Paloozas Reborn

The results are in!

The 20th Century Palooza Winner is. . . . The Fifth Element!

The 21st Century Winner was. . . a tie! So there are 2 choices: Tenet and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

I was going to cast the tie-breaker vote, but I think more options are a good thing. So watch both or watch one and skip the other.

So how are we gonna do this, in the absence of a podcast?

We’ll schedule a Zoom conference call for each movie where everyone can chime in with their thoughts.

We also still have this here Deadpan page, YouTube, and Facebook, where we can post whatever audio skits, video skits, reviews, and other Palooza-inspired creativity we want.

A classic, absurd Luc Besson Cyberpunk action flick.

A Christopher Nolan Time Travel mindbender.

A Coen Bros. Western mini-anthology film.

1,171 thoughts on “Paloozas Reborn

    • Hadn’t heard of this one, but I’ve been to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. It was a lot of fun and also features a lot of classic 80’s arcade games as well. Definitely a recommend.

  1. Crap joke of the day:

    I bought a dog from the village blacksmith yesterday. As soon as I got him home, he made a bolt for the door.

  2. I had never seen it before, so I finally saw the first Godfather movie over the last two nights. While it was a good movie, and I enjoyed it, I don’t think it was up to the hype it has been given.

    • Tiffany had the same reaction, a few years ago. For me, these are both movie perfection. I even think Godfather 3 is pretty good, though not nearly on par with the first two.

      • We’re going to start GF2 tonight. Being 3 and a half hours long, it will be something we watch over 2 or three evenings.

  3. I am no fan of Bezos but 10 year old me is pretty damn impressed with where space travel has gotten to.
    Here’s cheering for the NEXT step, what ever that might be!

  4. RE: The Pinball Museum link: I’ll have to check, but that doesn’t seem to be linked to the pinball museum Tiffany and I visited outside of Vegas a few years back. That place was a ton of fun.

    Either way, it’s a damn shame.

  5. Watched the first episode of Marvel 616 on D+ about the Japanese Spider-Man TV show. Fascinating and often hilarious. Highly recommended!

  6. I haven’t seen “Buster Scruggs” or “Tenet”, so that will be cool. I’ve seen “The Fifth Element” several times, I think it is a fun movie, but mostly “meh”. Perhaps my fellow Deadpanites will educate me on what I’m missing.

    • The 21st Century movies are both new to me as well.

      I dig me some Fifth Element. I’ve seen it many times, but I intend to rewatch to collect some Palooza thoughts.

    • Fifth Element is an all-time favorite for me. I’ll happily re-watch that at any time. Tenet was good but I feel like re-watching will give me a deeper understanding of just wtf is going on. I have the major themes and concepts down and was surprised to find that almost all of the “what is going on in Tenet” web sites were stuff that I had already picked up on. Just need to get into some of the finer details. Buster Scruggs… well… I watched it once and didn’t care for it. But that might have been because I was expecting a movie based on… well… you know… Buster Scruggs… like in the title and all… … … and then I got a bunch of short films that didn’t seem like what I expected at all. maybe a second watch will improve things. I doubt it, but I’m willing to give it a go. You know, take one for the team and all that.

    • Predator 2 wasn’t trying to win any Oscars, but it didn’t have to. It was basically Lethal Weapon meets Predators. It was one of the first movies I bought on DVD.

    • We can’t get more than 50% of the population to get vaccinated. Covid of some form is going to be sticking around for some time. My hope is that kid-approved vaccines appear soon and that boosters will continue to keep the vaccinated safe.

    • He is the King of all the land
      In the Kingdom of the sands
      Of a time tomorrow

      He rules the sandworms and the Fremen
      In a land amongst the stars
      Of an age tomorrow

      He is destined to be a King
      He rules over everything
      In the land called planet Dune

      Body water is your life
      And without it that you would die
      In the desert the planet Dune

  7. In response to a few comments – – if you’ve watched one of the movies recently, then you’re probably covered. No need to rewatch so soon, especially if you disliked it.

    Also, while all participation is voluntary, I think you’re good if you only do one of the 21st Century films. I intend to watch both, but you’re covered if you only watch one.

  8. Back in ye olden days, when del.icio.us was shutting down, I exported my bookmarks to a new haven at Google. Now, Google Bookmarks is also going away after 16 years.

    I haven’t really used that one much since, as the article notes, Chrome and most browsers now will sync your bookmarks in the browser across devices.

    Went ahead and did the exports, though, many of the links I had back in the day are now dead. Though, apparently, Slice of SciFi is somehow still a thing. Who knew?

    https://www.androidheadlines.com/2021/07/google-bookmarks-shutdown-will-not-affect-your-maps-starred-locations.html

  9. Finished watching Godfather 2 last night. My feelings are the same as one. Good movie, but maybe not as good as the hype.

    • For me, I love the storytelling, the nuance, the subtleties, the detail, the epic scope. All of the things playing out onscreen that are unsaid.

      Also of interest: In between these movies, Coppolla released an unrelated Gene Hackman films called The Conversation, which is also 70s and brilliant.

  10. I’ve been playing through Detroit Become Human with the eldest daughter on the PS4. Well – – she’s played it many times, and is watching me do a playthrough.

    I’m a longtime lapsed gamer, so the “quicktimes”* are always harrowing. But it’s a really neat game, very well done. Excellent story too, I can see why she got so into it. I mean, anything with Clancy Brown and Lance Henriksen in the cast has got to be good, right?
    Are there other good story games like this? She’s also playing “Until Dawn.”

    *Quicktimes are actions scenes where you’re suddenly prompted to hit one of the 6,000 buttons on the controller. You have 0.00001 of a second to do it, or you fail, and your character could die. (A little bit like Dragon’s Lair)

    • I first encountered them in the first Lara Croft game by Crystal Dynamics.

      At least it tells you what to press unlike Dragon’s Lair.

      • Same with this one, although it takes me a full second longer than regular PS4 players to find “triangle” or R2, which usually results in my character getting pegged.

        Also interesting about DBH: you’re playing 3 different characters through their storylines, so if you get a character killed, they stay dead (unless the plot dictates otherwise).

        • If you haven’t played any of the Mass Effect games, I would recommend getting the Legendary Edition for $45. I think you and your daughter would enjoy it. Horizon Zero Dawn is another masterpiece.

          • I agree with Rhettro, though those don’t have “quicktime” game aspects. Some other great games like Rhettro recommends are “Last Of Us”, “NieR:Automata”, and “The Witcher III”. I can recommend more, but all of these have great game play combined with great stories.

            If you are looking for other games with “quicktime”, you should definitely play the latest “God Of War” game. It has a great story, plus that style of game play. Actually, it is hard to go wrong with any God Of War game imo.

            The other Quantic Dream games are good, but have some even darker aspects to their stories. Plus, the quicktime events can get a bit frustrating in parts.

          • Yakuza all the way. Start with zero (be prepared to cry), then Kiwami, Kiwami 2, 3 to 6 remastered, and last, Like A Dragon

  11. 12:18am. The work project that started at 7pm this evening is still going.

    Mama, don’t let your children grow up to work in IT.

  12. Ohishi is very good. There is a 10 year brandy cask and a 8 year sherry cask; both for the same price. I picked the sherry cask. Delicious.

  13. So tonight watched the first two episodes of Schmigadoon on AppleTV+.

    Great fun and a good laugh as a couple get trapped in a town where everybody sings like it’s a musical.

  14. Episode 2 of Marvel 616 is all about the pioneering women creators at Marvel, from the 70s to the present. Really digging this show.

  15. CW: V I Warshawski

    I want to live in the timeline where this was movie was a hit and we got a series of films with Kathleen Turner kicking criminal ass.

    Well throwing criminal ass cos the character does Aikido

    A young Stephen Root plays a good slime ball client.

  16. Crap joke interlude:

    There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black:
    1. He called everyone brother
    2. He liked Gospel
    3. He didn’t get a fair trial

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish:
    1. He went into His Father’s business
    2. He lived at home until he was 33
    3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:
    1. He talked with His hands
    2. He had wine with His meals
    3. He used olive oil

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian:
    1. He never cut His hair
    2. He walked around barefoot all the time
    3. He started a new religion

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian:
    1. He was at peace with nature
    2. He ate a lot of fish
    3. He talked about the Great Spirit

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish:
    1. He never got married
    2. He was always telling stories
    3. He loved green pastures

    But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Mexican:
    1. He treated his mama like she was a saint
    2. He always wore llantas and a serape
    3. He was a carpenter who could fix anything

    But the most compelling evidence of all – 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman:
    1. He fed a crowd at a moment’s notice when there was virtually no food
    2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn’t get it
    3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do

  17. Morning Pan
    Watched The Ballad of Buster Scruggs last night. I saw it before, hubby had not. I don’t think he was a huge fan

  18. I do love how she doesn’t even tie her hair back when sneaking onto ship.

    Pretty sure this CEO is a regular bad guy on the original Hawaii 5 O

      • If we’re just doing a zoom call, then I’d assume sometime late August would work for the first one.

        If you are inspired to create something, then any time works.

        • I watching Buster Scruggs now, about half way through. I think I have something I can do with this. Have to see if the idea will work for all the segments.

          Tenet has to wait until I have the time to do nothing but sit and watch alone with undivided attention.

          My current TV has crappy HDMI ports and the DVD player does not work with it. Fifth Element has to wait until the new TV shows up so I can play the DVD.

  19. I was watching some Olympic Rugby yesterday.
    I’m discovering it may be one of my favorite team sports. It doesn’t hurt that the rules seem to have been thought up by Calvin and Hobbes 🙂

    • Ha! I went to see Jeremy (from Seattle) play a few years back (He was on a semi-pro team, if you recall). At no point did I have any idea what was happening.

      But it was fun nonetheless.

  20. Having one of those mornings.
    Took spouses car to get a tire patched only to discover another tire had a sidewalk gash that went through to the chords and a BACK tire that had a big bulge in it where they guess it must have run through a pot hole at speed. These tires are less then a year old. And expensive. And they may not be able to get them Til Monday which is when that car was supposed to be on a long road trip.
    Meh.

    Oh and on my way home from tire store, the girl that cuts my hair called as a courtesy to say her under 18 year old daughter had a fever and symptoms consistent with Covid. SHE herself doesn’t have symptoms and is still willing to cut my hair this afternoon but wanted to let me know.
    Canceling seems prudent… but is it? 🙁
    I’m vaccinated but that doesn’t mean I can’t get it(and spread it). It just means it should’t kill me.

    • That is a tough one. It sounds like it’s about caution, as opposed to spending time with her daughter. If you both mask up and are socially distant from everyone else, then – – maybe?

      Still, no harm in being a little shaggy.

    • If you are both masked during the session, I’d have no hesitation about having her give you a hair cut.

      There’s a difference between prudence and paranoia

  21. Having heard for a long time that Schitt’s Creek is the best show of all time, we watched episode 1 last night.

    Not all that funny.

    I assume it gets better?

    • I haven’t watched it, but a few reviewers on IMDB says that it doesn’t get that good until season 3. That’s a lot of seasons for a payoff.

      • Funny, that’s what people keep telling me for Fear The Walking Dead. My wife and I watched the first season as we’re huge Walking Dead fans and found Fear to be a steaming pile of crap. Now everyone that likes the show keeps telling me that it gets great around season 3. Just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

        • That’s actually a true statement. FTWD didn’t get good until season 3. We stopped watching all the Walking Dead series as they seemed to be stuck in a soap opera formula without any clear direction on what they wanted for their shows.

  22. I give a show 3 episodes NOT 3 seasons.
    That being said, I gave this one a whole season because I got what they were trying to do with it … it just never got funny.

    • I did know that. Then again I know far far far far too much when it comes to Rush. I was fascinated by them and everything about them. At least up to Hold Your Fire. I like Counterparts after that, but nothing else. I feel like the majority of Rush fans have a place where the group grew beyond them, but I do know fans that still like everything they came out with.

        • I did know that about YYZ! That’s why it opens with that hihat rhythm. I think I learned that from their R40 documentary.

          I think their best era was the one leading up to “Exit Stage… Left.” There were some not-so-great phases, but I thought they went out really strong with Clockwork Angels and Snakes and Arrows.

          • The last Rush album I bought was “Roll the Bones.” It was pretty great, but I haven’t been compelled to see what came after. I might though now.

          • I don’t agree about “not-so-great” phases: it’s all a matter of taste. Though from 2112 to Power Windows, they were at their prime. Clockwork Angels was a great way to go out on top too.

            There isn’t an album of theirs that doesn’t have a great song, imo. The albums as a whole…? Well some work better than others, but I love the fact that Rush was always experimenting and trying new things. I know some fans really hated “Presto” but there were some really interesting songs on that album.

            I also hate trying to rank albums for a band like this. Some will albums will always rank lower, but that’s a matter of preference not a reflection on the album being bad. That being said, I think this fan selection of the best 10 albums is very good:
            https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/rush-greatest-albums-readers-poll-14091/hemispheres-233734/

          • I actually agree – – 100% (even tho you’re disagreeing with me :D) . I think Presto may be their weakest album, but even it has a few classics. This was also their least interesting phase for me, when they occasionally dipped into Adult Contemporary sounds.

  23. John and I have started using Board Game Arena to play with friends online. Since I won the last game (Terra Mystica), I’m going to say it works quite well

    • Disney+ is charging $35 to see it. And while I do want to see it, I don’t want to see it that bad. I’ll wait until it comes to normal streaming.

  24. Morning Pan
    Went to the zoo yesterday. The red pandas were the most active I’ve seen them.

    Now it’s back to work for this bunny.

  25. So the theory from a film critic on Twitter is The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a statement that the Coen Brothers were making about their co directing days coming to an end.

  26. I’m really happy about the success of the Mars helicopter, but I have a feeling that the day will come when NASA crashes it. It has met its performance goals already so it crashing won’t be a failure. It will just feel like one.

  27. It’s weird how long my personal Missing Persons kick has been going. . . Almost a month? I’m not even sure what set off this obsession.

    They only had 4-5 great songs, but damn, those songs were great. Dale Bozzio was a one-of-a-kind frontwoman. And drummers tell me that Terry Bozzio is one of Rock’s all-time best.

    I might suggest their “Spring Sessions M” album over their Greatest Hits.

  28. Nothing like a local council implying your childhood did not happen where it happened to make you think you are losing touch with reality.

  29. I’ve watched a few episodes of Love Death + Robots season 22, and I think it’s a huge improvement over season 1.

    The first season had its moments, but there were so, so, so many exaggerated cartoon boobs and cursewords and over-the-top violent scenes, it often felt like it was created by and for 12-year-olds. There’s still plenty of silliness and excess, but it’s easier to digest. So far.

    • I missed the cartoon boobs, but to be fair the stories told didn’t really require them. I agree about the pointless over-the-top violence. I don’t think any season 2 episodes had the emotional impact of “Zima Blue” or “Beyond the Aquila Rift” from the first season. I’m looking forward to season 3.

  30. It appears the Canadian women’s footie team has stepped up and won gold at the Olympics.

    The downside is people using that to attack the Captain of the US team which lost earlier in the competition.

  31. I did watch Citizen Kane tonight – actual Citizen Kane, you know, Orson Wells, Rosebud, etc. It’s only my 2nd viewing, and first in over 20 years.

    On my first watch, I recall thinking, “yeah, it’s fine, but not the ‘greatest movie of all time’ as so many film experts say.”

    I saw and understood a LOT more on my second viewing. It truly is brilliant. Truly a masterpiece. I get it now. So much depth. So many incredible little moments and scenes and details.

    Now I can say that I greatly admire and appreciate this movie. I enjoyed it deeply, but I wouldn’t say I loved it. It’s not in my personal list of all-time favorites. Anyone else have an opinion?

    • I watched in my lowest-of-all-filler-college-course “Introduction to Film” class and had to do actual research on it. So when I watched it I think I enjoyed it and appreciated it far far more than I would have if I just watched on my own. I really did enjoy the film and see why Orson Wells was considered a master director. Then again, I haven’t ever watched it again so I think I share your lack of actual love and/or desire to put in on my all-time favorites list.

      • I will also say: on second viewing, there were many aspects that got me -right here-. Kane is mostly not a likable figure, but is still sympathetic.

        Truly heartbreaking.

    • I watched it a long time ago and I think it is a fine movie. If you compare movies of the same era,” Citizen Kane” is a lot different. The camera angles, lighting, and framing to enhance the message of the movie are way different. Most older movies used to be filmed like they were a play. The filming techniques of Orson Wells set the standards of modern filmmaking. So a large share of admiration for “Citizen Kane” is that it is groundbreaking in that regard. Of course, modern movies use all those techniques now and I think there are a lot more enjoyable films now.

  32. CW: Battle Angel Alita

    You know it was slagged off at the time, I remember enjoying it at the time and on reflection it’s a damn fine sci-fi blockbuster.

  33. Morning Pan
    Last day of holidays for the hubby. I can’t decide if that’s a bad thing or a good thing. The bad side, I won’t see him as much and get random hugs. The good side is I get a lot more done when he’s not home.

    • A solid write up. And I say this as someone who, while I listened to that song and a few other of that pop metal era, never really got into heavy metal myself.

      • Thank you, sir!

        Metal was my first music, and obviously, still music that I love – – but I’m so glad I found other genres in the 90s. I have a few friends who’ve never branched out beyond the stuff they liked when they were 15.

    • Don’t know how I missed this until now.
      Entertaining and informative.

      My knowledge of that periods “heavy metal” is very superficial. I know what pop radio and MTV wanted me to know. So now I know more!

  34. Int. Living room, a few days ago:

    Leeloo: Mama said you’re a writer.
    Me: Yes, I am!
    Leeloo: But you’re a meetinger.
    Me: (sighs) Yep, that’s exactly right.

    End scene.

    This is the most damningly accurate summary of my existence ever.

  35. Morning Pan
    We really need rain. I don’t think we’ve had any in weeks. The sky threatened rain yesterday but then never delivered. It’s suppose to start getting stupid hot again, but still no rain.

  36. Watched the first couple of episodes of the new season of Titans, got off to a slow start.

    Also the first episode of S2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks which was fun.

  37. Made the neighbor cry today. . .

    She was telling us how they’d taken two big trips to see family. I asked if their dog travelled with them. . . and it turns out. . . the dog had died a few months ago.

    Way to go, me!

    • Her arguments are not totally off base. The whys and wherefores could be argued until dusk, but, it’s true, in certain games, movies, tv, from Han Solo in Star Wars to Majima in the the Yakuza games, I loves me the bad guy (or, at least, morally gray).

      • Good article! And – interesting aside – I haven’t seen Gone with the Wind since the previous century, but I don’t recall Rhett Butler being villainous.

        (I’m aware of the debate about him carrying her off to bed. . . I’d need to watch again to have an opinion about that scene.)

  38. Looks like the Delta variant has paid a visit to the Hastings Household. Teresa tested positive yesterday. Her symptoms are light, Moderna seems to be doing its job. I’m going to get tested tomorrow, but judging by the slight metallic taste in my mouth, I’m guessing it will come back positive. So far, we don’t have any difficulty breathing. My expectation is that it will be like a mild illness. We’ll be self-isolating until it clears.

  39. Finally got a chance to watch “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” which is our one palooza feature I wasn’t familiar with. We saw Tenet pretty recently and I can probably recite a good portion of The Fifth Element.

    I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share of Coen material over the years, but this was a hard one, I must admit.

    I was about ready to punch a wall after “The Gal Who Got Rattled”

    At least now I understand the “first time?” meme.

    • And, fwiw, regarding punching a wall, it wasn’t that it was a bad segment. Quite the contrary, it was such a masterful build up that I wasn’t prepared for the gut punch that I should have seen coming. Especially with all the seasons of Fargo that I’ve watched.

    • I plan on recording my thoughts for posterity. . . I’ll just say I agree. I liked each of the stories, but I didn’t love any of it. I can’t imagine I’d go back and watch it again.

      • Once I got past the complete destruction of my expectations for what I assumed it might be about… I settled in for the ride and was then blown away by the “craft”. There is some just marvelous film making going on there.
        Also … somewhere deep within me, the little surviving spark of a punk rocker glowed a bit at them making another movie that the “standard” movie consuming public was going to HATE. 🙂

    • 20 years to get their act together and they fold in less than 3 months.

      Lessons no one will learn?
      These come to mind.
      – If you’re going to spend trillions on the problem, maybe try something other than bombs and bullets?
      – The US needs to take a MUCH more serious look at it’s own domestic terrorism problem before our extremists get this sort of a foothold.

      • Yes to all. But don’t forget that many people got very wealthy (or just much wealthier) from Afghanistan. It’s been a huge success for those people.

  40. Fascinating:
    TOS season 2:

    4: Mirror, Mirror
    5. The Apple
    6. The Doomsday Machine
    7. Catspaw

    So you have the best of Trek back to back with the bottom of the barrel.

  41. Is there a bigger time suck then No Mans Sky?

    I sit down to start repairing a ship I’ve found and boom! 3 hours is gone and I haven’t even finished the repair job!

  42. The Fog (1980) is a better movie than I’d remembered. Cheesy, yes, but still classic Carpenter. Tom Atkins is one of the best “hey, it’s that guy” B-list actors of the 80s.

    On Amazon Prime right now.

  43. You don’t really realize how festive your wardrobe is until you are trying to pick out an outfit for a funeral.

    Neighbor’s adult child died. Drug overdose. Not clear if it was a “recreational” accident or intentional. These are tough times.

  44. Fucking furious with AZ’s governor right now.

    I’ve been buying my kids classroom supplies for years, but he just announced that he’s going to give big funding boosts – – – only to schools who comply with his anti-mask mandate mandate.

    So the money is there – as long as everyone complies with his policy, forcing kids to be in danger.

    Fucking furious.

    • Dunno how this is legal but nothing is surprising anymore. Also, watching nothing be done for gun control after a class of Kindergarteners was mowed down made me realize that kids lives are big business and that no one on the right really cares about kids lives. Not really.

  45. The Suicide Squad. Big meh. Better than the first, sure, but that’s not saying much.

    This is the same guy who made the Guardians of the Galaxy movies?

  46. As we look back on news paper articles about the Flu Pandemic of 100 years ago, I am seeing a historical need to get as many things published in print as possible about what went on here.
    Specifically the fact that Republican politicians convinced their constituents NOT to take precautions and NOT to get the vaccine as soon as it was available.
    A generation from now they will be trying to paint this as “Act of God… who could have seen this coming … did all that we could”.
    As “electronic” records are easily changed or simply erased, It will be important to have published, historical records indicating what they really did.

        • Still need to check out the Bad Batch.

          I assume/hope that the powers that be at Disney have learned their lesson about going the “safe” route with Star Wars. Although episodes 7 – 9 made enough money to buy Canto Bight, so maybe not.

  47. Crap joke for the day:

    The professor showed a large cage with a male rat in it.

    The rat was in the middle of the cage.

    Then, the professor kept a piece of cake on one side and kept a female rat on the other side.

    The male rat ran towards the cake and ate it.

    Then, the professor changed the cake and replaced it with some bread.

    The male rat ran towards the bread.

    This experiment went on with the professor changing the food every time.

    And, every time, the male rat ran towards the food item and never towards the female rat.

    Professor said: This experiment shows that food is the greatest strength and attraction.

    Then, one of the students from the back rows said:

    “Sir, why don’t you change the female rat?This one may be his wife!

    The professor stood straight up his finger pointing towards the student and said “You are a Damn Genius”

  48. LOL
    I had two appointments today. The first was a consult on a “routine colonoscopy” and the other was with cable install techs.
    Guess which one was the pain in the ass.

  49. The Horatio Sanz/SNL/NBC debacle is FUCKING awful. All the names involved or potentially involved… sickening.

    https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/saturday-night-live/horatio-sanz-sexual-assault-snl/

    Oh and shocker of shockers – Louis CK was on the writing staff at the time. Man fuck that guy. And more than likely FUCK Jimmy Fallon and Lorne Michaels.

    And, potentially, FUCK some or all of the following:
    Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Darrell Hammond, Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan, Chris Parnell, Molly Shannon, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Jerry Minor, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Dean Edwards, Seth Meyers, Jeff Richards, Robert Carlock, Jim Downey, Steve Higgins, Michael Schur, Paula Pell, Ken Scarborough, Robert Smigel, Max Brooks, Andrew Steele, and Jack Handey.

  50. So, how long until we get some decent memes of the outlaw Robin Leach and his Merry Men?

    #whatif?

    My wife asked me how old you would have to be to catch that malapropism. I replied as old as we are.

  51. CW: Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

    Annoying that the actor who is playing Snake Eye’s friend/enemy speaks with a English accent but is forced put on an exaggerated Japanese speaking English accent for the role.

  52. I’ve done 2 at-home movie nights now with the little one. Toy Story was last week, Toy Story 2 was last night.

    I can’t recall how long it’s been since I last watched Toy Story 2, but holy crap, it’s every bit as great as I remember, if not better. The cast, the jokes, the cleverness – – it’s just a perfect movie. The first one is also still wonderful, but this is the rare sequel that’s way better than the first.

    • Pixar makes some absolutely wonderful films.
      Especially those that Disney simply supplied the cash for and then kept their hands out of the production process!

      • There was a time when Pixar did no wrong. Even today, they still sometimes produce diamonds. For every Cars 2, there’s an Inside Out.

  53. We watched 1974’s “Chinatown” 2 nights ago.
    I don’t know how I made it this long without ever seeing that. It’s a master class in film making. Solid acting. Been a long time since I had seen Nicholson in a part where HE wasn’t just playing “Jack Nicholson in a movie”.
    I felt like the film stood up well. While slow by today’s “short attention span” standards, it still moved at a good pace.
    If you haven’t seen it and find yourself in the mood for a solid, film noir, “Who done it?”, don’t be afraid to give it a try.

  54. It sounds like I need to watch Ted Lasso. (?)

    Unrelated, but sort of related: Brett Goldstein, of that show, is rumored to be the next Doctor. He’s appeared on the show before, but that doesn’t rule him out.

  55. Elder daughter made a hair mask mixture for herself:

    1 banana
    A bunch of honey
    1 raw egg
    A tiny bit of water
    Probably too much apple cider vinegar

    My hair now stinks, even after showering.

    • I saw the hair mask thing on FB. Is this the latest thing the young hip people are doing that I’ll never understand? Putting random things in a bag to condition one’s hair? At least it seems safer than the tide pod challenge fad.

      • *shrug* Possibly.
        She blended it into a stinky mixture, which she then rubbed into her hair like shampoo.

        Back in the day, my friend’s wife ran her own salon, and would make me sit around for 20 minutes with stuff in my hair and a baggie on my head. It felt kinda like that.

  56. You don’t even have to look it up to recognize an Iron Maiden song. I have Our hard rock video channel, “Loud”, playing in the background. Soon as I heard the music, without knowing the song, I could tell it was I rom maiden

    • Not a bad episode but def the weakest of the season so far. Especially coming off the heels of one of the best MCU highlights….ever…. of episode 2

  57. Nicked from FB, as the hip Vans say:

    “Anti-vaxxers, esp. anti-COVID-vaxxers, don’t think about what they believe. They don’t WANT to think about it. They are looking for authoritarian figures to dictate what they believe, and they don’t question the facts or the hypocrisy – they’re just happy to be led, and to have what beliefs they DO have confirmed. Yet they call those of us who do think and question and compare, “sheep,” for doing the right things, all because their masters have told them to do so. While they’re being stuck in the worst ways by their leaders, they actually believe they’re ‘sticking it to’ the rest of us – they’re standing on the deck of the Titanic and laughing at the people in the lifeboats for ‘living in fear.'”

    • Along those lines,
      Greg Abbott has updated his executive order to ban vaccine mandates for ANY Covid-19 vaccine.

      His original order only banned “vaccines approved under emergency use.”

      Showing (as we know) it was never about protecting people from an “unapproved vaccine”. It has never been about protecting anyone but trump.

  58. Toy Story 3 is done.

    It’s good. . . coupla good moments, coupla clever bits – – but a huge step down from part 1 and part 2.

    Though last 5 minutes, though, are a complete emotional wringer.

  59. So someone who always said hello at the folk club recently died of Covid despite being doubly vaccinated.

    So let’s be careful out there.

    • Sorry to hear that Van. In my own Covid news, Teresa is recovering well. She still has an occasional cough, but never got bad enough to go to the hospital. My daughter and I, while undoubtedly breathing in vast amounts of Delta virus for days, never caught it. It’s a flip of a coin how bad one will react to Covid, so it is still advisable to act cautiously. I’ve read good things about the booster shots raising immunity by 26 times, so get your boosters when available.

      • Sorry to hear that Van.
        Fuck Covid.
        I’m glad things are looking up Rhett.

        At the end of the day, NONE of the downsides of taking every precaution you can (masking, social distancing, avoiding inside crowds) equal the worst downside of getting the virus.

        • A positive. This brings up a funny observation. My mother is a very rare AB negative and my dad is O positive. Remember the high school biology days, A & B are dominant traits, and O is recessive. The only way you get O-type blood is if you have two recessive Os from your parents. This means my folk’s children could only ever be type A or B. So Teresa and I have been watching Wayward Pines on Netflix and at one point a detective finds out that two people were mother and son because they both had the ultrarare blood type AB negative. Um… no. An AB mother could give birth to any other blood type except O. It makes me wonder if the screenwriters were away of this or that they put it in just to see if they could get away with it.

  60. Watched an older, Simone Pegg film last night. He plays a hit man in Australia.
    It was Ok.
    Had the vibe of a Liverpool Gangster film.

  61. CW: The Protege

    Maggie Q kicking arse.

    Also one of those “I thought he was dead” moments with the veteran actor Patrick Malahide, I did google and he’s still alive.

  62. Every time i relisten to Jack White’s Blunderbuss album, I’m caught off guard by just how great the best songs are. Hypocritical Kiss and Weep Themselves to Sleep are so damn good.

  63. Do i have a good argument about Black Monday being the best show on tv right now? No.

    Do I have a good argument about Black Monday not being the best show on tv right now? Also no.

    In any case it’s what caused me to finally get a subscription to Showtime after 25 years and I ain’t mad.

  64. Morning Pan
    We usually use our cat as our alarm clock. This past week, for whatever reason, she’s been letting us sleep in an extra half hour. Hubby has decided he doesn’t like the idea of an extra half hour sleep and actually set the alarm to go off at 4am again this morning. Getting up before the cat wakes us has confused both the cat and myself.

    • Goddamn paywall. I can’t comment on the article’s contents, so I’ll just say, here among friends:

      It seems to me that this was badly bungled in a number of ways, but at least he’s finally getting us out. It was a doomed endeavor from the start, when Dubya launched it. Absolutely Vietnam II.

      Imagine how much worse this would have gone if it had been trump in charge.

      The “Thanks, Obama” crowd were saying “Thanks, Biden” from day 1. Their criticisms are completely disingenuous.

      • “ the total number of Americans and Afghan allies extricated from the country may exceed 120,000.”

        Can’t find the link but a few weeks ago, when the Afghan Army folded up in hours, the Army estimated we might have to evacuate as many as 12,000 to 15,000 people.
        We pulled out almost 10x that many.
        The over all situation is catastrophically regrettable but the evac operation itself is phenomenally successful. One of the largest the world has seen.
        In other times our patriotic conservatives would be wanting to hold parades and give out medals.

    • I must be getting old. I like the original version of the movies (which this doesn’t actually show). There was something cool about the slight stutteriness of stopmotion.

  65. Today’s movie is Don’t Listen

    After a tragic turn of events at the new hole he’s fixing up, Daniel hears a ghostly plea for help, spurring him to seek out a famous paranormal expert

  66. So…. Oldest daughter injured her back on Saturday (apparently slipped on the stairs).

    Still hurts today. X-rays this morning we’re negative, so her doc said it was urgent to go to ER to rule out internal injuries.

    So here we are, on hour 2 in the ER waiting room… surrounded by coughing people.

    • Although this is a comical editorial miss:

      “Humans are extraordinarily imaginary creatures who use almost anything to symbolise status: money, Twitter followers, literary tastes, power, the brand of a watch or the shape of a stomach.”

      I think he meant “imaginative creatures.” Although if we’re imaginary, that would explain a lot.

  67. Crap joke for the day:

    The IRS decided to audit Grandpa, and summoned him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney.

    The auditor said, “Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.”

    “I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,” says Grandpa. “How about a demonstration?”

    The auditor thinks for a moment and says, “OK. Go ahead.”
    Grandpa says, “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.”

    The auditor thinks a moment and says, “It’s a bet.”
    Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor’s jaw drops.

    Grandpa says, “Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.”

    The auditor can tell Grandpa isn’t blind, so he takes the bet.
    Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye. The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

    “Want to go double or nothing?” Grandpa asks. “I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.”

    The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

    Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk.

    The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Grandpa’s attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.

    “Are you OK?” the auditor asks.
    “Not really,” says the attorney. “This morning, when Grandpa told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it.”

  68. Gentle reminder (to me, as well as everyone else):

    We should start corralling, scheduling, planning, composing our reactions to the Palooza flicks.

    I have notes typed for 5E and stuff in my head for BoBS. Still need to watch Tenet.

  69. Getting everyone caught up.

    I’m surprised at the silence over this week’s What If? It was a little odd, but that battle scene was fantastic.

    A Shang-Chi viewing is planned for the long weekend. Probably at home, but we’ve considered a theater matinee.

    I’ve finally spurred myself to watch Deadwood. The whole first season was fine, but damn – – that is how you do a season finale. I’m stoked to push on into the next two seasons.

  70. CW: The Paper Tigers

    Three middle aged men who used to do Kung Fu discover their elderly Kung Fu master was murdered.

    Available on Netflix in the US I believe.

  71. Crap joke for the day:

    An 8-year-old girl went to her grandfather, who was working in the yard and asked him, “Grampa, what is couple sex?”
    The grandfather was surprised that she would ask such a question, but decided that if she’s old enough to ask the question, then she’s old enough to get a straight answer. Steeling himself to leave nothing out, he proceeded to tell her all about human reproduction and the joys and responsibilities of intercourse.
    When he finished explaining, the little girl was looking at him with her mouth hanging open, eyes wide in amazement. Seeing the look on her face, the grandfather asked her, “Why did you ask this question, honey?”
    The little girl replied, “Grandma says that dinner will be ready in just a couple secs.

    • Any new urban centers in the desert are going to have to figure desalinization in some form. The Colorado River already has too many takers.

  72. Hubby had a COVID case in his school yesterday. Under the new rules, the case rakes the 10 days but all the school does is notes it down like a normal illness. They don’t inform close contacts, other students, community p, or anything. While it lessens the work load, he said it felt strange and wrong

  73. I watched the new Suicide Squad last night. Never watched the previous one as I know I wouldn’t be able to take the Jared Leto version of Joker. I enjoyed the new one. It was a fun flick. Actually my first time seeing Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. There was something a bit off on her accent. Sounded like she was trying to channel Cyndi Lauper and just not quite able to get there. I will say my favorite character was, without a doubt, Weasel.

  74. So here’s my strange tale for the day. My Volt was having issues so I took it to the dealership. Bad news, some computer brain part was starting to fail and it cost $500. The good news, Chevy’s hybrid warranty covers it. Worse news, because of the chip shortage the part is on indefinite backorder. I might be waiting 6 months or more for the part. My tech got me a car from Enterprise. I guess this means I’ll be driving a rental for six months to a year?

  75. Looks like I have a FB Livestream set up for tomorrow with someone we’ve all been listening to for a long time.

    He’s playing it a bit coy with an alter ego for his band, so I won’t out him by name. (Some have already figured it out).

  76. it’s adorable how linguistic luddites continue tilting at their windmills and denying that the meanings of words evolve over time.

  77. Hubby had a meeting last night. Even though they are now done through Zoom so he can be home for them, it still means late nights.
    Being the good wife, I wait up for him. Ugh, I’m tired

  78. I’ve been in house cleaning mode the last few days so haven’t gone for a walk in awhile. I think I’ll go out later this morning.

    • Title is a little misleading.
      More accurate, “one woman’s mission to undo the subtle cleansing of Nazi history on Wikipedia”

      Someone(s) is trying to soften Nazi attrocities and she is trying to erase that.

  79. I’m in a mood. Don’t you hate it when you have several forms of entertainment at your finger tips (reading, movies, gaming, listening to music or podcasts) and all of them make you go meh.

  80. Not to be glib, but I’ve been doing the “every day is a new fucking crisis” thing since way before 2020 rolled around. But it still gets old.

    • I’m glad you dig it. Many fans are heaping the praise.

      It’s just so bland to me. I realize I might need to give it a few more listens, but I’m struggling to make myself. So far, I much prefer Book of Souls (which I thought was so-so).

      It must just be me.

  81. Watched “Val” on Amazon Prime yesterday. Semi-autobiographical thing about Val Kilmer made from decades of video recordings he’s made over his life.

    Was interesting and I enjoyed it overall.

    • Agreed. I still respond with anger. That so many were murdered, their last moments in fear and pain. And so many survivors’ lives destroyed.

      And also all of the ways that fear has dominated American politics and culture ever since. All the ways that Bin Laden won. May he suffer in hell.

  82. Many months ago on a conference call with the other board members of the Metal Hall of Fame, the CEO started the conversation about potential nominees. I immediately said, “Paul Di’Anno. He is at the top of my list.” (Iron Maiden’s lead singer on their first two albums).

    Today, Paul Di’Anno was inducted in the Metal Hall of Fame. My little part in this chain of events has no doubt been lost in the shuffle, and I won’t go shouting and yelling about it – – but I’ll say it here. I’m absolutely proud to have played some small part in this.

    • *Of course, there are other giants of Metal history who belong, but there are also numerous hurdles. Egos, politics, fractured band relationships, etc.

      **One of the guys at the MHOF actually knows Paul Di’Anno and was able to do the legwork to make his induction happen. All I did was push for it on a call – – that guy deserves all of the credit.

      ***My buddy, Rich, also suggested Stryper, who were inducted today.

  83. Has anyone here seen this movie? I’ve not heard of it.

    “We’re not talking enough about the 50th Anniversary of Mike Hodges’ magnificent GET CARTER, one of the best British films of the 70s and one of the best crime thrillers of all time.”

    • /raises hand

      Even saw it at an actual cinema when the local arty cinema was doing a Mike Hodges season.

      One of the first photos I took with iPhone 3G was of that iconic car park being demolished.

      Just avoid the Sylvester Stallone remake which has the temerity to fuck around with the ending.

    • Has it started yet in the US?
      I saw previews and haven’t dared to get my hopes up.

      Also- fearing this might not be the best time to be releasing a series about (SPOILER)
      a global pandemic that envolves genetics.

      Expect anti-Vax to embrace it as their warning against science in … 5..4..3..2..

          • I cant tell if the mediocre scores on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are indicative of it’s a bad show or because of trolls.

            Oh… its the same meh on Metacritic.

            Feh. Zero hopes.

          • I’m serious, Van. You nailed it when you compared my probable loathe of this series to your loathe of Blade Runner.

            We are now one whence we were once twain…

          • I’m going to check it out tonight. I’ve read a handful of reviews, most are positive. I’m also aware of some changes which are understandable but may raise some hackles here or there. I’m hopeful, they have the original creators on board. There are a lot of ways to still fuck it up. The comic did a great job of celebrating and critiquing both traditional gender roles. It is not “all men deserve death”, and it is not “women would do everything better.” It is more like what would actually happen with a few fantastical elements for drama. It had balance. This is my wish for the series.

        • The two opposing ALL CAPS viewpoints seem to be, “see it’s finally here, the left-wing finally gets to see all the men die”, and “who’s idea was it that women would end up being just as violent as men?”

    • I saw the link. Put it in my cue. I’ve seen a lot of stuff on this already so not sure I want to invest an hour. But I’ll start it and see if it’s worth it from there.

      • I gave it 2 minutes. Fuck this guy and the horse he rode in on. He starts a 1 hour video on Bakshi animation with a love letter to Peter Jackson’s version of LOTR and has the balls to say that a comparison of Bakshi’s version to that one is inevitable. Says nothing whatsoever bad about the Jackson version and call out all of the flaws of Backshi’s. I have no time to spend on any other of this assholes opinions.

        Responses to me of “well why don’t you tell us how you really feel” are totally appropriate.

      • Don’t hold back, Jesse!

        I watched a bit – – he seems pretty knowledgeable, and seems to have a lot of scholarly affection for Bakshi.

        *shrugs*

    • In a late breaking statement, Covid applauded his decision and hoped it might lead others to make the same decision. “Hey, now that science is on to me and there are effective FDA approved vaccines, I need all the help I can get!”

  84. Watched the first two episodes of “Y” last night. Overall, I like it. They made a couple of narrative choices where I would have gone more in the direction of the book, but I’m still looking forward to seeing the 3rd episode.

  85. My last few posts have been of negative reactions. So to balance some things out, here is something I was absolutely floored by (in a good way). I was just in Las Vegas and saw an art installation called Omega Mart by the group Meow Wolf. It seemed to consist of a mock grocery store with fake products like “tattoo chicken” (a can that has a chicken in it that has been tattooed). It seemed cool, but I wasn’t sure I was going to get my $45 worth out of just that. I took the chance and was astounded. Not only was the front end with the super market insanely detailed and almost 100% my particular sick sense of humor, but you were also encouraged to start poking around and opening things like doors, lockers, filing cabinets, until you find your way back into this insane amount of rooms with light shows and all kinds of fun. Again, the level of detail was what really pulled me in. A random collection of stuff in one area had a mailbox as part of what was thrown together. If you open the mailbox there is mail in there with such cool notices as “we regret to inform you of the burning of the “burning of the town hall” monument”. I wish I had found it when I had a few full days to go through every nook and cranny.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmhf-6itUg

    • OMG-I SAW this in the theater.
      Weird.
      WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD.
      Yet my friends and I talked about it for years.
      The pineal gland became our favorite, death dealing organ.

      Because of the years that have passed since I saw this, my brain had lumped it in with “Re-Animator” (1985)

  86. Ha! Garage door person asked if he could come tomorrow instead. I said yes as this is more convenient for me anyway and it’s not an emergency

  87. So it turns out that Tiffany is working on Sunday, September 26. She usually doesn’t work Sundays, but as fate would have it. . .

    So I would have a very limited time window to talk movie(s) that day.

  88. This is a realllllllly long read, but worth your time. Truly profound.

    My parents never wept over a piece of music in their lives. They had no idea what I do, nor why. I wish they could have seen or heard this:
    Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Ithaca College.
    “One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.
    The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
    One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
    Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture – why would anyone bother with music? And yet – from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art.
    Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
    On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant?
    Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
    And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
    At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic.
    The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
    From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
    Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
    I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings – people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding, cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks.
    Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way.
    The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
    I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.
    I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
    Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
    When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
    What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
    Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
    What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:
    “If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life.
    Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
    You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
    Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

    • This should be shown to every school district that has downplayed (or is about to downplay) their music department. Music has been given the cold shoulder in public education as something that isn’t necessary like STEM. I think more people need to think of music in this way and realize that it is far more important than most people think it is.

  89. Crap joke for the day:

    A blonde female bought herself a new Mercedes. She could drive the car during the day, but at night the car wouldn’t move at all. She tried driving the car at night for a week with no luck.
    Furious, she called the dealership, told them the problem and they sent a
    mechanic to the house. The mechanic gave the car a thorough inspection
    and could not find anything wrong.
    Eventually, he asked the blonde, ” Are you sure you’re using the right gears?”
    “Of course I am. I’m not stupid. I use “D” during the day and “N” at night!”

    • Bonus crap joke:

      A father passing by his son’s bedroom
      Noticed the room unusually clean and saw an envelope propped up prominently on the pillow. It was addressed, ‘Dad’. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands.
      Dear, Dad. It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mum and you.
      I’ve been finding real passion with Stacy. She is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing’s, tattoos, her tight Motorcycle clothes, and because she is so much older than I am.
      But it’s not only the passion, Dad. She’s pregnant. Stacy said that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.
      Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that mari*juana doesn’t really hurt anyone. We’ll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.
      In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so that Stacy can get better. She sure deserves it!
      Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15, and I know how to take care of myself. Someday, I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.
      Love, your son, Josh
      P.S . Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at Jason’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that’s on the kitchen table. Call when it is safe for me to come home.

  90. Today I cleaned my kitchen and bought cat food. That’s about as exciting as it’s going to get this week.
    Maybe Wednesday I’ll do a movie

    • I promise I’m not trying to trash the content of the link… but I’m honestly confused. I see two paragraphs that say that they are going to talk about these cartoons, then a video ad for HBO Max, then a list of previous articles. I even tried clicking on the ad for HBO Max thinking it was the only way to the content. It just opens up HBO max. Am I missing something? I can’t find the content. And I’m really interested in this one.

  91. I’ll say one thing about Disney’s What If…. We seem to watch some of the related movies. We rewatched Black Panther on the weekend after seeing the most recent one

  92. So last night we had an election. Things stand pretty much the same as they did before the election was called, with the Liberals in a minority government. I’m glad no time and money was wasted calling an election during a pandemic.

        • The thing to remember is Canada has more than two viable political parties. So the federal government can be run by a party that has less than 50% of the votes if the remaining votes are divided among the other three (4?) parties.
          However, then they have to play nice with at least one of the other parties to get anything done or the other parties can gang up to create majority for putting in or putting down legislation.

  93. Interesting (to me at least) concept. When I was in middle school and high school I had a healthy combination of vinyl and cassettes. I also really liked Iron Maiden to the point where they were the first concert I went to on my own (as in my mother didn’t take me). All of my Maiden was on Vinyl and I heavily traded the records back and forth with my siblings. Towards the end of high school I switched to cassettes and as I started college I started gaining CDs. Somehow, Iron Maiden never made it to the transition to cassettes or CDs. I never found myself consciously disliking Iron Maiden. On the other hand, I never found myself in a position where I wanted to go out and purchase any either. It was one of those odd things where I find myself 30 years away from listening to a group with no real good reason for it. So I went to Amazon Music and listened to the Powerslave album because I know it was one I had. I definitely fondly remember Aces High, 2 Minutes to Midnight, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The rest of the album didn’t spark anything. But I did really enjoy the nostalgia of the songs that I remembered. I will be exploring more of their stuff again soon.

    Anyone else have an experience like that where you just kind of lose touch with a band and can’t really explain, even to yourself, why you just don’t listen to them anymore?

    • I have gone back to beloved cassettes from my early days and found that they didn’t quite hold up to my memory of them.

      “Kilroy Was Here” by Styx is the most recent example I can recall.

  94. Oh no! I wrote a thing this morning and it seems to have been vaporized. Jack, can you see if it just got held up because I fat fingered my email address or something?

  95. So I’m saying this here, because I don’t want to babysit a social media shitstorm involving strangers.

    By all means, though, feel free to gripe at me here if you disagree:

    *******************************************************************************
    It’s equally tragic when the murder victims aren’t pretty, white, blonde girls.
    *******************************************************************************

    All due respect and sympathy for Gabby Petito. Her story is truly horrifying, but I kinda feel like the story would get far less media attention (if any) if she was less photogenic. Or brown. Or a boy.

  96. So. . . .it looks like Tiffany’s going to be working a bunch of Sundays. So, I realize that I already threw a monkeywrench into the plan for a Palooza chat this Sunday.

    Are we still interested in doing Oct 2? I’ll have limited times when I can be free, but I can figure that out, once we’ve selected that date. And which movie we plan to cover.

  97. Ok Deadpan, today’s movie is Crawl

    While trying to save her dad during a hurricane, a woman becomes trapped in the flooded crawls space of their home as a deadly threat lurks beneath the water.

    This one looks particularly bad

  98. So tvos15 let’s you use spatial audio on AirPods Pro when connected to an AppleTV. So the spatial effect seems weak to me but that could be my hearing.

    But really I’m now wondering if I could have just not bothered buying the Sonos Arc…

  99. So….. Sunday Oct 2 for the 5th Element Palooza? The “Multipasslooza”?

    I’ll have to find out the time that works best for me. And we should try not to keep Van up all night.

  100. As much as I am loving What If…?, Visions is having the opposite effect. I LOVED episode 1 but have been super meh on 2-4 so far. I love the premise. I LOVE getting Star Wars out if its current funk (Mando excluded) but man, I just can’t get into it. Luckily theyre short so I have no prob watching them all.

  101. Watched WALL-E last night. I haven’t seen it since its original theatrical run.

    I had thoughts during the movie – – mainly – – “This is not a kid’s movie.” There’s nothing inappropriate, and plenty of cutesy stuff, but man, the whole story is pretty advanced.

    I’d have had more thoughts, but I kept dozing off. . . because. . . I’m old and sleep-deprived.

  102. I’ve started reading “The Song of Achilles” based on its hype. . . At 26% in, I’m beginning to think I was tricked into reading a romance novel.

    I hope it gets better, because the premise is pretty great.

  103. As we seem to be on about books, I just started The Vorrh by Brian Catling. Can’t remember who recommended it. I’m a good 2 hours into the 15 hour audio book and I’m only just starting to suspect that I’m coming across something vaguely resembling a plot. Every time a threat he pulls on starts to make some sort of sense he stops mid streams and starts a completely different story in a seeming entirely different time (although I’m starting to think it is all in the same time period and internet reviews seem to agree). It’s had insanely good reviews so I’m hoping it will become more coherent at some point.

    • Update on The Vorrh. I think much of the problem is that I can only manage to “read” fiction any more as audio books (physical reading is for text books lately). No matter how much I try, my attention is always somewhat divided for audio books. I had a long day of canning activities in the kitchen, started the book over and stopped now and then to take notes (forcing me to pay closer attention). This time it clicked and everything now makes sense. I would like to do this for all future audio books, but I mostly listen in the car where I can’t really stop to take notes.

    • What a time to be a music fan. Man great stuff.

      “Skid Row’s Slave To The Grind, out in June 1991, was pop-shunning arena turbulence that went to #1 without a hit single” I guess I just assumed Monkey Business was a radio hit

      • I thought the title track was a hit.

        I know my Metal buddies will cry foul, but I don’t think SttG is a great collection of songs. Important to the changing genre, sure, but the songs themselves just weren’t great.

        Except the title track. That song is fire.

    • I’m intrigued. Of course, I’m the type of person who will buy an RPG manual just to peruse how the game is played, without ever playing or running a game. Looks like D&D is getting a rules refresh in 2023 as well.

  104. Speaking of JMS, the night before the big B5 announcement, “Together We Will Go” became available to me through the library, so I paused the Achilles book to start that one.

    So far, excellent.

  105. Crap joke for the day:

    Two nuns are out golfing, the one nun is trying to teach the other nun how to golf so the nun learning swings but she misses the ball and she says, oh shit I missed! And the nun teaching her said “sister we don’t talk like that, lightning’s going to come down from heaven and strike you dead” the sister learning says I know I’m sorry I didn’t mean to so she swings and misses again and says oh shit I missed! The other nun says to her, “sister stop saying that lightning is going to come down and strike you dead we don’t talk like that! “ I know I’m sorry I just got real frustrated I promise I won’t do it again but she swings and misses and once again she says oh shit I missed! Well lightning does come down from the sky but it strikes the other nun dead then you hear this big voice come back and says oh shit I missed!!!

  106. Zoom meeting for this Sunday’s Fifth Element Palooza has been set up! I sent an email calendar invitation to the list of emails that Tiffany compiled for the Zoom call back in June. (I also created a Facebook event for this.) If you didn’t get the details via either of those means, reply to this comment or contact me at amybowenwrites AT gmaildotcom.

    I have seen The Fifth Element, but I may try and rewatch it on Friday. I have not seen either Tenet or The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, so I look forward to watching those, too.

    • I had an Atari 800XL in high school and upgraded to a 130XE which was still an 8-bit computer, but I lusted over a 16-bit Atari ST. Eventually, though, I got an Amiga 500. It was a lot of fun. I sold it eventually, but somewhere at my folks’ house in Kansas is my 130XE.

      • I actually owned neither the 800 or the ST, but a friend had them both.

        Sometime around 1989, he played me a 5-second snippet of a song on the 800 from a floppy disk and said, “This is the future of music.” Turns out he was right!

        Of course it was a sample of a Rush song.

  107. So after a visit to the dentist I now have one less tooth.

    Took the dentist bloody ages and a lot of effort to extract it. So going to be sore for the next few days.

    Woe is me and all that jazz.

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