For Memorial Day, TCM is showing two John Sturges movies back to back. Bad Day at Black Rock, and the inspiration for TV’s Hogan’s Heroes (with a nod to Stalag 17), The Great Escape, which is still playing as I write this.
Something that stands out immediately in both movies is how artificial the sets and costumes are. For all the attention to detail put into the productions, their overall appearance is much too clean and new, as was typical in movies of the time. The hotel in Black Rock was made to seem old and worn, but it’s sitting on a freshly poured concrete foundation. The German POW camp in Escape is said in the story to be new, but nevertheless there is a Disney-esque fakeness to it, even inside of the tunnel as it’s being dug.
On Facebook, I’m seeing posts about the price paid for freedom by American soldiers who died in the service of their country. I certainly agree with honoring those who died in military service, but since WWII, depending on the conflict their deaths may not necessarily have helped to keep Americans free. Most recently, invading Afghanistan after 9/11 was definitely justified in my view, but redirecting and expanding the conflict into Iraq — George Bush Jr. finishing the job his dad declined to do — was a monumental mistake.
Seth Meyers tears into the ridiculous talking points being proposed by Republican gun apologists.
Newsy is a free non-cable news channel available on broadcast television (68-3 in Boston) and on Roku streaming devices. On Newsy a few days ago, a former ATF official commented that he remembers boys having hunting rifles in trucks parked at Texas high schools. “There wasn’t a problem. Something has changed in the past 20-30 years,” he said.
WTF??? Seriously? Texas had, and maybe has, trucks in high school parking lots with unsecured guns?? He isn’t making that up? That is insane! Whoever this former ATF idiot is, he isn’t sharp enough to think up a few points on his own.
First, the guns under consideration today are assault weapons. Second, back in the day, they weren’t available to anyone, let alone everyone on demand, no questions asked. Third, the NRA used to be an organization devoted to gun education and safety. Now it’s an organization devoted to making assault weapons available to everyone, on demand, no questions asked.
Something I see in online comments that really gets me going are the gun nuts who jump on somebody who says “assault rifle.” Their complaint? They want to discuss the exact make and model of weapon that was used in a particular mass shooting, because they feel it’s been mischaracterized as a true assault rifle, as if that matters.
My reply to that is, that would be like me defending a political cartoon that offends them by pointing out it wasn’t inked with a #2 Series 7 Winsor Newton brush, but a #3 brush. IT DOESN’T FRICKIN’ MATTER!
Repeal the Second Amendment. It’s the root of this entire probem. Don’t take my word for it.
I’ve been receiving solicitations, by landline robocall and by regular mail, for extended car warranties. Some of them are for an 11-year-old car I own, and others are for a 2015 Jeep I have never have owned. With any luck it’s just a database error.
It doesn’t seem all that long ago when I read the average age of cars in America was six years. It’s now double that, which explains all the advertising for extended warranties.
Follow-up: tastewar has provided further insight in the form of this helpful graph.
In a way this is good, because cars overall are a lot more reliable than they were in the post-war decades of planned obsolescence, when odometers had only five digits. Reaching 100,000 miles was considered both a miracle and a death sentence, and American cars driven on snowy roads treated with salt started to rust-out after only a few years. There was the Rusty Jones rustproofing service that was pushed by car dealerships. It required drilling holes into the body panels, and because it was often improperly applied, along with poor body work on the holes, the expensive treatment actually accelerated rust development!
CarShield advertises heavily on broadcast television. I am extremely dubious of extended warranty plans, and have no intention of ever buying one.
Another mass shooting and there is nothing I can do about it, except to say I favor repealing the Second Amendment. That won’t happen in my lifetime, so I am putting on headphones and listening to music.
Tonight’s season finale of The Simpsons featured an ambitious musical number, led by Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman. With special guest star, liberal economist Robert Reich.
I was surprised when Barney sang, “Even dumb slobs made excellent wages,” and Homer lamented, “I’m not smart, I’m not a go-getter… what job could I possibly do?” Not stated, but implied is, a union job.
Route 66!
Worth noting is the dark, rap-adapted musical theme from the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.
In 1988, “Massachusetts Miracle” governor Michael Dukakis ran for President against incumbent VP George Bush. This very dated SNL parody of Playboy After Dark reminds me I have more of A&E’s Secrets of Playboy series to watch.
One of my business trips in 1988 took me to British Columbia, south of Calgary, to install a hospital computer system. The first thing that always needed to be done was inspecting the computer room and checking the hardware. Every installation had potential technical problems, and some of them were acceptable, at least temporarily, but others were show-stoppers.
The tape drive installed for the minicomputer wasn’t the expected model. The customer said he’d switched to a less expensive unit that had become available. Which would have been fine, if he’d told me that before the customized operating system software had been compiled and written to tape.
I explained to the customer that the system media was useless. The tape drive required a different data density and blocking factor. It was getting late back in Boston, and I immediately got on the phone to update my boss and to ask a colleague to generate a new system tape with the correct parameters. While he did that, a search was made to find the quickest way of getting the tape to me. (Six months later, I had to make similar arrangements when I was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but that’s another story.)
Arrangements were made for overnight delivery to the FedEx office at the Spokane, Washington airport. Once I knew Spokane was my destination, I called the in-house travel agent. I needed a room for that night in Spokane, with guaranteed late arrival. The hotel in Canada was informed I would be checking in a day late, but keeping the reservation and extending it through the end of the week.
In those pre-GPS times, every year I bought the latest Rand McNally road atlas for America and Canada. After getting the hotel information from the travel office, I consulted the atlas, figured out my route, and off I went in an Oldsmobile I’d rented at the airport, with a big engine and the sloppy steering that was typical of Olds.
The drive took me into some mountainous terrain, so I was glad to have that big engine. After crossing the Canada/US border, I passed through Bonners Ferry, Idaho. The place looked interesting, and I thought about stopping there the next day on the way back.
Arriving late that night in downtown Spokane, I was able to get something to eat before collapsing at the hotel. In the middle of the night I was awoken by the sound of motorcycles, breaking glass, and yelling. A fight was in progress on the street below, outside of a biker bar. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief and try to get back to sleep.
In the morning I got cleaned up, checked out of the hotel, filled the gas tank, and headed over to the airport. I announced myself at the FedEx office and waited for the package to arrive on a plane from Boston. Once I had it in hand I checked the atlas and started off again, driving back north into Idaho.
As you can see from the picture of the banner, I stopped in Bonners Ferry. Entering the drug store there, it felt like stepping back in time. Everything looked and smelled as though I were in the drug store where I bought a lot of my comic books as a kid. At that moment I had an appreciation, bordering on an epiphany, of how much everything had changed over the previous 20 years.
As I said, there were some very steep hills and mountains along the way. There were escape ramps for runaway lumber trucks with failing brakes. After leaving Bonners Ferry, I passed someone who was going up an extremely steep hill. On foot. It was a skinny, scruffy guy with a beard, wearing some beat-up old clothes. He had a huge wooden cross slung over his shoulder, and on the bottom there was something Jesus didn’t have while carrying his cross — a small wheel.
I had met and spoken with Michael Dukakis several times during my stint as a radio news reporter. In person he was very impressive, being a master of detail who knew how to work a room with great efficiency and effectiveness. So the SNL parody got it right. At that moment of culture shock in Idaho, witnessing the fanaticism of the guy with his cross and its little wheel, I had another epiphany. There was no way Mike Dukakis would win in November.
This past Sunday’s New York Times had a story, dateline Bonners Ferry, about Republican party in-fighting in Idaho. Today, almost 35 years later, a guy who limits his expression of faith to lugging a cross with a wheel up the side of a mountain would probably be considered a liberal.
“They clapped as one candidate advocated “machine guns for everyone” and another called for the state to take control of federal lands.”
