Monthly Archives: February 2017

Movies

The Continuing Story of Mel Gibson

Yesterday the rather shocking news of Mel Gibson being considered for director of Suicide Squad 2 was released.  Some, like Megan Reynolds at Jezebel.com, reacted…quite negatively:

Great, Mel Gibson is in talks to direct a Suicide Squad sequel

Today comes an article on comicbook.com and written by Jay Jayson notes that Mel Gibson himself has confirmed during a screening of his film Hacksaw Ridge that he was in consideration for the movie’s director.  While Warner Brothers is in contact with other potential directors, Mr. Jayson’s article states that the job is his “if he wants it”:

Mel Gibson confirms he is in talks with WB to direct Suicide Squad 2

Now I’m slowly, inevitably, becoming an old fart.  I know it, my body reminds me of it constantly (damn it!), and the greys in my hair and the wrinkles I see in the mirror reinforce this fact.

I point this out because unlike others, I’m old enough to have lived through Mel Gibson’s entire career arc.

My first big exposure to him was in local theaters via what I consider one of the all time best action films ever made, the 1981 flick The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2)…

So impressed was I with Mel Gibson that I eagerly sought out the first Mad Max film, released in 1979 and found it a great first stab at the world of Max.  I caught him in some other films, most notably the now forgotten Attack Force Z (also released in 1981)…

I point out Attack Force Z because this film was essentially an Australian version of The Dirty Dozen, the film which I strongly suspect was on the mind of John Ostrander, the writer who co-created the modern super-villain version of The Suicide Squad…

Fast forward many years and I watch as Mel Gibson becomes a box office behemoth.  His Lethal Weapon films are incredibly successful while he expands his career between action/adventure films and more “serious” dramatic roles such as those in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Mrs. Soffel (1984) and Hamlet (1990).  Then, in 1993, Mr. Gibson acts in and directs his first film, The Man Without a Face.  While that film isn’t particularly well remembered today, his follow up certainly is, 1995’s Braveheart.

Since then, Mr. Gibson’s directed The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto, and, most recently, Hacksaw Ridge.  While The Passion of the Christ was not without its controversy, almost every one of Mr. Gibson’s directorial films, whether they feature him in the lead role of not, has been met with considerable critical acclaim, even his most recent films.

This despite what is clearly on everyone’s mind when they think of Mr. Gibson: The meltdown he experienced back in 2006.

Let’s be damn blunt here: Mr. Gibson’s actions back then were vile.  While Mr. Gibson has repeatedly apologized for his grotesque behavior and racist rants and noted they were made at a time he abused alcohol and was in the throes of emotional problems, the fact is that when most people today see or hear about Mr. Gibson, that’s what they think about.

So its not all that surprising there’s already a negative reaction to the idea that he might be involved in Suicide Squad 2.

Me?

Perhaps because I’ve followed his career for so long I’m a little more forgiving.

Anyone who’s been around here any length of time knows I enjoyed Batman v Superman.  Suicide Squad, on the other hand, is a much harder film to defend.  From a story standpoint, the film was a complete mess.  What made it tolerable was the fact that it had considerable energy, humor, as well as fun acting by Will Smith and Margot Robbie.

Yet one can’t help but feel this was a missed opportunity.  Looking at The Dirty Dozen (or, indeed, Attack Force Z), there is a way to make a Suicide Squad film that is gripping, humorous, blunt, and, once it finishes, leaves audiences satisfied.

Given Mel Gibson’s career, both as actor and director, I’m inclined to think he easily has the skills to make a Suicide Squad film that works.

The question is whether Warner Brothers can take the critical heat from the public while the film is being worked on…and whether they can do this while allowing Mr. Gibson a free hand at making the type of film he will surely want to make.

Assuming all this is possible and Mr. Gibson releases a *gasp* good Suicide Squad film, is it possible Mr. Gibson, the person, can be redeemed in the eyes of the public?

That most certainly remains to be seen.

General

Oh my…

Its getting really hard not to get political around these parts, as much as I am loathe to do so.

Politics, especially nowadays, are incredibly polarizing and if you’ve followed my writings for any length of time you know where I stand.

Having said that, to those who are on the right, politically, I can’t help but wonder when you look at all the news floating out there about President Trump and, especially of late the resignation/firing of General Flynn and the hints at collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s people, does it not at least make you a little queasy?

Just a little bit?

I mean, its been roughly three weeks since Donald Trump has become President and the news cycles have been filled with mostly bad, worse, and terrible news regarding his Presidency.

Going back to General Flynn, this is the sort of thing he did back on the campaign trail…

I especially love the very first words he utters in the clip above:

We do not need a reckless President who believes she is above the law.

Wow.

Projection much?

I may have noted this before, but in my other life, I studied Psychology and one of the most interesting “defense” mechanism I encountered was that of Projection.

In a nutshell, Projection is used by people to defend themselves “against their own unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.”

So therefore when General Flynn talks about a “reckless” President who believes herself “above the law” and then looks at what Mr. Trump has done in the past three weeks, can we not agree at the very least it has been reckless and there has been a disregard for the law (“So-called judges”)?

This isn’t unique in General Flynn.

Donald Trump often used this, insulting others with phrases that seemed more apropo to himself.

We’re only three weeks in, folks, and with General Flynn’s resignation/firing for having talked to the Russians before the actual election and then lying about having done so the media and members in Congress are beginning to wonder the exact extent of Mr. Trump’s relationship with Putin and the Russian power base.

Perhaps the biggest unanswered question, and a frightening one it is, is this: Did Donald Trump and his staff know that Russia was trying to sabotage Mrs. Clinton’s campaign by hacking her people’s computers and then releasing the information to the media?  Did he not only agree to this but encourage it?

And if that’s the case, what does it say about our media when there were hints about this already there, during the election, and no one seems to have taken them seriously until now?

Frightening, frightening stuff.

General

Well that’s interesting…

If you spend any amount of time on Reddit, you may find interesting stories like this one:

Man escapes African desert doom by turning wrecked car into DIY motorcycle

The above article, written by Meghan Neal and found on nydailynews.com, concerns Emile Leray, a Frenchman who found himself driving in a restricted area of Africa and twenty miles from the nearest village when he wrecked his car.

As the title of the article states, he then turned the wrecked car, a Citroen, into a motorcycle and used that to get himself to safety.

Granted I’ve spoiled most of the above article but you should give it a look-see for the various details.  I’ll spoil the article a little bit more and offer the following photograph, which shows the DIY motorcycle Mr. Leray made from his wrecked car:

MOTORBIKE4N_2_WEB

Movies

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) a (just about right on time) review

When I first heard about 2014’s The LEGO Movie, I shook my head and arrogantly thought: This sounds like childish trash.

Then the movie was about to be released and I was incredibly surprised to find critics nearly unanimously loved the film.  (At this point in time, the movie has a 96% positive among critics and an equally impressive 87% positive among audiences over at Rottentomatoes.com)

Yet I didn’t see the film when it was released.

A few months later, it so happened the family and I were (don’t be jealous) vacationing in England and on the very long flight over there I checked out the films available for me to see and one of them was The LEGO Movie.  I decided to give it a try because, frankly, I was curious why the critics so liked it.  I still couldn’t believe it could be any good, yet I gave it a try and…

…I was smitten.

The film was incredibly creative, original, and hilarious.

One of the best things about the film was the way it incorporated so many characters into the story.  Characters like, you guessed it, Batman.

In fact, its safe to say that of all the special guest stars within The LEGO Movie Batman was the most consistently amusing, which is why it isn’t too big of a surprise that the studios realized they had a damn good thing on their hands and green lit, and this past weekend released, The LEGO Batman Movie (I’ll refer to it as TLBM from now on).

Here’s a “Behind the Bricks” featurette:

Once again featuring Will Arnett voicing Batman, TLBM also features a host of other well known actors voicing other characters.  There’s Michael Cera as Robin/Dick Grayson, Rosario Dawson as Barbara Gordon, Zach Galifianakis as The Joker, and Ralph Fiennes as Voldemor—no, he played Alfred (why exactly didn’t he voice Voldemort, whom he played in the Harry Potter films?!  Oh, they got Eddie Izzard to do that!).

The big question is: How does TLBM compare to The Lego Movie?  Is it on the same level?  Is it as good, as creative?

Sadly, the answer is no.

That’s not to say TLBM is a bust.  Far from it.

The movie’s first half, in particular, is incredibly amusing and often laugh out loud funny.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the line this film, at least to me, lost its momentum and, while its second half wasn’t bad, neither was it quite as sharp and amusing as that first half.

Please don’t misunderstand me: TLBM is a damn good film and easily recommended to not just those who like the LEGO world but to anyone who wants to see a good comedy (it helps if you have a geek’s awareness of many of Batman’s iterations, too, especially the Batman TV show of the 1960’s).  Just don’t expect the sustained highs of The Lego Movie.

Recommended but with that one little caveat.  (BTW, and without spoiling too much, the absolute best joke comes at Marvel’s expense.  Loved it.)

Music

2017 Grammy Awards…

Watched only a few minutes of it (obligatory “I’m really out of synch with today’s music, etc. etc. grumble grumble get off my lawn) but afterwards read how the late David Bowie won every Grammy his last album released a mere two days before his passing, Blackstar, was nominated for (the below link is for the article found on Slate.com and was written by Matthew Dessem)…

Even Death Couldn’t Stop David Bowie From Sweeping His Grammy Categories

While astonishing to find Mr. Bowie’s final album won all five Grammys it was nominated for (Best Alternative Music Album; Best Rock Performance; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Rock Song; and Best Recording Package), it was disheartening to read in the very same article the following, the very first lines in this article:

Over the course of his decades-long career, David Bowie earned critical and popular acclaim for his extraordinary songwriting, singing, and performance. What he didn’t earn was a Grammy—at least not for his music. (He won in 1985 for Best Video, Short Form, and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2006.)

He previously won Grammys for Best Video?!  In 2006 he received a “lifetime” achievement?

Yet not one of his albums, many of which are stone cold classics, merited any Grammy love until now?

Mr. Bowie, of course, isn’t unique in the entertainment field with respect to getting respect.  A couple of days ago I found a short interview on the Guardian with Mel Brooks (you can read it here) and he noted this regarding Alfred Hitchcock…

In his opinion, Hitchcock is “the greatest director ever. The stories, the way he set up shots, everything.” Yet Hitchcock never got the respect he deserved. “In France they worshipped Hitchcock,” Brooks says. “But as he once told me, ‘In England and America they view me as an entertainer.’”

While Mr. Hitchcock was nominated for “Best Director” for five of his films (Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho), his only Oscar, kinda/sorta like what Mr. Bowie received, was the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial given in 1968 for “Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.”

Like Mr. Bowie (until this Grammys, of course), he was awarded for his body of work yet was never given an award for his individual works

Mr. Brooks goes on to talk about how good actor Gene Hackman was in his hilarious cameo role in the movie Young Frankenstein and why he didn’t do more comedies.  Mr. Brooks talked about how hard it is, as an entertainer, to pull yourself out of audience expectations:

So why didn’t Hackman make more comedies? “…it’s all baggage. Once they (Hollywood) see what you can do, that’s all that they’ll let you do. I could produce The Elephant Man as part of Brooksfilms. But Mel Brooks couldn’t direct The Elephant Man. I had baggage.”

Its worth mentioning, as if the above should clear any doubt, that Mr. Brooks loves film and, while primarily known as a comedy writer/director/actor, he has produced some very serious films yet is forced, because of his name and, as he puts it, the “baggage” attached to it, to hide his involvement in more “serious” works because of fears audiences will think its a comedy or at the least couldn’t possibly be serious.

Mr. Bowie, during the first decade of his career, was a trailblazer.  He flaunted his sexuality (and possible homosexuality/bisexuality) when just about no one dared do so.  But while the images he projected were daring, his music was, IMHO, incredible.  Especially for those times, he was a controversial figure and I can’t help but think because he was so “out there” in his looks and stage presence that staid organizations like the Grammys perhaps didn’t dare take note of him.

In doing a Google search of David Bowie nominations for Grammys, it was even more shocking to find the following:  Mr. Bowie had a total of 19 Grammy nominations, the first three of which came for his 1984 album, and two songs on, Let’s Dance!

So, get this: Mr. Bowie’s first nominations to the Grammys happened to be for what was arguably his most audience friendly (some say it was his first “sell out”) album.

Think about it.  Until Let’s Dance, the Grammys never thought him worthy of nomination for his glam rock years (The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs), his venture into soul (Young Americans), his incredible -though drug fueled- album Station to Station, his highly rated “Berlin Trilogy” (Low, Heroes, and Lodger), and the early new wave Scary Monsters.

While The Man Who Sold The World was all but ignored by audiences and critics alike upon its initial release (though it gained much more love since), all ten of the albums following that one were critically and, for most, commercial hits.  There is a wealth of great music in all those albums and, while not denigrating Let’s Dance (I happen to love the album even thought others do believe Mr. Bowie was selling out), it is astonishing that each and every one of those albums didn’t merit any Grammy love.

Ah well.

I suppose its better late than never and I suppose it helps to die just days after releasing your last (and, again, critically lauded) album.

TV

Legion (2017) pilot, a quick review

Is actor Dan Stevens a chameleon or what?

My first big exposure to him was in Downton Abbey though this was far from his first screen appearance.  Then, when watching the 2014 film The Guest, I just knew I recognized the actor who played “David”, the mysterious homicidal killer.  It was, of course, Mr. Stevens, this time very buff compared to his more doughy look in Downton.

Well, he’s about to appear in the Emma Watson starring Beauty and the Beast (and he plays the Beast!) but, in the meantime, we have the premiere, yesterday, of Legion, an FX series with ancillary ties to the famous X-Men universe wherein Mr. Stevens plays the show’s primary role, that of the mutant David Haller.

Once again Mr. Stevens disappears into the role.  Unlike both Downtown or The Guest, here Mr. Stevens looks, dare I say it, scrawny and his character has great difficulties dealing with reality.  His telekinetic mutant powers, however, may well be among the strongest in this show’s universe, and that makes him a target of at least two rival forces.

I enjoyed Legion, though the first half of the premiere episode, IMHO, was much worse than the second half.  There was a little too much crazy in that first half but once the plot started to reveal itself the show became very intriguing.

Having said that, what’s also intriguing, at least to me, is the influence David Cronenberg’s early films, particularly his 1981 film Scanners, continues to exert.  The fact of the matter is that one could almost view Legion as a modernized update of Scanners, complete with telekinetic mutants and shady government forces try to control them…

Granted, the X-Men comic books came before Scanners, first appearing waaaaay back in 1963.  However, it wasn’t until around the time Scanners first appeared (a little earlier, granted) that they became very popular.

Was Cronenberg influenced by older X-Men and then the newer, more popular X-Men were influenced by Cronenberg?

The timing is curious, to say the least.

Anyway, Legion’s premiere was intriguing and, at times, quite humorous.  Kudos to Aubrey Plaza for playing one of the inmates in the mental ward who has the ear of David.  The third biggest character in the premiere is Rachel Keller’s Syd Barrett (her name being an obvious nod to one of Pink Floyd’s founders who dropped out of the band after he had mental issues…and was a great source of inspiration to the band during their golden years).  Ms. Keller has an intriguing screen presence and I’m curious what we’ll learn regarding her character.

I don’t know how close Legion is to the various X-Men related comics out there.  Frankly, I’ve never followed them all that closely though I have read some of the “classic” stories, including all the Neal Adams illustrated issues as well as most of the Claremont/Byrne issues, which included the famous Dark Phoenix and Days of Futurepast storylines.

If you haven’t done so already, give Legion a try.  If you’re anything at all like me, the first thirty or so minutes of the premiere might try your patience but stick with it.  Things come together quite nicely by the end.

Movies

The Beguiled remake has a trailer!

A while back, at the end of last March, I wrote about how director Sofia Coppola was remaking the Clint Eastwood starring, Don Siegel directed 1971 film The Beguiled.  (You can read that original article here)

Those who know absolutely nothing at all about this film, quite understandable as I freely admit it isn’t one of Mr. Eastwood’s best remembered works, nonetheless are missing out on what is probably the weirdest film Mr. Eastwood ever made post stardom.

The Beguiled tells the story of John McBurney, an injured Yankee soldier during the Civil War, who is found by a Southern girl’s school and nursed back to health…and the sexual tensions/games played between this officer and the women around him.

This is a dark, dark, dark erotic fable which, because of the presence of Mr. Eastwood in this Civil War setting, plays on your and subverts your expectations (by this time Mr. Eastwood was very well known for his westerns, including the justifiably famous The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a film which took place at roughly the same period of time).

In my original posting I noted Mr. Eastwood essentially was a “bad guy” in the film…or at least that’s what he ended up being in the end.  However, to ascribe “good” and “bad” labels to characters in this film, in retrospect, is probably counterproductive.

This film goes beyond regular movie tropes and delivers a story which, it can be argued, is quite original and not easy to categorize.

Anyway, last March we got the news of Sofia Coppola doing a remake of the film and that it would star Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning.  There was no word on who would play Mr. Eastwood’s role, at least at that time.

Now, with the release of the remake film’s trailer, we know: Its Colin Farrell…

I…I dunno.

I don’t dislike the casting of Mr. Farrell and certainly have nothing against him…

…but…

The original film benefited immensely from the casting of Clint Eastwood.  Putting such a screen icon (he was most certainly there at that point) and having him play a character with such nuance was an incredibly risky move, one that I felt paid off very well.

So risky was the move that it should not be surprising to learn the original film was a box office failure.  That same year, 1971, it is worth noting Mr. Eastwood and Siegel would also collaborate on and release Dirty Harry.

I suppose I’m willing to give the remake a try.  I just don’t know if it can hold a place next to the so damn dark original.

Here’s a trailer for the original film.  It sucks.

Clearly the studios had no freaking idea what they had with the original film and didn’t have a clue how to market it.  Still, the film is worth a look see, especially if you are a fan of Clint Eastwood’s acting.

General

Universal Basic Income

Getting political again…so beware!

In these modern times, automation and computerization have the capacity to, let’s be frank, decimate many “human” jobs.  I’ve noted before my strong belief that automated vehicles will become the norm in the next few years and that some children living today may never have to learn to drive because it will be unnecessary.

As pleasant as the idea of having a self-driving vehicle is, there is of course a negative downside: Suddenly all jobs involving driving vehicles are in jeopardy.

All of them.

If/when self-driving technology becomes a reality, consider all the changes that will inevitably follow.  For one, I can envision large cities having a fleet of self-driving public use vehicles that anybody can summon and pay for, for much less than a taxi, with an app on their phone.  The vehicle comes to pick you up, takes you to where you want to go, then you’re there doing your thing and when you’re done, you whip out your cellphone and call a driverless car to come pick you up and take you back home.

Now consider who is affected by this.

First, taxi drivers.  Public transport drivers.  Car salesmen/dealerships.  Car companies.  Insurance companies.  Gas/chargin stations.  Mechanics.

Why the last three?

Because if you have an efficient fleet of self-driving cars, you don’t need to have a car yourself.  If you don’t need to have a car, there is less and less need for car dealerships and the employees within.  Also, car companies may downsize to make these public car fleets which, of course, will affect mechanics (no need to take in a car you don’t own to a repair shop), and gas/charging stations (you won’t be needing to do anything with these public cars…that will be taken care of by the fleet operations).  Finally, there is no need for you to bother with a car insurance as, duh, you have no car.

Needless to say, I’ve pointed out a rather HUGE number of jobs people currently have which may, in a matter of a single generation, go away.

Worse, this is but one of the things which may well change thanks to computerization and modern technology.

Which brings us to the topic headlined above: Universal Basic Incomes.

The idea being that people receive a “basic” income which will allow them to live outside of poverty.  This income will, hopefully, allow people impacted by modern technology to be able to live outside of complete poverty.

There are certainly positives to implementing programs like this, some of which are listed here:

Universal Basic Income Pilot Programs

There are, of course, negatives as well.  The idea of “giving” people money, even if it is out of the most basic decency to not allow people to starve, is unnerving to many who espouse capitalistic ideology.

In some ways it lies at the heart of the critiques of communism.  If everyone “shares” all the rewards for communal work, then what’s the incentive to make innovative products?  Indeed, what’s the incentive to do anything great at all?

On the other hand and as mentioned above, there are reasons, especially with today’s job sapping technologies, to consider this more than perhaps it was done before.

After all, do we really want to have a small group of “haves” and a very large group of people who, through no fault of their own, can no longer find a way to support themselves given their skill levels?

It’s a knotty question and I don’t have an answer to it.  However, as an author whose books are primarily in the science fiction field, this intrigues the hell out of me and makes me wonder where our future lies.

Fascinating stuff.

Sports, TV

So…anything big happened this past weekend?

You know, I’ve been away these past three days and it feels like I’ve missed just about everything that happened this busy weekend.

What, you say Saturday Night Live had a Trump related skit that was hilarious but didn’t feature Alec Baldwin as President Trump?!  Come on, man, that’s not possi–

Oh my.  That is hilarious.  So funny that I’m sure if there was an Alec Baldwin President Trump skit, it must not have been that goo–

I stand corrected.  Keep it up guys and gals.

******

On Sunday we had this little sport event over here on our side of the pond (and within the borders of our country) which we call the Super Bowl.  It featured the surprising Atlanta Falcons, whom pretty much everyone hoped would win, against the (boo!  hiss!) New England Patriots.

I’ve mentioned it before but when I was young, I didn’t really care to watch sports.  It was really boring to me.  Sometime shortly after starting my first year in a University, I slowly began to appreciate sports.  Eventually, I became a sports fanatic, though my interests are most certainly local.

I’ve mentioned before how I saw, on TV, almost every single game played by the then Florida Marlins (They’re now called the Miami Marlins) back in 1997 for what turned out to be their first Championship series.  There was no way going into the season to think they’d make it to the playoffs, much less with the Championship, yet they did and I’ll be damned if I missed even five games of that season, so devoted was I to watching.

By that point, however, I watched the Florida Panthers, I watched the Miami Heat.  And of course I watched the Miami Dolphins, my gateway drug team.

You would think after such a magical year of viewership, culminating in “my” team getting the ultimate prize, I’d become a full-fledged MEGA-fan.

This was not to be.

While I had great fun watching “my” team through that year, after the glow of the ultimate win faded away, I thought back to all those hours I spent watching the games and realized how incredibly lucky I was to see a season end this year…and how very, very, very unlikely it was I’d have that chance again.

I also did the math and realized I had spent and awful lot of hours watching sports when I could have been doing something else.

You know, like writing.

So I dialed it all back.  Waaaaaay back.

I still like catching a game here and there, though I’ve for the most part given up completely on Hockey and Baseball.  Yeah, I may be a “fair weather” fan, I suppose, as both our Hockey and Baseball teams have seen better days.  I barely catch Miami Heat games nowadays and, again, that could be a sign of my fair weather nature.

Yet I do catch the Miami Dolphin games and, of all sports, Football seems to be the one I stick with the most.

Part of the reason is that it doesn’t require quite as big a time investment as the other sports.  A Football season lasts 17 weeks and each team plays 16 games (each team has a 1 week “bye”).  In theory and if you make it to the playoffs, you may have another 2-3 games to play before its all over, depending on your rankings going into the post season.

Getting back to this Super Bowl, it featured the greatest comeback by a “down” team to win.  Of course, that team was the (boo! hiss!) New England Patriots and this article by Drew Magary pretty much explains why…

No One Is Happy For The Patriots

It encapsulates my feelings as well.  You can be a good team, hell, you can be the BEST team ever with the best Quarterback ever and the best Coach ever, and still be reviled for what’s been found out about you.  Specifically, your history of cheating.  Or, to be more clear, of being caught cheating.

Still, since I’ve become less of a sports fanatic than before (trust me, it is true), I’ve come to the realization that there’s no reason to get so damn emotionally invested in these games.

Sure, I’d love my Dolphins to rise up from the pit they’ve been in for far too many years and finally return to the glory they once possessed, but let’s face it: The Dolphins, and indeed every team in the NFL, is part of a business organization that looks out for their bottom line.  They all have high paid athletes whose emotional investment in the games they play is far above and beyond any fans’ investment as they are, you know, actually playing the games.

Further, sports is one of the most cut-throat goal oriented businesses out there.  You’re either good or not and the proof is spelled out by the score at the end of the game and your record at the end of the season.

The Patriots are good.  My Dolphins, not so much (though after this past year, there’s some hope!).

Though there is no love for the Patriots in me, I caught this article over at Huffington Post and even those most repulsed-by-the-Patriots, those who think Tom Brady should take a long walk on the proverbial short pier, should read this:

Tom Brady’s Mom Has Been Quietly Undergoing Chemo Therapy This Entire Season

I don’t know about you, but if there’s one pleasant thing to glean from the Patriots’ latest Super Bowl win is the thought that it gave Galynn Brady, Tom Brady’s mother, a reason to smile.

Even the most cold-hearted anti-Patriot fan should take a look at this photograph and recognize that it, if nothing else, is reason to be, if not happy for the Patriots, at least feel happy for Galynn.

My best wishes to you.

General

Better to laugh than cry…

Gettin’ political again, so for those who are faint of heart, look away!

To the rest: So yesterday Kellyanne Conway, President (wow that’s hard to write) Trump’s campaign adviser was interviewed by Chris Matthews and said the following (the clip I’m including does a good job at pointing out the *ahem* inaccuracies in her statement)…

To quote Ms. Conway: “Masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre”.

Which, of course, set off a hilarious twitter reaction, many of the responses which can be found here:

Kellyane Conway literally fabricated a massacre to Justify Trump’s Immigration Ban

To all the twitter writers posted in the above article, my hats off to you.  You’re creative, ingenious, and, especially, hilarious.

It’s so hard to point out any one twitter reaction as the best of the lot so you’ll have to trust me: They’ll all worth checking out.

Do so, now!  That’s an order, son!