Category: Culture

Tom Hiddleston, You Ignorant Slut!

Tom HiddlestonFirst of all, I think Tom Hiddleston is a brilliant actor.  He’s played Cassio, Coriolanus and Henry V.  After his portrayal of Loki stole the Avengers’ franchise out from under the good guys — Tony Stark and Captain America — he became the Internet’s  boyfriend.  After The Night Manager, he literally kicked Idris Elba off the top spot in the Who’s The Next Bond Sweepstakes.  In some circles, Q had already given him the keys to the Aston Martin.  Wow!  What a difference a couple of months make!  As of today, Hiddleston’s screen cred is lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.  What happened?  Taylor Swift.

For some unknown reason, Hiddleston dropped himself into the Taylor Swift propaganda machine, and from the looks of things, he’s not exactly struggling to get out.  Tom! Tom! Tom! What were you thinking?  Taylor Swift has built a multi-million dollar business out of dumping boyfriends and then selling the soundtrack to the emotional carnage, in a fauxmance frenzy worthy of Zsa Zsa Gabor.  (FYI, it took Ms. Gabor 99 years to amass 8 exes.  Swift has 7 and she’s only 26!)  The brutal truth is Ms. Swift is either the Humpty Dumpty of love or there’s something very cold and calculating going on here.  My money’s on B.  Swift’s life reads too much like a season of The Young and the Ruthless to be anything but fake.  My God!  Calvin Harris’ side of the bed wasn’t even cold when Swift’s Promo Team started feeding “improv pix” of Tom and Taylor to social media under the newly-coined #Hiddleswift.  I know romance never sleeps, but even Bluebeard took a day off, once in a while!

Of course, celebs change partners the way the rest of us change our socks, so it’s no big deal … but…  the problem is Hiddleston would have made a really good James Bond.  Unfortunately, Bond is suave, he’s smart, he’s sophisticated, he prefers women and would never even consider dating the Queen of the Tweenies — no matter how coldblooded her marketing plan was.  Swift’s persona is just way too Barbie for Bond — half the sexy/twice the plastic.  But more importantly, Bond wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a dickie “I ‘HEART’ T.S.!” tank top.  That’s the fashion equivalent of an Adam Sandler fart joke.  Nothing is ever going to erase that image from the retinas of Bond fans.

So you blew it, Tom! You’re never going to be James Bond now.  But think of it this way: in six months or so, the whole world’s going to know what a bastard you are.  You see, Swift hasn’t put out an album in over two years, so she’s about due to release her next “kiss and yell” recording.  And I have a feeling you’re going feature prominently in it.

Good luck with that.

Advice For Millennials

millenialsI’m an optimist.  However, I must admit ever since the Millennials began drifting out of the universities and into the general population, I’m losing my girlish laughter.  Seriously! These people are difficult to deal with.  It’s like playing chess with a pigeon — they don’t actually understand the game, but they strut around the board as if they invented it.  Lighten up, folks!  Here’s some advice.  It might not make your lives any better, but it’ll certainly help all the people around you get on with theirs.

1 — Nobody in the real world gives a damn about your feelings.  Being over-sensitive about everything doesn’t mean you’re a unique, complicated or interesting person; it means you’re an emotional train wreck who doesn’t have any coping skills.

2 — I think it’s wonderful that you want a totally cool job that utilizes your intelligence, ability and years of education.  Unfortunately, your diploma in Gender Studies or any of the other 1001 bullshit degrees out there didn’t provide you with any marketable skills.  To get a job (cool or otherwise) you need MARKETABLE SKILLS, so either get some or learn how to make coffee.

3 — If you live in the Western World, you’re already part of the 1%.  Nobody but you — and your Instagram buddies — thinks you’re ill used, abused or downtrodden.  And, like it or not, you’re not oppressed, so give it a rest.  You have the bounty of this very, very wealthy society at your disposal.  Bitching about that is kinda counterproductive.

4 — Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

5 — People who disagree with you are not assholes, morons, idiots, or Satan’s evil twin. They’re ordinary people who are just as smart, aware and informed as you think you are.

6 — The real world does not come with a safe space.  That’s a pretend game the universities made up so your parents wouldn’t sue them.

And finally:

7  — Even though he’s not on Twitter, read Copernicus: he has documented proof you’re not the centre of the universe.

Summer Solstice 2016

stonehengeYesterday was the Summer Solstice. Normally, it falls on June 21st, but such are the vagaries of astronomical science. For those in the know, the only place to be was the party at Stonehenge, on the Salisbury plain, in England.  Stonehenge is one of those fascinating places on our planet where ancient architecture meets contemporary dumbass so seamlessly that it produces some of the smoothest con jobs since the Canarsee Indians of Brooklyn “sold” Peter Minuit Manhattan for $24.00.*  There are a number of variations on this spiritual sleight-of -hand, but they’re all basically the same.  Here’s the Twitter version:

Our ancient ancestors were spiritually connected to the physical world — the rhythms of the seasons, etc.
We are not.
Since we have no spiritual connection to anything, we have become assholes — to ourselves, to others and to our planet.
If we’d just take a minute, quit listening to our cell phones and start listening to each other and our planet, we wouldn’t be assholes anymore and perhaps both the planet and the people on it would be better off.
What better place to start the process than at Stonehenge et al where our ancient ancestors figured it out the first time?

Sounds legit — so far — but then we have the kicker:

Buy this book, film, seminar, television program etc., etc., etc. and I’ll show you how it’s done.

Here’s the deal, folks: we have no real proof that our illiterate ancestors were any more in tune with the planet than we are.  In fact, we have some serious evidence that says they weren’t.  They may have recognized day and night and winter and summer, but after that it was pretty much hit and miss.  Remember, these people were still 3 millennia away from “Hey! Don’t poop in the river; it’ll make you sick!”  The truth is we’ve given prehistoric humans these spiritual attributes. Whether they ever had them in the first place is still up for debate.

Plus, volumes have been written on what we DON’T know about Stonehenge.  It might have been a calendar; it might have been a church; it might have been a burial ground; it might have been a navigation centre for aliens.  Actually, given the utter lack of any hard evidence, it might just as easily have been a Neolithic Comedy Club — a sort of Bronze Age X Factor.  We have no way of knowing what went on at Stonehenge circa 2000 BCE.  For all we know, they could have been eating each other, or deflowering virgins or both.  Tying your spiritual wellbeing to that kind of chimera is dodgy, at best.

I don’t mind anybody having a party once a year — especially on my birthday.  If you want to have a howl and a dance and welcome the summer sun, knock yourself out.  But call it what it is, and BTW, suggesting people can buy their way to spirituality is nothing more than a scam.