By on

When I attended the University of Kansas in the late 1970’s, a friend who was an actor got a small role in the Peter Shaffer play Equus. Equus had several nude scenes in it and he was looking forward to blowing the minds of the people in Lawrence, Kansas. Lawrence was playing its own role here instead of a university town with a mostly cosmopolitan population, it was taking on the the role of a small Kansas town rife with closed minds about nudity. I also was taking a course in Modern Theater. The professor encouraged his students to see the play because he thought it would blow our minds. Using almost the exact words as my friend. Hmm.

Blowing the minds of the audience was very much a part of the purpose of this play. To ensure that the damage done to our minds was not so severe, there were warnings about the nudity in the play so everyone who entered the theater was prepared for the genital reveal which , at least to my mind, spoiled the whole shock value of having nudity in the play. I was waiting for it.

Then, the type of person who would wander into a student play at a University is just not your typical small town Kansan. They would be more academic, more cosmopolitan, and more open to nudity in the theater. By 1979, even in Kansas, most people who followed the arts already had seen their fair of nudity before Equus exposed them to some more. But how do you get them into theater to see the nudity? Oh, yeah, why don’t we create a little controversy and, lo and behold, it worked, the controversy brought people into the show.

This is what I think happened with Bad Bunny’s Half-time performance. It was meant to provoke a certain segment of the population. It successfully provoked them. They lost their minds as they do and started demanding all kinds of things which cause the Media to follow the controversy. This created a demand to see the show. It was a genius marketing ploy — hyping the first Spanish language performer at the Super Bowl. The buzz was great, a lot of people watched it because most people had no idea who Bad Bunny was or what they were about to see. The television advertisers got their audience, so the money they paid was well spent.

Everybody is happy — particularly, I imagine, Bad Bunny who got a lot of free press and millions of potential new customers for his music. For the vast majority of people, though, it was a meaningless experience in a life filled with meaningless experiences. But no one’s minds were seriously blown here. It will hardly be a memory in a year or two.

But you have to give credit to the the organizers of the show, they certainly showed they knew what they are doing. If you got something to sell, I certainly would recommend them. Buzz is their middle name.

By on

I have mixed feelings about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Half-time show on Sunday.

I only half paid attention to it. I would look up whenever somebody shouted there is Lady Gaga or there is Ricky Martin but other than that it held half of my attention at best. Before you get all bent out of shape about me not watching the show, I can also make the same admission about every Super Bowl Half-time show I ever witnessed. Half-time shows are a time to refresh my drink, to grab some grub and to go to the bathroom. I can’t recall ever being so mesmerized by a Half-time show to commit one to memory. To be fair, the actual football game falls into that category as well.

Frankly, I am too old for the shows. I rarely, if ever, have any personal knowledge of the entertainer who is flying in from the rafters or appearing in a whiff of smoke. I am also just a little bit bored with the annual outrage of whichever artist gets selected to perform. Nobody they choose is going to please everyone in such a diverse population. The artist will be too niche, too controversial, too sexy, too tame, too boring, too young, too old, and I think you get my point, anyone selected will be too too something. It is a fool’s errand and I think the Super Bowl Entertainment Committee would be best to go back to marching bands instead of big name entertainers.

That said, I do think there was a problem with Bad Bunny. Someone somewhere wanted to deliver a message to Middle America and Donald Trump. Trump obviously received that message given his vitriolic response. He got angry which is what he was supposed to do and like a well tuned clock — he did. Taking their cue from their master, the conservative talking heads screamed their agreement. Does it make any sense though? Putting on a show in which a significant majority of the people watching don’t speak the language seems unnecessarily provocative and more than a little petty.

If you are trying to put on a show that celebrates immigrants, perhaps using a common language would be helpful to the people who you are purportedly trying to influence, otherwise you are missing your target. Oh, but it was the most watched Half-time show in the history. I think “watched” is a pretty strong word here. I would argue it was more background noise and that most of Middle America could care less. It is a quick conversation the next morning and then back to work. By the end of the week, the rest of the country will have forgotten about it and moved on to watching skiers fall at the Winter Olympics.

All we really got out of Bad Bunny was another experience of Donald Trump foaming at the mouth which, lets face it, we could have elicited by any number of pokes in the eye. It isn’t terribly difficult. I can’t wait until next year when the Super Bowl Half-time Entertainment Committee decides to have the best opera singers and classical music artist performs to ensure that Americans get exposed to a culture that they are unaware of.

By on

Conservatives recent field day complaining about the Somalian daycare center corruption is difficult to take seriously when this is accompanied by silence about the obvious corruptive practices of Donald Trump — things like the Qatari prince giving him a jet, or Trump pardoning of social security frauds and drug traffickers, or Trump awarding defense contracts to companies associated with his son.

But, no, the corruption outrage is limited to Somali immigrants or, rather, to any group seen to have connections to the Democratic party. Any fraud that may be associated with Trump or any of his billionaire friends are to grift without consequence. The stench of hypocrisy is just far too overwhelming. What really matters is who is committing the fraud but I don’t believe for one minute that you truly care about ending corruption.

In order for me to believe that they care I would think an investigation into Trump’s dodgy pardons would be a nice start. Oh, and if your defense is but Biden did it too. It’s a child’s defense after getting her hand caught in the cookie jar based in the notion that everybody is doing it, why are you getting bent out of shape because you caught me. That argument holds little, if any, moral principle.

So, by all means, let’s investigate the Somalian day care centers for fraud but you can get off your fucking high horse because nobody believes your show of faux moral indignation.

By on

The ever changing explanations for Donald Trump’s release of a racist video regarding the Obamas is a bit mystifying, at least, in regards to it being helpful in understanding what actually happened. I don’t think they really matter anymore because none of them give a good impression of the Trump White House.

First the idea that someone in the White House, up to and including the President, didn’t understand that depicting the Obamas as apes was racist is just a bit more bull shit than even some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are willing to swallow. But, say I am going to let you off the hook for being racist, it doesn’t let you off the hook for being ignorant of a common racist portrayal.

Is this really how you want to frame your mistake? Trump was using the Lion King characters as a funny way to express an opinion and had no racist intentions whatsoever. Well, then, why didn’t you know this? Since this history is common knowledge, is it really a good idea to have you managing the very country that has this complicated history? What stupid mistake are you going to make next because of your ignorance? It is hardly a reassuring answer.

Oh, then Trump says he didn’t watch the whole video so he missed the part where the Obamas were depicted as apes. Well, again, why not? If something is going out with your name associated with, it might be a good idea to watch the whole video. The video wasn’t that long — a full viewing by the man in charge could have prevented this embarrassing mistake. So we have gone from ignorant of a long standing racial stereotype to my team made a mistake because I couldn’t be bothered watching the whole video but I gave my approval any way even though I didn’t really know what was on the video.

Then there is the lack of an apology. If this was genuinely an honest error, what is the problem with saying you are sorry. Trump now claims he didn’t make a mistake, someone else did because he didn’t know about the Obamas as ape section of the video. That isn’t an excuse and failing to watch the whole video is indeed a mistake. He signed off on something that he had not thoroughly vetted.

It is mistake and he needs to say he is sorry. Is it really that difficult. I am sorry and I will try to do better next time. If this was an honest error then put it behind you already. Even if you aren’t genuinely sorry. An insincere apology is better than no apology. But no, Trump refuses to apologize because he, apparently, doesn’t make mistakes. Which, I might add, is also a troubling Trump characteristic.

This leads me to believe Trump simply doesn’t care that people think he is racist. Or stupid. Or incompetent. He thinks he should be able to say whatever he wants and if people don’t like it, tough shit. Just a reminder, he is the president of the United States something he has failed to understand since taking office. Don on a barstool in the local tavern can say anything he wants. The president of the United States has to think carefully before he opens his trap and, understandably, any person who is under such public scrutiny is going to slip occasionally, when you do, all you have to do is have the grace to say I am sorry.

So, to recap, the best case scenario here, is that we have an idiot as president who is unaware of the history of the country he leads, says whatever ill-thought out words come to his mind and isn’t going to apologize even after his mistakes are pointed out to him. The worst case is we have a racist who enjoys displaying his racism even when it is unnecessary and counter-productive to what he is trying to do. The truth probably lies somewhere in between but none of them really encourage me that Trump is worthy or up to the job that he holds.

By on

Occasionally, after writing a post, I have this wait a minute moment. I realize that I didn’t quite write what I wanted to say. This happened to me last night after I posted regarding the Epstein Files. I realized I wanted to emphasize a point more strongly than I did.

What is bothering me here is that the Biden Justice Department sat on these files for 4 years. The pressure for releasing these files came from MAGA and Donald Trump. Trump is rarely held accountable by his supporters, latched on to the issue during the 2024 campaign because it was useful then, probably thinking that once he took office he could forget any he promises he made about the files. MAGA deserves a little credit for holding him to his promise because some MAGA members continued to campaign for their release even after Trump tried to bury them again. Democrats joined the bandwagon because Trump was president now and the files could be used as a cudgel to use against him. They were counting on maximum embarrassment to Trump and the Republicans.

Unfortunately the files uncovered a much more insidious problem — a lot of political and business elites think it is ok for themselves to enjoy sexual relations with trafficked women and girls and they expect other people in the elite club to look the other way and protect them if they get caught. Sadly, it looks like they might get away with it.

Given the heavily redacted documents which prevents further investigation from people outside of the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche’s opposition to further prosecution, it looks like the most these men will endure is a little embarrassment and perhaps a job loss here and there. Not much, I would say for participating in a global sex trafficking ring. But we can’t have VIP’s being embarrassed, now can we?

What has me roiled here is that Joe Biden could have released these documents while he was president. Prior to Trump’s second inauguration, I don’t recall many Democrats all that enthused about their release. Biden’s Justice Department could have redacted the documents instead of Trump’s. But, for some reason, nothing happened. Oh, right they were protecting the poor women who were abused by Epstein and Maxwell. I thought that was the purpose of redacting the documents — protecting the victims. So, that particular excuse simply doesn’t hold water. So why did they sit on these documents and do absolutely nothing for 4 years? Protecting rich powerful men from prosecution is the only thing I can com up with.

This leads me back to the conclusion — Trump is not the problem. He is a symptom of a greater problem — a system that clearly is broken and no plausible way to fix it. Sigh.

By on

Every so once in awhile I realize that Donald Trump is a diversion from the real problem. The latest release of Epstein File documents made me focus again on the bigger issue here — the rich and powerful are misbehaving and getting away with it and have absolutely no interest in changing things.

This is apparent because after 20 years of investigations into Epstein, only two people have been convicted of any crime — Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Pretty strange, don’t you think? If you have sexual trafficking going on, there are sellers (Epstein and Maxwell) of the girls and then there are buyers of the girls. The buyers have managed to skirt the justice system so far. Why?

The government is sitting on reams of evidence naming potential customers. None of them, except ex-Prince Andrew, who, poor thing has been stripped of his title, has had any reckoning with the law. It is more than a little telling and also disappointing that four different presidential administrations have gone by since Epstein’s first crimes were discovered, with more and more evidence accumulating with each year and the Department of Justice does nothing to pursue Epstein’s johns. This will change now that the evidence has been released, right?

Apparently no. Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, says they don’t have any evidence that these gentlemen committed any crimes. Yes, they did socialize with known sex traffickers but that is not a crime. Blanche says this in such a way that suggests if he had some evidence to pursue these men he surely would. Right. They may not have admitted to anything but, Jesus Christ, he has names of people who might have information or, worse still, have committed crimes.

Dragging them into the police station for a few questions seems called for particularly from an administration that has no trouble blowing drug trafficking suspects out of the water without a trial. Hmm. Makes you think doesn’t it. What is the difference between a suspected Venezuelan drug dealer and a suspected Epstein party goer? Let me think.

But these rich powerful men, these best and brightest didn’t know what Epstein is up to. You can’t blame them for not seeing what was going on. They just came for a little R and R. It is possible these men coming to a secluded island with a bevy of adolescent girls didn’t know what was up. It is possible but highly unlikely. One of the more eyebrow raising effects of the released Epstein files is to witness these rich and powerful men squirming awkwardly about their culpability. They just didn’t know what old Jeff was up to.

Does anyone honestly believe that? Given that many of these men have teenage daughters of their own, the idea that they can’t eyeball a girl and gauge her age seems a bit, oh I don’t know, unbelievable. More importantly, if they are too god damn stupid to see what Epstein was doing, should they really be trusted with such important jobs. So to put in bluntly they are either liars and therefore unworthy of their position or stupid which makes them even more unworthy of their position.

The whole Epstein fiasco points to a much bigger problem than just Trump. Biden’s Justice department wasn’t doing anything with the information either and probably for the exact same reason that Trump initially didn’t want to release the files — they were protecting important men from, at the bare minimum, embarrassment and, at the worst, prosecution for sex with minors. This suggests that the system is rotten to the core. Trump going into retirement won’t change that.

By on

Spoiler Alerts: Don’t read further if you plan to read The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree.

My book club was reading a book called The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree by India Hayford. Hayford is a good writer and it was an engaging enough story but John Calvin, the villain, irritated me. He might as well been twirling his mustache every time he appears in the book just so you remembered he was the bad guy. He was just evil. Bad to the bone, a bully that nobody likes but everyone kowtows too. It also makes the more dubious actions of the heroes a lot easier to stomach. You can do anything to stop evil after all, right?

That is precisely the problem though. It drains the story of any moral ambiguity. Should she or shouldn’t she isn’t the question.We are rooting for Genevieve, the heroine, to do whatever she has to do to stop the dastardly John Calvin. The reader gives her the license to kill because they hate her nemesis. But shouldn’t murder give one pause. Is this the only way the villain can be stopped?

I think in this case, maybe another method could have worked. When your whole family hates you and you are raping your own daughters, I would think revealing the monster might have worked just as well. But no, John Calvin is too evil. He deserves death. Oddly enough, Hayford pulls her punch at the end because Genevieve isn’t the one to exact revenge on John Calvin, it is another character which may give the book a bit more mystery but, again, it is distracting. The book’s lead character is Genevieve. Her trials and tribulations are the main focus. The reader knows the most about her life and her motivations — yet she turns over the satisfaction of killing John Calvin to someone else.

So, even though John Calvin is evil and deserves to die, Genevieve is too good to kill him. So all of Genevieve’s rather sparse moral dilemma about killing John Calvin is for naught as she ultimately doesn’t have to pull the trigger or, in this case, release the snakes. It is strangely unsatisfying and disappointing ending for a readable and page turning book.

By on

There is this horror movie trope where someone hears a noise and then goes to investigates. At this point, everyone watching the movie knows that investigating the noise is a big mistake, mostly because the background music is building the suspense so the audience knows this isn’t going to end well. When I am watching these movies, I think why is this person so stupid. Everyone knows you shouldn’t investigate the noise in the basement. Particularly if it is late at night and no one else is at home. Come on.

Well, you would think I would be more careful when I heard a noise the other night. It was coming from outside. Without a second thought, I went out to the porch to investigate. Fortunately for me, it was nothing to worry about. It did, however, get me thinking, absent the suspense building music, I, without giving it a second thought, checked on the noise outside.

You think, after a lifetime of witnessing the worst in movies, I would know better by now. But clearly I am just the horror show victim waiting for the monster to leap out and get me. It is kind of embarrassing.

So my apologies to all the characters who I screamed at for being so stupid. I am deeply deeply sorry.

By on

Hear me out on this one. This might take a minute.

I never got Ronald Reagan. His charm eluded me but a comfortable majority of the country disagreed. They loved him which allowed him to change the American political environment. The free market/small government ideas he espoused still dominate the political debate nearly 40 years after he left office. If you don’t believe me, try raising taxes anywhere in the United States and the overwhelming response will be no. Americans prefer potholes to good public services.

Reagan had a nice guy personality that connected easily with the public and is completely different from our current president. Criticism rolled right off Reagan’s back and he worked with his political opponents whenever possible while respectfully disagreeing with their ideas. This enabled him to incorporate much of his political agenda into American life.

This worries me because Trump is such an obvious asshole. I think a lot of his own supporters think he is an asshole. They support him any way because they agree with his politics. Nearly half the country for the last three elections has voted for him despite him being an asshole, an idiot, a misogynist pig, a racist, and a corrupt detestable human being.

Where would he, and more importantly, the country be if he was slightly less obnoxious? My fear is he would have even more support than he presently does which should put the fear of God into the Democratic Party, but doesn’t. I have been supporting the most left leaning candidate my whole life (voting since 1976) and have met with disappointment almost every single time. These candidates somehow fail to catch fire beyond the left leaning communities they come from and the Democratic nominee (see Carter and Clinton here) is generally more conservative than I prefer. Obama is the only successful exception that I can recall and keep in mind his best result in a general election was 52% of the vote.

So when leaders on the left try to say Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez are the answer, I seriously have my doubts. Don’t get me wrong, I would like them to be the answer, I just don’t think it will happen. If an obnoxious asshole like Trump can win elections, imagine how a less obnoxious asshole can do.

By on

I usually don’t write TV reviews because I mostly like what I see and I have run out of ways to say nice job, great production, outstanding acting. I am trying to learn how because I think it is important to be able to write about anything but good TV, I am afraid, leaves my writing stilted. On the other hand if it is problematic or bad TV, I can write. Fasten your seat belts I have found a show that really irritated me and believe me there will be spoiler alerts so, if this bothers you, stop reading now.

Any way, there I was enjoying Lazarus, a 6 part English series. I get to the final episode enjoying this problematic but somewhat entertaining show and then the god damn thing goes completely off the rails. There was a new plot twists with each scene. He is the murderer, no she is murderer, no murdered some of the victims but not all of the victims. It felt very much like someone who was an uppity up at the studio, after viewing 15 minutes of one of the episodes decided there weren’t nearly enough plot twists. So as you near the end of the episode, you sort of know who committed some of the murders but kind of don’t know about others and it is the fucking last show so this is it. If you don’t know for sure now, you have lost the plot.

An example might help you understand my plight here. There is a serial murder loose and we assume he has been killing for a long time. You go into episode 6 thinking it was the crazy neighbor who killed everyone. But we find out really fast that no the police detective in charge of every last investigation might have done it. But wait, then we find out, through Lazarus’ communication with the dead, more on that later, that it is really Lazarus’ father.

Now this would be a good opportunity to wrap up the show letting the audience know all the whats and wherefores. Sometimes a nice bow tying up all the plot devices is needed. It would certainly be helpful here. Instead they throw in yet another plot twist that has nothing to do with any of the previous murders and looks like an incredibly lazy set up for another season. Lazarus discovers that his son, which for the record he didn’t know about until the middle of the season, has inherited his grandfather’s predilection for murder. Shades of the Bad Seed. WTF and why?

Then there is the unfortunate character of Lazarus (Sam Claflin) who sees dead people which allows him to discover clues that reveal murder victims and suspects. Since he is getting his clues from ghosts, Lazarus has a difficult time explaining to the police how he is getting this information. This means for much of the show he is hysterical because he is fucking seeing and talking with ghosts which he finds disturbing and he can’t very well explain this to the police who will think that he is crazy if he is seeing ghosts. So instead he just acts crazy without the mitigating factor of him explaining why. So, in trying not to appear crazy, he is acting crazy to hide that fact that he is talking with dead people. The police, quite rightly, question his sanity and suspect his motives.

The behavior of the ghosts is odd. Most of the ghosts believe they are talking to Lazarus’ father as they are patients or employees of his father. They really don’t explicitly give him information. They relive their encounters with his father. Lazarus acts like his father for the dead people while the ghosts show him what happened to them in the past. They supposedly are trying to point out who the murderer is even thought they actually know, at least in some cases, that the murderer is Lazarus’ father and they could just relive the moment when they were murdered. This would save everyone a lot of time but no the ghosts are coy and would rather just drop hints. Hints that are absolutely no help to Lazarus in finding the real murderer and would wrap up the show a little too quickly. Like in the first episode. The answer to keep the show going is plot twists, there needs to be more plot twists.

Lazarus’ father, unlike all of the other ghosts, actually talks to Lazarus. Why he can actually communicate with Lazarus while the other ghosts can only show what happened to them in the past is never explained. Since the whole purpose of the ghosts is to determine who the murderer is and the Lazarus’ dead father seems to be the head ghost trying to reveal this mystery, it begs the question why doesn’t he just tell Lazarus who killed who. This would be too easy, so, the father just lets him make a lot of wrong assumptions and endanger himself and others for no apparent reason other than it keeps the series going for another episode. The father isn’t shy about confessing to his murders at the end so why not just get it over with when he first appears to Lazarus. Plot twists baby, there has to be plot twists.

And finally, I can’t help myself, it is a small complaint but nonetheless irritating, so I have to mention it, the policewoman who Lazarus suspects of being the killer (she is only a killer) outruns the much younger Lazarus through the empty lunch time streets of London. Yes, empty streets at lunchtime in London. Not a moving car in sight. The woman, who has to be, at least, in her late 40’s and probably older, runs like an Olympian, gliding effortlessly from deserted street to deserted street until she hits a main avenue where, of course, a bus hits her. What do you expect when you are running down the middle of the street in broad daylight in a major metropolitan area like London. I was surprised she wasn’t mowed down when she stepped off the side walk. So was I shocked by her fate? Can’t say that I was. I have seen this trope so many times that any time a character, particularly a villain, finds them self stopping in the middle of the street, I know that the jig is up and a vehicle is heading their way with deadly consequences.

It is just too much and too unbelievable but I have wasted my time on worse. It is totally up to you but you might keep searching for another show and, if you still can’t find anything to your taste after 15 minutes or so and you find yourself back at Lazarus, you can give it a go knowing my concerns. It might help you to cut loose more quickly than I did.