I’m in a good mood this week so it’s time for an upbeat, uptempo song in this space.
Too Marvelous For Words was written in 1937 by Johnny Mercer and Richard Whiting for a forgettable 1937 movie, Ready, Willing, and Able. The song itself is memorable for Mercer’s word play. Rumor has it that I like word play. I even like typing the phrase.
We begin with my two favorite versions of Too Marvelous For Words: Frank Sinatra followed by Ella Fitzgerald. Both feature arrangements by Nelson Riddle but are just as unique as if the Riddler was not involved.
When you were a teenager and saw ANIMAL HOUSE you probably reveled in the anti-establishment hijinks of the Delta House. Watch it again as an adult and you might giggle at a line or two (remembering a time when you did something similarly asshatted) but more likely you will come away thinking what jerks the characters are. Don’t get down on yourself for not being as counterculture as you once were, it’s all a part of growing up.
If US politics were the movie, the Repugnicants would be the Deltas while the Democrats would be, um, the Jewish Frat the Deltas checked their answers for the Psych exam with. But as much as you enjoyed Animal House and the zany antics of Boon, Otter, Bluto, Pinto (cause he had a spotted dick, a line cut from the movie cause the studio suit said “yeah, that goes TOO far”) you wouldn’t want them running your country.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
And yet people keep voting for them.
You fucked up… you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it!
Meanwhile the Democrats just keep chugging along lead by their undisputed leader President Joey B Shark who just keeps pumping out new initiatives to try and help both the American people and the American economy. And the American people keep listening and liking what they hear. 68% approval ratings for his two biggest proposals show that.
Better listen to him, Flounder, he’s in pre-med.
But you know there is an old saying that the guy who shouts the loudest is the one who gets heard. And Repugnicants sure do shout loud. What they shout is utter bollocks, whether about Dr. Seuss or red meat, but those bollocks get amplified by the Murdoch media machine till finally the other network talking heads feel they must make mention of whatever stupidity is being uttered, if only to refute it.
A Pledge Pin! On your Uniform!
Honestly, the US Senate would be hilarious if Ted Cruz was played by Stephen Furst, Josh Hawley by Tom Hulce, and Mitch McConnell by Bruce McGill. Of course Donald Trump would be played by John Belushi. We don’t care about grades, who needs grades when we got voter suppressed forever seats!
America’s Mayor needs a criminal lawyer, since he’s now a suspected lawyer criminal Federal investigators on Wednesday seized cellphones and computers from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who became President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, stepping up a criminal investigation into Mr. Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, three people with knowledge of the investigation said. F.B.I. agents executed search warrants around 6 a.m. at Mr. Giuliani’s apartment on Madison Avenue and his Park Avenue office in Manhattan, carting away the electronic devices, Mr. Giuliani confirmed in a statement. The execution of search warrants is an extraordinary action for … Continue reading Projection — It’s Not Just For Movies And Slide Shows
Michael Lee Aday aka Meat Loaf is a card-carrying member of the Dingbat Right. He appeared on Celebrity Apprentice and remains a Trump lickspittle. Meat Loaf collaborated on 1977’s Bat Out Of Hell with Jim Steinman who died recently at … Continue reading Album Cover Art Wednesday: Bat Out Of Hell
The Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat in downtown Mumbai. A million pieces of laundry hand washed every day and returned to their owners with nary a mix up.
Count me as one of those of European ancestry who have a fascination with India.
I have only been there once, but the country and it’s peoples got deep into my soul long before I was physically in the country. Maybe it was a little too much Gunga Din when I was a kid. Trust me when I tell you that no movie, no television show, no amount of E.M. Forester or Rudyard Kipling can prepare you for the experience of actually being there. The term “an assault on the senses” was coined especially for India.
When COVID hit the world in early 2020 it was assumed by many that India would be hit particularly hard. Rampant poverty combined with a billion plus people combined with third world conditions even in the midst of modern cities seemed to be a recipe for contamination that might take down the world’s largest semi-democracy.
Instead India wasn’t hit too badly. Many theories were put forth for this paradoxical situation including that Indians spend more time outdoors, weren’t as obese, the population is relatively youthful, and most interestingly that because Indians are exposed to more diseases on a daily basis they have built up a natural immunity not just to coronaviruses but to many pathogens.
Or in laymen’s terms, Darwin was right.
Begrudgingly the government did institute several restrictions on gatherings, asked the population to mask up, and in general took the same steps that most developed countries had taken to slow the growth of the pandemic. There seemed to be an attitude of “while we’ve got this licked, we want to help the rest of the world”.
But India, like so many other democracies around the world, is now ruled by a populist quasi tyrant, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is Modi who at first dismissed COVID, continued to hold super spreader events like political rallies, railed against the actual science of COVID, and who now has taken the extraordinary stance that social media companies should not just take down but ban any message critical of his response to the crisis. Remind you of anyone else?
So it’s no surprise that Modi disregarded the experts who came to him three months ago saying all signs point towards a huge upturn in cases about to hit the country. Instead he doubled down on the notion that things were only getting better, lifting all restrictions on gatherings. The northern town of Haridwar held one of the world’s biggest gatherings this month, with millions of people celebrating the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela.
On Monday India reported it’s largest single day number of infections, 350,000. 2800 people died of COVID on that day alone. This after a full week of infection rates north of 200,000 per day the previous week. Hospitals are jammed, oxygen has become scarce, and crematoriums have become so backed up with bodies they are forced to stack them like cordwood.
Several Indian states have disregarded the federal government’s antipathy towards doing anything to solve the crisis and taken measures of their own. Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, has banned any gathering of more than five people, all non-essential commerce, and limited even essential services to restricted hours. The response from the federal government to these measures has been scorn. The response in the real world has been a leveling off of COVID cases.
The Indian government has been able to vaccinate about 10% of the population which would be great were it not for the fact that that still leaves over a BILLION PEOPLE unvaccinated. This in a country that produces more vaccines than any other in the world, but they are hindered by greed (foreign countries are willing to pay more for vaccines) and a lack of the raw materials and native intellectual property that prevents the factories from being able to produce more for themselves.
Short post today, packing for our trip to Terlingua / Big Bend.
Let’s start with – Qtarded!
General Flynn Warns About Possible Threats from Antifa/BLM Interrupting the Audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 Election Results USSA News ^ | 4/16/2021 | NWO Report
General Michael Flynn warns that it is possible that Antifa and BLM will show up and attempt to stop or interrupt the scheduled audit in Maricopa County.
Why are the Democrats so scared of a valid audit being performed in Maricopa County of their 2020 Election results? Next week an audit of the results in Maricopa County is going to start and the Democrats are absolutely freaking out over it.
If by “freaking out” you mean “refusing to pay for someone else’s conspiracy theory”, you’re absolutely right.
General Flynn warns of the audit being interrupted by Antifa and BLM:
I hear that they’re going to use those Jewish space Lasers to burn up all the votes for Republicans.
“Maricopa County is tactical, but it has a strategic consequence, depending on the outcome and we believe we know what the outcome will be. The Maricopa County audit is a big, big deal.
And I’m telling, you know, I’ll say it today, because we have intel that they may be bringing people down from Portland and Seattle to disrupt, what? I mean to disrupt finding the truth, discovering the truth?
And, so if these kinds of things happen, if these types of things happen …it’s basically finding the truth. It’s like me, I knew eventually the truth was going to come out. Truth it has a way of just bubbling up.
So does insanity.
And so it’s going to bubble up. And what is happening is all of this other noise that’s created to distract what it is that we’re doing…”
The Democrats have brought in their top lawyers to attack the audit as well:
Big Tech is getting involved as well. They didn’t just censor the audit, they likely broke the law by interfering with the audit. The posting of this volunteer form by Ken Bennett, an official of the Arizona Senate, was an official act of the Arizona Senate, carrying out its court-approved duties to audit this election. This was an official election act. Didn’t Google and wufoo just break the law or come perilously close to it by censoring this request?
The Democrats must know that the valid results in Maricopa County were nowhere near what was reported or they wouldn’t give a damn about the upcoming audit. Their guy, Senile Joe Biden, reportedly won the election in Arizona by 11,000 votes and became the first Democrat to win Maricopa County since Harry Truman. Biden won the county by 40,000 votes. Maricopa County is 60% of the state’s votes.
Logan has confirmed that he authored a document titled “Election Fraud Facts & Details” that was posted on the website of Sidney Powell, another pro-Trump lawyer who filed challenges to the election and who appeared at a November news conference with Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani.
Any comments, Freepers?
To: RideForever
Why would Gen. Flynn have any inside knowledge about disruptions to the Maricopa County audit? Sounds like rank speculation to me.
This week’s Random Rumination comes from Harlan Ellison : ********************************** From Harlan Ellison, responding to a discouraged police officer : I know damned well there are (good) cops like you. I’ve met a few; and they always wind up like Serpico,brokenhearted or bust-headed. Because police these days aren’t like police when I was a kid in Painesville, Ohio in the Forties. Friend of mine, a lieutenant of homicide, got a trifle bombed one night, sitting around rapping with me, and he let slip one of the most scary things I’ve ever heard. He said : “Harlan, it used to be,when … Continue reading Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with Random Ruminations – Ellison Wonderland edition
We’ve had some unseasonably cool weather this week in New Orleans. It’s been a relief after last week’s constant rain. We’ve even had some sun, which was initially disorienting but I’m down with it.
It’s special election run-off day in the Louisiana-Second. An ugly and mendacious campaign was waged by the runner-up in the primary, State Senator Karen Carter Peterson. She wants a promotion after a disastrous tenure as state party chair and missing 85% of state senate votes last year. Talk about failing upward. I also happen to think that comparing another Democrat to Donald Trump is punching below the belt. I look forward to voting against her and for Troy Carter.
This week’s theme song was written in 1990 by Canadian singer-songwriter Shirley Elkhard and recorded by Bonnie Raitt for her 1991 album, Luck Of The Draw. It was a big hit for the Bonster. It was later used in the Julia Roberts-Dennis Quaid movie of the same title in 1995.
We have two versions of Something To Talk About for your listening pleasure: the Bonnie Raitt original and a 2016 version by Blood Sweat & Tears frontman David Clayton Thomas.
Was that bloody, sweaty, and teary enough for you lot? While we’re still wet, let’s jump to the break.
It’s Oscar week and we’re mixing things up with an all-Oscar Peterson post. One of his many talents was as an accompanist so we’re featuring Oscar with some of the greatest jazz singers of his time; make that all-time.
As to the song, it puts us back in torch song country. How Long Has This Been Going On? was written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1927 for the Broadway musical, Funny Face.
Since everyone loved starting off with Louis Armstrong and Oscar Peterson last week, let’s do it again.
Oscar played piano on all of the Ella and Louis albums. He also cut a record with Ella after Louis’ passing:
From the 48 hour birth, life, and death of the European Super League in soccer to the pullback of Russian troops from the border with Ukraine, the fat cats have been taking a bit of a pounding, most of it at the hands of the so called little guys.
If you still can’t quite understand the entire Super League fiasco don’t worry. I follow European soccer pretty closely and I am hard pressed to come up with a rational for the absurd circus the Dirty Dozen have put us through. The no longer failing New York Times has a good play by play of how this all came to be.
Suffice it to say, twelve of the fourteen richest teams in Europe decided they wanted to create their own league to play in, one that they would have total control of and which ultimately would have destroyed the delicate pyramid that feeds and nurtures the other hundreds of teams in dozens of national leagues. Fans, the people who actually pay to go to or watch games on TV, revolted. It was quickly established that even the most ardent of fans would abandon lifelong allegiance to one of the twelve in favor of continued allegiance to their national leagues. Television networks, the ones who would be paying the largest portion of the tab for the Super League, started muttering “what if they have a league and no one watches”.
The birth and demise of the Super League is being laid squarely at the feet of the Glazer family, owners of Manchester United as well as being the guys who sign Tom Brady’s checks, Stan Kroenke owner of Arsenal, the LA Rams, the Denver Nuggets, and the Colorado Avalanche, and John Henry, owner of Liverpool FC as well as the Bahstin Red Sox. The line being put out is it’s all American hubris, coming in and thinking they can make this into the NFL. They’re taking the fall, but this whole plan stinks of Russian and Arab oligarchic slight of hand.
That’s how oligarchs work. They quietly pull all the strings so that if something goes wrong they can walk away with clean hands. That’s what’s happening in this case, Americans are taking the fall while the Russian oligarch owner of Chelsea FC and the Emirati prince owner of Manchester City get to say “I know nothing!“.
It’s Earth Day. President Biden is hosting a climate change summit today. That made me think of the environmental First Lady, Claudia Taylor Johnson, better known as Lady Bird. Bird is perhaps our most underrated First Lady, she did a … Continue reading Quote Of The Day: Lady Bird Johnson Edition
A lot of us are feeling a lot of anticipation right now—for those who have not yet been jabbed it’s the anticipation of that jab and how your body will react to it (my first Moderna shot elicited a slight headache and the second some pretty bad fatigue and muscle aches for about 10 hours, but so worth it), the semi-jabbed anticipate the next jab, and the fully-jabbed anticipate returning to the larger world. I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends, and resuming the things that bring me joy: volunteering at a no-kill animal shelter, singing with … Continue reading Why Is Miss Universe Always From Earth?
The burden of proof should be on those who demand restricting the right to vote. During a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on voting rights, Republican Sen. John Kennedy (La.) asked Abrams if she believes the Georgia voting bill signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) last month is “racist.” “I think there are provisions of it that are racist, yes,” she responded. Kennedy then asked the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee to “give” him a “list of the provisions that you object to.” Abrams, who founded the voting rights advocacy group Fair Fight Action, proceeded to list the components of the bill that … Continue reading Stacey Abrams Takes John Neely Kennedy To School
I’ve been kinda serious the past few posts so I’ve decided in honor of 2021’s Oscar pageant this coming Sunday let’s have some fun. Here are some of my favorite Oscar trivia questions. Go ahead and Google the answer if you want, but I promise you it’s more fun to just play along. No points given, none taken away. By the way, I’m going to use the generic term “actor” to mean both male and female actors.
First of all, a basic question. How long does a film have to be to be considered a feature (as opposed to a short subject) by the Academy?
40 minutes. I don’t know who came up with that, but I’d sure as hell be POed if I paid twelve bucks to see a feature that only lasted 40 minutes. On the other hand, if THE ENGLISH PATIENT had only been 40 minutes I might have liked it better. By the way, the shortest run time for a movie that won Best Picture is 91 minutes, MARTY.
From shortest to longest. What movie nominated for Best Picture had the longest title?
If you said BIRDMAN (OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTURE OF IGNORANCE) I’d give you half a point if we were keeping score. It’s the longest title for a movie that won Best Picture. But the longest title for a movie nominated goes to, of course how could you not get this, DR. STRANGELOVE OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. Another Oscar fact about Strangelove, the man who played him, Peter Sellers, also played Group Captain Lionel Mandrake and President Merkin Muffly and thus is the only actor to be nominated for playing three roles in the same film.
Well then let’s get familial. What family has the most nominations for Oscars? I’m talking about a blood relationship, no married into the family, no in-laws, a direct blood relationship.
I know the impulse is to say the Fondas or the Hustons or the Coppolas, but the actual answer is the Newmans. And I ain’t talking about Paul. I’m talking about Alfred (45 nominations), his brothers Emil (1) and Lionel (11), his sons David (1) and Thomas (16) and his nephew Randy (22). That’s 96 nominations between them, all for musical scoring or original song. To put that into perspective including this year there have only been 93 Academy Award ceremonies. In this most unprecedented of years it is almost unprecedented that no Newman scored a nomination this year.
Staying in the family, what two couples won acting Oscars while married to one another?
The first was Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh, he for HAMLET and she for, no not GONE WITH THE WIND (they weren’t married yet) but for A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. The second were those Newmans again! This time, yes, Paul for THE COLOR OF MONEY and Joanne Woodward for THE THREE FACES OF EVE. By the way, Vivian Leigh holds a distinction shared with Luise Rainer and Hilary Swank as the only actors to have a 1.000 Oscar batting average, two nominations, two wins. Sally Field used to be a fourth but she spiraled her average down to .667 by being nominated for Supporting Actress in LINCOLN and losing. But other than that how was the play Sally?
Speaking of multiples, who are the six actors to be nominated for playing the same character in two different movies?
The day began with jury instructions from Judge Peter Cahill, which were, of course drafted with input from both sides. I listened carefully and they sounded fairly standard; nothing wildly pro-prosecution or defense. That did not surprise me. The judge … Continue reading Closing Arguments
