The crappy Summer of 2020 is over

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Steve

Labor Day in the States is here which is the traditional ending to Summer (Vacation). The point when the Earth crosses a particular spot in space is about 20 days away yet we Americans like to wrap it up with a day off from work. Same goes for school.

I’m beating the dead horse of the obvious when I say 2020 was the worst Summer in recent History. We all have our personal worst (1985) but for the first time since I’d say the WWII period, people have had a collectively crappy season as a species. As I write this, 189,000 Americans are dead from CV-19 (881,000 worldwide) thanks to the inaction of Republicans/Libertarians and America’s stupid-ass system of federalism. The election is about two months away. A vaccine is nowhere close to being made; don’t believe anything the Russians say nor American corporations.

What I hate the most is the boredom and isolation. It probably reminds me too much of how crummy things were during my teenage years, the waiting, the tedium, etc. Giving in to stupidity is a hard temptation to resist because my brain requires stimulation by a variety of activities.

I hope the next time I write about the Summer of 2021 ending, it won’t be on such a cautious note since Scientists say CV-19 is only the beginning given Climate Change letting other viruses/diseases loose. There’s also the pair of countdowns I have running.

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Dumbkirk

Posted on September 6, 2020 by Steve

If you missed the news this weekend, a flotilla of Trumpkins terrorized Lake Travis with hilarious results! Being Trumpkins, the disaster was everyone else’s fault but their own as they posted it on FaceBook, a platform only they trust as true.

In short, the vessels were crewed by pretty inexperienced people and they traveled too close together. So the smaller boats were sunk by the larger ones’ wakes which then required my tax money to have the morons rescued by the Travis County department responsible. I say we should’ve let them drown because they hate big gubmint. Besides, the Trumpkins weren’t in jeopardy. Everyone knows shit floats.

Above is a hilarious prank picture from resident Twitter prankster Evil MoPac blaming the mess on resident Elijah Wood’s scooter creating a tidal wave. I prefer to believe it was a covert Antifa submarine nailing them with torpedoes.

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2010: Regular Show debuted

Posted on September 6, 2020 by Steve

I had no idea that today was the anniversary until creator JG Quintel posted it on his Twitter feed. Regular Show was one of the funniest things Cartoon Network had made in a while; something focused on the plight of Millenials being underemployed because there never was any success doing it before with Generation X (see Mission Hill). The first time I saw it was on the break room TV at work. I was like, OK, there’s a bluejay and a raccoon drinking coffee, trying to impress red bird waitress. That was a good joke. Well, I need to get back to work and see if I can watch a full episode another time.

Regular Show rarely disappointed and I’m glad Cartoon Network let it run until there was a good point for the story to wrap up. Now I can stream the whole thing without annoying commercials on HBO Max.

Quintel’s new yet delayed effort is on HBO Max too. Close Enough. Sadly, only JG’s voice returned with this cast. Maybe “Rigby,” Mark Hamill and “Eileen” will show up in a second season if AT&T deems it so. I’ve gotten through about half of the run. I hope to have a review in the next couple weeks.

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Another part of Austin dies, September 2020 edition

Posted on September 5, 2020 by Steve

I Love Video, the oldest indy store in Austin has decided to call it quits which is a damned shame given how movie friendly (or fanatical) the city is. I’m also pretty bummed because these guys managed to outlive Blockbuster and Hollywood as those two behemoths went down the crapper a few years back. The people who founded the place have a humongous collection of material (the Austin Chronicle said 130,000 movies on tape or DVD, no mention of laser discs), much of which may never make it to streaming since every time a new medium/distribution comes around, rights have to be renegotiated. I hope some benevolent person or organization can save what I Love Video preserved.

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Nineteen years at Chez Maggi

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Steve

Another year chalked up at my house, nowadays it’s my house, for many it was our house but that’s life. The other funny factor, being in the same anywhere for more than three years is very anti-Maggi given my past propensity for moving around to further my old man’s boring-ass career. Today’s anniversary on the day I acquired this house is bittersweet. Keeping it was the main struggle in settling the divorce with Somara since she felt she was entitled to half its equity…the thanks I get for finally putting her on the mortgage if I died and putting a roof over her head for 18 years. As the other cliché goes, no good deed goes unpunished, especially if you’re male; it’s always our fault when the marriage fails.

Bitter? A tad. Getting by on just the one income is really biting me in the ass and the house needs work as it has aged. Remember the roof I had to buy last July, ouch. Then all I have to do is remember how much I hate moving, setting up utilities, the sore muscles and the assorted bullshit which comes with the process.

Thanks for sticking by me and I do wish Somara well in her quest to find her own place. I think she’ll gain a greater appreciation for responsibility I had to handle for practically two exhausting decades.

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Morpheus

Posted on September 3, 2020 by Steve

The third installment (of seven) of Jennifer’s cats. Over the last three months they’ve all warmed up to me because, hey, I’m a cat person and a Leo. Cats know good people when they meet them!

This is Morpheus! He is a grayish, leopard pattern and very handsome. If you pick him and hold him just right, Morpheus will go right to loud purr mode. Hint, not like a baby unless you’re trying to burp him. He often lounges around the apartment with his “brother” Orion and isn’t afraid to take on the alpha cat Totoro. Jennifer says he may be blind in one eye (I don’t recall which) but you can sneak up on him from a certain side if you’re really quiet.

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RIP Joe Ruby

Posted on September 2, 2020 by Steve

Last Wednesday, legendary cartoon writer Joe Ruby passed away. Over many years he plotted gags and wrote scripts for numerous Hanna-Barbera shows. His most famous co-creation was Scooby Doo with Ken Spears and animator Iwao Takamoto. Sadly, Saturday Morning cartoons were operated in the same manner as comic books…work for hire. So the trio never got the credit they truly deserved for making an iconic character/show; Scooby Doo runs a close second to The Simpsons in how many episodes (via its multiple incarnations) have been produced.

Fred Silverman, the CBS executive who requested the creation of what would become the show, didn’t forget. When he left for ABC, Silverman was instrumental in helping Joe and Ken form their own animation company called Ruby Spears. They produced several shows I remembered pretty clearly: Thundarr the Barbarian and Plastic Man.

Thanks for everything Joe. You made Saturday mornings worth getting up early for as I wolfed down breakfast cereal.

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Now comes September 2020

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Steve

This is always an ambivalent month. When you’re a kid it sucks because Summer Vacation is over and you need to return to prison which is how you feel with grade school and to some extent, high school. Meanwhile, you do get to keep hanging out with your friends, including the ones you didn’t see much of during the Summer. Throw in new clothes, new gear and what used to be a bigger deal until the Aughts, the new Fall TV lineups! University is happier. You get away from your parents again, you see those friends who live across the country again and the parties. The downside here? As you progress, the courses do get harder and more labor intensive.

Adulthood? It doesn’t matter much other than your AC bill going down. Throw in 2020 and its Pandemic, I’d say September will probably reflect May. They both have a Monday-based holiday. In Austin, it’s when the 40° C days begin to decline or rise in May’s case.

My point? I guess I just miss the cautious optimism September used to give me. I could run over to the nearby HEB and get some new school supplies, regain the smell. Oh, not all is lost. The dinosaur broadcast network Fox should be rolling out new episodes of their animated, prime-time shows, namely Bob’s Burgers! Netflix better be readying more Big Mouth since Disenchantment is unknown as per John DiMaggio.

I’ll wrap it up with an explanation for this month’s header art. Around this time in 1985, I saw Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure at a theater in Dickinson, ND, the only “city” on Mountain Time. The trip was my first and only journey to the place which gave actress Angie Dickinson (née Brown) her more famous surname…at least that’s what NoDak’s say despite it being her first husband’s. It was a fun weekend away from Beulah to take the SAT for the third (and worst) time, eat at a couple chain restaurants my small town didn’t have and watch MTV in a hotel room. As for the movie? It lived up to all my expectations. I had seen Pee Wee Herman off/on for a few years already. He had appeared as the character for stand-up routines and gotten bit parts as his real self, Paul Reubens, in several previous movies (Midnight Madness is a fave) and a Steve Martin special. It was just a relief to see somebody’s tight-ten skit/persona succeed as a 90-minute movie unlike the majority of SNL premises.

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Crappy 2020 summed up, September 2020 edition

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Steve

Note that the hot dogs are also raw and probably the cheapest, most generic brand you can get at the store. Filled with the finest cockroach feces and pig anuses.

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We almost lost Mark Mothersbaugh to CV-19!

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Steve

Saw the frightening news via Twitter about Mark being pretty sick. Glad he made it through so he can keep making music for upcoming TV show and movies.

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Covidiots in Wisconsin strike

Posted on August 30, 2020 by Steve

While driving around on my errands this weekend, I heard on NPR that a bunch of MAGA cheesedicks want to recall the current governor, a Democrat (surprise, surprise). Why? The actions he has been taking to save lives from CV-19, is like, you know, socialism and not freedom. Good gravy! It’s hard to believe this is the state that gave America Fightin’ Bob LaFollette or William Proxmire…oh wait, they also did give us Tailgunner Joe McCarthy (Roy Cohn’s bottom) and Scott the Dropout Walker. The only saving grace to what will probably fail, the Moronavirus Party needs 600,000 signatures in 60 days and the GOP is staying away. The latter claim they’re more focused on getting Orange Foolius another unpopular term through this tiny state.

Now many of your Right Wingers and Spineless Centrists are knee-jerking to the Whataboutism of, “But the Democrats held a recall against Walker about 10 years ago!” Yes, yes, they did. However, Walker was moving forward with truly unpopular decisions and a raw power grab at the behest of his corporate masters, the Koch Brothers. America already has entrenched pocket of stubborn poverty and anti-progressive thinking, it’s call the Deep South. The fight to remove Walker was to prevent Wisconsin from transforming into the Mississippi of the North. What this MAGA shitheads want to do with Evers has no merit. When it comes to a pandemic, he’s doing what he can to prevent more deaths since bars (one of the only things to do in my former home) are a huge vector to spread CV-19. Saving the Economy won’t mean a thing if there are fewer people to participate in it.

This is also my rebuttal to all you Libertarian assholes and Kapitalist ass-kissers who go on and on about “freedom.”

Liberty means more than freedom from the arbitrary power of governments. It means freedom from economic servitude to want and squalor and other social evils; it means freedom from arbitrary power in any form. A starving man is not free.

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RIP Chadwick Boseman

Posted on August 29, 2020 by Steve

Such a damned shame too. I was really looking for to the Black Panther sequel and more Avengers movies because when I was a kid, he rescued them in the Seventies from some gravity-based villain (I guess Magneto was busy). He was young, full of promise and I bet great roles were coming his way although James Brown and Jackie Robinson are tough acts to follow in American History, not just Black. The entertainer and baseball player pushed the envelopes on their prospective fields to make things better for everyone and Chadwick got to portray both!

I will close with this one thing he did for Alamo Drafthouse. Before Black Panther started, he was the special guest to remind everyone, “don’t talk during the movie!” Chadwick had this steely-eyed stare which let you know he meant it. So much that if you stayed through the ending credits, as per MCU tradition, you saw him one last time when the film “ran out” to give you a final “shush!”

Goodbye Chadwick! Thank you for everything and although your body of work isn’t as large as your contemporaries, you were a brave man. Fighting cancer while getting through the grueling MCU schedule! You will be missed enormously.

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How some advice feels

Posted on August 28, 2020 by Steve

I’m not ridiculing my therapist because she is an expert and is doing the best she can yet some days when I’m told the platitude as shown above, I don’t feel much better thanks to a sense of being overwhelmed. For example, the current state we’re all experiencing.

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Greyhound

Posted on August 27, 2020 by Steve

It has been a while since I wrote about a movie or two. That doesn’t mean I stopped watching them…I’ve slowed as I’m binge watching a slew of animated shows, plus staying on top of Lovecraft Country. Here’s the one in the clogged up queue I should knock out.

Tom Hanks demonstrates his writing chops again to tell the tale about how frightening it was to cross the Atlantic via (sailing) ship during WWII. Overall, Tom does alright. It’s not a home run but it was a tense 90 minutes since you’re hoping the non-warships make the journey without incident.

Greyhound is focused on the five-day stretch Allied air forces cannot help convoys traveling between the east coast of the US/Canada and the UK’s western shores. Thus, all the vessels, including the four warships escorting cargo vessels, liners and tankers are easy prey for the Nazis’ u-boat fleet (aka a wolfpack). This being WWII, the Allied warships have several advantages: the u-boats are easier to spot during the day, submarines have to surface every couple days to recharge their air supplies and in order to fire torpedoes, they’re vulnerable to depth charges and cannons.

Hanks definitely focused on realism with Greyhound. It’s cramped. Not everything works at all the time, especially when the temperature drops. Sonar is imprecise given the numerous ships out there with their propellers spinning. Black crew members are stuck being the vessel’s waiters. My favorite part is how the crew knows how to turn the Greyhound to make it face the torpedoes which makes the vessel “smaller” and the shot is more likely to get deflected by the hull’s angled front.

Is it worth watching? Given what little is new “in” theaters, I think Apple+ picked a good movie to back. Tom Hanks is a bankable, likable entertainer and he never phones it in, especially if he does more than act in the project.

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Orion

Posted on August 26, 2020 by Steve

The second installment (of seven) regarding Jennifer’s cats. As I said before, they live with her but she’s not all their moms. Plus the fiancé I mentioned is engaged to Jennifer’s daughter, not her, this would make our relationship awkward and icky.

This is Orion! He’s more of a charcoal-colored guy and a big sweetie. Orion is in-between on the rambunctious scale. You will often find him lounging around the apartment, usually the couch is his favorite spot. Sometimes he will lead the chorus at dinner/breakfast time. Other times he wrestles or grooms his “brother” Morpheus. Sometimes he’ll stand up to the alpha cat Totoro but most of the time, Orion prefers to just hang out and leave everybody else alone, he’s not big on conflict.

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