Entertainment – Page 6

Review: Bob Dylan a Spiritual Life

Recently, I have found myself reading more books and watching less television. Cord cutting has the advantage of not distracting me as much with nonsense. For those in the “snowflake” generation, a B.O.O.K. is also known as “Bio Optical Organic Knowledge”.

Background

In the last few weeks I read two books about the same era that have a remarkable amount of overlap. I started with Larry Norman: Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music. This book is about the original Christian rocker. The book discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of the music industry and also Norman’s very flawed and human trek thru this world.

Larry Norman: Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music

Norman got his musical start in the 1960’s in San Jose, CA. In the early days he shared the stage with Janis Joplin and many other names that you might recognize. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and made a name for himself. In the book you learn about Norman’s street preaching, Bible study, and other endeavors. I highly recommend the book.

So you may be wondering why I start with Larry Norman in a discussion about a Bob Dylan book. Because their lives are incredibly linked together.

The Apostle Paul spoke about spiritual growth in these terms:

For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
I Corinthians 3:4-7.

Larry Norman sowed many seeds that grew and matured which eventually touched Bob Dylan’s life in a way that only God can. Larry is never mentioned in the Dylan book and that is a shame because the two men clearly knew each other, if only at a distance.

Norman includes Dylan in his song, Song For A Small Circle Of Friends which he released in 1971. Why Dylan is part of this “small circle” remains unsaid in either book.

Dear Bobby watch your fears all hide
And disappear while love inside starts growing,
You’re older but less colder
Than the jokes and folks you spent your childhood snowing.

And Someone died for all your friends
But even better yet, He lives again.
And if this song does not make sense to you,
I hope His Spirit slips on through,
He loves you

Link: Lyrics–Song For A Small Circle Of Friends

An example of their intersecting worlds is the Bible study that Norman started in Los Angeles in the late 1960’s. This study morphed into the church that Dylan attended prior to releasing his Slow Train Coming album in 1979. Other people and actions in the Norman book impact the life of Dylan or those around him. Other folks that are common to both men and in ways most unexpected include Billy Graham, President Jimmy Carter, and Jews for Jesus.

Another interesting overlap of both men’s worlds is not documented in either book. Larry Norman produced an album of up and coming Christian musicians. On that album was a track by Leslie Phillips called Beyond Saturday Night. Leslie’s first LP was later released and titled Beyond Saturday Night but was a different studio recording of the same song. Leslie released four Christian albums before changing her stage name to “Sam Phillips” and “going secular.” As this transition was happening in her life she married a fellow named T-Bone Burnett who was a member of Dylan’s touring band and frequently played with Dylan over the years. T-Bone converted to Christianity while touring with Dylan.

Enter Bob Dylan

After completing the Larry Norman book, I ordered the book Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life by Scott Marshall. Cost $16.95

The publisher describes the book as:

Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life bridges the gap between purpose and meaning in grand fashion. It offers readers an informative, entertaining, and nuanced look into Bob Dylan’s spiritual odyssey. Today, there is not a Dylan book in existence that exclusively focuses on his spiritual odyssey through years of research and original interviews with those who know him and his journey well, such as Barry Beckett, Arthur Blessit, T-Bone Burnett, Carolyn Dennis, Dave Kelly, Regina McCrary, Maria Muldaur, Scott Ross, Jerry Wexler, and Paul Wasserman. The evidence abounds and Dylan’s friends and fans provide a plethora of insight into this veritable music icon’s spiritual side.

The book is exhaustively footnoted and generally follows Dylan’s career in chronological order.

Dylan Controversy

Many folks in Christian circles have voiced their concerns about Dylan and his profession of faith.

The two songs that come to mind as critiques of Dylan are Steve Taylor’s title track from 1984, Meltdown and Dave Edward’s 1981 song, Commercial Suicide.

Elvis and the Beatles have seen a better day
Better off to burn out than to melt away
Dylan may be fillin’ the puddle they designed
Is it gonna take a miracle to make up his mind?
–Steve Taylor

Additional Info: Steve Taylor: Meltdown

He was the prophet of a generation
They watched his every cryptic verb
People everywhere in every nation
Would bow and worship every word

He gave them songs and made them wild with passion
They would leave his name is history
Then he sang a little out of fashion
And so he gave them one more mystery

And then they cried – Commercial suicide…
Watch how you say it
We’ll never play it
–Dave Edwards

Additional Info: Dave Edwards: Commercial suicide

Dylan the Good Stuff

From reading A Spiritual Life what you discover is that Dylan’s story is confusing, not so much for what he says, but more for what those around him want to be true. Often what you’ve heard about Dylan is what others are projecting onto him and not his words.

Scott Marshall does a good job of separating the wheat from the chaff. He looks not just at Dylan’s words but his music to show that Dylan is actually rather consistent. Dylan will respond to stupid interviewer questions with obtuse answers but when treated respectfully he can be rather forthcoming about his faith. When it comes to Dylan’s answers about his faith, however; the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Matthew come to mind, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Many folks just don’t understand Dylan’s answers and their Biblical references.

After reading the book, I not only think I have a grasp of where Dylan is spiritually but can understand his point of view.

Marshall has responded to the criticisms of Dave Edwards and Steve Taylor (quoted above) and his answer is one that I appreciate. If you want to meet the man behind the mystique then Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life is well worth your consideration.

Review: They Shall Not Grow Old

Appreciating a miracle—large or small—is something that we frequently don’t do. Truthfully, we take many for granted or try to explain them away. Likewise, a professional makes their craft look easy and effortless. Sometimes the line between miracle and marvelous is blurry. In our world of Photoshop, CGI, and visual manipulation, we have become skeptical of what is real. The old advertisement of “Is it live or is it Memorex?” in some ways rings even more true today.

The miracle of restoration. wait until you see the before sample of this segment.

A proper merging of new and old is the wonderful work done by Peter Jackson in restoring over 90 hours of film footage from World War I. Jackson did this for a museum in England and then took selected footage and made a wonderful documentary about soldiers of “The Great War”.

The film has an introduction by Jackson which I missed because I was standing in the popcorn line. When I made it into the theater, England was entering the war and men—actually young boys trying to be men—were going to their local recruiting stations and signing up in droves. The film tells the story of average soldiers from enlistment to the trenches of France to home again and what they experienced. Jackson’s grandfather was one such soldier.

The feature at the end of the film is Jackson explaining the restoration process and the amount of effort that went into the many years needed to restore the raw film. He also discusses choosing the various shots and audio used to create the film which you just viewed. The film’s narration is all done by voiceovers from veterans of the war—mostly recorded later in their lives by the BBC.

The restoration of the film is great in black and white but after a short time, the film morphs into full color.

Following the documentary itself, Jackson shows before, during, and after samples; some of which didn’t make it into the film but which are remarkable on their own. He explains that the original film was shot with hand-cranked movie cameras with no sound. He employed not only lip readers to figure out what was being said, but then using the uniforms of the men speaking, hired voice actors from the districts where the men lived to sync the dialogue. What little music is used in the film is authentic to the period.

Peter Jackson at work in film production

After seeing the film and hearing Jackson describe what happened behind the screens makes you want to watch it again.

While you don’t have to see the 3-D version of the film to appreciate it, seeing it in that format lets you enjoy a lifelike quality of the people but see the limitations of the slow framerate of the original film. Jackson modernized the source material but also showed great respect in doing so.

I highly recommend that you see this film. You will get a glimpse of life 100 years ago and get a feel for the futility of trench warfare and magnitude of “The Great War”. Please be warned that there are some graphic scenes (in full color) of wounded, dead, and dismembered men. Knowing that you aren’t seeing special effects can be disturbing to some viewers.

Movie Recommendation: Ragamuffin

I found an obscure gem on Amazon that you can stream this weekend while you are hiding out from the smoke. (FYI I will be outside mowing the lawn and walking the dog because I already saw this movie and refuse to wear a face mask.) If you search for the title on Amazon, you will find two movies about the same person, one is a documentary that is free and the other is the movie that I’m writing about today.

This movie, Ragamuffin, is a dramatic portrayal of Christian singer/song writer Rich Mullins. It stars Michael Koch as Rich Mullins. It costs money to rent the movie (about $4) but is well worth it.

A lover of Jesus and a rebel in the church, Rich refused to let his struggles with his own darkness tear him away from a God he was determined to love. As he struggled with success in Nashville and depression in Wichita, Rich desired most of all to live a life of honest and reckless faith amidst a culture of religion and conformity.

IMDB: Ragamuffin

The descriptions of the movie found on the internet are not really on point with one part of the story, Mullins did develop a relationship with a Navajo Indian reservation but contrary to the reviews, did not quit the rest of the world to go live with the Navajos.

The movie is about how Mullins faced his demons head-on and challenged others in the church to honestly live their faith.

This movie can be compared and contrasted with I Can Only Imagine

Both movies are about Christian musicians/song writers that wrote breakout hits, both feature dramatic portrayals of Amy Grant who’s shadow looms large over both men’s stories, and both men had problems as adults due to broken relationships with their fathers. The similarities end there.

Mullins was a broken soul that was deeply flawed and knew it. Instead of anger at God, he tenaciously cling to his faith. Many will be offended that this guy claimed to be a Christian in good standing. He chain smoked, is alcoholic, and often refused to obey authority figures in his life. Mullins followed the beat of a different drummer as only an artist or genius would. Mullins reminds me of King David in the Old Testament; a deeply flawed individual that God calls “a man after his own heart”.

Mullins once described his faith like this:

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken-hearted.

Wikipedia: Rich_Mullins

Mullins was influenced by Brennan Manning. Manning wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out.

Brennan Manning wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel “for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out,” the marginalized folks to whom Jesus ministered: the children, the ill, the tax collectors, the women. In other words, the ragamuffins. Manning understands better than most that behind our facades of order and self-assurance are inadequacies that can find healing only in Jesus. While the powerful and religious elite challenged him, Jesus embraced and healed and fed the needs of the ragamuffins. Jesus delivered love, healing, and, most of all, grace.

Grace is defined as “the freely given and unmerited favor and love of God.” But, as Manning points out, we have “twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper.” In reality, God offers us grace immeasurable. Brennan Manning gently encourages us to embrace that grace in the face of our greatest needs. And Manning certainly knows whereof he speaks, having taken a journey from priesthood and academic achievement through a collapse into alcoholism. Manning came face to face with his need, finally abandoning himself to grace. And he invites us now to join him in a life of grace.

The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out.

The other thing that I really appreciate about this movie is that the music is not lip-synced. The guy playing Mullins, Michael Koch, is actually singing Mullin’s songs. I can’t tell you how rare that is in any movie.

This movie is about a real person with real problems, many of which you’ve experienced or know someone who has. It is about a real relationship with God not something you do once a week so you can live how you will the rest of the week.

God loves you as you are right now. If you have trouble believing this or wish you could, I encourage you to spend two hours watching this movie. In the final analysis, we are all ragamuffins needing God’s grace.

Review: Ancestry DNA

I was inspired by the Sith Lord several years ago to consider doing Ancestry DNA and 23 and Me.
(FYI it’s called 23 because you have 46 chromosomes with 23 from each parent.)

The Sith Lord said that each website does it differently and provides different information. I’m still working on getting both done. At a retail price of $99 per test, you really have to want to do it.

In brief the Ancestry test gives you two things:

First, the obligatory breakdown of origins. Where in the world did your ancestors come from? Some of the breakdown is logical but there are some trace outliers that raised a few questions with me. Hopefully 23 and me will address these when I get around to doing their test.

Second, Ancestry provides a list of other people that are related to me in some way. The trick is they don’t say how. It claims that 998 people in their database are my 4th cousins or closer. I know one person in their list but the others, nope.

Ancestry lets you use an online version of Family Tree Maker to try to add information to build-out your family tree. If you haven’t done this before you can really get carried away. Ancestry treats all family trees on their website as containing valid data and relationships. The old saying about garbage in, garbage out applies here.

I have some information about my family history and I still had to correct instances of the same spouse or child appearing on the tree as different people. You can only go back so far before the trail gets cold, unless someone really famous crops-up in the list. I traced my mom’s father back to William the Conqueror in 1066 AD. To get such results you must rely on other people and if one relationship is incorrect then the whole tree turns to nonsense. Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” applies to genealogy research too.

I researched a couple of nagging issues from a few years ago and did turn-up new facts while on the website this time around. The main one being a wedding record of my great-great-grandfather. His first wife died three years before the birth of my ancestor and this has always been unexplained until this summer. Since I looked last time, Ancestry has added more records to their database and I was able to answer one of my questions about this period of the family history.

I think its worth doing if you’re curious about genealogy.

Rush Limbaugh: On the Radio

Since its Friday, I wanted to take a timeout from the news of the day. I did read a headline about Rush Limbaugh offering to run Facebook after they lost 119 billion in stock value yesterday. Facebook has no value in any real metric. They do nothing and produce nothing. They have no tangible assets, they are vaporware. Facebook exists only on paper. If you liquidated the company, you could only get a few million for real estate and office equipment.

My purpose today is not to bash Facebook, as fun as that may be, but my mind did wander to Rush. I rarely listen to him anymore. I like him and enjoy his program much of the time but work and listening don’t always go together.

I do marvel at the staying power of Rush. He is an American institution. In my lifetime only Paul Harvey approaches him in the field. But Rush is superior. Why? Because Rush does what he does, three hours a day. Paul Harvey did two short broadcasts of less than seven minutes. However, without Paul Harvey, Rush would not be possible.

So what does Rush do? First he is a vociferous reader and he has an eye for reading between the lines. He may not use the word but he understands the worldview of those he disagrees with. This is why he is so often right. He just looks at people and knowing what motivates them he can predict what they will do next. He has both a staff and loyal listeners that funnel information to him to sort thru so he can keep abreast of different events. Importantly, he has a sense of humor and knows how to poke fun at his adversaries. This is all well and good but doesn’t necessarily translate to good radio.

Think about it. What is radio? At its core, radio is a guy sitting in an empty room by himself pretending to be having a conversation with his best friend. This dialogue is broken only by commercials and weather updates. Rush has been doing this three hours a day for about 30 years.

Trust me when I say that normal people can’t do radio. I worked in radio in high school and college. The station where I worked in high school was WDDT—which at the time was running a top-40 rock format. WDDT was a small town dawn to dusk AM station. On Sundays, I had to arrive early in the morning and turn on the transmitter. Then at sunrise I had to change the broadcast power to increase the transmitter footprint for daytime operation. Thus I was running the programming and also the acting broadcast engineer.

The college that I attended for my freshman year owned a 50,000 watt AM station and also an FM one which were both on the west side of campus. The student station was confined to the campus and broadcasted via carrier wave thru the power grid of the school. Yes, reception was thru plugging your radio into the 110 volt wall outlet and then tuning to the correct frequency. (Trivia: You can now use this technique in your house to transmit Internet from one room to another.)

These experiences in radio give me a greater appreciation for how gifted Limbaugh really is. I’ve formally met Rush once. Shortly after he left Sacramento and began his nationwide program, he returned and did a political fundraiser in Sacramento. I paid my $100 and got to meet him at the event. He is not what you would expect. He was shy and uncomfortable in the large group. He impressed me as being an introvert when in the company of strangers. It’s part of the way radio works. You create an on air personality and like an actor playing a part, you cloth yourself with the character and take it off when it’s not needed.

My other claim to fame was that I was officially the only troublemaker to interrupt him during his first Rush to Excellence Tour. If you can find the video tape—I don’t think he ever put these on DVD, Rush is doing a bit on the stage about New York handing out condoms to people to protect them from AIDS. Said Condoms were stapled to an information sheet that was being given to people. Rush was mocking them for putting the staples thru the middle of each and every condom that was being passed out with the promise that their use would result in “safe sex”. During this monologue, I hollered-out the name “Lee Nichols” and Rush lost it and started laughing. After a few seconds he recovered his composure and continued him monologue. As a result of my outburst, I was featured prominently in two subsequent close-ups of the audience.

While the name Lee Nichols probably means nothing to you now, I will explain who he was. Nichols was a professor at Sac State. He left his wife and children to pursue a relationship with a man. Nichols was out of the closet before it was cool. He was very Liberal. He was part of the Lambda Community Center group in Sacramento.

Nichols obituary can be found here

Due to concerns about the FCC Fairness Doctrine, KFBK felt that they needed an afternoon host to counter the conservatism of having Rush on for three hours in the morning so they gave three hours a day in the afternoon to various Liberals. Of these, Lee Nichols was the best foil that they put up.

The reason my Lee Nichols comment was funny was because everybody in the room was thinking it but I was the only one willing to say it out loud and the timing was spot-on.

I’m glad Rush is still around and going strong. Like Trump, I don’t know if he is a Christian but I do know that God is using the man to teardown strongholds of evil and stupidity. Yeah, I guess that means that Rush (and Trump) are doing the Lord’s work.

Disney Fires Guardians’ Gunn: Conservatives Blamed

Ok, class here is an example of pretzel like logic that only Liberals can understand.

First the players:
Walt Disney corp. owns most Marvel Comic properties including Guardians of the Galaxy. James Gunn directed the first two movies and has been working diligently one the third. Per the article that I will get to in a minute, the first two movies took in a box office of 1.6 billion dollars. Disney is buying the 20th Century Fox movie studios for 71 billion dollars.

Rupert Murdock—the seller of 20th Century Fox—also owns Fox News which is not part of the sale to Disney.

With this background, let me try to walk you thru the Bloomberg story Disney Faces a Backlash From Its Stars for Firing ‘Guardians’ Director

Friends and fans of “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn are urging Walt Disney Co. to rehire the filmmaker, a rare moment in an era when bad behavior has gotten some of the biggest names in Hollywood summarily fired.

Actors including Zoe Saldana, Chris Pratt and Selma Blair have tweeted in support of Gunn, who wrote and directed both “Guardians” pictures and was working on a third. Some 228,000 people have signed a Change.org petition asking Disney to bring him back amid concerns that he was targeted by conservatives.

Disney terminated Gunn on July 20 after the right-leaning website Daily Caller published 8-year-old Twitter comments by the director…

There could also be a political element at work. Gunn, like many people in Hollywood, was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, while the Daily Caller is supportive of the president.

Disney is poised to complete the $71 billion acquisition of entertainment assets from 21st Century Fox Inc., whose Chairman Rupert Murdoch has forged close ties with Trump since the 2016 presidential election.

The above quotes appear in the same order as the story. Folks let’s look at their alleged logic.

The authors—yes, it took two people to write this story—state as fact that James Gunn was targeted by conservatives. Why?

Proposition 1 Daily Caller leans right
Proposition 2 Rupert Murdock owns Fox News Network which leans right
Proposition 3 Murdock is friends with Donald Trump
Proposition 4 Disney is buying a movie studio—20th Century Fox from Murdock
Proposition 5 James Gunn is a movie producer, not employed by Murdock
Based on the above, Liberals have concluded

Therefore Donald Trump ordered Rupert Murdock to order Disney to fire James Gunn

Makes total sense to me.

What about the claim that “… a Change.org petition asking Disney to bring him back amid concerns that he was targeted by conservatives.”

Folks here is the petition in its entirety. The petition says nothing about conservatives, politics, Fox, Murdock, Trump, or anybody else.

URL RE-HIRE JAMES GUNN

I’m smart enough to know this most likely won’t change anything but hopefully, this could get Disney to realize the mistake they made and not do it again in the future.

I agree on the point that if people say a bunch of stupid shit while working for a studio, the studio has full right to fire him over the possible controversy. This situation is very different though as he made these jokes years before he was working for Disney and also the fact that they were jokes. I agree with most, including Gunn himself that the jokes were shitty and un-funny but they were still jokes, it wasn’t an opinion or a statement, it was just a bad attempt at being funny.

The other thing is if you do this to Gunn you have to do it for all the other directors who have said some crappy joke sometime in their life, which is all of them, cause I doubt there’s one human on this planet who hasn’t made a shitty joke once or twice in there life.

If Marvel would come to their senses and re-hire Gunn that would be great but if all we can do is have proof by your signatures that Disney made a mistake i would still count that as a win.

Thanks

Chandler Edwards

The gist, as you can see above, is that Gunn said some stupid things but it was years ago, Disney you overreacted, please hire him back. Implied in this petition is the logic is that in this situation, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Oh, please note that the originator of the petition is not from the United States. Chandler Edwards is from the United Kingdom.

Ok, let’s circle back to more stupid stuff in the story. Earlier, I only partially quoted one line above because it deserves separate treatment. Now I’d like to analyze this quote further. Here is the entire paragraph.

Disney terminated Gunn on July 20 after the right-leaning website Daily Caller published 8-year-old Twitter comments by the director that included jokes about the Holocaust, pedophilia, overweight people and violence against women. In tweets last week, Gunn said he had apologized many times for a sense of humor that hurt people.

Please remember that the authors said that conservatives are responsible for firing Gunn. In the article they state that Gunn was fired for “jokes about the Holocaust, pedophilia, overweight people and violence against women.”

Let’s use logic again. Note to self, logic is a devastating weapon when used against stupidity.
Given the above paragraph, conservatives oppose jokes on killing Jews (Holocaust), pedophilia, overweight people, and violence against women (rape). Therefore Gunn had to be fired.

Consequently, Liberals must support said things or why else would politics matter. Applying the logic of the authors we learn that Liberals must support killing Jews (after all they were National Socialists), pedophilia (no dispute they support sexual deviance), overweight people (hosts of The View and Oprah), and violence against women (Harvey Weinstein and most rap music).

Here are a few of the Tweets that Liberals don’t find offensive but apparently conservatives do.

From Daily Caller

After Attacking Conservatives, Disney Filmmaker’s Tweets Reveal Racism, Homophobia And Assault Against Children

The article from Bloomberg stated that the Tweets were 8 years old but by my math 2008 was ten years ago. I guess that neither author of the Disney story ever looked-up the story on Daily Caller they just went on a rant. Lastly, Gunn doesn’t deny that he posted these things just that it should have consequences. After all, Disney hired him after he posted these things not before. Funny that nobody mentions that inconsistency.

What If Trump Picked Judge Judy?

As we await President Trump’s announcement of who he will nominate to the Supreme Court to replace Anthony Kennedy we can’t help but wonder if…

In a move that sent shockwaves thru the Washington Establishment, President Trump today announced that he was nominating Judge Judy to the Supreme Court.

Judge Judy is well known for her blunt and straight forward manner in resolving disagreements between parties. Judy has agreed to be nominated in exchange for two conditions, first, the proceedings of the Court are to be televised on a cable channel with higher ratings than C-Span. Currently AMC network is the leading contender, and their only condition is that Justice Ginsburg appear in the season nine episode of The Walking Dead where Rick Grimes meets his fate.

Rick Grimes meets Justice Ginsburg on TWD

Judy’s other condition is that the Court room be remodeled. She wants to allow natural sunlight into the room and soften the colors of the wood paneling. She also wanted to “add some damn flowers into this place.” Judy is not known for working as part of an ensemble cast but is willing to give it a try. She also is retaining the right to work during her off time on her television show.

Her views on abortion are not well known. The closest anyone has gotten was an exchange she had on her show a few years back.

She asked a young woman, “If you didn’t get knock-up by this scumbag then you wouldn’t be here asking for child support.”

Her response was, “But he said he loved me.”

Judy then retorted, “And you believed him when he said he would leave his wife for you? Grow-up.” Then she turned to the camera and said, “Where the hell do we find these cases? Walmart?”

Judy then ordered the baby to be put up for adoption and the man to get a vasectomy in exchange for not paying 18 years of child support.

Newt Gingrich reportedly likes the pick and said, “Judy is a kindred spirit to President Trump and will reflect the administration’s new tone of calling it like it is. I just hope she doesn’t have a Twitter account.”

Senator Chuck Schumer met with Judge Judy and described the meeting as akin to two New Yorker’s talking baseball over a few beers. “Judy is a spunky lady and would be an interesting addition to the bench.” He then added, “We have wanted the Court televised for years and now that may actually happen. The transparency that would give the Court makes supporting Judge Judy a good move for my fellow Senators.”

California Senator Diane Feinstein was less supportive. “Judge Judy has a track record of supporting adoption so I must question whether she truly supports a woman’s choice.”

Senate leadership has set confirmation hearings to begin after the summer recess when Congress meets after Labor Day.

Ready Player One: Review of the Review

On my recent trip to Ogden, Utah, I treated the family to a trip to the movies to see Ready Player One. We enjoyed the movie but I was curious about how much it deviated from the book because experience has taught me that movie makers take extreme liberties with their depictions of books and other source material.

The basic plot of the movie is that the future is a miserable, dystopian place to live so people spend as much time as they can in a virtual world. You can be anyone or anything in this world. People navigate thru the world as avatars. You can be a Star Wars Storm Trooper, a World of Warcraft character, Iron Man, or anything else. The only stipulation is if you die in the virtual world then you lose all your stuff that you have accumulated and must begin again. The inventor of this virtual world created a treasure quest that if completed would allow the winner to own the virtual world. Think-winner of contest owns Internet and all its content-and you get an idea of the prize.

I often read articles on a website affiliated with the SyFy Channel (formerly SciFi Channel)—even though we are cable cutters and I haven’t watched their programming in many years. This website has changed names several times over the years most recently changing from Blastr.com to SyFy.com. It is owned by NBCUniversal Media, LLC whose parent company is Comcast. So when I read content on this website I know two things, first that the person writing an article is getting paid for their contributions and secondly that they represent the company for which they work—at least to some extent.

I found only one review of the movie on their website. I thought I would be getting a perspective from someone who would critique the movie either in comparison to the book upon which it was based or at least in terms of how well Steven Spielberg did in making the movie.

If someone wanted to be critical of the movie—irrespective of the storyline in the book—they could complain on three points:
• The movie is a typical hero journey movie, average or misfit young person discovers an ability or aptitude as he begins a quest, gets discouraged along the way and overcomes adversity to succeed
• Corporations (and governments) are always the bad guys
• Hero falls in love with girl that doesn’t like him at the beginning but their relationship helps him to prevail

I began reading the review and it was clear that it went off the rails very early and into an alternate reality.

You’ll see He-Man running into battle alongside Catwoman, and Harley Quinn hanging out in a dance club in The Oasis, the virtual world where gamers intermingle. But these aren’t the characters you know and love. Within the movie, these are the chosen avatars of anonymous gamers around the world. Their cameos tell us nothing new about He-Man or Harley, as they are in no way bound to behave as they would in canon.

Why does the reviewer expect avatars to behave as they would “in canon” meaning in comic book character. Which canon is this reviewer talking about? The one where Superman marries Louis Lane or the one where he marries Lana Lang? I found a website listing 18 different women that had a love interest in Superman and this is just one comic book character out of thousands. Thanks to J.J. Abrams, what is canon in Star Wars or Star Trek anymore? It is ludicrous that the reviewer expect that avatars must only behave as they do “in character”.

Reluctantly, the reviewer later concedes:

But its use in Ready Player One doesn’t tell us much about The Oasis, except that someone somewhere likes He-Man.

Yeah, this is why it’s an avatar.

Lest you think this dense person admits that an avatar is an avatar, the author then starts a rant about the Iron Giant. Why, because the Iron Giant shoots a bad guy and that is out of character for him to behave like that. Seriously.

A big element of promoting Ready Player One has been showing its inclusion of the Iron Giant, the beloved robot at the heart of the adored 1999 animated feature. In his own movie, the Iron Giant’s defining moment is when he declares, “I am not a gun.”… He is a hero who refused to be a weapon but still saved the day.

In Ready Player One, the Iron Giant is an avatar of top-notch gamer Aech. Despite the fact that the titular character’s entire arc in The Iron Giant was about how he chose not to be the weapon, Ready Player One only uses him as a giant gun in its climactic battle. Some are already venting their frustrations on Twitter about this misuse of the definitely anti-gun character. But this isn’t even the only assault on Iron Giant fans that this movie has in store. Because when Ready Player One does decide to be true to this character, it’s to kill him.

Ok, so despite admitting that the Iron Giant is an avatar and not the character from the children’s movie, the author of this review has a tantrum about the giant shooting his gun—in self-defense I might add. All I know at this point is how much this person hates the Second Amendment but never worry because she is just getting warmed-up.

Hubris is defined as: excessive pride or self-confidence.
synonyms: arrogance · conceit · conceitedness · haughtiness · pride · vanity · self-importance · self-conceit · pomposity · superciliousness · feeling of superiority · hauteur · uppitiness · big-headedness

Now we get to the real core of the reviewer’s complaints against the movie; she hates it because the movie doesn’t bend over shamelessly to validate her lifestyle. Since when does the rest of the world have an obligation to so?

A more caustic element of Ready Player One is the way it uses allusions as a litmus test of cool. In one scene, Parzival readies for a virtual date with Art3mis, and decides he’ll wear a suit from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. On one level, it’s supposed to show her he’s cool enough to know this cult classic. But, he tells his confidante Aech, it’s also meant to see if Art3mis will get it. What’s implied here: is she a real fan, or some Fake Geek Girl? Of course, Art3mis—the manic pixel dream girl that she is—recognizes it and thinks he’s super cool, because Ready Player One is nothing if not a fantasy for straight-fanboys who dream of hot gamer chicks who’ll get all their references to obscure (or not that obscure) sci-fi. But that’s not the end of this tedious testing thread.

The story of Ready Player One’s hero Wade Watts suggests there is one right way to fan. Notably, the one who figures out this one true path is a straight, white, cisgender fanboy —which suggests that to be a “Real Fan,” you must like things on the terms of dominant (and often exclusionary) fanboy culture. Spielberg could have opened up things if the characters of color or women took a stronger role in the film. But despite the heroics of the other members of the High Five, they are ultimately sidelined as sidekicks to Wade. Alternately, Spielberg could have explored new pathways into the familiar characters he folds in by using familiar avatars to explore elements of fanfiction, a sphere of fandom that’s often more female and LGBTQA+ friendly.

Ready Player One feels like Spielberg dumped out a collective toy box, but wasn’t interested in playing with its incredible contents. It’s a wasted opportunity, and worse yet a lazy exploitation of geek culture that promotes its more toxic elements of sexism, self-righteousness, and fan-versus-fan hostility. What could have been an inclusive celebration is instead determined to divide us.

For those that haven’t seen the movie, it features kids and adults of a variety of races and genders but because the author can find nothing blatantly homosexual promoting in the film, her conclusion is that it is a dud and “wasted opportunity”.

Sorry babe but neither Steven Spielberg nor any of the rest of us need to conform to your views or values. The world at large does not exist to validate your life choices, this is hubris.

Folks if this article had appeared on the Huffington Post or some other website I would just ignore it but since it is on a site paid for by one of the biggest media companies in the world I think it deserves a rebuke.

Ready Player One is a fun romp and great entertainment for the whole family.

Oh, the ridiculous review quoted above can be found here:
Link: How Ready Player One fails geek culture

Stormy, Romance, and Trump

On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes is scheduled to air a segment on Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels.
In it, Trump will be berated for paying women for sex and giving gifts.

Also circulating is this story:

Stormy Daniels’ attorney hinted on Thursday that he may have hard evidence that the adult-film actress had an affair with President Trump…

Link: Stormy Daniels’ lawyer posts photo of mystery disc in a safe

“Hard evidence” in the porn industry? Last I heard, they only cared about one thing being hard but I’ve never heard it described as evidence before.

Stormy is getting all the attention now but waiting in the on deck circle is Karen McDougal. McDougal is a former Playboy model that reportedly had a relationship with Trump in 2006.
Link: Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal says Trump tried to pay her after making love

Folks, for the sake of this post, I will stipulate that Trump did pay women for consensual sexual relations and that there are more women that are less willing to come forward and discuss it.

Who cares? Trump has been married at least twice and constantly surrounds himself with beautiful women. Doesn’t our culture teach us that rich guys do that? Hollywood does it in their movies and in real life. They tell us that is a sign of success. How many movies have you seen where the rich guy—usually a bad guy at that—has a swimming pool full of scantily clad women at his beck and call. We expect James Bond to have at least two women in every movie and in the next flick two more and that is just the way he rolls. They are working on the 27th Bond flick so that is at least 54 women this character has bedded with a slam, bam, thank you ma’am.

Rush Limbaugh, the man who claims that you can trust him in a Motel 6 with your wife and daughter was busted with 29 Viagra pills upon returning from a sex tour in the Dominican Republic.
Link: Rush Limbaugh’s Dominican Stag Party

Folks, rich and powerful men have been behaving like this since we were booted from The Garden.

In my freshman year of college, I remember Denise Macintosh telling me that the only thing more powerful than sex and drugs was Jesus. If you don’t know God, you will fill Pascal’s God shaped vacuum with other things to try to fill the void, folks that have the means often resort to sex and drugs.

So why is this attack on Trump taking place?

First, the Liberals are trying to make a moral equivalence between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

However, the two are not comparable. Trump and Clinton are both unfaithful to their marriage vows but the similarity end there. Clinton is a serial rapist. He often takes who he wants by force. Clinton also preyed on young women. He appears to have trouble reigning-in his appetites.

Second, the Establishment is trying to drive a wedge between Trump and his conservative base.

Much of Trump’s base has been unmoved by the controversies surrounding his administration. This frustrates the hell out of the Liberals and media types. They keep probing for the issue to separate supporters from Trump so they can bury him. Short of impeachment, they would love to make him a one term anomaly so they can get back to business as usual.

Why Trump Attacks Don’t Phase Supporters
Folks, sorry but I’m not buying this attack on Trump. I know he’s no saint (and he doesn’t claim that he is). I do pray for the man and hope that he will find a saving faith in Christ. Flawed as he is, Trump is the last hope for the Republic.

Look at the demographics and trends when he took office, if Trump fails to turn the direction of the country, there will never be another Republican in the White House; ever. The Democrat Party will do for the other 49 states what they are doing here in California. Obama pushed the country to the brink of oblivion and now is the tipping point that will determine if the Republic has a chance of survival. The issues at stake are bigger than any man but as Providence would have it, the burden has fallen on a blue collar guy that has a New York attitude. Mr. Trump, I’m not alone in wishing you Godspeed in your administration.

Talking Meghan and Baptism

This article is an attempt to be serious about a serious subject that happens to be about pop-culture which is hard for me to take seriously. Anyway, here we go…

Apparently English Prince Harry is getting married in May. Harry is the offspring of Charles and Diana. And was born in September 1984. Harry is fifth in line to the throne so his odds of being crowned are about the same as the head of the US Department of Agriculture becoming President after an alien invasion from Mars during a full moon on a leap year.

Harry has a reputation of being a “wild child”. He was drinking and smoking pot at age 17. In 2012, He was photographed naked with a woman in Las Vegas. Note to youth that “what happens in Vegas (or Facebook) doesn’t always stay in Vegas”. Harry “knew” in a biblical sense many women as he sewed his royal oats across the globe. Many young women are sad that Harry is finally “settling down” but most of their fathers are relived.

His soon to be bride is this Meghan Markle lady from here in crazy California. I really love how the Brits worded this: “Miss Markle’s multi-faith upbringing is not uncommon in California where she was born in 1981. ” Harry’s betrothed was previously married and divorced. Below is a timeline of some parts of their lives.

1981 Meghan born.
1984 Harry born.
2001 Harry age 17, raising hell.
2004 Meghan age 23, met future husband, Trevor Engelson.
2005 Harry age 21, he was dating Chelsy Davy.
2009 Harry age 26, broke up with Chelsy.
2011 Meghan age 30, marries Trevor.
2012 Harry age 28, photographed in Las Vegas playing strip billiards.
2012 Harry age 28, in a relationship with Cressida Bonas.
2013 Meghan age 32, and Trevor divorce.
2014 Harry age 30, broke up with Cressida.
2016 Harry age 32, confirms that he is in a relationship with Meghan Markle, age 35.
2017 Harry (age 33) and Meghan, age 35, announce their engagement.
2018 Harry age 33, and Meghan, age 36, wedding scheduled

Sources
Wikipedia: Prince Harry

Meghan Markle has Been Baptized
All quotes in green are from this article

What caught my eye about this whole affair (pardon the pun) was the story about the secret baptism of Meghan by the Arch Bishop of Canterbury.
The reason for the timeline above is to show that there is nothing remotely religious in the lives of either Harry or Meghan. Harry, despite a litany of youthful indiscretions, is going to be married in the church because that is what gentlemen do. The article tries to focus on Meghan but clearly there isn’t much to work with. Here are the quotes that caught my eye. Please note that while all are from the same article, I’m placing them in a different order.

Her father, a retired Hollywood lighting director, was Episcopalian – the main US offshoot of the Anglican Church – while her mother belonged to another Protestant denomination.

After her parents split, Miss Markle attended the Roman Catholic Immaculate Heart girls’ high school in Los Angeles, although she was not Catholic.

Her first husband Trevor Engelson was Jewish but she did not convert to his faith. The couple met in 2004 and married in 2011 but were divorced two years later.

Folks, this is the typical California Liberal family, teach no values to the child and let them decide for themselves when they get older. Guess what, if you raise your child with no religious values then you are evil, if you don’t raise them on the Scriptures you are a fool.

As you read the article, it gives you the reason that Meghan was baptized.

Miss Markle did not need to become an Anglican in order to marry Harry in church, but at the time of their engagement last November she made clear she had chosen to be baptised and confirmed out of respect for the Queen’s role as the head of the Church of England.

This paragraph is such a target rich environment that I could write a book or at least a lengthy tract on it.

Please note that nowhere in this article is Jesus, repentance, belief, gospel, or conversion mentioned. Meghan is being baptized and confirmed out of respect for the Queen’s role as the head of the Church of England.

Meghan, baptism is about a relationship with the King of Kings not your grandmother-in-law. It’s an outward sign of an inward change, one which apparently you have yet to experience.

Also, worth noting is that Harry’s dad, Prince Charles, has stated that he would refuse the traditional title of the English King as “Defender of the Faith”. This is one reason he will never be king. Charles claimed that instead he would be the “Defender of the Faiths”. Chuck’s a pluralistic weenie.

Meghan reminds me of a line from a Steve Camp song from 1988:

We’ve been treating God,
Like He’s happiness for hire,
We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds.

Tuesday’s service observed the full ritual of the Church with holy water from the River Jordan from the private Royal Family font poured on Miss Markle’s head.

I’m not going to comment on the water used for the ceremony being from the Jordan River except to say that this is overindulgence and conveys no merit to the recipient.

Meghan Markle has been baptized into the Church of England in a secret ceremony with Prince Harry at her side.

Juxtapose this with the Bible

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 10: 32

Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:

Luke 12: 8

Meghan my Baptist alarm is screaming in my head when I read stuff like this and I haven’t been a Baptist in over three decades! Baptism is a public profession of faith. I’m not saying that you need to buy time on the BBC and broadcast live from the banks of the Thames but secret ceremony. Bah.

Folks, these guys including the Arch Bishop, are as clueless as the Pharisees were in the time of Christ. Meghan, this article makes you the posterchild of the slogan that Christianity is a relationship not a religion. Your works, upbringing, and marital status don’t save you or anyone else. If your faith and marriage are not built upon Christ, then get out now because you will never be fulfilled apart from Jesus. I hope God does a work in your lives because the deck is really stacked against this marriage lasting.