November 11, 2016
Dear Everyone:
Oh, my goodness. Be careful
what you wish for.
Donny the Trumpet
was so fixated on winning the
election that it looks like he’s only now beginning to realize that
there’s more to winning than just grabbing the
brass ring.
Now that brass ring is being fitted for his
nose.
He’s mounted the tiger, with no way to get off for four long
years.
What happened? “Experts” of
all stripes are trotting out opinions.
One suggested that so many people were convinced that
Hillary Clinton was going to win, including Hillary Clinton, that
enough of the voters figured “Hey, my vote won’t count for anything, so
I’ll just show them how I feel by voting for Trump.”
And that’s what they got.
That’s what we got, too.
As for the inevitable postmortem on Why Hillary Lost When Everyone
Thought She Would Win: Some
people would rather vote for a turnip than let a mere woman into the
last bastion of The
Boys Club.
One of the advantages of growing old and decrepit is that it gives you a
wealth of experience.
Looking back at when the voters decided to show their disgust with The
Political Establishment by electing
Jimmy Carter,
who was going to “clean up Washington”, shows that this can be a Bad
Idea. But the country
survived.
When Ronald Reagan
was elected, many people feared he would start
World War III.
Didn’t happen. Unless
you count the
Iran-Contra fiasco. Or
the tiny island-nation of
Grenada.
And let’s not forget the whole
Teapot Dome
Scandal, in which President
Warren G.
Harding played poker while his Cabinet ministers robbed the country
blind. But the country
survived.
As for President-Elect Trump (PET), it’s all too soon to tell.
Can he really be worse than Harding?
With CNN and
Company breathing down his neck 24/7?
Or Andrew
Jackson? Can’t you just
hear Anderson
Cooper: “Tell us, Mr.
President, just why are you
force-marching
thousands of
Native Americans into outdoor
ghettos that you’re
calling ‘Reservations’?
What’s in it for you?”
There’s lots of talk about how the Un-Candidate is now the
Un-Politician. “He doesn’t
know how everything works around here!”
True. But “that’s the
way we’ve always done it” is a poor enough excuse for the mess that
Washington has gotten itself into.
Trump has boasted that he’s The Great Negotiator.
What will happen when he finds out that he can’t just pick up his
marbles and take them home?
What if no one wants his marbles?
Only time will tell.
In the meantime, all hail
Kellyanne
Conway, the Queen of Spin.
After shepherding Trump to the Presidency, she can write her own
ticket as far as the next election is concerned.
In other news…
After the festivities last
Halloween, I left
my
Jack-O’-Lantern and leftover candy at “Jeannie’s” place.
I figured there was little point in dragging an emptied-out shell
all the way home, just to toss it in the dumpster.
The following weekend, I noticed that it was gone, although
“Jeannie’s” Jack-O’-Lantern was still held a place of honor, mounted on
a plant stand on the front porch.
She told me later that she happened to glance inside and yes, it was
very, very fuzzy. Another
reason not to hang onto it for too long.
Then the other day, when she got home from work, it seemed to
have disappeared. Until she
realized that it had virtually liquefied in place and fallen to the
ground. Yuck.
Nothing like trying to retrieve putrefied pumpkin guts.
But enough about all that.
What about the movies?
In the 1960s, Kurt
Russell was a young actor signed to a long-term contract with
Walt
Disney Studios. He was
also an avid baseball
player and had it written into his contract that he could be excused
from acting during the baseball season.
In 1968, he played one of
Walter Brennan’s
grandsons in The One and
Only, Genuine, Original Family Band.
Another young actor, playing “Giggly Girl”, was
Goldie Hawn in
her first big screen film.
After the production, they both moved on, as performers are wont to do.
He made
many,
many movies for Disney.
She did
Rowan &
Martin’s Laugh-In, then got the role in
Cactus
Flower that earned her an
Academy Award. And she
married second husband,
Bill Hudson,
producing two children in the process.
Her daughter is actress
Kate Hudson.
Russell went on to play
professional
baseball briefly in
Portland,
Oregon until a
torn rotator
cuff sent him back to acting as a full-time career.
They met again in
Swing Shift.
Got along well together, but decided not to get married since
both had experienced failed marriages in the past.
In fact, they’ve been unmarried for over three decades and the
Hudson children consider Russell their Dad.
Which brings us to
Deepwater
Horizon…
My neighbor and fellow HOA Board Member, “Phoebe”, wanted to see a film
that was either “true life” or an “action movie” and this one fit both
criteria. It is Hollywood’s
version of the
oceanic disaster that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in April, 2010.
Mark
Wahlberg portrays Mike Williams, chief electrician on the floating
oil rig. Kate Hudson plays
his wife, joining
Laura Linney (Sully)
in the ranks of earthbound-wives-with-telephones-glued-to-their-ears,
trying desperately to find out what’s going on.
Kurt Russell plays “Mr. Jimmy”, the sage old-timer revered by everyone
except the inevitable suits from
British Petroleum (Boo!
Hiss!), as embodied by a smug
John Malkovich.
After the accident, there was plenty of
finger-pointing by corporations as to who was a fault; but there’s
little doubt who the producers hold responsible.
The details of the explosion and ensuing chaos are meticulously crafted.
But everyone knows that eleven people died almost instantly.
As for the rest, like the
Mad Magazine
satire of
The Poseidon
Adventure said, “Who are you going to follow?
The overpaid stars or a bunch of extras?”
So the action scenes don’t exactly keep you on the edge of your
seat.
Russell and Hudson do share one scene near the end.
Other than that, this is one movie you go to for the popcorn.
Also…
“Jeannie” and I went to see
Inferno
at a theater in
Concord
because the one in
Pleasant Hill threatened to charge full price for a matinee.
It has been a while since we visited this particular theater and
we hadn’t realized that the owner had done some renovations.
As in replaced all the seating.
The new seats are in rows set further apart, so a person can
actually walk along the row without stepping on fellow patrons or
getting bruised by passing chair-arms sticking out.
You know those arms that end in a cup-holder for drinks.
Well, in this theater, the arms now sport small horizontal
tabletops that swivel in front of you to hold not only the drink, but
the popcorn, hot dog, candy and anything else you want in front of you.
The airlines might want to look into this.
And the seats don’t just recline.
They have little motors, controlled by a button in the side of
the arm, that roll you back and pick up your feet.
Hence the need for space in front for people to get past.
Seriously, they all but provide a massage while you’re watching
the movie. Or falling asleep
because it’s so comfortable.
As for the movie itself, I really was in danger of falling asleep.
I had already read the
Dan Brown
novel,
fourth in the series concerning symbologist
Robert Langdon,
capably portrayed once again by
Tom Hanks.
This time Hanks, looking decades younger than when he played
Captain
Chesley Sullenberger in Sully
earlier this year, with the usual much younger
female “sidekick”
and shadowy-figures-with-guns, romps around
Italy, then makes a
jump to Istanbul,
just to show that the
Renaissance was
not entirely limited to
Western
Europe. Lots of beautiful
settings. Lots of beautiful
artwork. Lots of vague
references to
Dante’s epic
poem. Remember, they didn’t
have cable
back then. Poetry was the
Instagram of its
time.
Even if you read the book, the movie wouldn’t make much sense.
As “Jeannie” pointed out:
The best part was the seats.
Love, as always,
Pete
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