Get ready for more of this. See below.

 

Post-election Musings

 

In the early 1960s, television went through a period when it was dominated by “hillbilly chic.” The most popular sitcoms were shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres, fish-out-of-water comedies in which rural and urban cultures clashed.

The most important show of that ilk was The Andy Griffith Show. I don’t recall it as being overly religious; I do recall its message of the importance of strong community. (If there were few people of color on the show, it’s because that demographic reflected reality: there were few minorities in many small towns.)

I know this because I grew up in my own version of Mayberry, North Carolina: a small town in Minnesota. When I say small, I mean 1,300 residents — small. Not what you’d call cosmopolitan, but there was a strong sense of community.

After the 1960s, I did what so many young people did and moved to the big cities: Dallas-Ft. Worth for 20 years, then Minneapolis for 25 years.

I am currently reading a book of Kurt Vonnegut speeches, which he delivered in the 1970s. In the speeches, Vonnegut laments the lack of community and epidemic of loneliness in America — 50 years ago. Sounds similar to 2024, does it not?

One thing Vonnegut does not recommend to people seeking a replacement for old-fashioned community values: turning to government.

My unsolicited advice to young people on the left and the right: If you are unhappy with your life, consider moving to a smaller city. Not so small as Mayberry or where I grew up; that’s too small. But perhaps towns in the 10,000-50,000 range. You know, big enough to have some of the creature comforts we’ve grown accustomed to, but not so big that you can’t make friends.

 

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Call me wicked, if you must, but this picture makes me smile:

 

 

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If you’re old enough, you probably recognize the photo at the top of this post. It’s from the 1999-2000 saga of Elian Gonzalez, a Cuban boy at the center of an international custody dispute. After his mother drowned while transporting her boy to the United States, relatives fought to keep Elian in Florida while his father sought to have him returned to Cuba. The famous picture shown above was taken when INS agents stormed the house and seized young Elian, who was later returned to his father.

If Trump follows through on his promise to begin mass deportations, get ready to see a lot more pictures like this one. The media are salivating at the prospect.

 

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grouchyeditor.com fema

 

And we are told that Trump is the intolerant fascist?

 

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Bill Maher is making more and more sense these days.

 

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grouchyeditor.com sexy wednesday

 

I’ve noticed this twice now, while I was watching YouTube promos for the upcoming season of Wednesday. At the very end (or beginning) of the video short, in an almost-subliminal, blink-and-you-miss-it moment, images of Jenna Ortega in sexy Wednesday mode appear on the screen.  What’s up with that? Are they deep fakes?

 

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by Mark Bauerlein

 

Today is November 5, 2024, election day, and the nation is holding its collective breath to find out who gets to run the country for the next four years (or more).

I suppose I read The Dumbest Generation Grows Up (dumb title) in part to gird myself, because the titular Millennials could well decide whether we get Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. If they do, Bauerlein’s pessimistic book doesn’t give me much hope for the future.

The book, a follow-up to Bauerlein’s 2008 survey of this age group (which I haven’t read), paints an unpleasant picture. Millennials, he writes, were coddled by Boomers and left to their own devices (literally and figuratively) by their mentors — specifically, college professors. The result is millions of young adults who scroll smartphones but know nothing about Shakespeare, Dickens, or Dostoevsky — all of them dead, white males, of course, and therefore unworthy of study.

Bauerlein contrasts this cohort of woke “utopians” with Malcolm X. The latter, he points out, had good reason to find fault with Western Civilization but, rather than simply dismiss it as evil, studied it so that he could make intelligent arguments.

Young people today don’t do that because it’s too difficult.

It’s possible we’ll learn tomorrow how the Millennials voted, and in what kind of numbers. God help all of us.

 

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We’re seeing lots of barely suppressed glee from conservatives in recent days, and it’s giving me deja vu. It worries me.

It’s too similar to the optimism on the right two years ago when we were told to expect a “big red wave” at the midterm elections. 

Yeah, that wave petered out, didn’t it?

 

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Say what you will about Biden, he’s certainly going out with a bang. Or a bite.

 

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Non-political stuff (movies & TV)

 

Left to right: male chauvinist pig, heroic female, serial killer

 

Woman of the Hour (above) — Director-star Anna Kendrick wanted to send a message about misogyny in America in her movie about a woman who meets a serial killer on The Dating Game (allegedly based on a “true” story). I watched and concluded that Kendrick sends her message about misogyny by making every male character in the film — including the “good” guys — evil, stupid, or weak.

In other words, Kendricks’s movie about misogyny is misandrist. Grade: C

 

Escape at Dannemora — This originally aired on Showtime some years ago, but it’s now on Netflix. The eight-part series about a prison escape in 2015 is mostly absorbing and suspenseful. But there are slow sections. It should have been six or seven parts. Grade: B+

 

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Horror flicks are having a moment. Every month seems to mark the premiere of another critically acclaimed chiller (Heretic, The Substance, Strange Darling, to name a few). 

The problem for me is that I still feel burned by last year, in which a mediocrity called Talk to Me was widely praised as horror flick of the year. It wasn’t. And so, as they say, “Fool me once ….”

 

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Last but not least, the video below is making the rounds on X. I can’t seem to take my eyes off this girl’s impressive … dive:

 

 

 

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I don’t know if Halperin is correct or not, but I’m guessing the aftermath of the election won’t be pretty, no matter which side wins. What I’m expecting:

 

  • We won’t know who won on November 6. We might not know for weeks to come. Or months.
  • There will be much emotion if we do find out early. Especially from Dems if they lose.
  • If you still don’t know who to vote for at this point, do us all a favor and just stay home.
  • If Trump prevails, count on the left to do what it can to ensure he’s not sworn in to office. Whatever it can.
  • My brother-in-law sells booze and pot. He’s looking forward to big sales following November 5.
  • MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

 

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Homicidal

 

Back in 1960, schlock movie producer William Castle (The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill) saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and had an idea. If Hitchcock could make a black-and-white, psychological horror hit on the cheap, why couldn’t Castle do it, too?

The result was Homicidal which, although not in the same league as Psycho, does boast one helluva clever twist.

I’m giving Castle’s movie an above-average grade based almost entirely on its surprise ending. Until the denouement, Homicidal resembles nothing so much as a dull episode of the old Perry Mason series: cheap sets, stilted dialogue and—well, I almost said poor acting, but that wouldn’t be true. There is at least one sterling performance.

The plot: A peculiar family in Solvang, California is harboring a deranged killer. Or so it seems. Sorry, I can’t say more than that. Release: 1961  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Yes, mostly just to see how much, if any, cheating Castle does in the set-up for the film’s big reveal.

 

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Wednesday is telling you who to vote for.

 

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Hollywood’s dearth of original ideas, glut of reboots and sequels, and speculation that superhero and comic-book movies might be on the way out, and video-game movies the new, big thing —

Hell, no! Why not go back to the treasure trove of screenplay ideas that has always served Hollywood so well: books?

 

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I watched some, not all, of season one of the Netflix drama The Diplomat and thought it was … OK.

It ain’t Borgen, and it ain’t House of Cards. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t particularly memorable.

But I suppose season two is “must watch” because the protagonist is a female politician. Very “woke,” right?

 

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I’m afraid I am a bit like Donald Trump, who continues to hold out hope that he might get a fair shake from liberal media outlets like The New York Times

I had hoped, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the venerable CBS show 60 Minutes might somehow, some way, escape the taint of biased institutions like, well, CBS.

I should have known after the Lesley Stahl interview with Trump several years ago that even 60 Minutes was hopelessly unreliable.

 

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Three things I don’t expect we will ever get to the bottom of: UFOs, the Kennedy assassination, and the Epstein client list. Maybe four things. Depends on what happens with the investigations into the attempted assassinations of Trump.

 

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Like most people (or most men), I had never heard of podcaster Alexandra Cooper. So I’d like to thank Kamala Harris for bringing the blonde to my attention. Below are some pictures of Cooper. Some of the photos are real, but some are what they call “leaked nudes.” Who knows what’s real and what isn’t?

 

 

Maybe Kamala should have chosen Cooper as her running mate. The blonde podcaster certainly has a nicer ass than Tim Walz has.

 

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by Richard Osman

 

Here’s the thing about “cozy” mysteries: If they are too cozy, they lose their edge. And then you have a bland reading experience.

The Thursday Murder Club walks the fine line between warm and fuzzy — with a few dark passages — and watching an episode of, oh, I don’t know, The Golden Girls, perhaps? There are some chuckles to be had, but not much depth to the characters.

The plot follows four lovable senior citizens living in a retirement village who attempt to solve crimes. For fun. To me, the elderly sleuths were pleasant enough, but not terribly interesting. The mystery is likewise underwhelming.

I notice that they are making a movie out of this novel (the first in a series by Osman), starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie. Judging from that cast, I’m thinking this might be one time when the movie could be better than the book.

 

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Could the much-anticipated “October surprise” be an embittered Joe Biden, doing what he can to sabotage the people who sabotaged his presidency, by attaching himself to Harris? Ah, the delicious irony.

 

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Well, we only have so much money. Better to send it to the Ukrainians and to help illegal aliens with their rent money or mortgages than to spend it on taxpaying Americans in crisis.

 

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I am growing quite fond of Chris Gore of Film Threat. Judging from his enthusiastic gushing about nudity in the clip below, the dude is apparently an “ass man.” As am I.

 

 

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Time didn’t want you to see this picture, so we are doing our part to show it to you, as a reminder, just before the election:

 

 

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Seems to me that all you need to know is that Kamala and Joe not only enabled the above migrations, but actively encouraged them.

 

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I have to wonder if, whoever it was that wrote this “parents’ guide” on IMDB about the new horror movie, The Substance, was aware that the movie’s director is a woman who, presumably, has a female gaze.

Here is a clip from director Coralie Fargeat’s previous movie, Revenge. Looks like there is even more “male gazing”:

 

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We said goodbye to Leah Peters this week on Big Brother. Here is some actual male gazing at Leah:

 

 

 

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I guess when you have a name like Brock Purdy, you have to expect this kind of thing.

 

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