This blog will host my ramblings about life. To be a bit more specific, I'll probably focus on these subjects: music, sports, food, the everyday beauty of life, and the comedy/tragedy/absurdity of our existence. That about covers it.
The past month or so I've been watching Game Show Network on a fairly regular basis. It's astounding to me how stupid the average person is.
Watching these shows in which people give dumb answers reminds me of the statement by George Carlin: "Think of how stupid an average person is and realize half of them are stupider than that."
Since I've been a kid, I've had the uncanny ability to stub my little toe on either of my feet about once a week if I'm lucky. The nails on my little toes are bashed to ugliness.
I've discovered the HBO show/podcast Talking Sopranos that I'm enjoying a lot. I'm revisiting that great series.
A while back I rewatched all of Boardwalk Empire. I had forgotten what a great TV series that one is.
I bought a book recently that is likely to be banned by some idiotic parents in school districts because the non-fiction book talks about racism, sexism, and antisemitism, among other issues. It's titled Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater.
I don't normally read books that are typically labeled "young adult," but this book looked interesting.
Since there are no new episodes of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert happening because of the long writers' strike, I've been watching various streaming services.
I discovered the HBO podcast/show Talking Sopranos that has the actors who played Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Bobby (Steve Schirripa) in the series talk and reminisce about the episode after they had watched it again, I assume (it looks like Zoom), during the Covid lockdown.
They often talk about how the writers and producers selected certain songs for certain specific reasons.
At the end of "The Meadowlands" episode Imperioli points out what a great song ends the episode, and this one is it.
I never bought the Mazzy Star album that gets a lot of critical attention, but I like their stuff.
I recently resubscribed to Mother Jones after not having a subscription for a couple of years. In the first issue I received this year, there's an excellent recount about how the GOP, from a historical perspective, has aided and abetted extremism and white supremacy for decades.
It didn't start with Moscow Don. The Republican Party has been pandering to racists and nativists and angry white people for decades in order to get votes.
The article appears to be a précis of Corn's book American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy. I'm thinking of buying it, but I'm concerned it will just make me more angry than I already am.
Regardless, as Corn relates in the next to last ¶ of his article, "But since at least the 1950s, the party has consistently boosted extremism, prejudice, paranoia, and rage. Sometimes this has led to the GOP prevailing in political battles. In other instances, voters have beaten back the cynical gambit."
As someone who has strong opinions about football uniforms since I watch a lot of American football, I have to say that the orange helmets and uniforms that the Chicago Bears wore last week were terrible.
Those helmets made me call the Bears team the "Great Pumpkins." And like the Great Pumpkin of Peanuts fame, they didn't show up at the end of the game in that snooze-fest that saw the Commanders beat the Pumpkins 12 to 7.
I am rewatching the HBO series Deadwood, and I got to episode 7 of season 2 and was reminded of this great scene, which has Swearengen giving advice to Merrick about stopping moping around and feeling bad for himself.
I deal with so many people who make excuses when times get rough. They need to listen to Al.
Here are some interesting factoids and stats from this month's "Harper's Index""
Percentage change since 2019 in the portion of Americans who believe environmental laws are worth the cost: -23
Percentage of U.S. voters who view climate change as the most important problem facing the country: 1
Of U.S. voters under thirty who do: 3
Portion of American young adults who have considered enlisting in the military: 1/10
Portion of those who are ineligible to enlist: 3/4
Percentage increase since 2019 in the number of independent bookstores in the United States: 34
Percentage of undergraduates who say they encounter at least moderate difficulty with online learning: 94
Percentage of Democrats that Republicans believe are atheist or agnostic: 36
I found a typeface I will now be using more of: Charter. It's easier on my eyes when I look at documents on a screen. For this blog I've been using Trebuchet for years. It's a sans serif font that has some serif-like style with its pointedness. And this all reminds me of the character Brick from The Middle who is also fascinated with typefaces. I started watching that show a few months ago. It's hilarious. Of course, with my timing, I didn't actually watch the sit-com when it was off the air. HBO has a new series I'm interested in: Watchmen. I enjoyed the graphic novel and its adaptation to the big screen. On the latter opus, I guess I"m a minority if one goes by all the vitriol on the InterWebs. I don't know what the series will be like, but I was surprised by Don Johnson being in the show. I haven't seen him in years. His Dark Materials looks very interesting too. I'm intrigued. I'm considering reading the novel trilogy that is the series' basis. Who are the morons who started the idiotic trend of wearing socks with Birkenstocks?
Last night I was watching one of the episodes of the HBO series Sonic Highways that follows the Foo Fighters recording songs at various places throughout the US. One of the episodes was in New Orleans, and The Meters were talked about a bit. Time to funkify your Friday, people.
I've been in a musical rut lately. However, I purchased the new Foo Fighters album this week after having watched the first four episodes of their HBO series Sonic Highways. It's the only album I have from the Foo Fighters. I don't know why I never got into them. I like uptempo hard rock, so you think they'd appeal to me. The band usually employs three different guitars at a time. I like that. And they have a good drummer. I'll ponder this all while in the meantime, I'll give you a classic song circa 1992, Helmet's "In the Meantime."
Earlier this week I watched the HBO documentary Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown. It's quite a good one if you're interested in music documentaries. But since I grew up watching SNL, anything about James Brown reminds me of Eddie Murphy's great skit, James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party. It's below for your viewing pleasure.
Having spent three subsequent days at Aquatica, Discovery Cove, and Sea World this past week, I have some observations and reflections to share:
I'm done with water parks for a very long while.
If you want to see some really horrible tattoos, a water park is the place to go.
To hear British accents outside of Great Britain, the place to visit is Discovery Cove.
For overhearing Spanish, go to Sea World.
After observing people at water parks this summer, I wonder if Chinese or Japanese people get tattoos of aspirational or positively vague terms in English on their bodies, words like "love," "strength," "soldier," "peace," "fire," "harmony," "family," "angel," and "beauty."
HBO's Hard Knocks started this past week. They're following the Atlanta Falcons, a team that has a couple of former Crimson Tide stars on it: WR Julio Jones and OT Mike Johnson, Watching that show sometimes gives me some colorful terms that I might be able to repurpose. When they followed the Jets, I remember Rex Ryan haranguing his players about how they need to play like the "New York @#$%ing Jets" and not like the other NFL "slop dick organizations." Just in case the Nasty family needs it, this product is available for football Saturdays.
For major writing projects in my courses, I provide the criteria I use when I evaluate their work. For larger projects, I sometimes create what I call "alternate criteria" just for kicks. I thought I'd share the alt criteria for a recent project:
That's me quoting my professional self, something I rarely do on this blog. Don't get used to it. Those hyperlinks above might take you to some places though.
With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington, I wonder if anyone has approached Cheech and Chong about doing a movie? Regardless, I'm curious about how much tax revenue those states will generate from pot sales this year. Typical of HBO's adaptation of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, this season's first episode of Game of Thrones sexxed up the storyline. If I remember right from A Storm of Swords, when Tyrion and Oberyn Martell meet for the first time, they do so on the road to King's Landing. Instead, HBO has Tyrion Lannister going to a whorehouse to meet the Red Viper, and the first scene that introduces Oberyn and Ellaria Sand plays with the backstory that they're both bisexual. Classic move, HBO. And if you're a fan of the series, here's "Death Never in Games of Thrones Never Looked So Beautiful" from Mashable.
