

I highly doubt Alabama makes the four-team playoff even if they beat Georgia. They are just too many unbeaten teams, and I would bet that Texas beats Oklahoma State in the Big 12 championship game.

I still want the Crimson Tide to win of course.

However, I'm not confident at all because of the way Auburn ran the ball on us. Auburn is one dimensional. Georgia is not. 

As Coach Saban intimated in the post-game interview, Alabama finally got some good luck at Auburn. Usually it's the other way around.  

Musing of the Moment: Harper's Indexes

Here are some interesting stats and numbers from the November and December Harper's Indexes:

• Percentage by which U.S. women are more likely than men to have a tattoo: 41
• Portion of U.S. adults with tattoos who regret getting at least one of them: 1/4
• Increase since 1984 in the median age of first-time U.S. home buyers: 7
• Portion of prospective U.S. home buyers who say they consider climate change when evaluating where to live: 4/5
• Percentage change this year in sales of Bud Light: -16
• In sales of Modelo Especial: +11
• Factor by which beer imports from Mexico have increased since 2013: 2
• Percentage by which beer imports from other countries have decreased: 29
• Percentage change in the divorce rate between 2008 and 2020: -31
• In the divorce rate between 2020 and 2022: +2
• Percentage of millennials who are not planning to get married: 21
• Of adult Gen-Z-ers who are not: 7
• Percentage of U.S. adults who say the political system is working "very" or "extremely" well: 4
• Who express little confidence in the future of the political system: 63
• Who say there is too little attention paid to the important issues facing the country: 78

I have noticed women tend to have more tattoos than men these days. I had a student write a paper years ago that went against the conventional wisdom that tattoos people get are there to show one's individuality. His take was that getting a tattoo was more of a herd mentality issue with many people getting the same kinds of tattoos (certain trends), especially women. 

The so-called conservative war against Bud Light because of a transgender spokesperson is so stupid. Apparently many of these Bud Light drinkers are switching to Modelo, which is humorous because during the Trump administration that company ran TV ads that were clearly trolling Moscow Don and his hateful speech about Mexicans and immigrants. That's some serious irony. 

The rise in the divorce rate obviously has a number of factors, but it's possible the pandemic was a significant cause--and possibly the support of a certain presidential candidate. But then again, that increase should have happened in 2016. Maybe it was because certain people voted for that charlatan a second time?

With the GOP having an advantage with having two Senators for dinky population states and the stupidity of not giving Puerto Rico and D.C. statehood and an uninformed citizenry voting for candidates for stupid reasons, it's no surprise 78% think the political system is not paying attention to climate change, economic inequality, pollution, the wage gap, educational issues, good jobs in the U.S., and other concerns. 

The House, for example, has done next to nothing for years under GOP leadership. Many members of Congress are more concerned about winning elections and raising campaign funds than actually doing something to make the country better. They just want to do some political hokum to get votes. 

The GOP asserts that the "government" doesn't work. Then they get control of a significant branch of it and show everyone that it doesn't work because of their leadership. A dog chasing its own tail. 

Sunday Hangover: Chattanooga

The outcome was expected. The Tide took care of business quickly in the game, and the Mocs got a great payday for their program. 

Surprisingly, Ty Simpson was the leading rusher of the game. He outgunned Jam Miller by one yard with 78 yards of rushing. People tend to label him as a pro-style QB, but if I remember right, we was classified as a dual-threat QB by recruiting services. 

In addition, he looked good when he was given a chance to pass the ball. 

The major positive is that Alabama got to give playing time to lots of guys. 

Next up, of course, is a trip to Auburn, a team that somehow lost to New Mexico State and paid them for the match. 

I expect it to be a tough game for the Crimson Tide regardless of how Auburn lost to the Aggies.  

Music Friday: "God Shuffled His Feet"

I think one of the underrated albums of the 90s is God Shuffled His Feet by Crash Test Dummies. 

Here's the opening track of the album.