If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect.-- Milan Kundera, Chapter 2
This is the best image I could find of our flaccid koala in my tinge of remorse. He would never have had the heart to excise me from sustained interaction, as did Maria, in my mere hint of expression as a sexual being, woman unfulfilled, never perceived for herself of what sensual liberation could offer in my bond, and yes, it is painful. Such slight acquaintance as I had with Maria. The Gladhandler was too emasculated, in generational terms, to boast or engage in erect virility, and alas, the dowager doesn't have a gelded eunuch in the life of those persecuted gender non-conformists to ask if this defines what they mean by this new-fangled coinage of non-binary, but John, being a masculine weather vane of of exquisite simplicity, had smiles and greetings for all.
My Facebook post summarizes the remaining challenge of fleshing out a blank slate, his last attendant one of the most destitute I had ever seen, as the radical left would often spar with me, he derived his self-worth from those rolling congestive marches of clanging titanium wheel rims. I do not, being from the planet Krypton.
There is no further need for pseudonyms, such small delight as may be derived from that. I teased him about forming an insurgent militia to kill you. He took pleasure in my whimsy.
Presumably, ABC hopes to hold its audience for A Million Little Things with a certain degree of incompatibility between Ron Livingston's upbeat attitude juxtaposed against his character Jon's decision to act, and throw himself off a balcony: was it due to realtor graft, his wife's affair? Oh yummy, but let's do the conscientious thing and offer the audience a public service announcement for suicide prevention. I have little objection to Yvonne Villarreal raising the issue of "romanticizing" the character. She is on target, at least from the perspective of the issues surrounding the ensemble and their collective affect. Rescuing Roday from his third rate mediocrity on psych was a mistake, whether or not asininity is an effective mechanism for levity. I simply fail to see how making a purportedly mature drama about the tincture of despair ameliorates what is now a national crisis. There are no captures here of modern medical barbarity like Inglis House, or losing function. NBC's Reverie may not be Black Mirror, but it at least had the courage to touch upon centralization and its cruelty as the very last business model we'll willingly forego as we stampede toward the end of history.
I am sorry I've been so long away. I shall address it in a bit. Many issues are distressing me, not the least of which is Jack Dorsey's herd mentality, on top of my personal situation and the horrendous need to readjust. I miss James Woods' voice on :TwitterVerse, and that investment is the least of my problems.
"In late July, she sent a letter via Eshoo's office to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California," Emma Brown's scoop, in jeopardy of life and limb.
Dianne Feinstein rose to political prominence on the back of Dan White's use of force and reconnaissance skills against a localized, and perhaps hypocritical, progressive expansion of identity politics. Progressives, and Andrew Sullivan too, often say that reactive bigotry invariably leads us down the road to such tragic conclusions; perhaps, but White's pressures were primarily economic, and again, while Feinstein was the authority in charge, White committed suicide. The dowager had parallel issues, and even had an email referring to Omar Mateen forwarded to the FBI, but this threat of authority rather vaporized. The dowager has not committed murder, the spectrum of progressive-homosexual corruption is alive and well in the northeast, but when the golden state goes cataclysmic, it certainly blinds us into fury with solar storms on the horizon. Despite my hostility to rainbows being culturally appropriated by less than aesthetically pleasing humans who engage in hedonistic abandon and consider it paradise until felled by diseases of sexual transmission, I will not write that I believe White to be a martyr or even a hero for the active predicate of "to conserve". He killed Mascone and the Milkmaid in cold blood, and perhaps made Feinstein more cautious than Pelosi, but sadly, this woman, Dianne Feinstein, on her way out the door eventually, like McCain before her, bears responsibility, as does The Washington Post, if there is any bloodshed pursuant to Ford's allegations. Brown's article is an outrageously partisan smear, virtually admitting that Ford targeted her accusation to coincide with the Judiciary Committee hearings. She omits, as Dan Mclaughlin does not, that this polygraph was administered under the security blanket of the law offices of Ford's attorney, that polygraphs are not admissible, let alone fool proof, and Mclaughlin virtually nails it on the head that this psychologist comes off like a guilty teenager whose irresponsibility led to an outcome she doesn't like.
But yes, I am personally and politically outraged: next to Alison Botha, myself, and many of the individuals for whom I fought during my career, many victims sustain much worse, and Dr. Ford should be ashamed for trivializing womens' suffering for the sake of a political scorecard. I too, did not particularly admire the way McConnell handled the Merrick nomination, but the Senate majority leader had a legitimate political lens through which he viewed a lame duck president meeting the constitutional obligations of the chief executive.
The left may destroy Trump, but this is not fine if it ultimately destroys our faith, as citizens of the most successful democracy in the world, in the procedure of governing. That's what Feinstein just did, and achieved, but maybe this is what you learn by living gallows humor in San Francisco. Ford's timing is too opportunistic for me to see her as credible. She names Mark Judge as a restraining rescue, but any Sanders' supporter might know who CPAC youngbloods were in the day. Feinstein's cynicism is self-evident, as she sat on Ford's letter for weeks. That's a tactic, not victim's advocacy. I will never, never, vote for a Democrat again. Whatever their sins, I will sink with the Republican ship. And whatever happens, I will never forget. This time, I am truly, truly, outraged, even if I admit this story is too huge for me to pitch a quick bite.
We all live with raw nature towering above us, and working inside us to challenge our civilized veneer.-- The Philosophy of Clint Eastwood
There
is nothing wrong with not taking life too seriously, and Burt Reynolds cruised
through most of his films doing just that, being a hot and heady swashbuckler
who didn’t have to internalize. When you’ve got the swagger, you’ve got it.
There was simply too much of a hard on in that swagger for the dowager’s taste,
with notable exceptions, like The Longest Yard. Is its Southern insolence
contrived? Certainly, but this is good old Americana, with all its feel good
bluster, a favorite of mine that of a sudden evokes the man’s absence, and this
absence, preserved in his presence on camera, belies the dismissive attitude I
had for Reynolds throughout his career. Comparing the jaded pro baller Crewe
from this 74 classic to the tightly wound Pentagon brass starred general in the
06 End Game as Gooding's moral arbiter comes as something of a shock, even as we nag ourselves with critical annoyance. Why was the optic capture of Woods meeting a publisher so critical to this Hillary as wish fulfillment film? The
action figure ossifies into a mannequin before our eyes in this disappointing
Clintonesque fable. We knew we were saying goodbye, even 12 years ago, with
great affection, never to be back this way again. And also, coincidentally, one year into my looming obituary.
"For a man with such great power you have to take responsibility." Robert De Niro in his end scene with James Woods, Once Upon A Time in America
On one
level, Against All Odds (1984) is a
predictable suspense thriller that doesn’t necessarily earn memorial status
through television syndication. Even Phil Collins’ sound track, so deftly
fitted in to the conclusion of the film, has the mundane delphinic sound which
plagues popular music from the eighties, instantly forgettable. Jeff Bridges,
in the sheep’s clothing of composite character Terry Brogan, purportedly wins
the day, with his finer tarnished moral decency, against gaming corruption
embodied in Woods’ Jake Wise, a club owner with a lucrative gambling operation
dependent on sometimes fictive NFL teams. There is one extraneous and tacky
scene toward the climax where Bridges asks Rachel Ward if Woods’ dick is bigger
than his, then the audience is treated to a tortured kiss of revelation and
decision. Certain incipient details challenge auditory comprehension in
decline, but whether Brogan was a star quarterback or a wide receiver cut from
the “Outlaws” is nearly irrelevant to the story line, which beneath the surface
is an inexorable deconstruction of American innocence. Ward’s character is
comparable to Dashiel Hammett’s Ruth Wonderly. But Wyler doesn’t shoot her
pursuers over some fantastic pursuit of wealth, as she is a magnet’s daughter
without the pecuniary interests of Hammett’s villains. She seems to engage in opportunistic
murder out of misguided self-preservation.
Although
it is too far a stretch to say that Against All Odds upgrades the Manichaean
dualism that Hammett popularized for his fans, it has enough trace elements to
suggest we’re all complicit. Jake Wise is vulnerable despite his will to power,
but the knife wound inflicted on Wise by the young Jessie seeking her escape
doesn’t take the club owner out of his milieu, unlike Bridges, whose injury sets
him apart just enough that he can function like a classical noir detective who
can right the scales, except that the issue of what, if anything, is vindicated
is left up to the viewer. To the director’s credit, this film isn’t a sports
movie, so much as a cynical confirmation that “deep state,” does exist, has a
complex relationship to our vices, much like the taut masterpiece that is
Jackie Brown. It may be only sheer coincidence that Robert Forester appears in
both films, and in each, functions as a facilitator, in Odds, a foiled
henchman. If you’d like confirmation bias, all the recall you need is Tom Brady’s
deflated pigskin scandal. It was such a big deal because Americans have a bicameral
relationship with its gladiator love affair. We want great sports and a fast
buck, and this Reagan era conceit with a 70’s hangover sketches in the dirty
laundry better than Oliver Stone’s attempt, this film that comforts the dowager
as a product of her time. But things haven’t changed that much. In the latest
tri-state scandal, McClure turned Bobbitt into a superlative Samaritan, only to
exploit him for our collective appetite for material acquisition.
