Oscar 2020

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Sunday is Oscar Night.  They’ve moved it up because of A.S.F. (Award Show Fatigue.)  Apparently, this is a real thing.  People just get bone-ass bored with Hollywood during their Give-Me-A-Trophy season.  (Who knew?)  It makes sense though, after the Golden Globes, the Baftas, SAG, Critic’s Choice, Sundance, TFI, AFI and an endless stream of the usual suspects, wearing enough money to feed a Malawi family for a year, striding up to the microphone and telling the rest of us to quit voting for Trump and drinking soda pop with a straw … God, take a breath, Fyfe!  You’re going to hurt yourself … It’s no wonder people tune out.  I’m probably going to watch, though, because a) I’m a dinosaur b) the Academy will do a decent tribute to Kirk Douglas (more about that later) and c) despite all my complaining, I do believe movies are important.

Movies give us something we can’t find anywhere else.  For example, every person on this planet has a least one movie that they simply don’t share with anyone else.  It’s not secret, but it’s kinda private.  It’s personal.  It’s a cozy connection.  It’s a few tears or a lotta laughs – just because.  It’s an old lover who shows up on a stay-at-home Friday night and says, “Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable and make some popcorn?  This evening’s just about the two of us.”  And for a couple of hours, you totally relax because you know everything about them (including the dialogue) and they’ve seen the holes in your underwear.  These movies aren’t necessarily the best or award winners or the critic’s choice, but they belong to us.  They occupy a place in our psyche that we can’t explain.  They are the tales of intimate strangers told to us, alone in the dark, like important whispers we need to remember.

I have several movies like this.  Yeah, believe it or not, I wasn’t always the party animal you see before you.  I’ve had my fair share of stay-at-home Friday nights.  I’ve sailed El Carib with Captain Ron and danced with Marlene Dietrich on more than one occasion.

So, on Sunday, after the Red Carpet, I don’t really care if some guy in a tuxedo scolds me about my promiscuous use of plastic.  I’m there for the movies.  And when they eulogize Kirk Douglas, along with Spartacus and Paths of Glory, I hope they remember 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  It’s a remarkable tale of an ocean adventure, told to a kid from the North American prairie who’d never seen the ocean.

The Week That Was – 2020

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There are some weeks when nothing happens – zip, nada, bupkis!  And then there are other weeks that just boil over with stuff going on.  Last week was the boiling kind, and here are a few events of note.

After three and a half years of dickin’ around, the UK finally left the EU.  And — no big surprise — the sun didn’t fall out of the sky, the Chunnel didn’t implode and Big Ben didn’t chime 13!  In fact, if you were asleep at midnight GMT, too bad — ya missed it.  Still, the Irish are offended, the Welsh are dismayed and the Scots are downright pissed off.  But let’s face it, if the English were offering free tea and crumpets, somebody on that island would bitch about it.  However, one part of Brexit does unite the various peoples of the United Kingdom: they all — boys, girls and baby squirrels – hate London.

Ground Hog Day was completely overshadowed (heh-heh-heh) by the Super Bowl.  Apparently, the game had over a billion viewers worldwide.  I don’t believe it.  Outside the good old U.S. of A, there are only about 12 people who actually understand American football, and they’re all Packers fans.  No, most folks watch the Super Bowl for the ads and the halftime show – and, this year, the halftime show didn’t disappoint.  What’s not to like?  A full 15 minutes of synchronized semi-naked women, bumping and grinding as if there were a 2 for 1 sale on orgasms; men dressed up as sperm; a pole dancer and a choir of children to prove it was all about feminism.  I don’t know about you, but after the final ass shakes, I was satisfied.  Anyway, the little rodent in Pennsylvania got second billing, and nobody cared if he saw his shadow or not.  However, according to folklore, since Kansas City beat San Francisco, we’re going to have six more weeks of dull, flat and boring.

Sunday was also 02-02-2020, International-Give-A-Nerd-An-Eyeroll-Day.  Despite all the Internet yipping about it, these “palindromic anomalies” are actually quite frequent.  The next one is – uh – next year on the 12th of February (12-02-2021.)  However, Americans are going to have to wait until December 2nd (12-02-2021) because, for some weird reason, they put the month first.  I guess these number games are kinda cool, but they do beg the question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody count the leaves?”

And finally:

Faced with the uncontrollable spread of an incurable virus – again — the Chinese built a couple of hospitals in less than two weeks!  (You can see them do it on YouTube.)  Wow!  Meanwhile, in Europe the people of Barcelona have been working on Sagrada Familia since 1882, and they still haven’t finished it.  Lazy is such a hard word. . . .

Young People Are Grim

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For years, I’ve been trying to figure out why young people are so relentlessly grim.  And, I’m not just talking about millennials — the You-Can’t-Have-Any-Ice cream generation.  It’s their children as well, now called Generation Z, as if this is the end of the line for the human species.  These folks — pretty much anyone born after 1980 — spend their days acting like corporate accountants who’ve just had a root canal.  They could give lessons to Puritans, for God’s sake!  And (have you ever noticed?) they always laugh with their teeth clenched – kinda like a Terminator trying to smile.

And there’s no reason for it.  We live at the apex of human achievement.  There’s more good stuff now — and less bad stuff — than at any other time in history.  There should be dancing in the streets.  So, what’s the deal?  Simple: cell phones.  Most young people wander around with a stick up their ass because they know if they step out of line, somebody’s going to video record it, and 20 seconds later they’re going to look like total morons – across the entire planet!  Plus, the Internet never forgets.  Whatever they say or do today, may come back and haunt them, 10 years from now, when social standards change.  This is peer pressure to the Nth degree, and the only way to escape it is keep your head down.  Don’t give the cybermob an excuse to come after you.  In other words, bland is best.

When I was a kid, I did some stupid things. In my generation, we all did. It was part of growing up.  You learned, sometimes painfully, not to be a jackass.  However, there was no permanent record in those days.  My transgressions were shared, laughed at and admonished by a very small group – who (mostly) had my best interests at heart.  Now, time on, they’ve been forgotten, except on rare occasions when old friends get together and play Remember When.  I carry no brand for strangers to judge.

These days, young people don’t live with that luxury.  They’re all sitting under a cyber Sword of Damocles, one upload away from, at best, humiliation and at worst, disgrace and total ruin.  They not only have to fly right, right now; they have to see into the future and measure up, and that has got to be a full time job.  It’s no wonder they’re all trudging along as if somebody just shot their puppy.