Joe McIntyre at the Turner Hall Ballroom

Saturday night Lisa and I went downtown to the Turner Ballroom, right across from the Fiserv Forum, to see Joe McIntyre. This was the 3rd time I've seen him perform solo, and Lisa - I don't know if she can even count the times, given the cruise, the convention, etc. 

There was of course merchandise, and my lady bought - and looked great - in a t-shirt from the stand. 

This might be one of my favorite pictures of us, ever: 

This picture is from well before the show started. The main floor was sold out (400 seats if I heard the guard correctly), but the balcony, where we bought tickets, only sold 20 or 30 seats. I think that had to be by design, because what the heck otherwise? Yet why turn down revenue; tickets were being offered for $100 on the secondary market, so it isn't like the demand wasn't there. 

(even though Harley's 120th birthday party was in town) 

That pic too was well before the show but even so, we were front and center to the stage, had a table to ourselves, and best of all (hey, I'm almost 50!) there was a restroom only 25 feet away. It was like we lucked into a private suite LOL!

Now Joe, of course, is a member of New Kids on the Block, and idgaf if you like the group or not, as I do, but the point is moot at a Joe solo show. He performs a couple of NKOTB hits, some of his solo stuff, and covers.  He leans traditionally to the standards of the Rat Pack era, and included a few, but this time around it was largely covers of rock artists. 

He performed accompanied only by backing tracks and a single guitarist/pianist who also co-wrote a song Joe performed. 

I will not come up for excuses for his bright red sequin suit. 

 Turner Hall was built in 1882 and wears its age on its sleeve as a badge of honor. This includes netting to prevent any stray chunks of ceiling to crash into the crowd - something that Joe mentioned between songs, along with a few other friendly jabs to the appearance of the venue.  I don't believe it was said with anything other than affection; Joe is a sarcastic and blunt performer. Case in point: two women insisted on standing in front of the stage, in front of all 400 seats. He sarcastically called them out: "I appreciate you coming and standing there, but you know, you can see the same thing sitting in your seat"

It was a fun show, full of the talent and natural theatricality of Joe. Here's a setlist from a PRIOR show on the tour (none was available for this one yet.)

Like I said. A great show, a great time, a great night with a great woman!

Yadeem's On the Go

Early this afternoon Lisa and I ventured all the way out to 88th and Brown Deer Rd, where a R&B festival was taking place, just because we'd heard that Yadeem's had set up a food truck there. 

It's owned and operated by an old high school classmate of Lisa's, Nnamdi Duncan, and we've been wanting to try it for awhile now, both because we love to try new restaurants and because we're happy to support alumni. 

I had a "reverse engineered" stuffed salmon bowl over rice. 

Lisa tried their eggrolls, available in 3 varieties. She chose chicken  & ranch, and gyro. I graciously offered to try her dish, and my lawd - that gyro one! 

I didn't dig the pineapple lemonade but Lisa loved it. 

Now, for desert I oddly agreed to buy 4 crab rangoon from a booth run by a Mom and her middle school daughters; at 4 for $3 it was hard to pass up. But I also wandered back to Nnamdi's truck and bought some of his banana pudding, based off his Grandma Inez's recipe. 

OMG. That banana pudding - and I am NOT a fan of the dish in general - may have been one of the best desserts I've had in my life. I. Am. Not. Kidding. 

It rivaled the creme brule I've had on cruises!

Yadeem's is normally based at 6003 W Fond Du Lac but the food truck is available for both catering and special events. 

It's definitely worth the drive. Check them out!

My Toxic Trait

My toxic trait is I watch 1 video and think I can do whatever it is... but honestly I usually can

 Just saying 💅

- Lisa

My Spam Slicer

I love Spam. I don't care if you mock my taste, for the fact of the matter is: I am right, and you (assuming you dislike Spam) are wrong. 

Anyway, for Christmas Junie bought me this slicer to alleviate one of the *only* negatives of Spam, the difficulty of achieving consistent, perfect slices. 

With this, Achievement Unlocked. 

Consider this a gift-giving success!

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera, the Czech novelist driven into exile in France in the '70's after being declared an enemy of the state, has died in Paris at age 94.

Kundera was eventually granted French citizenship and considered himself a French writer, but both his life and his work are intrinsically tied to his Communist homeland.  Here in the West he is perhaps best known for his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which was later made into a movie. 

My knowledge of him, however, comes from my collegiate focus on Central Europe. In at least one of my courses he was highlighted as an important voice of the Prague Spring, a short-lived era of relaxed authoritarianism and heightened freedom - all of which was snuffed out by the Soviet invasion of 1968. 

My memory is unclear, but I might have read his work "The Joke" at that time. 

RIP

JJ and Dave's Wedding Reception

This afternoon Team Slap was happy to attend the wedding reception of JJ and Dave, held at Maggiano's at Mayfair Mall. As you can see from the tabletop menu, it was a heck of a meal (not to mention an open bar for soda/wine/beer). 

Frankly, there were soooo many good appetizers in such abundant quantities that I was well past full by the time the main course was served - not that that stopped me!

Note that Lisa and I didn't look too shabby! 

Neither LuLu nor Smiley could attend because of work obligations (although Lu did JJ's hair early in the afternoon). But Lisa's Mom was there

As was Junie and YaYa

and YaYa's long time beau, Alex

An elderly couple (friends of the bride's Mother) were seated along at a nearby table and Lisa invited them to join us, and they did!

This "butter cake" - whatever that means - was to die for. My word!!

Here's wishing the newlywed couple decades of love and happiness!

On Combined No-Hitters

I know there's been 20 combined no hitters in MLB history, one of which belongs to the Brew Crew, with the latest of them being thrown by the Tigers today. 

Huzzah. I'm happy for them.

But . . .

Why the heck does that even count? 

For one guy to go out there and thrown a complete game, getting 27 outs without surrendering a hit, that's impressive. 

It takes skill, control, luck, and perhaps most importantly of all, stamina. Folks don't pitch complete games in the modern game, they just don't. So come the 8th inning, when their  arm is aching and they're running on fumes, and the opposing batters can sense blood in the water, it's just plain grit and skill that enables them to power though. 

Where exactly does that last bit come into play in a combined no-hitter? 

Oh, you're tiring out in the 6th. Boo hoo. Let's yank you out for a fresh arm. Oy, your replacement isn't very good against lefties and the 8th is full of them? No matter, new guy on the mound. 

To me, celebrating a combined no-hitter is like bragging about getting a perfect score on a test, when you subbed in another guy to do the algebra bit, and then had the math wiz step in to solve the big calculus problem at the end. 

Some things just shouldn't be a group effort. Period. 

License Plates

This post isn't really for public consumption. I just thought it would be neat to track how fast it'll take me to see a license plate from all 50 states (and DC I suppose). Just the first appearance, not subsequent ones. I hope to update this over time. Anyhow, feel free to ignore.

Alabama (9-2-23)

Arizona (7-16-23)

Arkansas (7-20-23)

California (7-14-23)

Colorado  (7-17-23)

District of Columbia (9-16-23)

Florida (7-14-23)

Georgia (7-16-23)

Illinois (7-6-23)

Indiana (7-13-23)

Iowa (7-13-23)

Kansas (7-15-23)

Kentucky (7-8-23)

Louisiana (7-16-23)

Maine (7-16-23)

Maryland (7-16-23)

Massachusetts (7-20-23)

Michigan (7-8-23)

Minnesota (7-11-23)

Mississippi (7-16-23)

Missouri   (7-24-23)

Montana (7-13-23)

Nebraska (7-21-23) *semi-truck

New Jersey (8-8-23)

New Mexico (9-18-23)

New York (7-16-23)

North Carolina (7-13-23)

North Dakota (7-21-23)

Ohio (7-20-23)

Oklahoma (7-13-23)

Ontario (8-2-23) I know, not a state, but still. . . 

Oregon (7-6-23)

Pennsylvania (7-15-23)

Puerto Rico (7-19-23)

South Carolina (7-16-23)

South Dakota (7-16-23) * sorta. I helped a SD driver with directions but because of traffic didn't specifically see the plate UPDATE: full sighting of one on 7-18-23

Tennessee (7-13-23)

Texas (7-16-23)

Utah (7-6-23)

Virginia (7-22-23)

Washington (7-16-23)

Wisconsin (daily, duh)

Wyoming (8-19-23)

***

Still to find, as of 9/19/23:

Alabama

Alaska

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Hawaii

Idaho

Massachusetts

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

Vermont

West Virginia

Wyoming 

Shazam: Fury of the Gods

 

This movie doesn’t work, and there’s a bunch of reasons for that.  A complete lack of any real character development along the way, the idea that a thousands-year old goddess is cool being coupled with a high school boy (eww) , a formulaic superhero plot, and so on. but let’s focus on two things:

 

One, and I’ll try not to spoil things here, but if Hollywood learned anything from the Star Wars sequels, I had hoped it was that death means your dead; if you can die and just come back it robs a character's actions of any weight and significance.

 

AND

 

It was fun watching Zachary Levi play a 14-year-old Billy Batson in the first film, and I bought into his childhood wonder. But this isn’t a comic book. Time passes in the real-world, and because of that Levi is now playing a near 18-year-old on the brink of adulthood, not to mention an adult who has spent four years as a superhero. Putting the same immaturity and naivety in Billy’s words and actions paints Billy as an idiot this time around.

 

I loved the first Shazam, and I’m sad that this flub will probably end the series. But if this was the direction it was going, that’s probably a good thing.     

A Pair of Unwilling Bathers LOL

That's a Lousy Rationale for Explotation

I have never understood this argument from the Left - so slave labor (or at least labor conducted under fear of police action) absent a legal wage/benefits/safety protections is GOOD, so long as the price of your avocado or cheese doesn't go up a quarter? THAT'S your version of right and wrong? 

Heavens, in a past life you must have been aghast at the thought of cotton prices rising if slavery were ever abolished.

Unexpected (but great) to Hear!

Well hot dog! Sound of Freedom was the #1 movie in America on the 4th of July! The marketing tactic worked! 

source: BoxOfficeMojo by IMDB Pro

Sound of Freedom

 

On a jam packed Fourth of July, Lisa and I took the time to stop and  go see Sound of Freedom at the theater. 

It's a movie that was filmed five years ago but only now been released, and only because Angel Studios (a faith and donor based studio) secured the rights. Hollywood has certainly rolled out worse films by the score over those five years, and the unspoken accusation as to why it was shelved is that the subject matter - child trafficking - hit too close to home for some people in power in Hollywood.  

It is a dark film, about a young Honduran brother and sister who fall prey to a woman - a literal beauty queen no less - that sells them into slavery. Months later, a Homeland Security agent recovers the boy during an unrelated arrest and learns of his missing sister. The news is the final straw for a career spent arresting child predators while largely ignoring the fate of the victims, and he embarks on a quest to recover the girl and reunite the family. 

 You are warned, going in, that the film is dark and troublesome, and I must admit that these warnings almost had me skip the film. Yet rest assured, there is nothing performative here and no child is shown being harmed; after all, if you cannot fill in the blanks as to the horrors the children experience, then you are new to humanity. 

You can’t say you “enjoyed” a movie like this, because I doubt anyone leaves the theater feeling “just swell.” But yes, it’s a solid film, you do care about the plight of the girl at the center of the search, and I guarantee that if you see a half dozen movies this year, this will NOT be the least entertaining or emotional of the bunch.

 

But if I judge this as a suspense/thriller alone, I rate the movie as average. Rare is the sense that the lead character is in any legitimate danger, even when there is a gun pressed to his head. The script reserves those moments of fear for the scenes that involve only the children. That drives home the anti-slavery message, but it does a disservice to the audience because it leaves you less invested in the main character, who of course has the most screen time.

I should mention that the movie, despite being led by Jim Caviezel, is a predominantly Latin American effort, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, from the producer and screenwriter on down to costume design. I mention this because I can anticipate some critique that the film “unfairly” depicts most of the villains as Latin, a charge that can be dismissed because a) it’s based on a true story and b) they mention that both the US and Europe are heavily involved in this traffic.

 

Let me also stress: there is no political or religious ideology being pushed by the movie. No faith is identified by name, no political party vilified or praised. If the religious background of the releasing studio, or the political beliefs of the actors prevents you from seeing this, just know that you are making a mistake.

BTW, the inra-credit “special message” is powerful, and hit me right in the gut.

 While Sound of Freedom is in theaters, donors are buying tickets and making them available to others, free of charge. Lisa and I paid our way rather than take one of these tickets from someone that needed it. Here’s the link.

If the only way you’ll see this is if you don’t have to spend a dime, then so be it.

 

Just see it.  

My Birds

Well, not mine per se, just some random pictures I've taken this year of the birds that frequent either my yard or the feeder I maintain outside my window at work. 

I'm Huntin' Wabbits

This boi killed two rabbits today in our yard, hours apart. That's three this week.  I'm not sure why they keep risking our yard, but I'm running out of bare soil patches to bury them.  

Not that Huckleberry hasn't done his share of regulating wildlife. He killed a squirrel and a rabbit himself before Sawyer came along last year.  But like Lisa says, Huckleberry is slow: if he can catch you, that's just Darwinism at work.