Thursday, March 31, 2022
Something You Should Know About Me
I do not like the terms “guitarist” or “bassist”; I only use “guitar player” or “bass player”. Don't even GET me started on "pianist".
Now That's Funny
Brittney Griner’s Plea For Help Relegated To ESPN2 https://t.co/8jSjycekCU pic.twitter.com/qYPUeniZjG
— The Onion (@TheOnion) March 31, 2022
Suggestion du Jour
I mean c'mon already, what if Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr announced they’d be doing one show, one night, Beatles songs only. Wouldn’t that be the event of the century? Wouldn’t that break the record for whatever records there are for joy around the world?
"That's funny Ringo, 2% in fact IS what you'll be getting from the show!"
Xmastime 10 Years Ago Today
Me. I'm Really Happening.
For some reason there's almost nothing I find funnier than whenever someone is walking towards me with at least two dogs on leashes; as we're passing each other I solemnly nod my head at them and say "Fellas." I crack up for the next coupla blocks.
Reading & Writin' & Look, My Dick!
Someone right on over CHERE has a list of controversial opinions about books. I don't know how "controversial" these are, but of course I am only too happy to list the ones I happen to agree with. You're welcome, Earth!
1. "The movie can be better than the book." - Xmastime case in point: Jaws.
3. "Us men should read more romance novels, to be honest. They're very different from what's typically expected on our shelves, especially here in the States. There's just a stupid-ass stigma amongst ourselves. I'm a large, bearded fella who works with grain, and damn it, I enjoy the warm fuzzies of a cute romance novel. People can fight me if they think it's weird." - read whatever you like, dawg!
10. "I hate it when the book cover is changed to match the film or show based on it. I like imagining the characters, not having the actor you choose invade my idea of the book." - YES!! This person is correct! As per moi:
I'm annoyed that the reason I know it's a movie is because of the book cover. This always annoys me, it always seems to cheapen the book for me - isn't this their way of saying "oh, fuck this book, just go watch the movie!!"? I understand media/publishing tie-ins, but I never see the reverse. A movie never opens with "Hey, this is based on a book, which you should definitely run home and read after injecting hot buttered popcorn into your veins!" The phrase "based on the book _______" usually comes buried somewhere between the gaffers and caterers' and names.
ALSO: People I Hate, Vol XXII
People who run out and buy the book to a movie that's being made so
that later on when the movie's coming out they can say they read the
book, all while pretending they had no idea it was being made into a
movie. Grrrrrrrrr.
16. "Offering incentives to get kids to read is a fantastic idea that should be brought back. When I was in elementary school, we had a system that was called A.R (accelerated reading) that assigned points to every book in our school library. You then took an online test, and you received the points if you got an 80% or better. The classics were worth double-digit points" - YES! As my Children's Lit professor at The Harvard on the Appomattox said about children, if they'll read a fucking cereal box let them read a cereal box. Reading crap is better than reading nothing, no matter what age.
18.
"I've seen a lot of people
say they only read books once and, in their words, 'Why would they
re-read a book when they could read a new one?' I think re-reading books
is crucial to a deep understanding of the work. Read the book once for
the plot, read again for the theme, read a third time for patterns and
details you didn't catch before. Read a fourth time because it's a good
book. Always re-read books if you liked them the first time, I guarantee
you will get something new from it. Re-reading serves just as
meaningful a purpose as reading a book for the first time. Books don't
exist purely to inform you of the events in a story." - I've never understood this. Anything else anybody likes doing, they wanna do twice. Nobody fucks once and says okay that was great and then never tries it again. We all watch the same shows over and over. Each reading of a book you love only makes it even better, and of course your perceptions/sympathies change as you age. That's why you love Holden Caulfield when you're 15 and roll your eyes at him when you're 35, but you still like reading the book.
20. "The world of 'I'm a book reading person who reads books' merchandise, memes, etc. is cringe as shit." - I've never personally experienced this but yes, it sounds pretty stupid.
23. "Hardcover books are just not as good as paperback." - paperbacks are good for reading, hardcovers are good for coffee tables.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Xmastime 10 Years Ago Today
Friday, March 30, 2012
Xmastime Plot Holes in Movies He Loves, Vol 1
My Cousin Vinny
The opening scene has the the two guys arguing over whether to buy a can of beans costing 31 cents or one costing 32 cents, eventually settling on the 31 cent can because it was not only a penny cheaper, but also because it signaled that they would not fall prey to packaging. Then the Karate Kid grabs a can of tuna for the express purpose of neither pleasure nor flavor, but...protein. Protein! So the stage is set that they are your typically cash-strapped college kids - I mean, shopping for protein? College kids on the road?
AND YET.
A second later the Karate Kid is at the counter ordering an item totally absent of nutritional value while jacked up in price due to it's playful, colorful veneer: a "Slushee." I mean, wtf?
My Cousin Vinny: J'ACCUSE!!!
The opening scene has the the two guys arguing over whether to buy a can of beans costing 31 cents or one costing 32 cents, eventually settling on the 31 cent can because it was not only a penny cheaper, but also because it signaled that they would not fall prey to packaging. Then the Karate Kid grabs a can of tuna for the express purpose of neither pleasure nor flavor, but...protein. Protein! So the stage is set that they are your typically cash-strapped college kids - I mean, shopping for protein? College kids on the road?
AND YET.
A second later the Karate Kid is at the counter ordering an item totally absent of nutritional value while jacked up in price due to it's playful, colorful veneer: a "Slushee." I mean, wtf?
My Cousin Vinny: J'ACCUSE!!!
Mind Blown du Jour
This a bottle of Gerber baby food, fromIdontfuckingknowhowlongago. See the iconic baby? Her name is Ann Turner Cook and WTF GUYS SHE IS STILL ALIVE!!!!
Business Ideas. I Have Them.
Looking for investors, people!
It Had to Be Stu
The art was flowing out of him: life studies, collages, canvases as tall as he was. “If he’d lived, he could easily have been the Beatle,” Paolozzi later said. “He was imaginative, ultra-intelligent, and he was open to everything.” In at least one edition of “Tune In,” Lewisohn includes a photograph from February 3, 1962, full of that sense of possibility. Voormann wears a Baroque ruff, as if impersonating a Rembrandt portrait; Kirchherr and Sutcliffe wear matching leather pants.
Throughout the desolation of the pandemic, it helped to play the
Beatles, especially with a deeper understanding of just how close we
came to never hearing them at all. If Harrison had immigrated to
Australia, as he wished; if McCartney had kept his job as a coil-winder,
as he nearly did; or, if Lennon and Sutcliffe had not recognized
something profound in one another, this would have been a different
story.
Sutcliffe had his own life, and was an aspiring painter when his best friend John Lennon bugged him into buying a bass with art prize money. He couldn't play, which drove Paul bananas, but it didn't seem to matter to the rest of the band at the time.
As I wondered a while back, just how momentous was this handing over of the bass to McCartney?
A better version of the movie Yesterday (which I reviewed here) would be revisiting the fateful moment when Paul picked up the bass after Stuart Sutcliffe left the band. Normally, John being the inferior guitar player would mean he'd be relegated to being the bass player, but him being the leader of the band allowing him to refuse, leaving it to Paul, forever changed the future of the band and rock and roll itself, as Paul went on to become the most inventive bass player of all time. With John on bass, how different would The Beatles have turned out?
Stuart's small part in the birth of The Beatles is undeniable. But it is a point of human existentialism to wonder was Stuart Sutcliffe's entire reason for existing, his raison d'etre, was that he would one day hand over the bass guitar to one James Paul McCartney, therein changing music forever?
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Disney Thoughts. I Have Them.
If the Alaskan Chamber of Commerce doesn’t put out a song called We Don’t Talk About Juneau then I really don't know what the hell we're all doing here. 🤷♂️
Thoughts. I Have Them.
Where the hell would pepperoni ever be without pizza? I think pepperoni owes pizza a big fat “thank you”.
Food for Digestion
Mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory … I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?
Of course, nobody writes abut breakfast like the Europeans.
And you know my rule about cheese and bread in books!
Surprisingly Good Advice I Can't Even Try to Make Fun Of
"You can’t win a game 7 without losing three games first. Keep going."
Monday, March 28, 2022
Life Lessons, with Xmastime (That's Me!)
Meanwhile his father has that perpetual, "well I have a real job, when are you going to get one?" dad look.
This Much We Know, Vol. XVII
If during the course of a movie a guy says to a girl “you know, nobody likes you” then the odds of them having sex goes up to exactly 100%.
Current Status
Hey Paul
"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “don't you have an all-time great bit about this from a coupla years ago?"
Sigh. Yes I do, faithful reader, YES I DO:
Guy spends years trying to sue Paul McCartney for ending Hey Jude before the "nah, nah nah, nah nah nah nah" parts at a concert, finds love along the way. Now accepting investors.
Oscar Thoughts!
If that stupid tv show The Slap doesn't take advantage of this whole thing then i really don't know what to tell anybody anymore. 🤷♂️ #Oscars2022
This was our Jack Ruby moment. 😞 #Oscars2022
Wow this year just keeps getting worse for Kanye, doesn't it? #Oscars2022
Hollywood has to be pretty happy; when was the last time everybody spent the day after the Oscars NOT bitching about how much they sucked for four hours? #Oscars2022
Will never see the movie Ali the same again. 😞 #Oscars2022
Friday, March 25, 2022
Thoughts. I Have Them.
I just want a wife who’s so stunningly beautiful that people wonder what’s wrong with her that she's with me and to be so rich people are surprised I’m not a total asshole. Is that really too much to ask?
Fab Four Friday
The guitar quote is one of the most oft-heard in the mega Beatles fans universe.
john lennon talking about aunt mimi and how she once threw away his poetry and he said that one day he would be famous and she would regret it: "the best quote she ever said was "the guitar is all right as hobby john but you will never make a living at it" pic.twitter.com/bznFxQ3OoL
— di ☮🏳 (@ceofjohnlennon) March 25, 2022
The Royle Family
Great article HERE on The Royle Family, a personal superslice:
The conceit of the show initially penned by series stars Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash was a simple but completely revolutionary one. Each episode would transplant you into the Royles’ livingroom as they chatted about their day and watched their favourite programmes. The first series, which is perfect from start to finish, focuses on the marriage of Denise and her dopey but well-meaning boyfriend Dave (Craig Cash). We hear about the wedding plans, see Denise try her dress on one Sunday afternoon and even see the events of the morning in question, but key, to the genius of the show, is that we never leave their house.
It captured something instantly relatable. You could see yourself in these people. These weren’t comedy characters like Victor Meldrew or Father Ted Crilly, these felt like real people. We can all relate to watching television with the family and moaning about the state of the programmes, finally settling on something and talking all the way through it anyway. When you watch it, you’re amazed someone hadn’t thought to do it sooner.
The ultimate reality tv show, the second it appeared every tv writer must've yelled at the tv screen for not having come up with the idea first.
Life is Funny
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Life by Westerberg
TFW you see people boarding Amtrak before you and you know they aren’t in fucking business class. 😡
Questions. I Have Them.
Who had Michael Jackson in their 1985 office pool, “which one of these will not still be around in 2022?”? 🤔😳 
This is a Swing and a Miss
So here’s an entire article about office energy vampires…without even once mentioning the greatest office energy vampire there is???!!??
Wow!
Wow the pandemic really is over - the pizza place by me apparently has gin on tap. Eff you, Hong Kong Flu! 
Thoughts. I Have Them.
I’ll bet this week broke the record for people clearing their histories on their work computers.
A Note, by Moi
The best thing about writing a book is the final run through - you know that anything you add or take away is pure house money golden cherries on top.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
State du Moi, II
Day 2 back in the office. What other examples are there of the day AFTER the day you’ve had circled on your calendar for a while? 🤔🤷♂️
Connections
Reputably the Beatles wrote 'She Loves You' while staying at the hotel, after playing at the Majestic in 1963
Imagine possibly being the last girl John Lennon met before he walked back into the hotel and wrote She Loves You with Paul McCartney? Whoa!
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
OFAH du Jour
The Russians are Coming is mostly - and deservedly so - remembered for Grandad's stunning monologue at the end of the episode, but this article points out the politics of the show, particularly with Doom Times coming for all of us:
Forty years on, with tensions flaring between Putin and the West, it’s easy to believe that the Trotters might be preparing for WW3 again – dusting down the fallout shelter, stockpiling bottles of Peckham Spring, and cramming the freezer with one-legged turkeys.
Only Fools and Horses was always political – it was rough-and-ready life in Thatcher’s Britain. Creator John Sullivan wrote London as he saw it – vibrant, multi-ethnic, and buoyant in the face of social unrest. The black market, unemployment, privatisation, recession, right to buy, and deregulation of the financial markets all figured into Only Fools’ gags and storylines.
Even Del Boy’s dodgy French phrases (“Bonnet de douche!”) came from a proliferation of European lingo after Britain joined the Common Market. Del Boy was the embodiment of free enterprise, or as Rodney says in The Russians Are Coming, “a ruthless little mercenary”. During the Brixton riots, Del Boy had rushed down in the van to sell paving slabs to the rioters.
“Rodney is the conscience of the show,” says Steve Clark, author of Only Fools and Horses: The Inside Story. “But Del takes every political twist and turn as an opportunity to make money. That’s Del for you. It’s a comedy but John Sullivan had his finger on the pulse of current affairs. It reflects what people would have been talking about down the pub.”
My favorite line from the episode:
Grandad also recalls how teenage boys were conned into signing up for king and country – boys of 14 pretending to be 18, just so they could fight. Grandad’s own brother lied about his age. “Pretended he was 18?” asks Rodney. “No, he was 18,” says Grandad. “He pretended he was 14.” John Sullivan’s writing is never far from a stellar line.
And here's Grandad.
I'm re-watching Only Fools and Horses and the famous speech Grandad gives, telling Del Boy off for glorifying war, feels relevant to the 'hero' rhetoric we're seeing right now: "They promised us homes fit for heroes, they give us heroes fit for homes" pic.twitter.com/Ib75II3Q6c
— Stephanie Soh (@steph_soh) May 17, 2020
Thoughts. I Have Them.
One thing we know for sure as people head back to the office: the sheer number of gallons of melted ice from fancy coffees filling up desk wastebaskets is about to launch into the stratosphere.
Meanwhile, in Liverpool...
Real World Thoughts. I Have Them.
Today is my first time back working in the office in over 2 years. I’m trying not to get too into “aw damn why didn’t I do anything during those two years?” - I am, after all, putting the finishing touches on my second novel, eff you very much - but upon hearing people talking about the drive into DC I must say: wouldn’t the last two years (particularly the first COVID year) been the perfect time to fix every single road and bridge in the country? Hmm. 🤔🤷♂️
It’s Over
After two years, back in the office…working up the nerve to do a “as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted two years ago…” joke. 😜🤣🕺
Monday, March 21, 2022
OFAH du Jour
Really, really great episode of The Jolly Boys Podcast HERE with Andy Smith, a production manager on Only Fools and Horses from 1983-1985. Just a thoughtful, thorough interview with someone on the front lines back in the day; in particular he conveys the feeling of having to film Grandad's funeral scene just a week or so after doing the real thing for the actor, Lennard Pearce.
Thanks for this one, Jolly Boys! :)
And for the hell of it here's David Jason discussing the episode of the show the podcast is named after. You're welcome, Earth!
(SIDE NOTE: David Jason misses one HUGE reason this episode is great: the gang is all together. That's what we LOVE LOVE LOVE! As in Class of '62 or Chain Gang, the show's even better when the whole cast is together)
Let's Do This!
I've mentioned George Harrison's visiting his sister in the United States in 1963 several times throughout the history of this blog. His visit of course came months before coming back with The Beatles to take over the world a few months later, and yes, I agree - I would watch this movie!
I still stand by my tweet from last year that, in the right hands, this story would make a fantastic movie. https://t.co/FwGQfQsmwi
— Dr Christine Feldman-Barrett (@FeldmanBarrett) March 21, 2022
MAR-lene! :)
I'm not entirely sure why, but one of my earliest memories of Only Fools and Horses is watching Sleeping Dogs Lie. I don't really know why - the episode isn't until the fourth season, after Uncle Albert has replaced Grandad in the cast. Obviously upon discovering the show I would've started streaming it from the very beginning, in order, but for some reason when I think back to discovering the show, this episode jumps out. It's a good episode - not a classic one, but a really good one, and somehow has a special place for me in the OFAH universe.
And hell-O Marlene!!!! 🤗 🤗❤️🤗❤️
37 Years ago to the day @SueHolderness made her first ever onscreen appearance as ‘Marlene’ in this Only Fools and Horses episode - ‘Sleeping Dogs Lie’ @BeingBoycie GET IN THE CAR!pic.twitter.com/obIX7zvKY0
— Lazar Vuković (@VukovicLazar) March 21, 2022
Friday, March 18, 2022
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Worlds Colliding
And I agree - I wish the dog had made the cover too! 😜🤣
"GOAT"? But Why?
In sports terms, the term "GOAT" used to mean someone who had choked away a game, an unlucky loser forever burdened by the memory of ruining someone else's life/game.
Via THE RINGER:
What establishes someone as a sports goat?
Well, first they need to do something monumentally bad which changes the course of the game, series, or even a career.
Second, the play is usually, but not exclusively, a boneheaded one that every fan thinks they could make.
Finally, this person takes all the blame for a team's loss or lack of success even when it is not entirely their fault.
For example, Fred Brown from the ending of the UNC/Georgetown 1982 Final.
Meanwhile, at some point in recent years we've just started throwing the word "GOAT" around to describe someone as being the Greatest Of All Time. Buy why? Why did we co-opt "GOAT" - which was not only already a term used in sports, but a term meaning the exact opposite of the greatest? How did they happen - instead of "greatest" why didn't they just use "best" instead? In other words, "The BOAT". Nobody likes or cares about goats, but you know who loves a boat? EVERYBODY!
I truly don't know how this happened. And it's out of fucking order, people.
Derry Girls!
Today of all days feels good to have the upcoming season 3 trailer drop. Can't wait!!! 🤗🇮🇪🤗🇮🇪🤗🇮🇪🤗🇮🇪🤗🇮🇪
St. Paddy Shows?
"It is the closest the Irish will ever get to a Christmas" - Michael Scott, on St. Patrick's Day
It being a day based on tomfoolery and drinking too much, I'm surprised by the paucity of great sitcom episodes based on St. Patrick's Day. I mean other than the iconic episode of The Office, how many are there? Any, really? There's a good one from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in which Charlie thinks he's caught a leprechaun in a bigger rat-trap but to be honest as good as it is, it basically feels like it could be any trainwreck episode of Sunny.
On Peter Bowles
Tall, commanding, deep-voiced and usually moustached, Peter Bowles, who has died at the age of 85, was frequently cast as either establishment chaps or gangster geezers.
His most successful roles in the former camp were as Richard DeVere in To the Manor Born (1979-81), one of Britain’s most-watched sitcoms, and The Irish RM from 1983-85, playing Maj Yeates, a British Army officer sent to 19th-century UK-ruled Ireland as a “resident magistrate”.
Bowles also had the class, in acting terms, to interestingly explore the overlaps between the two social groups, combining both sides of the range as an upper-class conman in The Bounder, another TV success which was shown on ITV in 1982 and 83.
Across a 66-year career, he spectacularly disproved the warning of a drama school teacher that his dark hair and rapidly tanning skin meant he “would never play an Englishman”.
Not completely English, though, was the pivotal role in his career: DeVere. Very many English comedies have turned on social differences, but the twist in Peter Spence’s To the Manor Born was that both main characters looked and sounded like the landed gentry. Penelope Keith’s Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, though, considered herself a real lady, while regarding DeVere, who outbid Audrey for her late husband’s country estate at auction, as a false gentleman, exposing him as the child of Czech-Polish émigré parents, his name anglicised to help his supermarket business.
Like another comedy from the same era, Only Fools and Horses, the show was a reflection of the disruptions to the English class system by the recently elected Margaret Thatcher, a shopkeeper’s daughter who had poshed up her voice but was committed to social mobility.
The casting of the charming Bowles helped to offset the potentially nasty snobbery of the premise; it seemed inevitable from the start that Audrey would fall for Richard despite his nouveau roots, and the couple eventually married.
March Madness Baby!
If winning his final game at Cameron means so much to Coach K he always coulda decided to play in the NIT? 🤔🤷♂️
RIP Peter Bowles
British National Treasure Peter Bowles has just died. He was 85 so it's not a surprising tragedy or anything, but thanks to my dad - and, later, me - loving The Irish R.M., I really can barely life before knowing who this guy was, which was only bolstered years later when watching him in my superslice of superslices, To the Manor Born.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Questions. I Have Them.
How many sitcom episodes are ruined because the writers insist on having B/C stories so that all the characters can get onscreen every episode?
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Somebody Loves You, Don't You Know It?
The Kinks and Beats Daily Podcast will be covering songs from Arthur - my favorite Kinks album!!!!!! - over the next three weeks. This YouTube playlist will have the new episodes and previous audio-only episodes.
The world is finally coming up Xmastime, losers!!!!
Baseball is Back, Baby!
Maybe the unvaccinated Yankees and Mets can play each other all summer? 🤔🤷♂️⚾️
Bleak(ed)
Me, the other day: Fuck this, I'm gonna stop reading Bleak House!
The Internet Today: Bleak House is awesome for right now and you should read it!
Dickens once complained that without the buzzing life and teeming crowds of London, his imagination grew cramped. London, he wrote, was his “magic lantern”; his characters “seem disposed to stagnate without crowds about them.” Dickens needed the city, and the city needed Dickens. As we re-stitch urban life after two years of dislocation, Bleak House might reveal the secret principles that underlie the city as a system.
Oh Oh!
Monday, March 14, 2022
Questions. I Have Them.
Has anything funny ever actually happened in a sitcom following someone saying, “now just follow my lead…”? 🤔🤷♂️
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Seeing Fay wearing an Aeromass uniform in the very last scene of Wings is like leaving KFC for the final time and seeing a chicken behind the counter dressed up in a fancy white suit with a string tie :(
ALSO: wouldn't this picture make a great old romance novel cover? The young newlyweds, desperate to escape the island while the evil ogre slinks away with one of their friends...
Back to "Normal"
Incredibly Thought-Provoking, Profound Statement by Moi
Humans are the single greatest example of the Peter Principle
I don't really know what I mean by that yet, but I'm working on it.
Sunday, March 13, 2022
HAPPY BIRFDAY...
I can not believe the kid's 16 already...I have way too many great memories, so I'll just post this moment from when he was born:
Minutes after he was born, his dad brought him out to meet us all. Then the two of them got on an elevator to go downstairs. For something, I have no idea what. There were maybe 10 of us, and we're all just kinda standing there watching them get on the elevator, and about 2 minutes later we're all still standing there, chatting or whatever, and the elevator door opens. And standing there is some kid, looks to be about 10 or 12. Everybody's just kinda standing there looking at him, and finally I say "Jesus christ...how the fuck long have we been standing here?"
ZERO LAUGHS!!! My greatest line ever, nuthin. ZERO!!!!
Still bugs me to this day....here's a great Big Bear moment:
Today was Big Bear's first day of first grade. He told me all they did all day was play, to which I replied "well, tomorrow they're gonna get serious about you learning stuff, you know", to wit:
Xmastime: They're gonna teach you how to read.
Big Bear: I already know how to read.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you how to write.
Big Bear: I already know how to write.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you math.
Big Bear: I already know math.
Xmastime: Well. (long pause...) I guess there's no reason to go back, then.
Big Bear: Probably not.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Friday, March 11, 2022
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