Twenty-two years at the same address!

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Steve

And it’s not a PO Box! Could it be that the Maggi Curse is cured with this branch of my family? I’ve stayed in one place this long, my ‘rents at 31 (relatively) and my brother about I think at least a decade? Well, my ‘rents could always move one last time since they may need assisted living in the next few years and you can never predict the future for either my brother and me. Given all the changes Jennifer has made with the house (our house), I think I want to stay put for even longer.

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Labor Day 2023 is a joke now

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Steve

Above is propaganda from the Fifites®/Eisenhower Era is my guess. Back when the GOP grudgingly supported union because they were thrilled to get the political money and the sad truth was, thanks to FDR’s triumphs, there was little difference between the parties. Now St. Reagan achieved the same thing in the wrong direction! The ol’ fart tricked many older Union voters via the Social Issues thinking, oh, he’s one of us remember, he used to be the president of SAG. Little did they recall or know, St. Reagan didn’t support unions who made his job possible, aka the craftspeople and techs. He also screwed over others by ratting on them to the FBI during the Red Scare; many were innocent, he just was pissed at them for beating him at roles because, well, they were talented, he never was. Finally, he squandered the residual bargain made for older movies being aired on TV. Sure, it accrued health insurance for many yet it was a bargain as shitty as Obummer’s AHA.

With the rise of Nukey Goldwater, the Republicans’ contempt for Organized Labor could come back out of the closet. Bob Taft already was doing it under FDR on. He was pushed aside by Golfing Ike over his isolation stance when we really know, the Republicans just wanted to win after fielding 20 years of losers. Nukey took the mantle thanks to Taft dying of cancer, a fitting death for him while is inbred family remains a power in Ohio.

Tricky Dick reversed the course a little through his law and order stance and Ford was the last of the New Deal Republicans. Once St. Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and made air travel unsafe as it remains 42 years later, I think Union members regretted their backing. Too late. Union membership declined horrifically to what we have today. In my opinion, based upon reading and other historians chiming in, the Boomers were another factor. Contrary to the stereotype of many being Hippies, anti-War and more Left-leaning, it’s mostly a lie. Most were like my parents, middle-of-the-road types just wanting to keep the comfy lives my grandparents gave them or better. Sadly, most favored expanding our commitment in Vietnam; vets from the last past three wars were more against it. Tricky Dick did win in 1968 with the older Americans disgusted over the riots, protests and what they thought was moral decline. However, he couldn’t of won completely without Boomer votes or the usual dilemma with most under 30, they stayed “home.”

What do they have to do with Unions declining? I’m getting to it. During the 1968 Chicago Convention, the generational split was underway. The old guard, New Dealers, admittedly were still very racist and sexist even with the loss of the Deep Solid South happening. But for better or worse, they stood by Unions who sadly reflected the party’s attitude. Boomers made the wrong choice. Instead of helping their ally be more inclusive like the Party, they decided Unions were the problem and with many landing White Collar gigs unlike their parents’ Blue ones, they helped purport the lie on how they weren’t really necessary any longer…today’s (and the future’s) employers are reasonable, thanks to the New Deal.

FUCKING HA!

As Professor Richard D. Wolff has said, the One Percenters initiated their counter coup long before FDR’s body was cold. (First came the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.) The Boomers failed to see the many changes which have followed too. The rise of the Tertiary Economy with lower-paying Service jerbs. How quickly capital could be relocated across the oceans. Wealth transforming from tangible assets (resources, real estate, etc.) to funny money, pyramid schemes (Meta is built on sand, the rich dodge taxes through stock now). They continue to fail to comprehend how education costs alone have outpaced inflation for 60 years as many, including a judge my friend had to deal with who thought, oh, your child can earn 33% of the money need to attend U Penn with a Summer job!

I for one already saw the gap widening by the time I graduated from college in 1990. Today it’s bigger than the Grand Canyon. Oh, apologists like The Economist will blather on about productivity being higher than ever in Amerika. Funny, the EU is at parity there, they’re just not worked to death spending sleepless nights panicking over bankruptcy due to healthcare bills! It’s also why of 24 of the 25 Innovative (translation, mainly sociopathic) Corporations are not in the EU. The people have more say, they’re not against innovation as it’s defined correctly, they’re against screwing each other over for nickels. It’s why the younger generations are learning Kapitalism is a rigged game and there are unionization efforts being made everywhere.

I do hope they succeed. Too many of my fellow Gen Xers have consumed the Boomer Kool Aid lies. They fail to see how we squeaked through the Great Recession and the Boomers are going to hand us the bill for the retirement they didn’t contribute enough toward.

To those who think it’s too late to turn back the tide, I will close with the wisdom of author Ursula K. Le Guin:

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

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RIP Bill Richardson

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Steve

The former governor of New Mexico passed away Friday. Besides being governor, he was also a congressman, Secretary of Energy under Clinton and I think the UN Ambassador. Despite his ‘anglo’ surname, was classified as Hispanic and spoke fluent Spanish. I think the most important factoid about him, he was one of the few officials to ever speak to the dictator of North Korea in person, the second Kim, not the fat one we have now.

Fifteen years ago, he was originally my first pick for the Democratic nomination in 2008. I have since only have a tenuous association with Amerika’s evil lesser party. So why him? I wasn’t onboard with the first Black Republican Obummer? Nope. I sided with Richardson mostly to stop Bilary. If this country was ever going to have its first woman POTUS in my lifetime, it wasn’t going to be her. I was also against Black Nixon because he had only been elected to a national office four years ago, the guy needed more time to work on his image, policies, etc. We now see that fast-tracking him for the eight years of disappointment was the mistake leading to the rise of Girth Vader, the Teabaggers and the growing Fascism. But Richardson betrayed the Clintons by backing him after he dropped out.

Meanwhile, I felt he was a better pick based upon his past experience. Sure you would have the accusations of how he was an insider yet he had a better clue on how PDRK operated and the seriousness of the nuclear weapons’ program unlike Dubious, the asshole who let it happen and accelerated their schedule by invading Iraq.

Obummer did try to share the spoils by nominating Richardson to his cabinet with the Secretary of Commerce gig. He ended up withdrawing due to accusations of wrong doing; they never were credible and nothing came of it. I’m confident the Clintons were the ones to start a rumor as revenge. Remember, Bilary started the lie about Obama being born in Kenya during the primaries, not the Republicans, they aren’t smart enough to read a map.

I may have ever agreed with all of Richardson’s viewpoints or policies, as a former member in Slick Willie’s eight-year of Republican Lite, he probably promoted the Neo-Liberal lies. Yet after Richardson retired from public service, he dedicated the rest of his life helping others like Carter and not padding his ego and wallet as the Clintons and Obamas have done. He was Vice President of the Center for Global Engagement, an organization out to promote peace and he specialized in going to America’s numerous enemies to negotiate hostage releases, including WNBA player Brittney Griner from Russia’s clutches. Trying to save people from torture, life in horrific prisons and other inhumane fates is a career worth praising over a self-congratulatory 60th birthday at Martha’s Vineyard because you were the first something in a long line of do-nothing POTUSes who just used the job to become a multi-millionaire.

Thanks for all you did Bill! I have added your book How to Sweet-Talk a Shark to my reading list. If you could get a Kim to negotiate with you in good faith, I think you could teach me a few things about improving my interactions with fellow Earthlings!

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It almost rhymes!

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Steve

What a great and funny picture! Oddly, of all the cats in my life, they only like to sit on the seat part. If there is one article of clothing they do climb into and look like they’re wearing it would be my Chucks. Miette had a weird habit of burrowing her face into them, as if she loved the stink.

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Welcome September, Austin’s last full month of Summer!

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Steve

Where I grew up for 14 years, this would be August since we have a politically incorrect, non-woke season called Indian Summer which I figure is now called, Indigenous or Native American Summer. I would be okay with it being renamed after the seasonal or climatic phenomena it really is. No idea what though. If you know, tell me?

This month’s header or banner is a nod to the film that probably helped put Austin on the map, Richard Linklater’s debut and huge flop at the box office, Dazed and Confused. We all know it would live on as a hit via cable and rental as many great movies did. It was also shot in Austin around the Summer of 1992 before my adopted home became the less-affordable magnet for assholes, aka New Austin.

The other horrible legacy the movie gave the world, Matthew McConaughey! Contrary to the mythology, Dazed wasn’t his start, he had been in a beer commercial down in Houston. If he was still a college student in 1992, given his age (he’s only younger than me by a year), it also proves he isn’t very bright or more likely, UT is pretty poor at making sure people graduate on time. It’s a common problem with state schools.

Anyway, it’s excited that Summer is winding down as the fun here never stops!

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The King of Comedy

Posted on August 31, 2023 by Steve

Before he became the grumpy grandpa who bitches about Marvel movies while all he does lately are Mafia flicks, Scorsese used to make other stuff such as this. When it was first released in 1983, it tanked! The movie cost around $20 million to make ($65 million today; we’d call it an indie flick with such a small budget), and only gained a disappointing $2.5 million ($8 million). Scorsese wouldn’t regain his clout until 1990 with Goodfellas. I’m guessing due to the too many similarities with the overrated Taxi Driver but years later, King was finally recognized as a great movie before being Internet Famous led to the Establishment risking financing something to get those damned kids to the traditional outlets; e.g. Netflix giving a show to the Miranda Sings lady. This is also the actual movie Joker references, NOT Taxi Driver; DeNiro did star in both is all they have in common.

The plot centers around Rupert Pupkin, an off-kilter, super-fan of Jerry Langford; in this alternate Scorsese reality, a Jerry Lewis-like host runs the most popular late-night show from New York. Definitely fake because Jerry Lewis isn’t the insufferable asshole he was when not doing his “comedy.” Not only is Rupert a super-fan, he’s an aspiring stand-up comedian who hopes one day to be a guest host for Jerry. King constantly displays all the warning signs regarding Rupert:

  • He’s part of a stalker community with crazy heiress Masha played by the barely funny and not very talented Sandra Bernhard.
  • He lives with his mother; years before this has become normalized via the shitty economic policies of Reagan to Biden.
  • He knows where Jerry lives in NYC and in the faraway ‘burbs.
  • You see fantasies of being Jerry’s best friend and people wanting his autograph.
  • He is quite charming and a sharp dresser as a poor, unknowing bartender falls for him. Manson had a weird charisma too.
  • Lastly, he practices hosting Jerry’s show with high-end recording gear in a mock-up of how the desk and chairs are laid out with cardboard standees for Jerry and possible guests few recognize now. Today, Rupert would be a podcaster! (Guilty! Except I’m not stalking Dana Gould, Dave Anthony & Gareth Reynolds, Tracy V. Wilson & Holly Frey nor Robert Evans.)

One evening, Rupert hitches a ride home with his hero via limo because he helped the host get past the throng of autograph seekers. Jerry sees Rupert in a suit, figures, he’s OK. They make small talk and obviously Rupert asks for Jerry’s advice on how to get a gig. Jerry tells him matter-of-factly to start small at clubs, gain traction, etc. In short, the path Jerry took over a couple decades earlier; how it used to work before HBO, cable, YouTube, podcasts, streaming and TikTok. Plus no stand-up comics ever gained mainstream attention without appearing The Tonight Show under Carson until Sam Kinnison. Rupert, being obsessed, mistakes this as an invitation to be on Jerry’s show and do his routine (aka a tight ten).

We all know how the story will pan out, this movie is now 40 years old and the spoiler rule isn’t in effect! Rupert gets frustrated since he’s ignorant about how Jerry’s life and work are structured; show business 101. He has to deal with producers and assistants whose job is to screen guests, material, etc. Some of it is to protect Jerry but most of the time, he doesn’t have the hours in a day to review everything, his primary task is to rest up and prep for the next evening’s show.

Eventually Rupert loses patience and conspires with Masha to kidnap Jerry. Against all odds, they pull it off. In exchange for Masha’s assistance, she gets to have a private dinner with Jerry the hostage (taped to a chair). Rupert then calls Jerry’s right-hand, show runner Bert (Carson’s legendary producer Fred De Cordova in the role). Once Bert receives the secret passcode Jerry set up between them, Bert knows this isn’t a prank. Rupert listens to the demands in exchange for the host’s freedom:

  • Rupert gets to perform his Tight Ten uncensored as he assures Bert it’s clean.
  • Bucking tradition, he goes right on after the guest host opens the show.
  • The guest host will have no monologue, no sidekick banter, no commercial break between it all.
  • As the show is taped around 5:30 PM, Jerry will be freed after Rupert’s routine is aired on the network at 11:30 PM in its entirety.

Bert immediately calls the cops, the FBI, the Network, Jerry’s agent, so on. NYPD rejects Rupert’s requests, the FBI agrees. The Network is baffled. Jerry’s agent sides with the fuzz. After Bert consults a producer who had met Rupert a few days earlier and had listened to his audition tape, Rupert wasn’t keen on her feedback, he chooses to overrule everyone and says Jerry’s safety comes first. Rupert goes on. Here’s the the part of the movie which blew me away when our protagonist has the break of a lifetime…he’s actually good! Let me clarify. Compared to the big names of 1983, Rupert isn’t Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Pryor nor Joan Rivers funny. He’s a middle-of-the road type most people liked then. The jokes are clever, inoffensive yet he’s competent enough to open for other big names or headline at Caroline’s and the Comedy Store, you’d see him on the syndicated Evening at the Improv on TV during the Eighties.

Before Rupert turns himself in, he makes sure the bartender he tried to impress changes the channel on the bar’s TV to show his appearance. She’s amazed and horrified. Then again, she remembers he did say during their date, “Better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime.”

King concludes with an epilog showing how Rupert is elevated to celebrity status: other shows want to book him, he has a best-selling biography, he’s on the cover of the major magazines, etc. Rupert is living his dream…after he finishes serving the prison term he receives. I’d say the ending is open to interpretation. Was this just the conclusion Scorsese and screenwriter Paul D. Zimmerman had in mind? He goes on to be famous, not another crazy person? For Scorsese, this would be a twist. His previous works tend to have sad, dark and cautionary endings. It was also frequent with Seventies Movies. I personally feel the Eighties® didn’t really begin until the Summer of 1982 and then overlapped into the Nineties with the first Gulf Distraction. Or is King a warning about the different means super-determined individuals will take to get into the spotlight, despite a minuscule few predicting that in the near future, technology will make it easier? I leave it up to anyone who cares. Given how the prediction business is littered with tons of wrong answers. I will stick with my first hypothesis.

I want to finish with a little trivia regarding The King of Comedy which dovetails with the great book The Comedians by Kliph Nesterhoff. Even when I was a teenager, I saw the ads and trailers and thought, why would anyone in their right (or wrong) mind kidnap Jerry Lewis since he’s not funny after you turn 13? Why cast him as a talk-show host too? He’s just the asshole from those old movies being an annoying dork and on Labor Day, he hosts a telethon your grandparents watch. Kliph’s book explains. When Johnny Carson landed the hosting duties of NBC’s The Tonight Show around 1962, he wasn’t done with his obligations to a game show on ABC for roughly a year. During the weeks he wasn’t available, NBC gave various guests the chair. Surprisingly, Lewis had an incredible week. It was on par with John Oliver’s time subbing for Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, that good. ABC felt NBC picked the wrong guy so they gambled on giving Lewis his own show in Hollywood, similar to the The Tonight Show but with more sketches and it would be the cornerstone of their Saturday evening programming…The Jerry Lewis Show!

Another quick side note, ABC was always a distant third in the TV ratings war against the older, more robust NBC and CBS due to the network not being broadcast everywhere in America; Austin’s dedicated ABC affiliate want on the air in 1972! So ABC was the network willing to take the huge risks to score viewers; similar to Fox in the Nineties or WB/UPN in the Aughts.

So ABC gave Jerry carte blanche to remodel the El Capitain theater in Hollywood, hire writers, etc. It was all in his contract and terms; this also made him the highest paid TV star for 1962-63; $8 million for 40 episodes. Too bad they didn’t have someone powerful enough to rein in his tremendous ego. Jerry pissed away money on trivial matters such as costly bathroom fixtures and he had a secret button under his desk to countermand the camera director over which angle should be aired.

Remember when I used the verb “gambled” earlier? Well ABC rolled snake eyes on Jerry’s big debut in the Fall of 1963. It was live. There were equipment failures. Jerry was flat and he never regained the mojo he displayed covering for Carson. I guess it predicted Meatball Ron’s announcement on the Musk’s pathetic Twitter! The coupe de grace came with JFK’s assassination. All the networks suspended their regular programming for a couple weeks as America’s obsession with JFK would pathetically be exceeded by Diana Spencer in 1997. The Jerry Lewis show had its final show in mid December before permanent cancellation. It was humiliating for ABC. They spent the equivalent of $120 million in 2023 money for 13 episodes that made the 1980-81 season of SNL look brilliant. This amount is a bargain compared to the dozens of boondoggles today’s Wall Street driven TV is today but it’s the long explanation why Jerry Lewis got the role.

Lastly, given how risk averse assholes like Zaslav and Iger are, I anticipate an unwanted remake! Here’s my pitch! Rupert Pupkin is played by Tom Hardy and in an ironic turn, the Jerry Lawford role goes to Chevy Chase. I’m confident many will get this mean joke.

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1963: Hotline between the USSR and US established

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Steve

In light of how close the world came to Nuclear Armageddon over Cuba, this was set up to have the two super powers communicate before before they kill everybody. Contrary to the movies, namely Failsafe, it was never a hotline nor a telephone for the President to call up the Kremlin. The world hung in the balance through a Teletype until 1986. Then came a big upgrade, a Fax Machine. As of 2008, DC and Moscow utilize a secure computer line for something like e-mail. We’re screwed if the POTUS is a Gen Zer given how e-mail is not cool anymore and too slow.

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Blue Moon tomorrow!

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Steve

No, no, not the tasty beer that’s a decent surrogate when I cannot get Celis White. It’s the uncommon event of when we have two full moons in the same month. One day I’ll get off my butt to find out why it’s blue, I look up and it seems to be the color it has always been. More often it’s reddish due to the time, position and/or atmosphere.

At least the term has given us a few good songs.

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RIP: Arleen Sorkin

Posted on August 28, 2023 by Steve

Sad to see two key voices in Batman’s animated resurgence pass. First, Kevin Conroy, probably one of the three best Batman voices (Adam West and Diedrich Bader). Now we lost the first Harley Quinn. I knew the Joker’s number one was created to keep the show from scaring children, it’s why Mark Hamill replaced Tim Curry too. I didn’t know that the great writer Paul Dini wrote the part for Arleen as they were friends. Great move. Harley definitely drove the ratings and went on to create a merchandising empire for David Zaslav to piss away. Well, that and to give the overrated Margot Robbie a role for Tarantino and other Incels to jerk off to.

I love Arleen’s take which inspired the good voice actresses who’ve followed, namely Tara Strong; Kaley Cuoco is a hack and Lady Gaga is Lady Gag-Gag. Arleen gave the villainess the right level of humor, craziness and menace for a psychiatrist enthralled to the scariest psycho killer on par with Charles Manson. In the end, you knew the original Harleen was still there as she could never go through with killing anybody, including Batman, the main rival in her relationship with the Joker.

Thanks to the sequel show Batman Beyond, Arleen returned as the elderly, retired Harley Quinn, now sane and pissed off at her granddaughters called Dee Dee for joining a gang inspired by the Joker’s legacy.

There was more to Arleen. Outside of providing voices for cartoon characters, she was the stand-in voice for callers on Frasier until they had the finished track with the real “caller;” she had guest roles on SitComs (Dream On, Frasier and Open House), movies (Trading Places, Ted & Venus) and wrote episodes for others (Fired Up, Tiny Toons). But Arleen’s main gig was 26 years on Days of Our Lives. It’s good to see someone break out from Soap Operas to mainstream stuff. Other actors have send the pay is OK but it’s exhausting work.

Thanks for everything Arleen! You laid down the foundation to the best comic book villain created in the Nineties! And your version will always be my go to version!

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RIP: Bob Barker

Posted on August 27, 2023 by Steve

Even I was formulating the easy layup joke every hack comedian was thinking. Bob died successfully without going over 100.

What a life he had though! With his career hosting game shows and namely the one he was most associated with, The Price is Right, he beat Johnny Carson’s record for episodes. As he hosted Price for around 35 years, I really doubt anyone will beat it thanks to streaming and how quickly generations turn over and get bored. Besides, Johnny and Bob were just too classy as hosts compared to the pandering, ass-kissing via Leno, Colbert, Kimmel, etc. I don’t see what anyone ever saw in Conan too; he was a great TV writer but just an awful host who tried too hard. I tuned him out quickly. Half the time it was, “Look! Look! This is funny!” and the other half, Letterman and Monty Python already did it and did it much, much better.

Back to the legendary Bob. I grew up with him like most Gen Xers and Mills since there were three ways you watched him on Price: There was nothing else to watch on TV during the Summer because your parents were too cheap for Cable; Your grandmother was had the remote; or you were home with the flu and couldn’t go to school. I never met a person who watched it intentionally without a wink at irony or the “it’s so bad it’s good” mindset. He was a pretty skilled host, especially when he really got up there in age and we all know people get less patient, the older we get. I’m confident he endured the scheduling, unless you’ve been living under a rock, game shows often tape 3-5 “days” in a day in order to bang out two weeks of material in a couple days. Being a game show host might be considered low hanging fruit to many actors but I’d take it. Use all the free time to do other gigs or if the pay were enough, enjoy my hobbies. Obviously, Bob loved golf. He was the only funny part of Happy Gilmore. I learned he was also a black belt in karate, I wish he kicked Adam Sandler’s unfunny ass for real. I enjoyed his appearance on Futurama, a nod to his time as the MC for the Miss America pageant which he quit in order to stand up against animal cruelty; he was opposed to the contestants wearing fur. This probably led to his signature sign-off on Price about having your pets spayed and neutered. I wonder if he was alright with fur or pelts from animals that died of old age. I’m not keen on them being executed at the prime of their lives and as mean as the mink is, they don’t deserve to be electrocuted via their anuses. Either way, if an old guy from the Establishment can change his mind and side with Hippies, Vegans and PETA regarding a reasonable concern, then he was a pretty cool person.

Farewell Bob! Thanks for everything! Your sense of humor. Your coolness under “fire.” You were a legendary American Dream Story.

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Agamemnon is making more progress than I am!

Posted on August 26, 2023 by Steve

What is it with him? Aggie has some kind of cat-risma with kittens! They seem to trust him despite all the food I lure them with, I can’t get them to approach me. The two little sisters stop being skittish and let down their guard with him. I guess they see him as a surrogate mother because he grooms them, he plays with them and he’s just a calming presence when they want to take a nap not behind the couch. I wish he could convey to them, hey little ones, trust me, these humans are cool man! They give me all the cuddles I can stand! Plus the food and water, excellent. This place rocks! Give the giant monkeys a chance.

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Good thing Jesus was a carpenter…

Posted on August 25, 2023 by Steve

…because he was a lousy plumber!

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The hottest ticket/show in Austin right now

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Steve

I’m not sure if this is receiving much national attention. Probably not, a different shit bird with even more legal problems is sucking up all the Oxygen. Fear not, Paxton was the AG candidate endorsed by Girth Vader after JEB’s felonious offspring George P kissed orange ass so hard.

This being Texas, a government with a Republican majority that behaves like the Dixiecrat party of 1860, you’re probably wondering, “What? Since when do the Republicans eat their own, especially in the South?” Isn’t it obvious? Much like Darth Cheney or Tricky Dick, he became too radioactive to defend any longer and/or he’s of no more use to the rest. We all know this collection of racist Honkies had their moral compasses surgically removed as a pre-requisite to attend private grade schools or if they started out poor, once they got their acceptance letter to the inbred Ivy League universities.

So what’s this all about? Hasn’t he avoided prison (where he belongs) before? Yes. Paxton did get away with securities fraud via the McKinney shit birds, Transportation Sec’y Pete Buttigieg’s former employer too. His luck has appeared to run out. The Republicans in the State House are pissed with him because he got nailed for retaliation at the employees with the AG office who reported how he is morally impaired. The Biden DoJ is certainly digging into his more recent activities (more on this later). Normally, getting even with employees is par for the course in Texas (both parties) but the victims won and the court said they’re owed a few million bucks. The House isn’t thrilled about having to pass a bill to pay for Paxton’s crookery and since he’s a government employee, it cannot be taken out of his vast personal fortune; we’re sure most was accrued by being AG.

The Feds are breathing down Paxton’s neck over Nate Paul, an Austin real estate thief who is in prison thankfully. Paul was a donor and in return Paxton used his position to help the shit bird settle lawsuits and worse, namely have the AG office investigate Paul’s enemies. The very definition of quid pro quo. Paul was very grateful. So grateful, he foot the bill on remodeling Paxton’s Austin house and gave a job to a woman the AG had been boning on the side! The Texas Senate is more sympathetic alongside our horrible Lt. Gov and Abbott; you can place their “Biden Witch Hunt” usage on a Bingo Card. Again, I don’t think the state legislature suddenly “found Jesus,” they’re frightened the FBI will stick around to see what else they’ll uncover within our corrupt millionaires club.

Adding to the drama and pointing out what’s seriously wrong with Texas’ government, his wife sits in the senate seat he used to have. I’m sure she’d love to know more about his side piece yet I’m in the camp demanding her recusal. Given their lust for power, money and bullshit, they’re likely swingers as per Henry and Claire Luce; the shitty, hypocritical Republicans behind Time magazine and American Isolationism.

Paxton also can’t weasel out of the impeachment happening in Austin, a place where the bulk of the audience hates him. There’s a bullshit law the Republicans got passed a while back in which the accused, aka them 90% of the time, can have the venue moved to their home county instead of the location where they broke the law. Most of these assholes are from the rural parts where you can count on a MAGAt-packed jury to acquit just to spite the ‘communist’ cities.

More updates will be posted, you can count on it. I want to see Paxton do the perp walk and wear an orange jump suit before his ass is pounded by the inmates.

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Valley Girl: 40 years later and not as bad as I feared

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Steve

I remember this movie when it was released in 1983 and it just made me roll my eyes due to its title…Valley Girl. Hollywood was trying to cash in on a dead fad created by Zappa’s 1982 hit single but by now, no one wanted anything to do with the exaggerated lingo or accent of what alleged came from LA’s San Fernando Valley. The phrases were and are still shorthand for letting audiences know, Hey! It’s like, the early Eighties…like, ya’ know. If you’ve seen the poster, it didn’t help neither. The woman standing in front of Nic Cage isn’t Deborah Foreman or at least the wardrobe is completely off.

Since Alamo Drafthouse chose to screen this in preparation and as a tutorial for Bottoms, I decided to check it out. See what was all the fuss and it was endorsed by a fellow Gen Xer I respect, Director/Writer Karyn Kusama via her contribution to Trailers From Hell. If she was invited a decade ago by Josh Olson and Joe Dante to talk about this, then I’m sold.

The short version of the plot: Julie and her high school friends live the good life in the San Fernando Valley. They go shopping at the local mall, they gossip about school, music and boys, and they enjoy going to the beach. As the story begins, Julie dumps her beau Tommy because he’s been neglecting her and she lets him know, she can do better. It seems this isn’t completely true as the boy Julie has her eyes on ignores her at a party. Meanwhile, a pair of Hollywood-based “punk rockers” (code for poor kids) called Randy and Fred crash the shindig; Fred overheard where it was happening when Julie’s friends Stacey and Loryn discussed it. Randy and Julie have sparks but the snooty Valley boys led by Tommy kick the “punkers” out.

Julie remains intrigued and through the bulk of the film, she dates Randy while seeing his side of LA, namely the Sunset Strip of the late Seventies and early Eighties when LA’s punk scene (X, The Dickies) was being replaced by New Wave (Oingo Boingo, Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Go Go’s). Julie’s parents are cool. They’re Hippies who run a health-food store and restaurant.

Then Julie is cajoled into choosing between her friends or Randy via her friends. She goes with the friends obviously so Valley can have a second montage of Randy trying to win her back through romantic gestures; the rude movie usher was my favorite. It culminates at the magical moment most high-school flicks do…the Prom! You’ll have to see for yourself at this point to see who Julie decides to do the horizontal mambo with at a pricey hotel as per the mythical tradition.

I found myself liking Valley more than I expected. It’s not the story or how a woman got to be the director, an incredibly rare event in the Eighties. For me, it’s the details! Sure the movie is failing to cash in on a dead fad yet you’re seeing the LA the world has lost through gentrification. The clothes are authentic, especially with the Valley kids. Back then, kids didn’t always wear printed T-shirts, we wore knit shirts with collars at school, parties and even when playing a pick-up game of touch football. If you were wealthy, you had a logo on the chest, usually an alligator or polo player. Randy and Fred would be called punk rock kids too; they put colors in their hair! The term New Waver would be more accurate but it wasn’t widely used by the general public. Thankfully the Vally lingo and slang spoken by the characters was conservatively used keeping everyone from being cartoonish. The music in the background was genuine as well; you’re getting hear what would be on the radio or parties for this demographic. Not some focus-group driven crap with a song from every possible genre. Valley was before Hollywood began to go overboard on tying soundtracks to movies and due to its sincerity, Valley had a long, sought-out, out-of-print soundtrack requiring Rhino/Shout to rescue.

Now its flaws are mostly the standard matters we continue to see in Hollywood’s take on teen life alongside the standard Eighties flourishes to get an R rating, thus, teen boys will want to see it. All the actors are easily in their early twenties or older, I have a hypothesis why. There’s also a couple gratuitous scenes with bare boobs; one would be classified as attempted date rape now; and a The Graduate subplot to pad for time. None are enough to kill my enjoyment. The core elements held up, namely, getting to see Nic Cage trying to act, before he became the living cartoon we love in Renfield and Kick Ass.

Sadly, while researching Valley, namely seeing what happened to the other actors besides Cage and EG Daily; some assholes in 2020 released a PG-13 musical remake. UGH! UGH! They definitely hired the amateurs who did the costumes for the overrated and not funny The Wedding Singer. From the stills on imdb.com you can tell they just grabbed anything that said Eighties on it despite Madonna’s first look wasn’t widespread until 1984. Despite other horrors I could list, we can thank COVID-19 for killing its larger release in theaters. Should you spot it on streaming, avoid at all costs, seek out the original!

Oh, if you overhear a Mill or Gen Zer tsk tsking some parts, especially Josie Cotton singing “Johnny, Are You Queer?” Tell them to take a chill pill and shut the fuck up. 

Alamo Extras:

  • Ads for Palais Royal clothes, Strawberry Shortcake toys, Vincent Price for Cousins sandwiches (Milwaukee!), JEM the rock star doll, the Record Bar record store, Wild Irish Rose Wine, Miracle Whip using Devo’s “Whip It”, Megamania video game starring the Tubes, Hardee’s saying they have Ghostbusters 2 glasses, Timex Watches, Macintosh Computers and Alan Alda showing off an Atari computer.
  • Tiffany’s video for “I Think We’re Alone Now,”; Nolan Thomas’ “Little Brother.”
  • Cyndi Lauper’s long version of the Goonies music video she did with the WWE wrestlers. It had a storyline similar to the movie, somebody was buying out her family’s gas station.
  • A breakdancer troupe performing a series of amazing and standard moves.
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RIP John Warnock

Posted on August 22, 2023 by Steve

Someone I admire, too late obviously, because he made personal computers useful to the masses, not just the hobbyists, the diehards (my father) and what my main complaint was about them…they were a solution in search of a problem. Warnock co-founded Adobe, a software company that contributed to Jobs’ vision of making the personal computer the bike of the mind.

Despite some of the negative things regarding Adobe, namely how they just swallowed up competitors like everybody else, he and Geschke still led the company to making several instrumental must have pieces of software for Macs: Photoshop and Illustrator. Once they acquired Aldus, I’d say their place with graphic design became absolute. I’m bummed how some applications died out: Streamline, GoLive, Adobe Type Manager and Flash, they were cool. The first one gave me something to do when I was unemployed 30 years ago; it would convert a scanned image into a vectored file, making it easier to modify in Illustrator. Two others remain to compete, Premiere and InDesign. Adobe did a good job making the latter a fierce threat to QuarkXpress.

From what I read in a couple obits, Warnock’s main contribution was developing the PDF which remains a cross-platform standard. Numerous contracts are printed out and signed with them (I did with my mortgages and divorce) and LEGO utilizes it for sharing the lost instructions to sets they’ve designed for a couple decades.

Thanks Dr. Warnock! You and all the pioneers at Adobe made the Macintosh the leader for all of us who love to create! Whether it was my fake magazines as letters to friends, laying out my first Web page 25 years ago or creating those goofy “album” covers for my newer, ongoing, rejuvenated mixtape/podcast! Around 35 years ago, a poster for your first version of Photoshop I saw in the Johnston Hall lab proved, wow, you can do some TRON-level shit for a reasonable amount of dough. Sadly, Dean Murphy was too cheap to buy the Mac lab a licensed copy.

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