This just tickled me...

because I felt just like that kid sulking at the left of the pictcha. Stress, much? Fambly much? Eeew. And who the hell cares... you could do a mess of titles for this one... if you were so inclined....

This is so ridiculous, I don't wanna go here....

But Glen Beck needs to be castrated, and have his tongue paralysed so that he never can impart what fucked up stuff goes on in his BRAIN.

Another weird thought....

my soap boards had a recent version of 'The Price is Right' up to look at.

The crowds were always crazy, but I hadn't seen it in decades. It was downright creepy.

The pushing, shoving, outright bi-polar craziness was unsettling to me.

So today, when the police slowly let this ginormous crowd into the square before Buckingham Palace, everything was so calm and orderly.

And to hear someone like Barbara Walters marvel over it, really pissed me off. Brits know about 'queuing up'. And some British reporter REALLY rubbed it in for her, saying, 'We're Britons, we KNOW how to line up.' Barbara was crushed.

She was going ON about her encounters with 'important' people from years and decades ago.... but Diane Sawyer had her claws out and cut her off relentlessly. Walters hung in there and got her points in. It was a blood-thirsty little battle going on at ABC.

Barbara may be washed up as far as future big things go. But she was a dignified and well prepared interviewer. Now she's still sort of over medicated, and it wasn't her best gig.

Diane Sawyer is SO washed up, she's pathetic. She went from fake crying over tragic news to being a classic harpy who has no manners. Both deserve to be fired.

George Carlin died just in time, because he would have had an aneurism otherwise....

He had diatribes against over-protective parients, and how horrible they are.

And let's face it, they ARE... insidious.

'Play-dates'... First time I heard it I thought, 'Whoa!' where does THAT come from???

Play dates. It seems to be really 'in'. 'You find a person in your financial class with a child or slightly a step above, and you PIMP your child out to play with the children of your target, because....

you create cliques, and one day, your precious will advance one notch on your social scale.

I'll probably get slammed for this, but it is my observation, and my experience that there is a certain sort of person out there who will overlook ANYTHING just to get a toehold on 'something'.

My childhood was so 'free'... I had parameters and rules, when to be home, and otherwise... I didn't have to have a helmet on when I rode a bike, I was never grilled about where I was, or who I saw, and at one point, I saw some very 'bad' kids, and met the mother of the kid who was a pro wrestler, she was violent. And her son was quick with a switchblade. He ended back in Juvie...

I could run through neighborhoods, and learn.... in the end analysis. That violence was NOTHING. And would never help you.

But to even THINK you could rise above coarseness, and anger...

My goodness.... Carlin was right. Your children are going to make huge mistakes and you will feel terrible about them. You will make mistakes, and feel terrible about them.

And the greatest sin of all? You'll never discuss them.

Marriage... Really? Really...

Sure got these guys nowhere fast, and feel sorry for them.



I'd like to see what comes of THAT in twenty years.

Marriage is bullshit.

Ooooo... Happy birfday DAD !

Yay, hope it is fun, and since the US news, ABC in this case covered the wedding while you were hardly waking up... forget watching, you don't need it, never saw such drivel, and you need family and love, and the bestest of wishes, so you enjoy your day. I'd make a chocolate cake if you were there.... so think of it, and pretend it's true.

And to anyone wanting to send congrats, it's his ninety-sixth, not ninety seventh, which he acidly (smile) pointed out. I must have figured in a leap year there somewhere along the line. Sorry, Ven...

I never friggin' HEARD of over 200 tornadoes zooming through the Southeast in one night, and all ABC and Today could do was MENTION it now and then while gushing over an antiquated system which (ahem!) we overthrew over 200 years ago, but now they are 'cool' or something?

But that is what that channel was feeding you, not the horrific facts of what those storms wrought or bearing witness to the people who died.
Royals age fascinates me. Princess Anne looks phenomenally dire these days.

It might be depressing, but you might find a channel which has real news on the tee-vee, and maybe you might want to donate a few dollars to the Salvation Army in Alabama. We have relatives there, after all, although we never talk about them much... I don't even know where they are, so don't know whether to worry or not.

So... enjoy family, avoid that toxic Anglican stuff on the tee-vee if you can avoid it, donate something if you feel like it, and get my so-called brother to take you out to a sleazy place and have someone really nice give you a lap dance. I probably would find someone curvaceious for you, being the shame of the family, but I think I would enjoy corrupting you.

Whatever, you have fun. And excuse the extremity, the Royals piss me off, but the media even more. And riiiiiht, the company spent millions to set up in London, so they 'had' to report so lavishly. As if anyone cared, hey....

OK... if April 29th is the Royal Wedding and there is a countdown...

We get the countdown here for someone totally different.

We have the countdown for my Venerable, my progenitor.... yeah, my Dad.

ON APRIL 29th.... he's gonna be 97.

And I can hear ya, 'yeah, such an achievement, sorta cruised through WWII in the Pacific on a LOVE Boat or somethin', and did some really impressive catching of fish.... which he wouldn't eat, although he loves catching them. '

I'm pissed off at the Windsors. Everyone's gonna be looking at 'the royal wedding'. What a crock. The Venerable had the best idea... getting married on Dec. 31st so that everyone would celebrate whether they knew it or not.

He 'might' have gotten it from me.. 'might' have. I was five. I met Nancy across from my grandmother's house. And I was stricken. And solemnly told my father I was going to marry her ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, because, then there would be fireworks everywhere, and that would be 'ROMANTIC'.

Whatever, am SURE my progenitor wasn't thinking about those things when he was born, and I am IRRITATED that they take away what should be HIS day, so damn, William and Kate. My Dad deserves his 97th celebration without a bunch of gossip about THEM.

Ryan....

And there is such a media crush about how 'awesome' he is... because they are stenographers, and corrupt. No one does it like Ed when it comes to union stuff and protecting Medicare.

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Maine-iacs.... child labour

The pictures in this clip give me nightmares. And Walker is so creepy. And Rachel had to fight for the last clip to be included. It was hilarious.

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Since I can't wait... and a REAL Gollum is back...

To see when Savonarola was tortured and burned at the stake... I Googled.

Yeah the Borgias again.

In the latest installment, the Pope wanted to have him be called heretic, and burned at the stake...for political gain and defense of the system. So that the French wouldn't invade Italy, which was a mess of fiefdoms and city-states, whose rulers' status and vindication was dependent on the Pope of Rome. And they weren't above crawling to heinous crimes to protect their power. The Mafia would pale in comparison.

The series begins in 1492 with the rise of the first Borgia Pope. The very dangerous Savonarola died in 1498. This is a good thing, Becazuse the guy who does that cleric creeps me totally so I get to see a real villian.

Except there is a problem. Savonarola was one of the most disgustingly violent and destructive priests ever known. And what was at the bottom of the report? Pope Johnn Paul II initiated proceedings to promote that baseless scum to sainthood.

I am often surprised by what they do, but that left me spitless.

Crap.

Royal Wedding

Ed's takd on the Royal Wedding, which falls on teh Ven's birfday... is funny

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This is so wrong.....

Wasn't up for the horridays. But things like this story so disgust me, I really don't know what the hell to say. As to the horridays, I just had my ham and bread, which was nice... and watched crap on the internets.

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Fascism 101

Uncertainty....

A couple of days ago, I saw there was this new movie on my pay-for channel, Rio.

I was surprised, because, it just opened in 'Murka. And had seen some people pimping it out on talk shows just before...

And hadn't seen a kid's film in decades, and best of all, it wasn't Disney. So I thought I'd look in and see what was subliminally infecting the country's youth. And it was sort of cool, if you think about it.

The last two blue macaws, they get brought together in RIO, which is the name of the fim... and if ypou think about the message... the blue macaws get imprisoned one way or another for most of the film. And yes, they get free, but not before some really bad guys come into play big time, and enslave them forever, and yeah, you can translate that to corporations, with a sugar coating... And the other birds who save them are kooky, and disorganised, and yet get it done. There are messages behind it all, I think. 'Setting up attitudes, I mean.

So I liked it. Was ok. I didn't have a favourite moment, it was just ok. Kids will certainly react differently to it.

The humans are so dorky, they should be banned, but don't take up much of the film.

Orwell is finally here....

This is sixteen minutes long, but you end up thinking 'wow.... nobles and serfs, hey'.

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I am still hearing

A lot of shit in the news about Air Traffic Controllers, and towers having been cut back to the bone on personnel so that only one person runs things on night shifts, and I have my thoughts about that.

Way back in the day, I was in the Civil Air Patrol, and we got junketed out to an FAA control tower to learn what those people do. In Boston. In uniform. I hope we looked cute, who's to say....

It was like a honeycomb, mass activity, buzzing with people talking into headphones with their faces sort of lit up green from the glow of the radar screens they were monitoring. And we got assigned to guys and could ask questions in the pauses while they were were routing this immense amount of traffic in the skies. It was awesome.

Well, there was this other kid chattering, and I was trying so make sense of the screen and the blips... no numbers or anything, just blips... and saw something that jarred me. So I said, 'Excuse me, Sir, what is going on here??? And he said, 'Oh!'. Because to me it looked like the two blips were gonna collide.

And he was immediately on the headphone set and ordered one of the blips to descend something thousand feet, don't remember how many. But I DO remember us watching very tensely as the two blips crossed one another's paths, and kept going on in their respective directions. And remember the air traffic controller slumping in his chair in sheer relief.

And thought, 'I'd never want this job.... those are PEOPLE.... too creepy.'

The people who do those jobs enter a world of kinetic tension every day of the week, and one second's inattention might end up killing a LOT of people.

So where am I going with this? Reagan is still lauded for breaking the air traffic controller's union when they went out on strike, and in the Rethug revisionist history view of things, that was a good thing.

And in the Rethug plan of what the world needs, aka less regulation, the 'managers' took over, fucktards without a clue. And cut and cut on personnel until whaddaya know.... 'well this airport only has a couple of incoming and departure flights late nights, so we only need one controller in the tower.'

Now I'm not going to find an excuse for the people who fall asleep in the night, when their job is to be alert and handle any sudden thing that might happen. Lives are at stake. But I DO know that working night shifts when it is monotonous is deadly, even if you have slept enough during the day, and you go into an inattention or even sleep mode.

It is unconscionable.... and it seems, unhealthy. People who work those hours are way more prone to heart attacks, as recently reported on MSNBC news...

One should NEVER allow people in that position to do that sort of job alone. Evah...

Now there is lots of blame, and really mean jokes about the sleeping control tower people, and I don't think it fair based on my own experiences. I did swing shifts for twenty years, and sometimes was too wound up to sleep, and at other times drag-assed tired. It can be so draining, and is not 'natural'.

Switching from days to nights really did a number on me, and was doing twelve hour shifts. The first and especially the second nights were lethal. It was 'normal', and our union was shit for our branch of work.

So I have some sort of empathy for the 'miscreants', I do. Their working conditions suck, and the responsibility is really massive. I'm sure they have little mechanisms that they use, thinking they could rest out of massive boredom, when nothing is on the radar.

I would usually just sort of 'rest' between two and four a.m. And leave on the radio, just so it was barely heard. Sound carries in the night. And would doze, but the station would sound a bell on the hour, and I would hear it, and think, 'Ok, three a.m.' 'Ok, four a.m. Get up and finish your statistics chart, and get ready for the day.' This was allowed, by the way, and some nights were so busy, no chance, everything was interesting, so no dullness.

In all those years, I only had one night where I really 'went under', and into a deep sleep. And a regular guest came down the stairs in fuzzy slippers. Most used the elevator, and before resting, I would leave it on the top floor before cat-napping, and when anyone got in, it made such a noise, I was up like a shot. We had bells and alarms, and would be innerly attuned to everything.

But she sneaked up and touched me on the shoulder. I screamed, she screamed... we had a wonderful mutual fright. She just wanted me to order a taxi for the airport, and hadn't bothered to use the phone to call the desk.

And it was all, 'Oh, sorry, I'm so sorry!' And luckily, we had the same sense of humour, and ended up finding it funny. After that, whenever she would stay, and yes, she came back, if I were on night shifts, she would come down and ask 'Herr B. When are you getting up tomorrow?' And smile mischievously. And I would say 'When do you need me to be up?' And smile back just as mischievously. And I never let her down again.

And I never slept that deeply again, but then again, she wasn't an airplane carrying a couple of hundred people. I was afraid to even doze.

In another case, earlier, I was dozing. Listening to the radio low in the background, waiting for the news on the hour. And one fine morning at three or four a.m., the news guy came on to tell us that the Russians were invading us, and he was really panicked and incoherent.

Well, I shot off the couch yelling 'WHAA?''

As it turned out, the newscaster had been napping between his hourly stints, had had a bad dream, and hadn't shaken it before the broadcast. You wouldn't believe how many people heard it live and got scared out of their wits. Austrians never seem to really sleep.

Well, the newscaster got taken off the graveyard shift, but not fired, after scaring half the country. They gave health issues as an excuse.

I'm not advocating for anything here. Instead, trying to illuminate a problem I know well. Except.... I never had hundreds of people's lives in my hands like the air traffic controllers do, and to reduce a bee-hive to a lone bee buzzing around in a meadow without flowers and getting tired.... might not be wise managing.

Still under the weather....

But I read something today worth sharing. About how the 'old' were treated way back when. I'm still trying to digest the news of this past week. What the Rethugs are proposing is so disgusting to me, I can't find the words. Without turning the air purple....

I keep re-thinking things I learned from the Dickens novels, and especially Hard Times, and Bleak House especially. All the things that were wrong in England in the 1800'S have come back to bite us all over again because... no one ever learns from the past.

This Daily Kos article is very interesting, and you can read it here.

fanaticism

Beck is so disgusting. Lawrence O'Donnell is sort of amazing. He attacked Beck, and they trashed him. He was honest. I could really understand where he was coming from. Especially the part about art and the creative side of his life, and he wasn't hiding anything. That he got a GLAAD award was more than cool. He worked on a Senate finance committee, which is awesome, because he knows how everything works on the inside. And I like his re-write segments because he is not afraid to go after complete assholes and come up on top for facts and dignity.

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How government Rethugs are like whiny dogs

You gotta hand it to Rachel Maddow to find a really good metaphor. And it's no wonder she once called Chris Hayes 'Lambchop'... it was weird, you had to be there....

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IF... you want to become an atheist...

The new series about the Borgias on show time is the place to begin. I'd read something about this history, but whoa! I assume that most of it is accurate.

And know enough about European history in general, but it was never like that series.

It's like watching 'The Godfather Meets the Papacy'. Except more brutal.

I'd really like to do some research on this. It's creepy in the extreme.

And yes, am wallowing in my own feeling of depression, don't wanna see anyone, don't want to interact with anyone, so I make it so that I don't have to go out of the house, except seven in the a.m., and just look at stuff till I can't see any more, and get so tired, I go to bed, which is the best place I can think of for me.

Yup, it's Peter withdrawal symptoms. I fixed it so he can't call me. And I miss that, but he can't afford it, hey. And feel sort of orphaned. I normally like silence in my house. But there are moments when I think it will drive me mad.

So what sort of cruel creator lets you fall totally, TOTALLY in love, and then lets you have to watch the person you love die in increments, really small ones at first that get bigger and bigger till you nearly explode out of desperation, what sort of cruelty spawns that?

I spent the weekend watching this idjit series out of the UK. About a vampire, a ghost, and a werewolf who want to realign the scheme of things by trying to emulate humans. Yeah, it sounds lame. But it was interesting as well.... redemption being a main theme. And nothing awfully religious, but the themes were there.

Well the Ghost gets thrown into limbo--- twice. It was interesting, from my point of view. Limbo was a corridor with doors leading to rooms which show you how you hurt someone, and you couldn't get out unless you repent.

THAT was very interesting to me. Because it is such bunk, it reeks.

WRONG! ÄäääH!

EVERYONE talks about 'near death experiences', and a door opens, and they see a blinding light?

BULLSHIT. I was dead on the table for five minutes when my tonsils were taken out, and the friggin doctor cut me too deep and I hemmoraghed. Which I learned after the fact. I just 'descended' into darkness, feet first, and my brother was laughing at me like a devil. And I went through his laughing mouth.... and there was silence, a silence I have NEVER known. And then there was NOTHING. It was so vast, and so endless, and so unfathomable, I was freaking out, but it was final. It was like being some speck in the universe, so indescribable, and horrible, but calm.

I was only twelve years old. But I assume that is what limbo is like. Incomprehensible. And why should I have been there? I didn't do anything wrong, was an unwritten slate.

OR.... you die, and there is this vast nothingness, no jollying about with your family and friends, or reconciliations... just nothing. And I really can't describe it better than that.

My Grandfahter used to rail against injustices when he was in the State House of Representatives, and get so frustrated, he'd juice up, and end a rant with 'Ashes t o Ashes, Dust to Dust.... fuck it.'

I don't wish to offend anyone with this post, you can believe what you believe. My experience shows me.... there is one vast VAST piece of dark, and you are still 'there', but a shred of that nothingness.

So something like 'The Borgias' or 'Being Human'---- well those philosopihies just don't cut it with me. 'Can we say wishful thinking?

Believe me--- nothingness.

Guess it comes with getting old...I used to be a patron saint

There has been a couple on my mind the past few days. I can't figure out why, except there is a lot of hospital stuff going on in the Soaps at the moment, and the J's keep coming to mind, and I feel sad.

It involved two seasons where we had regular tours coming through every week, an English company, but the participants were from the US, and I LOVED it, because they would be so disoriented. It was one of those, you visit seventeen countries and fly over ten others, in a week or so... and yes, exaggerated, but they were clueless.

And afraid, so afraid. We were just an overnight stop between Venice and Vienna, and most of them wouldn't venture out to see anything of our fair city, as they usually arrived in the evening. Some of the more adventurous would timidly ask if it were 'safe' to go out after dinner and look around, which provided me with much inner hilarity. The rest sat in the lobby before retiring, and thumb through the boulevard press magazines they couldn't even read before retiring for the night. And as we .on a street with four tram lines barreling down into the center in the evening, they would utter the most inane things. The best being, (bored) 'I wonder where all the streetcars go.' Answer? (in best Southern accent) 'They go where the ACTION is!!!' (That went into Peter and my favorite sayings of all time. We lurved them....)

However, once a year, we had 'troubles', because some seniors didn't take the altitude of being in Switzerland, then down to sea level in Venice, and back in hill-mountain territory within a three day period... not so good for people with heart-blood pressure issues.

Which brings me to 'the J's'. Normal arrival, and out of nowhere, one of the participants came out of breath to the desk, and asked me to book a flight back to the US immediately. 'I think I''m having a heart attack.'

Well, had been around the block a few times as to what can happen at a hotel desk, but was a bit non-plussed, and remained calm. Deadly calm. And said, 'Mr. J there is no way I can get you an immediate flight back to the US NOW. So what I want you to do is breathe deeply, and I will call a taxi for you to take you to our local hospital, which is very large, and potentates from the Middle East come here for treatment, so you needn't be afraid.'

He was terrified. So I cajoled, told him it might not be a heart attack at all, but that he would receive the very best care possible, and probably send him back to the hotel. (And he was getting scary so I had to act fast.)

He finally let me call, they went off, and his wife came back thoroughly distraught. He did have a mild heart attack. So Mrs J had to remain behind, and for the next three weeks, I had my hands full, but I learned an awful lot.

They were a golden couple, and of a generation where the MAN took care of the wife. And she was lost, so lost, hadn't the slightest idea how to handle anything. And very close to a nervous breakdown, her husband had never let her know anything about their financial things, he carried her as if she were a jewel, and suddenly, he was incapable of doing that. And she was about to fall apart.

So I was 'the guy'. I had to fight with the tour's insurance people on a toll-free number in Washington DC, and boy, they wanted to fuck her over. Their allowance ran out after two weeks, and they demanded she fly home, but there was no way she would leave her husband here alone. I brought her meals from my place, and somehow we got through it. The insurance company was so friggin' hateful, when Mr. J was able to be flown back to the US, he got a first-class ticket, and she had to ride in coach. Which didn't matter to her, as long as she was on the same plane.

Peter was involved, and we were sort of a rescue team for her, so the morning of her flight, we got her a champagne breakfast.... enough to keep her calm enough for the ordeal getting back. We made a big impact. And sort of became their patron saints in Pennsylvania. He was a retired science teacher, she was an organist for her church.

It was all sort of intensive, scrambling to 'save' some people. And instructive. In that you can love someone so much, and take away their ablility to do the most simple things and she relying on her husband so that she would never have to care about what the everyday practical things entail that she wouldn't have survived it if he had died. And looking back, that was selfish... well meant, but selfish. It was a glimpse into 'when utopia goes wrong'. I can't judge that, but watching her nearly fall apart wasn't one of my favorite episodes in observing interpersonal relationships.

I never learned Mrs. J's first name. She was just respectfully Mrs. J. Soon after he was hospitalised, she begged me to take the tram out with her and visit him in the hospital. He was looking better, and beamed at me when I walked in. And he said, 'Kiss me'. And smacked me one on the mouf, which shocked me. And added, 'Thank you.' I did learn his first name. It was Norm.

I think they have since left the planet. But they are sort of spooking around in my head the past few days.

food for thought

Reconsidering what corporations are....

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in-depth analysis

is always interesting.

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Re-visiting the Borgia series

I could REALLY get into the hypocrisy of the entire set-up which has existed for thousands of years... but will not.

Except for one memory which came up for no good reason, except that it was triggered by a scene in that.

MY father is a wise man. My maternal grandmother really pressed him to send me and my brother to a private Catholic school. And he refused, for which I thank him muchly. I would have been proficient in French as well as English, but a lot of kids who came out of that school became very damaged emotionally.

(Let's face it, the whole school system was so fucked up, there weren't any good alternatives, other than maybe the private ones in the rich part of town. But if you were inquisitive, and really thirsted for knowledge, there was a chance of getting by.)

Somewhere along my chasing knowledge and academic achievement, I lucked into something momentuous which would shape my life. A scholarship. I'd paid into a programme, got to where I thought I'd paid everything, and I WORKED 80 hour weeks to GET it... except it wasn't enough, and on arrival, I learned I had to pay way more than I had ever expected.

For the dorm, and food, and it was so beyond my means, when I heard it, I was flattened. And deflated. And said, 'I'm sorry, I can't DO this. I thought it was all taken care of from what I paid, but I can't do any more.'

I think it was the first time I felt the taste of ashes in your mouth, saying that, and being so defeated.

Except: the heads of the programme put their heads together, and said, 'We are giving you a grant, and will cover the rest, and you will stay, it will be covered by the German government.' (It was a summer school in which I could cover two semesters in eight weeks... and intensive, but that is what I wanted.)

I was asked if it would be a PROBLEM sharing a room in the dorm. And thought, WhAAAA?

It was like winning a lottery, hey.

So I got shown to my dorm room, and there was a young priest there. Blonde, wholesome looking, and groaning about the work load he'd gotten, novels stacked sky high, he was working for his doctorate.

I didn't pay much attention to him, was so thrilled that I could BE there, y'know? And he got 'itchy', uncomfortable. And I asked if anything were wrong, and said I'd do my best not to disturb him because it really looked like a huge work-load for an eight week course, and said I would study downstairs in the lounge if he needed the quiet...

(Gawwd was I naive...)

Fifteen minutes later he was downstairs, checking out, saying the work load was too much for him, and he disappeared. There were lots of subtextual things happening which I only realised later. However, I later came to think it might have been me, and I just as well might have been the devil. Although, I wasn't THAT attractive... it was weird.

Instead, I ended up with a body-bulding fanatic in my room who was wealthy and from Chicago doing his second round at trying to learn German. John. He drove everyone nuts that summer. But was so insecure under all that muscle. And was terribly confused about his sexual identity, I felt bad for him, not realising that I was as fucked up as he was in that regard.

I found friends, passed with flying colors, and ended up with a recommendation which got me out of my prison in a town I hated and out into the world.

I never learned what happened to the priest, but my sense of being 'uncomfortable' stayed with me.

I was so naive, and not ready for what religion and stuff was about. I read tons of books. Lived in my mind, and wasn't dumb... except reality always wasn't what I was looking at, and that wasn't a good thing. Reality was ugly, at least mine was, so I chose to espcape it by reading everything I could get my hands on.

But am grateful that my parents shielded me from some of the horrors of life. And that I never got confronted by anyone predatory, or abusive. I probably wouldn't have survived it emotionally.

It was sort of horrible to read a few years ago that the diocese I grew up in filed charges against one hundred priests. It wasn't a big diocese. So I guess I have them to thank for keeping me naive about some things, being protective and all, until I was ready to deal with things, and that came much later.

So no, I don't like priests, and the series sort of creeps me out. Sue me.

Been under the weather.....

as my tendency to vomit daily suddenly returned. So I tend to stay in, go out once in the mornings, and then stay in, sleep a lot, and generally try not to get myself aggravated.

Although the news still riles me up, but never vomit over that. It's just spontaneous eruptions. And the news drives me to depression, so I try to balance it by watching other things.

So this channel I can get on the intertubes is expanding quickly, and of high quality at times, and am always up with the latest episodes of things I like and explore a bit of what I don't like, and it has a movie section.

Of the latter, I wasted 90 minutes or so watching one called 'You Again'. It was about high school bullying which turns out to be over three generations, and it was mildly funny, and well thought out, in that of the two, bully and victim were mirrored. The last third, I wanted to up-chuck, because in the Disneyfication of the world, (yeah it was from Touchstone, a subsiduary), everyone forgives, and everyone forgets, and 'happy ever after'. Well I was bullied, and I will never forgive my main tormentor, and that was so utopian 'Disney', well, just forget it. If I were to run into him, I would want to rearrange his face, he ruined a part of my life. The sick fuck. And so it really ruined it for me.

And the recent 'The Tourist' was up. Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, starring the city of Venice Italy. It was supposed to be an action thriller. So devoid of chemistry between the headliners, you could start yawning after about half an hour, and if you were in the back row of a movie theater with a date, totally forgettable, and you would be doing things you shouldn't do in public.

I kept watching because of the real star, Venice, and remembering. And tsk-tsking at the editing. Now some of you have been there with me. And we know that the famous estuary part beyond Piazza San Marco going toward the Lido to the west has the ultra-famous Hotel Danieli, which is one of the few Peter and I never stayed in. In one scene, Jolie comes out and looks right... and sees the Rialto Bridge. Uh-huh. Anyone who has been there knows that is impossible. There is an S curve in the canale grande, and it is at least forty-five minute's walk away if you are hoofing it from Piazza San Marco... although I did know a short-cut that could get me there in five minutes at a brisk walking pace. They made the airport look as if it were next to the train station, which is bosh... it's really far away. Screwy editing. In the end I decided not to be sour, and reminisce as things I recognised and loved about the city came to the fore. Gawwd, dining in style on the terrace of the Hotel Monaco, just across that weird looking basilica that glimmered so white across the way... So it was a trip to reminiscing. Left me sad. And the end of the film was so lame, it only irritated me.

Showtime has begun a series about the Borgias. Now that was 'fun'. Let's see: in the first double episode, Rodrigo becomes Pope Alexander VI. I hadn't known the family was of Spanish descent and hated by the Italians, who considered the Spaniards sort of ape-like. (What does that remind me of?)

His son Cesare, and yes, Preciousses, Cardinals and such like had mistresses, and sired children, and the eldest son was to be in the Church, the second in the Army and daughters were to be married off to form alliances with countries or fiefdoms who would bring more power and prestige to themselves. So Alexander makes his son a Cardinal, there is revolt among the cardinal's college, and an attempt to poison him backfires, when Cesare is able to flip the assassin.

(As historical 'evidence', the clergy had pleasure palaces on the island of Giudecca in Venice, after evicting the Jewish populace there and re-populating them in a part of the city called Ghetto, from where the name comes. It was walled, closed in at night, and only the Jewish poplulation were able to make loans and conduct bank business, because the Catholics thought it 'dirty'. One of the most profligate Cardinals going had a palace built for his mistress in Salzburg, with some water-works in his gardens which beguile tourists to this day. It was 'normal'. They had power.)

The second part ended with an assassin killing the maid of the mistress of the pope in another cardinal's chambers, one who was plotting against him. (Think Clinton hires a papparazzo to photograph Newt Gingrich in flagrante while he was married to his then-wife. So much cleaner...)

This has lots of blood, but the values are really very good. Jeremy Irons makes a good Pope Alexander VI. Chilling and interesting, and entertaining all at the same time. Worth seeing if you have Showtime. But not for kiddies...

And I started toing some comparative viewing of Soaps. as my site expanded to include ones from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. I haven't checked much on the latter two yet, but enough of three others in the UK to notice some major differences so far.

I'd always HEARD of 'Coronation Street', so I tried that one first. I. didn't. understand. one. word. Not a word. But if you are IN the UK, they offer subtitles, so I guess it wasn't my fault. So I ended up sticking with three other half-hour long-running ones there. Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, and East Enders.

And find some very MAJOR differences between what is shown there, and what is in the US. Whereas in the US, everyone is wealthy, glamourous, and the things that worry them are more or less trivial, and they go on a sexual merry-go-round, the UK ones are far more reality based.

All feature people struggling to get by in a recession. Emmerdale is in a farming community, East Enders is in a rough part of London, Hollyoaks is also rural, and no one seems to be getting anywhere in the sense of financial success, but trying very hard.

The one thing the three have in common, and the US ones for that matter, is that the men are criminally stupid. And the women are very smart and conniving. But in the UK versions, the women are hard and scratching at every opportunity to lift themselves and their men up. And they aren't very nice about it. But in both cultures, the men are basically saps. In the UK they bond more.

I find it culturally interesting that the UK ones refer to a best friend as a 'mate', which is telling. They seem to regard their spouses as some sort of 'necessary evil', and the children a nuisance. No treacly family values stuff to be seen so far....

The guys hang out in pubs. In the US versions, they go to fancy restaurants, and vent on rivals, in the UK, they go to pubs, where their spouses and girlfriends show up and give them grief, and whereas in the US the waiters and waitresses are polite, in the UK, the barmaids all seem to have had their tongues sharpened on a whetstone made for swords.

In the US, only one show I have ever seen that REALLY put a gay theme out there unvarnished was One Life to Live, which a lot of people liked, but the right wing got so vocal, they had to cut the characters out of the show last year. And it was harmless.

In the UK, gay couples seem to be a matter of course. Just today, on Hollyoaks, one kid came out to his sister, she was delighted, and thought him 'snogging' his new friend in a pub was just fine, but there is some back-story, because she learns her brother had abused and beaten him till he fought back with a bat, if I understood it correctly... And in the East Enders, this second generation couple of Pakistani descent is getting married, and the groom's brother is gay, the family has disowned him, and at his bidding, Said goes to the engagement party, which provoked some extreme behaviour from his father and mother.

I wouldn't say one or the other is 'better' in any sense. Interesting? Yeah.

Soaps are definitely a mirror of the society in which they are produced.

And I wouldn't 'prefer' one to another, it is just 'interesting'.

Thank whomever I never settled in the UK, however. I'd be swallowing syllables, or coughing on my vowels. Or something.

And now that I've BOREDJa...

Night.

Oh my, am I in trouble????

Oh, guess not, am not a professor, nor in Michigan. Gawwd...

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Why isn't more emphasis on the news?

And btw... the rate of decay of caesium is three hundred years, not thirty.

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child labor.... Really... Maine-iacs.... and New Hampshirites... Really?

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