This Time Next Year, We’ll Be Millionaires!

Finally, Millionaires!

Watching my last Only Fools and Horses episode of the decade! 🤗🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🤣🤣🤣 

Ramones It’s Alive

Now this was a goddam New Year’s Eve, people. Happy 2020! 🤗

Also Happy Birfday

To Paul Westerberg, born during the last hours of the 1950’s. 

OTD du Jour

This seems tough to beat:

• 1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.

New Years Eve Memories

(Originally posted in 2008)

A coupla years ago the girl I was in love with moved away to Chicago. Of course I was heartbroken, blah blah blah. I made the trip out there with her to help her move, and then a few days later it was time to say goodbye forever and come back to NYC. We were standing in line as I waited to board the train (highly recommended trip - scenery, off the hook. Well, what I could see thru my salty tears. Sigh.) Finally the call came to board, and the line started moving, and before I knew it I was at the front of the line, dude holding out his hand for my ticket. I gave it to him and then, because of my freakish fear when traveling that if you're not on the bus/train/plane an hour early it will take off without you, middle finger extended, I hurredly and distractedly pecked her on the lips goodbye and sprinted to get on the train. Which, of course, sat there for another 20 minutes as people behind me boarded. Ever since then I've regretted that I didn't hand my ticket to the guy, step outta line, drop my bag, and pull her into myself and lay one of those all-time, people-are-starting-to-look Wondermint commercial kisses. Still kicking myself. Not cause it woulda changed anything, not that she woulda all of a sudden said "I'm coming with you!" But it would've been a great moment, the right way to say goodbye to the love of my life. Nags at me that I panicked like a chickenshit to get on the goddam train. Fuck.

Happy Birfday!

To Xmastime pal and living legend, Kdawggy! Reposted from last year:

Friday, July 13, 2012

Cool Things I Did in My 30s, Part V

Came up with my "Greatness is calling...will you accept the charges?" riff for a softball pre-game pep talk...back in the day, I guess, that collect calls actually existed.

This post dedicated to Kdawggy, ie the only person who ever thought that bit was funny. Here she is trying to get me shitfaced so that she can take advantage of me. That made me sad :(

2019 Instagram Top 9

What Instagram taught me in 2019: only post pictures that include people who are much more popular than myself.

2019 Holiday Season Highlight

2 of my 3 godchildren. Miss you Big Bear!

6 seconds into the above photo shoot. Zzzzzzzzzz. 

Awww, great cousin moment!

.....crashed by my lunatic goddaughter. 🤣

Squad Goals!

2019 Holiday Season Highlight

My goddaughter on December 26 announcing to me that yes, she and her sister ARE in fact still accepting Christmas presents. Cushty! 🤣

Goals. I Have Them.

‪2020 Goal: produce a game show that involves parents being forced to watch their toddlers attempt to successfully transfer a full gallon of milk from the fridge to the kitchen counter and into an awaiting sippy cup.  😬 #stress #terror‬

Good Grief

Lee Mendelson, who among other things produced A Charlie Brown Christmas, has died at 86:

Mendelson first linked up with Peanuts creator Charles Schulz after the cartoonist saw Mendelson’s documentary about baseball legend Willie Mays in 1963. The plan originally was for Mendelson’s production company to make a documentary about the Peanuts comic strip, but the two instead decided to create the now-classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Mendelson is also credited with hiring Vince Guaraldi, a fellow Bay Area resident who caught Mendelson’s era with a jazz tribute to the Golden Gate Bridge, to do music for the television special. 

As I’ve screamed before before: where are the documentary he started making in Schulz and the one he made on Willie Mays?????!! 

Wait...

...Sharon Stone is on Bumble??? (breaking out emergency can of Canoe cologne). 

RIP Neil Innes

Sad news about Neil Innes, who could be considered the seventh member of Monty Python. Terry Jones himself gave Innes tons of credit for making Holy Grail what it was. 

Conversations with an 8 Year-Old

(Andie MacDowell pops up on Netflix Christmas movie)

Me: oooohhh, yeah!

Her: you like her???!!

Me: heck yeah

Her: but she’s old!

Me: I’M old!!!!

😜

A Random Thought on the Gavin and Stacey Xmas Special

As with every other huge fan I was fairly shocked the word “omelette” didn’t come up once - but it turns out we all just missed it:

On first watch of the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special it appears that Gwen West didn't fulfil the one important role she's most famous for: making an omlette.

But she actually does make one, it's just no one makes a fuss about it — well, apart from us maybe. If you missed it first time too, it's the scene where Jason is sat at the table and Gwen is serving him the omelette straight from the pan. It's the bit where Uncle Bryn blames his sister-in-law for 'single-handedly cocking up the entire day'.

Still Working On It, Guys

Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special

After months of my bitching and moaning about having to wait months, if not a year, to watch the Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special here in America - 10 years after the final series in 2009 - it turns out it was immediately available on BritBox!! 🤗 It was exactly what you’d hope for: nostalgic callbacks to previous episodes, great comedic and dramatic moments and, most importantly, bringing back the fantastic characters that made this show what it was. And in the end, there was a shocking moment that will surely fuel fan hopes of another series. Meanwhile, I can promise you I’ll watch this a dozen times by February. Well done!!

UPDATE: this reunion episode is the highest-rated Christmas special of the decade. 

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Watching tv with a four year-old means you hafta pepper him with questions about his show without him once asking you a goddam thing about The Office. 😡

AAAARRGGHHH!!!

The Gavin and Stacey reunion Christmas special is happening tomorrow and it’s killing me I can’t watch it here in America!!! 😡

31 Years Ago Today

EARTHRISE:

Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1968. That evening, the astronauts-Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders-held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.

While it will always be a bridesmaid thanks to Apollo 11, here's a few things to say about Apollo 8:

The first time humans had left the planet Earth.

The first time a human saw the whole planet Earth from space.

The first time humans had not experienced a night, with sunrises and sunsets.

The first time humans were exposed to raw solar radiation beyond the Earth’s magnetic field.

The first time astronauts had experienced the full 3.4 million kilogram thrust of the big Saturn V rocket.

The first time humans had entered another gravitational field.

The first time humans orbited the Moon.

The first time humans had occulted behind the Moon.

The first to see the backside of the Moon.

The first to see Earthrise at the Moon.

The first to reenter into the Earth’s atmosphere from the Moon.

The first to travel so far and so fast. 

Article du Jour

The year-end wrap-ups of texts from parents are always dynamite. 🤗 See then all HERE. 

A Kino Kristmas, 1984

Sistatime!, illWill and a young Xmastime about 4 seconds before an exasperated Brothatime!! gives up trying to explain to us that cross elasticity of demand is the change in the quantity demanded of one product or service impacting the change in demand for another product or service.

First (and Probably Only) Xmas Card of the Year

Featuring my godson Big Bear and his awesome sister. Thanks Mamalizza!!! 🤗

This is Motherfucking GENIUS

There’s No Way...

....this isn’t the song of the decade, right?

Office Rankings Shakeup

Yesterday I ranked all The Office Christmas episodes. First of all, you’re welcome. Secondly, upon re-watching Secret Santa I am now conflicted between it and Dwight Christmas. While I like the warmth of Dwight Christmas, it’s obvious that Secret Santa is funnier. Just flat-out, nonstop funny. 

Intyeresting du Jour

Brothers Raghib and Qadry Ismail had shockingly similar NFL stats. 🤔

Ummmm...

...is that pre-existing condition called "being 300 years old?"

A Few Thoughts on Tulsi Gabbard

Yes, she's super hot. But her parroting Republican talking points by saying impeachment of Trump “undermines our democracy by taking away the voters’ right to choose who leads our country" is asinine.

- Democracy means we let voters choose who leads the country. It doesn’t mean that once that person is in office he or she can do whatever they want without consequences.

- Setting a precedent of “we shouldn’t impeach, we should only vote!” means from here on out people will run for President knowing that if elected they’ll have 4 solid years to do whatever they want w/o consequences. Imagine having 4 years to shake entire countries down for $$$$ and cause as much damage to anybody you personally want to.

 

She also said her "present" vote was "an active protest against the zero-sum game the two opposing political sides have trapped America in. My vote and campaign is about freeing our country from this damaging mindset so we can work side-by-side to usher in a bright future for all."

 

- I think that in the year 2019 a presidential candidate trying to tell us that it’s even remotely possible to negotiate and compromise with Republicans is automatically disqualifying.

 

- Is there a reason we’re taking this person seriously anymore?

 

 

Christmas Thoughts!

Instead of these bullshit ways of giving gifts to each other who don’t need them, can we finally declare Christmas as a time to ACTUALLY give to the poor? Thank you Patigonia and the like but can we please just. give money. to. the. poor. ????

Bruce!

I haven’t been paying much attention Bruce’s Western Stars movie thing, but this is a pretty great, if faithful almost to a fault, version of the super-slice classic Rhinestone Cowboy. 

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Kennedy broke the seal in 1960 re: electing a President who’s Catholic. But is it strange that with 25% of the population being Catholic there hasn’t been one since? 🤔

A Few Thoughts re: tonight’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience

Was fantastic and I want more! Though the audience seemed a bit flat during Good Times. The All in the Family being a Christmas episode only added to the warmth of the whole event. 

- Woody was much better this time, mainly due to the script allowing him to thunder away meaning he didn’t focus so much on his cartoonish attempt at Archie’s accent. He was absolutely riveting in the big scene. 

- As someone very familiar with this episode, I feel like Eisenberg totally nailed his part. 

- Once again Marisa Tomeii was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS as Edith!! 

Live in Front of a Studio Audience

Tonight’s Episodes:

Good Times “The Politicians” November 4, 1975

All in the Family “The Draft Dodger” December 25, 1976

This continues to be a great idea. More please!! 

Eric Monte WTF

Watching the updated Good Times reminds me to ask what I did 10 years ago: what the hell happened to Eric Monte? 

One of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood in the '70s was that Eric Monte was responsible for creating the characters of George and Weezie Jefferson, Cooley High and What's Happening!! Oh yeah, and he helped create a little show called "Good Times."

What's known now is that for the last 5 years, he has lived in a homeless shelter.

Amazing to me. Guy that is responsible for some of the greatest tv of the last century, (back when tv wasn't retarded) and here he is sitting in a homeless shelter hoping to sell a script...in a world where the sitcom is so beyond stupid it's not even worth calling television.

I have a feeling Eric Monte could fart better scripts than what's showing up on your tv right now. But I guess we'll never know. Which fucking sucks.

Too Real.

Me, anytime someone ropes me into going for a hike. “No no, you guys go ahead!”

The Office Christmas Specials, Ranked

Vulture did it, so I'm doing it because I'm better. BLAMMO!

A Benihana Christmas - just flat-out one of the best Office episodes, period. Jim's subtle ways of fucking with Dwight at the table are, in a word, sublime. And no way you could get away with Michael's magic marker move today, either.


Dwight Christmas - this being Dwight-centric of course means it gonna be good, and Darryl collapsing on the table is an all-time moment. Also, Dwight being so upset with Jim leaving and then so happy when he returns is just a great, warm moment that shows that after all these years there's more to them than being sworn enemies.

The Office Darryl GIF from Theoffice GIFs

Secret Santa - Michael in the chair lazily tossing out insults to everybody? I mean camon - SOMEwhere there’s gotta be an outtake reel with about 30 more minutes of these!! And if you don't die laughing at "tranny Claus" then you're an idiot.


Christmas Party - the first one, which ratchets up Michael’s boy crush on Ryan. His fury with Phyllis for making him an oven mitt is palpable, and while eventually the Jim & Pam romance would bore us to tears it’s really sweet this early on with the teapot. I've always liked this scene because it reminds us how truly naive/innocent Michael really is. (Sorry for crappy video, best I could find.)


Moroccan Christmas - one of the best cold opens of all time (the desk-wrapped “chair and desk’) and a great side-plot with Dwight and the Unicorn girl doll. Also, it reminds us that as much as a whateverthehell Michael is, he genuinely cares about these people. His concern for Meredith’s alcoholism comes across as very sincere.


Also, this kills me EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.
via GIPHY

Classy Christmas - only here because “Christmas Wishes” is worse. Not very memorable.

Christmas Wishes - Dismal, creepy and too much Andy. Figures they’d blow the first one after Michael left.

State du Moi

This is 11 year-old me finding out that a day in the far-off future would come during which I would learn about something called "sausage stuffing".

Thoughts. I Have Them.

This whole “impeachment will only help Trump!” narrative is curious. I mean, I don’t remember a lot of “oh boy, now OJ Simpson’s gonna be more popular than ever!” takes in the 1990s. 🤔

My Favorite TV Shows of the Decade

Scripted shows only, and in no order. Enjoy!

TRUE DETECTIVE - and by this I mean the first season, of course. This isn't my genre and I have no idea how I even ended up watching it, but McCaughney and Harrelson were absolutely spell-binding. Add in an insanely creepy plotline and a setting that is a character itself, and you have magic. 
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT TRUE DETECTIVE:

You think Rust kept himself alive while bleeding out on the ground by telling himself "You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N."?

MAD MEN: simply put, this is the Cadillac of prestige television that studios have repeatedly tried to copy over & over without succeeding. 
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT MAD MEN:

The episode of Mad Men last night might've been the best tv I've seen in a long time. The jolt of the plane crash and it's ensuing inappropriate and unchecked jokes, Draper showing both a semi-compassionate side and a hard-ass one, the dude that plays Pete Campbell's awesome vacant performance as well as his family's blue blood Gatsby awkwardness. Great episode. Oh, and just for kicks they threw in some racism and a 5 year-old girl mixing drinks. After last year's mid-season stumble, looks like the show has recovered nicely.

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA - what can you say about a show that with the exception of one season has been THE most consistently flat-out funny sitcom of all time and include a character who is forever in the pantheon (Charlie)?
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA:

I'm fairly shocked that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hasn’t done a straight-up parody of Rocky. Charlie as Rocky, Frank as Mickey and the Waitress as Adrian.

VEEP - the natural descendant of the BBC's brilliant Yes, Minister, this show popped and crackled like nothing else until the end, when for some reason the jokes dragged out a beat too long and it found itself competing with Trump for absurdity, which is a no-win situation. Unique show in that there's a ton of spin-offs featuring aide characters I'd love to watch.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT VEEP:

Finally seeing the second season of Veep. An A+ show that adds Gary Cole automatically becomes an A++ show. 

COUNT ARTHUR STRONG - Graham Linehan was already a genius thanks to Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd when he wrote this show. For three seasons it delivered great laughs, which made the few poignant scenes that much more heartfelt.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT COUNT ARTHUR STRONG: none really, so enjoy this video!

CUCKOO - classic cozy BBC sitcom that brilliantly showcases the hilarious Greg Davies, who squeezed every laugh out of his few lines on The Inbetweeners. The old "I'd watch him read the phone book" is way overused, but applicable to Davies.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT CUCKOO:

- When Cuckoo began, just like everybody else I'm sure I thought oh, this is a platform for Andy Samberg. And if you had told me it'd get even funnier when he left and Taylor Lautner joined the cast, I'd have said you're probably out of your mind.

- Greg Davies is a British National Treasure, even he never does anything other than Cuckoo and his Hall of Fame character on The Inbetweeners. And if you spot hm on The Graham Norton Show, do yourself  favor and watch.

- I always hafta catch myself from demanding more Steve, as he's one of those perfect side characters where a little is perfect and juuuuust a tad more is too much.

- Is there a more delightful family to go down to the pub with?

- Ben was one of sitcom's all-time dull characters (as designed so), but how happy are you when he actually finds his true love?

- I'm assuming there will be 6th season! (fingers crossed emoji)

GIRLS - watching Girls could be maddening and only one of them was actually likeable, but people never stopped watching it, even if only to bitch. Lord knows I bitched about it plenty here. I watch from time to time just to be able to inhale my old neighborhood Williamsburg.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ABOUT GIRLS:

What the problem of Girls is, to me, that it's the first show (in my mind) that sounds like a blog, in that it feels more of a need to cram in it's pithy observations on XYZ than it does in developing a story or characters we care about; you can feel Lara Dunham not listening to anyone else's lines as she's counting down to her next "BOOM!" statement about boys/her vagina/Williamsburg. A blog can be compulsively driven by getting things off one's chest since there doesn't necessarily need to be a connection from one post to another, but a television show needs to organically flow.

This could/should change as the show progresses and Dunham feels less pressure to blurt out the first 100 things she's ever thought of (particularly as "the mind of her generation"); hell, Whitney began with Whitney tripping over everybody else to cram in as many clumsy-fitting one-liners from her stand-up as possible, but became mildly watchable once she calmed down and the other characters were given lives of their own, not just existing as receptors for Whitney's  endless "The difference between men and women..." schtick. 

MOONE BOY - somehow both laugh-out-loud funny and humbly delightful, featuring a main character who was so funny partly because I'm not really sure he knew he was acting (like Theo Huxtasble before Malcolm Jamal Warner realized he was an ACT-OR!) And of course anything featuring the universally beloved Chris O'Dowd.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON MOONE BOY: I've written plenty about it but would rather watch this video over and over.

DERRY GIRLS - another Irish show, featuring a group of four distinct archetypes: the wanna-be alpha, the troublemaker, the nervous rule-follower and the looney. A brilliant way of showing that vents in history happen while people are trying to navigate their own daily lives.

PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON DERRY GIRLS:

Available NOW on Netflix! A rare show in that every character is really funny. Also the best example of a show that spends the entire series making you laugh over and over & then punches you in the gut in the final minutes since Blackadder Goes Forth. Awesome. Can’t wait for the next series!

THE WRONG MAN(S) - James Corden wrote and starred in this with his Gavin and Stacey cast mate Mathew Baynton, a wonderfully unique spy thriller spoof that unleashes Corden to be at his most Corden-y. Also, extremely well-made for a comedy, it looks like a movie. Bonus for have Dawn French in a small role!
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON THE WRONG MAN(S): a video instead YOU'RE WELCOME!!


SCHITT'S CREEK - I snobbishly turned my nose up at this for years because of the name and then tumbled into all at once and didn't top until I had seen every episode. A brilliant cast - everything the parents say is funny, and the kids go from being over-the-top hate-able to people you urgently root for. Can't wait for the next season, which will sadly be its last.
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHT ON SCHITT'S CREEK: None. Well. This really fizzled out, didn't it?

DOWNTON ABBEY - what can I say that hasn't been said a million times?
PREVIOUS XMASTIME THOUGHTS ON DOWNTON ABBEY:
Too many gems to choose from, but do yourself a favor and read THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Spy
Rev.
Whites
Master of None
The Crown
Catastrophe
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Tremé
Friday Night Dinner
The Trip
Detectorists
Chickens
Vicious
Still Open All Hours
Uncle
A Young Doctor’s Notebook
The Big Bang Theory
Modern Family
Miranda

I'm sure I'm missing something but oh fucking well.

Kobe Kuestion.

Pretty sure I didn't realize at the time that the Lakers retired TWO of Kobe's jerseys. Is this the only example of a team doing such a thing? 🤔

FINALLY!

They've been teasing us with a Marco Pierre White movie at least since 2014, but now it finally looks like it's actually happening with Russell Crowe as White:

With Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver surely in line for the film and TV treatment, White will likely be delighted to get ahead and on to the screen. The great unknowns: Who will play young Marco? Who will play youngish Gordon Ramsay? How much of White’s largely derisive attitude towards women will make the cut? Is it going straight to Netflix, or will White and Crowe attempt to do what Burnt and Chef couldn’t and make a restaurant film that doesn’t wallow in machismo boredom?

Can't wait!! :)

Father Christmas

Most of my beloved fans know that The Kinks’ Father Christmas is my 3rd favorite Christmas carol.  It’s a heartbreaking story of a little boy who rather unfortunately understands that his family needs money to pay the bills more than he needs some stupid toy. It may actually break the record for Christmas no-nonsense:

Father Christmas, give us some money
We'll beat you up if you make us annoyed
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys

But give my daddy a job 'cause he needs one
He's got lots of mouths to feed. 

London Calling, Guy Stevens Chapter

As the 40-year anniversary celebration for London Calling rolls on, we turn our heads to its crazier-than-a-shithouse-rat producer:

Joe Strummer was playing the piano on a London Calling track and Guy Stevens decided he didn’t like the way the piano sounded, so he rushed out of the control room and poured red wine all over Strummer’s hands and into the piano. This is bullshit. The band didn’t hire Guy Stevens; they enabled him. The problem with people like Stevens is that while they are off on their paths of destruction, someone has to mop up the wine. Someone has to mop up the blood. And someone has to actually record the music. That job fell mainly to London Calling’s engineer and unsung hero, Bill Price, who meticulously and brilliantly oversaw the tedious process of overdubbing and mixing while Stevens went about the business of being a “vibe merchant,” which mainly meant breaking furniture and falling down stairs. But even still, no one disputes Stevens’s contributions to the finished product. He was not facilitator, he was obstacle. He was a duende.

What’s a duede, you ask?

The Spanish poet, playwright, and revolutionary Federico García Lorca believed that the muse was all fine and well, but for an artist to achieve something greater they needed to engage with their duende. A duende is a demon that exists within us, that sleeps in our bones and feeds on our marrow. When the artist awakens their duende, it is at their own peril and is seriously risky business, because the duende will battle them at every turn and challenge them to be transcendent. And this is often a fight to the end, because by its very nature the duende embraces and seeks out death.

I’ve been reading stories and entire books about what a lunatic Stevens was and that’s about as spot-on as I can imagine. 

But it sure as hell worked!

Xmastime OTD 2013

Funny cuz it's true! :)

"The OFfice" Questions. I Have Them.

Has anyone ever wondered how Holly had to be transferred to Nashua because she was dating Michael but then immediately started dating AJ at the Nashua office and that was perfectly fine? Hmm. 🤔

AAARRRRRGH SO JEALOUS!!!!!

Death or Glory

I’m one day late to the party re: London Calling is now 40 years old but this is from the album and my favorite Clash song ever :)

Fact du Jour

Via HERE:

Many felt Doug Flutie's fabled "Hail Mary" pass, which took Boston College to a last-second win over Miami, won the little quarterback the Heisman. Actually, the vote was in before that classic game.

I did not know that. 

Happy Birfday Serge!

Happy birthday to Serge Bielanko, one of my all-time favorite friends. We don’t get to see each other as much anymore, but when we do the stories don’t end. 

Here’s an interview with him that popped up today about growing up in Conshy (I can’t spell the actual county dammit) outside Philly

back in the day:

But the truth is: I never thought of Conshohocken as a place I needed to escape like the narrator of ‘Born to Run’ or anything like that. Somehow I always felt connected to who I was there. I still do even though I hardly ever get back anymore. It sounds so lame and cliche, but growing up in that town in the 70s/80s…that was something that became a part of your DNA. Honestly, I don’t my brother or me would have ever had our band or written our songs or had any of this if we hadn’t been born and raised in the heart of Conshohocken. I really mean that and I suspect he would agree with me. The only reason I can ever recall wishing I didn’t live in Conshy was when I got into fishing. There are no fish in that crick at Sutcliffe Park. Believe me: I tried. 

Jack Frost. Ugh.

Twitter informs me that the godawful movie Jack Frost came out 21 years ago today, so fuck it here's my thoughts on it back in 2008:

Is the opening scene of Jack Frost the dumbest, most implausible one in movie history? Hmm. Bar band of 50 year olds in Denver playing by-the-numbers "blues", and there's a thousand fans there losing their minds while records label dudes race on their cellphones to sign them? Jesus. By the time Michael Keaton comes back to life as a snowman you're like yeah, well, okay, this I might actually believe. #1 on my list of "Movie Scenes That are SO Pulverizingly Awful I Scan The Guide to See When They're Coming on Again So I Can Shake MY Head in Disbelief for 10 Minutes" list.

"You pussies make me look like James Fucking Brown, for chrissake!!" 

Yaaaasss!!!

New Curb Your Enthusiasm trailer...featuring Jon Hamm AS JON HAMM!!!! :)

UPDATE: official date for premiere is Sunday, January 19, at 10:30 p.m.!!!

More Band Aid

Bono’s “well tonight thank god it’s them, instead of you” line has gotten shit forever. But every day in the city I’m overwhelmed by the fact that I get to go back to my warm apartment with plenty of food and a huge tv after walking by a homeless person shivering on cardboard mats begging for money, knowing full well that there’s no real reason I deserve it more than him. 

35 Years Ago Today

Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas was released in the US. Super-slice of super-slices!!!

As Someone Who’s Been to Ireland...

...I can confirm that this is fantastic advice.

Only Fools du Jour

I now present to you my favorite 22 Only Fools and Horses episodes, in chronological order. You're welcome!

Big Brother

The Second Time Around

A Touch of Glass

Healthy Competition

Friday the 14^th

Thicker Than Water

Happy Returns

Strained Relations

A Hole in One

From Prussia with Love

Video Nasty

Yuppy Love

Danger UXD

Chain Gang

Little Problems

The Jolly Boys’ Outing

Class of ‘62

He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Uncle

Heroes and Villains

Modern Men

Time On Our Hands

If They Could See Us Now

-->

I Still Don’t Understand

How Grant Hart has been dead for 2 years. :(

Politicians Eating to Impress

Me back in September:

I don’t wanna be a cranky old man but when did it become de riguer that our vote for the leader of the free world should hinge on how irresponsibly he or she’s willing to eat at town carnivals? 🤔

I guess one of my celebrity super-fans read this and decided to find out an answer:

The Iowa State Fair is not important to the campaign cycle simply because every candidate shows up there over the span of a week to snarfle corn dogs and lay down a stump speech about Iowa values like hard work and ethanol. Most people I spoke to there didn’t care about the candidates at all — they were at the fair to spend time with family and friends, and to eat. This might seem like classic American political disengagement, but for lots of people in Iowa, the political circus regularly invades spaces they care about because politicians are trying to co-opt their emotional connections to a place. No wonder some people resist it. For the Iowans who come year after year, the fair holds their history, especially their state’s agricultural history, preserving a time when more people owned family farms than worked for the agribusiness that swallowed them up. The specific connections specific people have to the fair are often lost in national politics, which treats the fair like a synecdoche of a core American myth: that the best of our country is found in the rural and bucolic regions, which are also implicitly white. (A 1932 novel about the Iowa State Fair, titled, appropriately, State Fair, was made into a movie three different times in the 20th century.) That story was never true, and the further we move from that history, the more absurd it is that it still lives at the heart of our politics.

My 10 Favorite Beatles Songs Written by John Lennon

Openly, purely John songs, as opposed to Lennon/McCartney songs that were real collaborations. In no order:

If I Fell

No Reply

Help!

Ticket to Ride

In My Life

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Dear Prudence

I’m So Tired

Rain

A Day in the Life

 This almost made it but got bounced for not actually being released until 1995.

Springsteen 12/09/1980

On most years I simply post the following on the anniversary of John Lennon's death on 12/8/1980, written in the Philly paper about Springsteen taking the stage the night after Lennon was killed (I've forgotten the writer's name):

The next day Miami Steve called the tour manager to see if the second night was supposed to be postponed. The answer was no. Steve was so upset he went to Springsteen shortly before the show saying that, "I felt really weird about going onstage, that I couldn't put it together. And he really just reminded of why we do what we do, and how important it was to go out that night in particular. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, like 'This is what John Lennon inspired us to do and now it's our job to do the same thing for these other people, that today it was Lennon and tomorrow it might be me, and if it is . . .' That's how he does his show, like it was his last. He lives every minute like it was his last. That's the way to live. It's really lucky to be close to him at moments like that."

The band took the stage, most of them wearing black. Springsteen went to the mike. "If it wasn't for John Lennon," he said, "a lot of us would be in some place much different tonight. It's a hard world that makes you live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it's hard to come out here and play tonight, but there's nothing else to do."

I've seen people digging firebreaks to save their homes, and I've seen some desperate fist fights, and God knows, I've seen hundreds of rock & roll shows, but I have never seen a human being exert himself the way Springsteen did that night in Philly.

But today for the very first time I've heard the audio of his speaking, thanks to Tony Kornheiser's podcast HERE, starting at the 45:30 mark. I don't really know why he didn't play an actual Beatles song written by Lennon instead of Twist and Shout, but oh well.

UPDATE: another recording here if you dont wanna wade thru that podcast.

Oh FFS.

Do Republicans honestly not understand that someone *hating* Trump doesn’t automatically cancel out any crimes he may have committed as president? 🤔