Gone to Florida
Be Back Soon!
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Category: Weekly Reviews
Whatever happened to the term “androgynous”? I don’t hear it anymore. I guess it’s not a part of LGBT-blah-blah-blah, which is much too difficult to remember:
That’s ridiculous. It’s surpassed only by “undocumented worker” (illegal alien) and “they” used as a singular pronoun on my Annoying Scale.
I’m going to shorten the term to BLT, which includes a few of the groups and is much easier to remember. Especially if I’m hungry.
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There’s nothing funnier than a misunderstanding. The funniest misunderstandings occur when two sharp cookies get together for a YouTube video, and something happens which reveals that they are not always such sharp cookies.
Such was the case when Bill Maher had Jordan Peterson on his podcast:
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Power must be one hell of an aphrodisiac. How else to explain why so many of these half-human, half-corpse politicians cling so tenaciously to it?
McConnell, Feinstein, Pelosi, Biden, Fauci, Schumer — all of them are too damned old and need to go.
Except for Trump, who is an ageless wonder.
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Letter From the Social Security Administration to Yours Truly:
“We need updated information about your work to make sure that we pay you the right amount of Social Security benefits.
“For the following months in 2022, you previously told us you would not earn over (number here) and would not work over 45 hours in self-employment.”
They then asked me to report my earnings for each month in 2022. Don’t they already have this information?
This is the second such letter I’ve received from the kids at Social Security in the past, oh, nine months or so.
It boggles the mind that our government devotes so much time and effort to little old me, while on a daily basis we read about hotshots and bigshots ripping off the system for millions or billions of dollars and, when caught, skating by with a wrist slap.
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I am so over these “bombshell” UFO stories.
Unless you have something tangible to offer — and not just what someone says he witnessed, or grainy, tiny images from radar or security cameras — then please just go away.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
#redpilled
I’ve never been a soccer fan.
So why am I enthusiastically cheering for any country that plays the U.S. women’s team?
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I haven’t been a churchgoer in nearly 50 years.
So why am I suddenly so supportive of this movie?
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I’ve never been a fan of country music.
So why am I now a booster of Jason Aldean and his latest hit song?
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I’ve been calling Oprah Winfrey a smarmy fake for years. Could I have been right about her?
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Meanwhile, as the country burns, Sleepy Joe does his thing:
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Seven … dwarfs?
From the Department of “Walt Disney
Rolling Over in His Grave”
⇓
Peter Dinklage complains about using real dwarfs, and so we get this:
From the Department of “Time to
Fucking Move On”
⇓
Eric Shawn continues to provide updates about Jimmy Hoffa on Fox News.
Greta Van Susteren continues to provide updates on Joran van der Sloot on Newsmax.
Didn’t the public lose interest in van der Sloot, oh, about 10 years ago, and Hoffa about, oh, 40 years ago?
Is there something in Greta’s and Eric’s contracts — or do they have dirt on network executives — that permits them to keep boring audiences with these stories?
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Hollywood Strike
This reminds me of when professional athletes go on strike. It’s basically asshole players vs. asshole owners.
Sorry, Hollywood, but I’m more concerned about the financial struggles of regular folks.
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All we had to do was say a few kind words about Kennedy in last week’s Review, and then shit hits the fan.
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The hullaballoo over Sound of Freedom, which reportedly has harrowing scenes of child sex trafficking, reminds me of the premiere episode of the second season of the late, great FX series The Shield.
Anyone who watched that episode, titled “The Quick Fix,” and who saw the scene involving a little girl with a dove tattoo (above), will know exactly what I’m talking about. That scene was so powerful that it still haunts me, 20 years later.
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Just when I begin to think that perhaps there are a few institutions that haven’t been corrupted by the progressive left, this happens.
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Sometimes serial killers don’t look a bit like serial killers:
Sometimes they look every bit like a serial killer:
By the way, the seven dwarfs pictured at top all look like serial killers.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
There’s only one presidential candidate on the left who interests me, and that’s Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
I like him. He seems like a decent guy. I need to read more about his positions.
Also, at the fresh, bloom-of-life age of 69, Kennedy is just a babe compared to four-score seniors like Biden and Trump.
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I was surfing YouTube and got sucked into a rabbit hole of dating-advice videos. Because that’s what YouTube is good at: sucking you into rabbit holes of trivial timewasters.
Anyway, I stumbled across a dating-site video of a middle-aged male critiquing a Gen Z girl’s post and … it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages.
And so, I want to share this three-minute clip:
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Dark Winds season two is coming to AMC in a few weeks. It’s a so-so cop show with a more-than-so-so hottie named Jessica Matten (above) in the cast. She plays a Native American cop. This is Matten in a scene from the first season:
(Click photos for larger views)
That’s our sexist post of the week.
You’re welcome.
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What the hell is wrong with Lindsey Graham? First, he did everything in his power to sabotage the Republican “red wave” in last year’s midterms by terrifying voters with his extreme anti-abortion stance. Now, he’s doing what he can to promote war with Russia.
South Carolina, why in hell do you keep sending this guy to D.C.?
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I don’t know what more to say about Joe Biden and his criminal clan. He is easily the worst thing to happen to this country … and yet he is still in the White House?
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QAnon!
I’ve been reading about this movement/ideology/whatever for years, and yet I still don’t understand it.
Here’s what I do understand: When the mainstream media, increasingly in the business of lying to the public, decries QAnon as a nest of liars, and when far-fetched “conspiracy theories” of the past continually turn out to be true, well … I’m not so quick to judge.
Which brings me to this week’s cultural battleground, the movie Sound of Freedom:
Great point, Charles from Brooklyn. Why should I bother to exercise my own critical thinking and judgment about anything when I can just rely on you?
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Damned if you do …
Damned if you don’t
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
The Revenge of Donald Trump
Settle down, liberals. To quote your beloved Barack Obama, “elections have consequences.”
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Democrats keep voting for these people. Is it any wonder we call you “libtards”?
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TV Tidbits
Based on a True Story —
Cons: It’s a comic mystery set in Southern California. Must every show be set in Southern California?
The characters are universally stupid and/or spoiled liberals. Everyone is doing illegal drugs and/or involved in adulterous affairs. And yet, we are asked to relate to them.
Pros: It looks very nice, and Kaley Cuoco is a fine comic actress.
Sick —
Co-written by Kevin Williamson (Scream), the first half of the movie has the makings of a modern horror classic. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the second half, in which the good guys and the bad guys suddenly assume superhero-like physical powers. In other words, a smart thriller goes stupid.
NewsNation —
I thought I’d give it a shot, but then I noticed that Chris Cuomo hosts a primetime show. Nah … you can’t do that.
Newsmax —
The hosts remind me of Republican politicians. They say all the (angry) right things, but they don’t seem to have any actual clout.
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I don’t have a bucket list, but if I did, it would include a trip to Mont-Saint-Michel in France:
It reminds me of the abbey in The Name of the Rose — on steroids.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Stars on Mars
Clearly, there is something wrong with me between the ears.
You can make a strong argument that all reality shows are stupid and fake — some more than others.
For some inexplicable reason, I am drawn to the dumbest of the dumb, the fakest of the fake reality shows. For example, I recently watched the reboot of The Surreal Life and enjoyed it. Now I am hooked on an even sillier reality show, Stars on Mars.
Stars was filmed in the Australian desert, where 12 celebrities are stranded in a fake habitat on landscape meant to resemble Mars. The “stars” are Marshawn Lynch, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lance Armstrong, Natasha Leggero, Adam Rippon, Tallulah Willis, Tinashe, Richard Sherman, Ronda Rousey, Tom Schwartz, Ariel Winter, and Porsha Williams. Yeah, I don’t know half of them, either.
Everything is obviously staged. I’ve seen the first three episodes and plan to watch the rest.
I think I enjoy this type of nonsense largely because of the casting. It’s basically the odd couple — times six. William Shatner hosts and mocks a dozen bottom-feeding celebs who compete in pretend challenges on pretend Mars. Some of these people seem to take things very seriously. As if their careers depend on it — which might be the case.
It is all very entertaining.
I am clearly not right in the head.
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Sure does look to me like Trump’s guilty … of being a blowhard.
Sure does look to me like Biden’s guilty … of treason.
Of the two offenses, which do you think should be punishable by prison time?
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This must be what the critics mean when they say, “America is no longer a serious country.”
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Not sure if this is really a “tragedy” or something unfortunate that happened. Aside from the 19-year-old with a foolish father, it’s hard to imagine a less-sympathetic bunch of victims.
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So now we are expected to choose, I guess, between three egomaniacal jerks — Putin, Zelenskyy, and the latest contender, a scary-looking dude named Prigozhin.
You go first.
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Sure, why not? It’s not like we have any other uses for $6 billion.
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I can’t prove it because I don’t have any clout, but I suspect that — Elon Musk or no Elon Musk — I am being “shadow banned” on Twitter.
My Twitter engagements — likes, retweets, links to this site — although never all that impressive, are way down from what they used to be.
My politics haven’t changed. I suspect some closet liberal at Twitter doesn’t like me.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
The Squid Game Effect
I’ve watched the first two episodes of the latest season of Black Mirror (above), and I think … it’s a good show. That’s disappointing.
I say that because Black Mirror used to be a great show.
The problem, methinks, has its genesis in creator Charlie Brooker’s decision in 2016 to leave his British roots and find a new home with Netflix. In other words, Brooker’s Twilight Zone for the 2010s “went Hollywood.”
I think of this trend as “The Squid Game Effect.” Every country wants its own monster hit on Netflix, and so they favor global appeal over local flavor. In doing so, their shows lose charm and distinction.
Ten years ago, I’d watch something on Netflix from Argentina or France or South Korea and I’d love it. There were always parts of these shows that I could not understand, not because of the subtitles but because of my ignorance of foreign culture (this often involved scenes about local laws; why isn’t he allowed to call a lawyer?). But that was OK, because I was learning something new.
Now every country wants its own version of Money Heist. Something generic that everyone everywhere can relate to, all at the same time.
Maybe my attitude makes me a snob, or an anti-globalist. I don’t care. I miss the surprises and idiosyncracies of the old shows. And Black Mirror was better when it was strictly a product of Great Britain.
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At this point, I don’t care anymore. It’s my team against your team, and your team is full of shit.
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Speaking of teams … if you are a fan who supports pro baseball in general or the Dodgers specifically, you aren’t “part of the problem.” You are the problem.
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More of the talent at Fox News needs to follow Tucker Carlson’s lead and walk out the network door (OK, Carlson was shown the door; whatever).
It’s not as if these talking heads, many of them millionaires, are going to wind up living in a cardboard box beneath the freeway.
Show some balls and move to Newsmax or Timcast or Twitter or wherever. Either that or initiate a revolt at the Murdoch channel.
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“Lazy fucking grifters” — has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
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Someday, after he’s gone, we’ll find out just how dependent Stephen King was on good editors.
Especially grouchy editors.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Culture Wars Victory Tally:
Bud Light, Target, Twitter — Red States Winning
Everything Else — Blue States Winning
Heavy sigh. This shit is going to go on for years.
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UFOs
Is this flying-saucer stuff some kind of orchestrated distraction so that we don’t pay more attention to the crap taking place in politics?
If it’s not just a distraction, then What The Fuck Is It?
Perhaps the visitors from another world are just looking for someplace new to live.
With New York Mayor Eric Adams suggesting that New Yorkers find room for illegal aliens in their homes, maybe the rest of us should think about housing the space aliens in our spare bedrooms. Just a thought.
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Toronto pitcher Anthony Bass
If you are a celebrity and simply must weigh in with your political opinions, the worst thing you can do is waffle.
Bass is learning the hard way that trying to appease both sides will only make everyone dislike you.
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Cheesecake
If The New York Post persists in publishing stories like this one, about a cop who discovered that sex sells, then we feel duty-bound to publish at least one picture of her.
Even if, as in this shot, her butt looks enormous.
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At this point, I don’t much care if Trump is “guilty” or “not guilty” of the charges in the indictments against him. Until Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, et al. are also facing charges, to me it’s all just election interference from the authoritarian left.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)