Published writer, compulsive reader, Old School Whovian, Match Game enthusiast, NKOTB fan, data hoarder, and - surprisingly, given that list - married with four kids. Welcome to my take on life, fatherhood, entertainment, and whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
On Sunday, after a day spent thrift shopping, delivering books to Little Libraries,
getting ice cream at Tastee-Twist, napping, and having dinner at Classic Slice, Lisa and I went to see No Hard Feelings at the Ridge Cinema. YaYa and her boyfriend joined us both for dinner and the flick.
No Hard Feelings is a comedy about an Uber driver, played by
Jennifer Lawrence, who loses her car just as she is facing foreclosure for back
property taxes. To get back on the road, and save her home, she answers a
personal ad from a rich couple who want her to “date” their son, played by Andrew
Barth Feldman, in exchange for a free car. That’s “date” in quotes, as in take
his virginity. Unfortunately for her the socially awkward 18-year-old is no
easy catch, and time is running out.
I liked the film, and there were parts where I laughed my
butt off. But when you release multiple trailers (just a cursory Google search showed
me 5 minutes of “official” material) you’re showing your audience 10% of your final 90 minute product, and presumably some of the best of it.
There were parts of the film that would have been hysterical, had I not seen it
six or seven times before.
That’s not the film’s fault, but it definitely impacts your
viewing.
A negative that was the fault of the filmmakers, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, because it’s so counterintuitive: the characters were too 3-dimensional.
This was a raunchy , laugh out loud, don’t-worry-about-the
plot-holes kind of flick and what did they do?
They developed rich, emotional backstories and complex motivations for the two
lead characters. That’s super swell as an assignment in a screenwriting class,
but was it needed here, with this material? I think this a case where keeping the
characters firmly in their lane would have better served the comedy.
Don’t mind me though, I’m a grouch. I still rate this a solid
B. Go see it.
For 30 years Drilling was a staple on the Milwaukee airwaves, anchoring the noon news for WITI from 1975 until his retirement in 1998. A man with the reputation of a no-nonsense, just the facts reporter, he did this city proud.
RIP sir.
Look, I know I'm coming off as rather obsessed with the story of Titan, the submersible lost at sea, but remember, I knew of it before the accident. I followed Oceangate on social media, I watched their YouTube videos, I marveled at the pioneering 8k footage they took of the wreck of the Titanic. This was, from a distance, personal.
By now of course you know how it turned out. The craft was found 1600 feet from the bow of Titanic, the victim of an implosion that took the lives of all five men.
May they rest in peace, and may perpetual light shine upon them.
What sticks in my mind is a quote from the CEO, who died in the accident. To paraphrase, when speaking of the glass in the porthole, he told the reporter it would crack and spiderweb long before failure. If that glass was the cause of the implosion, did they have that warning? Did they notice? And because of it, did they die after minutes of panic and terror?
I hope not.
Meanwhile, the jerks of the world continue to barrage the internet with jokes, mockery, and derision. Of the men themselves, as fools or as rich, which to the jealous is synonymous with "worthy of death," or of the craft itself.
Let's get some things straight. Getting in that craft and descending two miles to the ocean floor, even when you are fully confident of success, is an act of bravery and fortitude that not many people are capable of pulling off. Period. They were certainly braver than the keyboard warriors who mock their deaths.
And like I told one jerk online that hid behind the claim that "humor is a coping mechanism: it's a coping mechanism if you're actually *coping* with trauma. If you're using jokes merely to mock suffering, then you're just an asshole.
Of the craft itself: it was a product of innovation and imagination, not hubris, and designed by a Princeton educated engineer (Stockton Rush, the CEO who died aboard her.) It wasn't a craft built for billionaires to use on vacation, it was funded and built by their ticket fees and a necessary evil.
When he said, on camera, that he "broke a few rules" to build it, he wasn't saying the equivalent of "I skimped on putting brakes and seatbelts on the car I built" He was saying that he broke a few cliches of submersible design, by designing a craft capable of holding up to 5 people, and building it with carbon fiber.
Was he wrong, in retrospect? Maybe. Unless some unknown damaged the Titan and doomed her mid-trip, the engineering failed.
Yet it's important to note that the Titan had made up to 50 previous dives to varying depths, including successful dives to the Titanic. It would seem that material fatigue, not an overt design blunder, would be the immediate causation for the tragedy.
[btw, there's been a million jokes about the video game controller that steered the craft. It wouldn't have been my choice, but it IS the choice, from what I've read, of the US Navy when it comes to operating periscopes on our subs. So, much ado about nothing.]
Yet, problems had arisen on prior dives, and the hodge-podge nature of the construction had raised concerns. Should every available minute between dive seasons have been spent reviewing and updating the craft? Yes, a thousand times yes. But God bless the independence, courage, and independence that spawned it in the first place.
Would I have got on the Titan? Had I the money, yes I would have gone, although I am no daredevil. A chance to see the Titanic, to be that close to history, how could you pass it up?
Again, to the Titan 5: Rest in Peace
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
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:
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, 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.
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.
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, 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.
