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Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson, the fundamentalist Christian broadcaster who made a serious run for the Presidency in 1988, died today at 93. 

Robertson is credited with helping move conservative Christianity into the Republican camp, but what I remember him most for is a memory of my childhood, from when I was eight or nine: my Mom warning me never to watch Robertson's syndicated 700 Club television program. Perhaps her reasoning was political, but more likely it was about how his fundamentalist outlook clashed with our Catholicism. 

None-the-less, as a child, and without an explanation for the ban, I was left with the misguided impression that there was something inherently evil about the show, like they were encouraging open violence or devil worship. At 49, I can honestly say I have still to watch so much as a half hour of the show because of that memory LOL

RIP

Fools Crow

This crow stubbornly refused to budge from from the roadway this morning, making drivers (including me) change lanes to go around him. 

Tina Turner

 On June 29th, 1997, Lisa and I attended a concert at the Marcus Amphitheater during Summerfest, Milwaukee's lakefront music festival. We watched a very pregnant Cyndi Lauper open the night, which was a nice bit of nostalgia,  and then the great Tina Turner took the stage. 

Here's the setlist from that day: 

1. Whatever You Want
2. Do What You Do
3. River Deep, Mountain High
4. Missing You
5. In Your Wildest Dreams
6. GoldenEye
7. Private Dancer
8. We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)
9. Let's Stay Together
10. Undercover Agent for the Blues
11. I Can't Stand the Rain
12. Steamy Windows
13. Givin' It Up for Your Love
14. Better Be Good to Me
15. Addicted to Love
16. The Best
17. What's Love Got to Do With It
18. Proud Mary
19. Nutbush City Limits
20. On Silent Wings
21. Something Beautiful Remains

Cyndi Lauper setlist:

1. Ballad of Cleo & Joe
2. I Drove All Night
3. Time After Time
4. You Don't Know
5. Sisters of Avalon
6. Money Changes Everything

Tina Turner died today at age 83. There's nothing I can write about her life that hasn't been documented better elsewhere: her rise to fame, her abusive marriage, her time in the entertainment wilderness, her magnificent comeback. 

So I will merely say this:  thank you for a heckuva show. RIP. 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown, the only NFL rusher to average more than 100 yards per game for his career, and arguably the greatest player in NFL history, has died at 87.

 His playing career preceded my birth, and my memory of him is completely unrelated to his athletic life: I know him as Ruffo, the mercenary friend of Rod Taylor in the graphic 1968 action movie Dark of the Sun.  

 RIP

Dog

How To Blow Up a Pipeline (FILM)

I hope you've heard about this movie before reading this post, because I'd hate to be responsible for spreading awareness of its existence. 

There's been a lot of buzz about the movie, from praise at the Milwaukee Film Festival to warnings from construction companies to increase their vigilance in the wake of the screenings. 

I wanted to see it for myself, to know if it was just another fabricated controversy, like Ozzie Osbourne leading your children to Satanism, or if there was actual meat on the bone. 

Sadly, the movie lives up to the warnings. 

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a film about a group of like-minded young people, who, at least on the surface, are united in their despair about global warming and ecological damage, to the point where they attempt to blow up a gas pipeline in Texas.  

I say "on the surface" because the rationale driving many of the characters is pretty threadbare. One character blames her illness on a refinery, and there's an angry Texan furious that his land was taken via eminent domain by an oil company. But the others just seem to gravitate to the project. One woman joins, despite opposing the plan, merely to appease her lover. 

At no point does the script appear to even care to explain their motivation in anything but the most cliche and superficial terms because the audience is presumed to accept their participation as a necessary and natural action. Unbelievably, in the context of the movie, we sort of do.  

The film as a whole is a propaganda piece uninterested in nuance or alternate views; when an  objection is made on screen, it is quickly and wholly dismissed as weak, cowardly, and insufficient to the matter at hand.  Terrorism, the group routinely states, is the only means of achieving the goal (though the overall goal remains strangely ambiguous - to inspire copycats, sure, but to what end?). The group proudly attaches the label of "terrorist" to themselves. After all,  so they muse, MLK and Jesus were terrorists, their violence was probably just forgotten after their success, right? 

All well and good if you agree on the problem, I guess. But there's nothing  on screen, no Grand Evil, that's *unique* to the climate crisis. I'd argue the same script could, with mild revisions, be used to present a film advocating the bombing of abortion clinics, livestock farms - or office towers in southern Manhattan. 

Now this isn't a documentary on bomb production. I'm sure you could find more information about that in 15 minutes online than you could gleam from the movie. No one is going to learn how to attack a pipeline from this, nor will it inspire a normal person to enlist in such an effort. 

Where the danger lies is this: as a movie, as a thriller, as a piece of entertainment, the film WORKS. It is well done and entertaining and most of the time you gloss over the dangerous rants because you're invested in the outcome. You walk away just a bit blase about the whole "terror" aspect. I'm not sure that's a good thing. 

SPOILER: I do think the final ten minutes of the movie, in which it devolves into a poor imitation of The Usual Suspects or Oceans 11 in an attempt to show just how much smarter the plotters are than law enforcement, nixes a lot of the goodwill the group has built with the audience. Fairy tale endings, devoid of any consequence for your actions, just don't ring true, and it drags the viewer abruptly out of the story. END SPOILER

I am a fierce defender of free speech, be it good or bad,  and not for one second do I think this shouldn't have been made or that it should be banned. 

But I do wonder at the wisdom of making it, and of the value of using art to encourage violence. 

On a Sea of Glass and There's Something Alive on the Titanic

For most of my life I've read a minimum of 52 books a year, and I often watched upwards of 150 movies a year too - and that while raising a family, working, and attending classes. 

That was then. 

Now? I recently finished reading my first book in over a year, and even that took me months to finish. I rarely watch a movie. And there have been weeks where I haven't turned on the TV. I also do not write,  ride my bike,  go regularly to Mass, or do pretty much anything I once considered routine and Danny-like. 

I'm sure it's a sign of some deep underlying depression, but if so I don't consciously feel it, and it may just be a big innocent lull. 

Time will tell. 

Anyway, that first book in over a year?  On a Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of RMS Titanic by Tad Fitch, J Kent Layton, and Bill Wormstedt. 

It is a detailed, 930-odd page (in epub at least) history of the Titanic from conception through the discovery of the wreck. When I say "detailed," I mean there is an appendix debating what the exact time of Titanic's departure was on its maiden voyage, down to the minute; discussions dissecting the timeline of survivor's accounts, comparing it to those of other witnesses and adjusting the accuracy accordingly, etc. Generally, the book displays a love, even adoration, for the minutiae of the ship. 

Just by presenting the facts many of the myths of Titanic are destroyed: Ismay was neither a coward nor an overbearing snit; 3rd class passengers were segregated aboard ship in part because they were subject to immigration laws, not because of the snobbery shown in Cameron's epic (tho', as the era's equivalent of a passenger jet, accommodations were divided by class); the infamous coal bunker fire was routine for the day, etc. 

There were also flaws with the ship, as you'd expect on a maiden voyage. The heating in second class was problematic, making some staterooms a sauna while leaving the majority a chilly icehouse. The public rooms, even in first class, were bitter cold when the ship reached northern waters. And there were innocent mishaps too: a first class woman fell down the grand staircase and broke her arm - up to the sinking, it was apparently the talk of the ship. 

It's a great book, and worth your time. 

* * * 

On the heels of that, in an effort to keep my momentum going, I read There's Something Alive on the Titanic by Robert Serling (the brother of The Twilight Zone creator and host). It is, forgive me, an atrocious novel. Skip it. 

Vida Blue

RIP to the great Oakland pitcher, three time World Champion, Vida Blue.

Lisa and Smiley visit Tupelo Honey

Vigilance

Yesterday Smiley sent me these photos of our doggos diligently protecting our homestead.

The dangerous subject they were watching? THIS guy:

A Disturbance in the Force

A few days ago I saw a Facebook post advertising a unique event: a showing of the documentary "A Disturbance in the Force" as both the closing film of the Milwaukee Film Festival AND a celebration of May the 4th. 

I don't go out very often lately, but this was worth the effort. My friend Tre and I arrived at the Oriental, tickets in hand, to find a line that stretched down the block and around the corner. 

 

Once inside, a first: I got to sit in the balcony at the historic theater. And it is quite the beauty. 

 By the way, this was allegedly the first sell-out of the theater since Covid.

The documentary traces the creation of the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, and the impact it had on fandom. I found the film funny, informative, and well worth the watch. 

Afterwards there was a Q &A with the director, and then Tre and I headed over to Axe Mke to catch up over a drink. 

A nice way to spend an evening!

Some Fresh Art

Kestdaddy

So Keston Hiura wasn't claimed on waivers (idiots abound) and was outrighted to Nashville March 28th. Here's what he's done since then: 

.333/10/26 with an OPS of .394 and an OPS of 1.118 - oh, and he's been Player of the Week three out of the last four weeks. 

Now the argument goes that his performance wouldn't necessarily carry over to the bigs, and I agree, at least as far as Milwaukee goes. The Brewers have s*it him up so bad that I doubt success is attainable for him here. But in a different system, if he can shake off the Brewers handling of him . . . well, I think he'd thrive. 

I hope he gets the chance. 

Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian singer/songwriter who immortalized the doomed Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, died yesterday at age 84. 

RIP, and may the crew of the Fitzgerald guide you home. 

On God

I wish it wasn't so popular to consider people who believe in God less intelligent. Some of my closest loved ones don't believe, and I definitely don't consider them less intelligent because of it.

You believe or you don't.  I guess it just boils down to a feeling within. I feel God is real, I have felt his love in the hardest of times my entire life. I don't believe any of this was a mistake or unplanned and I believe I am more than my body and my soul will live on.

You can't choose how you feel internally about if there is a God but you CAN choose how you treat and talk about others who feel differently than you. - Lisa

A Long Time Coming

By choice, I have not had dark meat in close to forty years.  Today, bc my son took a good chunk of the day to cook it for dinner, I had my first drumstick since I was a kid.  Not bad honestly - not nearly as "moist" as Mom described it.  Good job Smiley!

Jerry Springer

The morbid streak continues. 

Jerrry Springer, Cincinnati mayor turned host of the raunchiest of talk shows, has passed at age 79. 

RIP

 

Harry Belafonte

Continuing the rather somber tone of this site lately, Harry Belafonte - pop singer, actor, and activist - has died at age 96. 

Rest in peace sir. 

Len Goodman

Dancing with the Stars regular Len Goodman, the British ballroom dancer turned reality show judge, has died of bone cancer at 78.

 RIP. 

Grrrrrrrrr!

Elizabeth Hubbard

Elizabeth Hubbard, the Emmy winning actress who played the capable, scheming Lucinda Walsh on As the World Turns, has died at age 89. I remember her performance well, as it was my Mom's favorite soap opera.  

RIP

So Much for Spring

80ish degrees for a week, then snow and ice this morning.  Welcome to Wisconsin.

Anne Perry

Anne Perry, the crime novelist who, as a teenager, helped murder her best friend's mother - a crime immortalized in the Kate Winslet movie Heavenly Creatures - has died at 84.

RIP

John Wick 4

I saw this with LuLu at the 9:50pm showing yesterday at Showtime Cinema, off Loomis Rd.  We were just about the only people left in the building by the time it ended. 

I love the Wick franchise and enjoyed the heck out of this film, but I will not pretend that it was little more than a expertly choreographed, bloody carnival ride. 

If you want plot and character depth and even the slightest bit of realism, go watch the masterful first entry in the series and leave the rest of us alone with the subsequent violent fluff LOL