These Days: Monday, May 20th, 2019
Doris Day: “Move Over Darling,” “Que Sea Sera,” Send Me No Flowers,” “Que Sera Sera”… sure, she was a film star foremost and an animal activist a close second, but always a great singer. dead at 97.
War and Peace: So, finally, Trump is taking a serious look at starting a war. Moving 120K troops from the Mexican Border to the Middle East, kidnapping a NK ship, and rattling its sabers at Iran. War: It’s the one thing this Presidency has failed to deliver… and even now he is trying to keep the winds at bay…
Aretha Franklin: That Songs Of Faith is one of her best albums, and she was only fourteen years old when she recorded.it Of course, she had a two year old baby at the time but even so…
Susan Springfield Of the Erasers: “One of my main concerns as a woman was to set a good example as an individual for other women, particularly young girls in the middle of nowhere. The place where I came from.” from the lead singer of proto punks the Erasers to a Human Rights lawyer and an immigration judge. Dead at 67
Some Grades:
The Avengers: Endgame – B+
Wah Gwaan?! – Shaggy – B+
Doris Day – A+
Tim Conway – A
End Of Time: – I don’t think nuclear war will kill us, I think it will be some variant on global warming will escalate and we won’t be able to hit the breaks…
More War: Trump has surrounded himself with hawks and now has to ignore them.
SNL Finale: The spot takes on Weekend Update were fun and watching DJ Khaled up close, it is clear that every he intersperces the song with some pathetic piece of self-aggrandise action, the song heads south. John Legend sounded great. SZA looked great. Lil Baby stole the rap portions. J. Balvin crossed over to the US dark side – B+
Tariffs: Xi miscalculated, he should have kept his word.
Movies: John Wick latest is as brutal an exercise in mass slaughter as you hoped for, though I preferred the first two: B+
Concerts: Nils Lofgren tonight, The Undertones on Thursday…
Sports: The Yanks are half a game in first. Does this make em the real thing? I mean, the real thing with Aaron Judge claiming he might be out for the year.
Try: The Pennies From Heaven soundtrack… seriously (see below)
Winds, War, Remembrance – Herman Wouk died at 103 years of age, before “The Winds Of War” and “War And Remembrance,” I thought I understood World War II but I didn’t. And the TV series starred Robert Mitchum… need I say more?
Game Of Thrones: I’ve only watched episode six and feel as though what I don’t know, I don’t need to know, and I also feel that I didn’t miss much except the dragon. Apparently the throne was destroyed and some outlier kid won – C+
The Dems Running For President: 24 of em and I wish Hillary was back in it… where’s a savior when you need one… Michelle Obama…?
Abortion: This is how bad that ALabama law has made life: Donald Trump: “I am strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother — the same position taken by Ronald Reagan.”
Paul Rudd: I just saw this yesterday (it is from a month ago), and am so impressed by Rudd and Fallon’s straight up, no camp, shot for shot, remake of the Dead Or Alive classic video for 1985’s “You Spin Me Around (Like A Record)
Madonna: No, I didn’t get a ticket to BAM -of course not… I went on stubhub and the lowest price I saw was nearly a grand… May I lower her grade to B- in protest?
Books: I finished PL Travers “Mary Poppins” with immense pleasure (Grade: A+), it is a vision of the world where everything is alive and everything is intelligent, and Mary herself? She is a star in human form come down from the Universe. I moved on to Bret Easton Ellis -one of my favorite writers, collection of essays and I am reading them with immense pleasure. He has never written a novel I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed (try “Less Than Zero” and follow it with “Imperial Bedroom”) and while I am still early into “White” his writing about “American Gigolo” is the new standard interpretation.
