Hey 3.5 readers.
Did you know that Hitler used to read this blog? I’m not bragging…I mean, you can’t control who your 3.5 readers are. I’m just surprised that at the close of World War II, when the allies were closing in on Berlin, he didn’t have anything to do other than to bitch about how shitty my blog was…is?
I don’t know how he read it in 1945. Time traveling web browser, maybe.
Hey 3.5 readers.
Kodak’s stock tripled today based on news that it is launching a new product, “KodakCoin,” getting in on the cryptocurrency phenomenon.
Gotta be honest, I’m surprised Kodak is still in business. I dabble in the stock market, but I never would have thought to buy shares in Kodak because, I mean, their main claim to fame was built on physical camera film, which is basically like producing Model T fords or dinosaur pants.
Millennials, there was a time when you had to load film into your camera and the little gremlins inside your camera would etch a rough sketch of what you were pointing your camera at. I’m pretty sure how that works.
Amazingly, Kodak remained in business over the years. I believe if you ever go to a store and get physical prints of your digital photos, its usual a Kodak machine, so they showed some conversion to modern tech power. Still, it’s got to be hard on a company when the product they were known for, i.e. Kodak film, becomes obsolete.
Not sure what KodakCoin is but it sounds like they’re devising a way for photographers to get paid when hteir images are used. If you know more about it, tell me and also will you use it?
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
When I was a kid, I made an effort to start an autograph collection. I wrote to celebrities, usually to like the network they worked on, the company they worked for, and wrote polite little letters asking for an autograph.
I got a lot of form letters back telling me politely to pound sand…but I also got…a photo signed by the one and only Stan Lee. (Not gonna lie, I have debated for years whether he signed it or if it was a photo with the signature already printed on it, but either way, it was a better response than what I’d received from anyone else.
It made me happy because I used to watch the “Spider-Man” cartoon on Saturday mornings, narrated in his cool voice.
Sigh. Excelsior, true believers.
He’s denied the accusations through his lawyers. I think I’ll wait and see how the story develops before I say anything.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” put out a new season recently after a six year hiatus. It made me so happy to see Larry David back in action that I ended up watching the whole series, a few episodes a day, for the past month. I’ve seen them all before and remembered the gist of the best ones but it’s been so long it was like watching them all for the first time.
If you’ve never seen it, the quick rundown of the show is that Larry David was the co-creator and producer behind the popular 1990s sitcom Seinfeld. While he only appeared on that show in the occasional bit part, he was largely a behind the scenes man. Fun fact: the character of George Costanza is based on Larry.
On “Curb,” Larry plays a fictional version of himself though I can only assume there is a grain of truth in any form of comedy. As you might recall, George Costanza was a bald loser, fully aware of his unattractiveness and shortcomings, yet often angry over the fact that he couldn’t form a decent relationship with a woman because he’d always freak out over the most trivial of flaws (even though they usually pale in comparison to George’s problems.)
Larry is essentially the same way. For most of the series, he is married to hot, younger wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) who suffers Larry’s douchebaggery with grace and dignity. In later seasons, Larry and Cheryl divorce, though she remains a returning character. Larry dates a variety of hot babes, women so attractive who have so much going for them that you want to shout out that clearly Larry would never be getting them if not for his vast “Seinfeld” fortune and Hollywood connections…and yet he usually screws things up over a trivial flaw. (In one episode, he dates a ridiculously hot restaurant hostess only to ruin it all when she borrows $40 only to forget to pay it back. Before you take Larry’s side, keep in mind that a quick Google search of Larry’s net worth puts it at $900 million so yeah, let the hottie keep the $40 Larry.)
Frankly, I’m impressed by how much money Larry made. The number of people who became near billionaires off of being funny must be few and far between.
My other random observations, in no particular order:
#1 – The first three seasons take place in the early 2000s, the first season in 2000. The experience is surreal. Flip phones. Tube TVs and computer monitors. No GPS. In a first season episode, Larry and Cheryl get lost on the way to a dinner party, with nothing but a friend’s handwritten directions to guide them. Anyone else remember trying to find a place with nothing but a friend’s shitty directions and no GPS, having to drive around, hope to find a landmark, stop for directions and hope to find someone who can help you? If you’ve never done that, you have no idea how lucky we all are to have cell phones that can tell us how to get where we want to go today.
#2 – Larry self-deprecates the crap out of himself. It’s a big man who is willing to make himself look like a schmuck. It would be one thing if Larry called himself a different name, i.e. Gary Schmavid but here, he’s saying this is me, playing myself and I hate to get into his head but I can only assume that somehow he feels comfortable portraying himself as a goofball, a man who constantly bucks societal norms, schemes to get out of social conventions only to make things so much worse.
# 3 – It’s “Seinfeld” with swearing. If you liked “Seinfeld,” and don’t care about swearing, you’ll like this. The characters rarely grow or improve or better themselves. No special episodes where a character gets sick. No morals or lessons. Just humor for humor’s sake. The goal is to make you laugh and nothing more.
#4 – It made me feel bad to see how time screws us all in the looks department. Not to knock Larry but he more or less looks like he does at the beginning as he does 17 years later. Larry is bald with gray side hair for as long as I can remember. He does appear a bit younger looking and more spry in the beginning episodes. He’s early 50s when it starts and 70 now.
Richard Lewis, veteran neurotic comedian of the 1980s, plays himself and appears handsome at the start of the series. Black hair, strong features, looks like he belongs in movies. In later seasons, he looks old, gray, balding and decrepit. Still has his wit but makes me sad what time does to us.
Not dumping on anyone but you can see it in all the recurring characters, how youthful they all long in the earliest seasons.
#5 – So much political incorrectness. Many of the jokes from past seasons would not fly today. The irony is that Larry does and says many shitty things, but if you get offended too early and walk away, you’ll miss the part where Larry gets his comeuppance for saying and doing such shitty things. Never assume Larry gets away with anything. He never does. Cue ending scene where the theme music plays with closeup of his eyes as he realizes how much shittier he just made a shitty situation.
#6 – On the other hand, it’s not always Larry. Sometimes it’s Larry as a victim of circumstance. People are so tied to social norms that a minor deviation makes them go ballistic. He’ll accidentally do or not do something, through no fault of his own, and despite apologies, people will go ape shit on him. Perhaps we can give people a break if they don’t always act 100 percent of the way we want them to.
#7 – Jeff Garland (Larry’s manager Jeff Greene) and Susie Essman (Jeff’s she-devil wife Susie Greene) are great. Susie goes ballistic over the littlest things, though often she sniffs out when Larry and Jeff have joined forces in a joint scheme and exposes them. “Fat fuck” and “bald fuck” or “four eye fuck” are her names of choice for the duo.
#8 – Larry has Peter Pan syndrome. It’s surreal to see a man with gray hair acting like a youngster, but he has so many young-ish habits. Throughout the series, he’ll meet old, gray haired people and talk to them as one would a grandparent and it leaves me wondering if he’s aware that he’s old himself. Then again, he’s got mad cash, so that keeps you young.
Conclusions – It’s an awesome show. If you need something to binge watch, I highly recommend it.
Springtime…for Hitler…in Germany!
BQB here with a review of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.” FYI, there was a 1960s movie that I haven’t seen yet (starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel), a 2005 movie version starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick I did see and of course, a Broadway play I was never lucky enough to see.
In short, this story has been around forever, but if you want to avoid spoilers, then look away.
Mel Brooks is the funniest man in show business and he parodies everything. “Blazing Saddles” was a sendup of Western flicks that were very popular up until like the late 1970s. “Spaceballs” poked fun of “Star Wars” so naturally, when Brooks had the chance to produce a Broadway play, he made fun of Broadway.
Max Bialystock was once, as he song goes, “The King of Old Broadway.” He laments that he used to have the best of everything, but now he’s a bum who hasn’t had a hit in years. The critics rip him apart, pointing out that at the end of his musical version of Hamlet, “everyone is dead and they were the lucky ones.”
Bialystock meets uptight, super anxious accountant Leopold Bloom (Matthew Broderick)who poses a hypothesis, namely, that a producer could make more money with a flop than a hit. In other words, Max has had a long history of swindling little old ladies out of their money, convincing them to invest in his plays that always tank. However, if the show was so awful that it tanked on opening night, he could just walk away with the money.
Uma Thurman rounds out the cast as Ulla, the super hot Swedish babe who just knocks on Bialystock’s door one day, hoping to become a star.
The duo sets out to find the worst play ever written and find “Springtime for Hitler” penned by a Nazi enthusiast (Will Ferrell). The boys hope the play will be so offensive that it will close opening night but alas, when the audience sees a flamboyantly gay Hitler mincing about stage, they take it as a hilarious parody and the show becomes a blockbuster smash.
As Bialystock laments, “Where did we go right?”
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Hey 3.5 readers.
BQB here.
Just a regularly scheduled begging session, asking you, my beloved 3.5 readers, to buy my book, “BQB’s Big Book of Badass Writing Prompts.”
It’s 99 cents. Honestly, other than a trip to the nudey bar, this is the best value you’ll ever get for a dollar.
I mean I don’t want to spell it out, but if you walk up to a nudey bar and wave a single dollar bill around, a stripper will show you her hey-nanner-nanner. At least, they usually do. I can’t guarantee they will.
But you’re upstanding citizens who don’t frequent such terrible places. So check out my fine book. You know you want it.
Movie reviewer on what was supposed to be a book blog, Bookshelf Q. Battler, here.
I love movies and I watched a lot of them in 2017, so without further ado, the Shelfies. Here’s the quick overview, and I’ll try to remember to reblog the reviews I wrote of these films in the coming days.
#1 – BEST FILM – Wonder Woman
It’s the first comic book movie I’ve seen where an Oscar worthy case could be made. Female empowerment though they weren’t preachy about it, blend of historic fiction and fantasy. A good plot that kept the Warner Brothers DC films going even though the others have been stinkers. It doesn’t hurt that images of Gal Gadot can give a man a boner from 50 paces.
RUNNER UP 1 – Logan
It was a year for semi-artistic, plot driven comic book movies. Logan was a good case study on the ravages of time and how getting older can screw the best of us up.
RUNNER UP 2 – Get Out
Interesting, original movie about race relations. Dramas about interracial issues might go a long way to alert the public, but a twisted, half-horror, half-dry/dark/understated humor comedy does a lot more.
#2 – WORST FILM – The Emoji Movie
Attention Hollywood. The “what if inanimate objects could talk?” premise worked with toys in “Toy Story” because kids actually think their toys are alive. It worked with Cars because little boys love cars. No one, and I mean no one, ever gave a shit about what the emojis on their phone might be thinking. Stop. Just stop. Seriously. If you find yourself thinking, “I wonder what X inanimate thing is thinking,” just stop thinking about it because no one cares.
RUNNER UP 1 – The Mummy
I hate to do this, because there were parts of this film I liked, but Universal’s Dark Universe series didn’t get off to a good start. I just don’t think people were longing for the Mummy and the Wolfman and Frankenstein and Dracula to get the band back together. Good writing in this first film might have gotten people to want that, but Universal reached for the immersive cinema world and didn’t really grab the apple. It just doesn’t leave you hoping for a Frankenstein movie where you’d be like, “OMG I hope Tom Cruise makes a cameo.”
RUNNER UP 2 – Transformers: The Last Knight
By God, I have no idea how Michael Bay manages to screw up a series about ten story tall outer space robots who can turn into cars and planes, complete with two warring factions fighting over an ancient grudge but by damn it if Michael Bay doesn’t figure out how to do this each and every time.
Bay’s sweeping disaster movie style was never a good fit for this franchise. Too much focus on the humans. We usually get the humans reacting to all these robots fighting but the robots were always the stars of the 1980s cartoon show. Hate to be one of those nerds who whines about reboots of shows from his childhood, but the next director would be wise to check out the source material.
Seriously. The Decepticons believe they are the master robot race and they have a right to suck all the resources out of Earth for their own personal use. The Autobots believe they serve a higher purpose and must act as Earth’s guardians. Good material for a good story. Next time, let the robots take the wheel and put the humans in the back seat.
#4 – BEST COMEDY – The Hitman’s Bodyguard
Comedy is dead. It’s so dead. Hollywood is so afraid of offending anyone that most comedy films are filled with bland, predictable jokes now. Go see “The House” if you don’t believe me.
Ryan Reynolds and Sam Jackson were funny together. Lots of action. I judge the best comedy by how much I laugh and this gave me the most laughs of the year.
#5 – BEST ANIMATED FILM – Lego Batman
Enough said, really.
#6 – BEST FILM THAT DESERVED MORE PLAY – Wind River
It’s important to know how Native Americans were screwed in the past, but this movie also shows us how Native Americans are getting screwed right now, today, you know, during the time we’re actually living so we might be able to effect change by writing our Congressman or some shit.
YOUR THOUGHTS
I want to hear what you thought about the movies you saw in 2017. Tell me in the comments.
By: Uncle Hardass, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Grumpy Old Man Correspondent
Hello degenerate 3.5 readers. Your old Uncle Hardass here. Happy New Year. None of you have resolved to get jobs, I see. Everyone’s resolved to try even harder to be writers, I take it. “Oh, look at me! Fiddle dee dee! I want to be a writer because my thoughts are so important they must be shared with the world!”
Oh, screw it, write away. See if I care. I don’t want to complain about that. I feel like complaining about cell phones instead, because I’m telling you, the cell phone is truly the worst contraption ever invented. I rue that day that Sir Isaac Cellington figured out how to make them. Screw that guy and the horse he rode in on.
3.5 readers, when I was a kid, if you needed to get in touch with someone when they were not in your presence…well, you basically didn’t. 99% of the shit you had to say to this person could wait until said individual returned home.
For that 1%, you might have to track that person down. So like, if a family member is dying (and only the person can save them), or you just found out a hit man is trying to kill this person imminently, I mean, even then it was considered pretty rude, but you might be able to slide on the etiquette rules and get away with calling the restaurant or the store or the place you thought that person was going to be and asking the employee who answers, “Hey, I need to talk to this schmuck that’s there. He’s tall and has black hair and is kinda ugly and has crooked teeth and dresses like an asshole. Oh, you see him? Great, put him on the phone please.”
So let’s recap. Prior to like, oh, I want to say maybe 2006, if you contacted someone who wasn’t in your general vicinity, the reasons had to be:
That’s literally it. Otherwise, you DID NOT bother people while they were out and about. And honestly, cell phones starting getting pretty popular and affordable by the late 1990s/early 2000s, but even then, most responsible adults used them sparingly. I just had one I kept in my glove compartment in case my car broke down but otherwise I never used it because I never knew anyone whose dying family member I could save within the hour and no one ever tried to be a hit on me. Well, at least no one ever heard of a plot that was going to go down against me within an hour anyway.
Today, it’s all different. Now, everyone has a damn cell phone and my phone is constantly ringing off the hook (phones used to be kept on hooks, 3.5 readers) and there’s no limit, no limit at all as to what people will call you with:
I can’t stand it. I just can’t. You know what? Can we just go back to the early 2000s? I’m going to shut my cell phone off, throw it in the glove box, and then I’ll just have it in the event that I get into an accident. That’s it. Nothing else.
And I know you’ll all be like, “Well, BQB what if someone needs to call you while you’re out?” No, screw that. I’d like to remind you that from the time the phone was invented until like, ten years ago, the only acceptable reasons to call someone while they weren’t home were a) if a family member was going to die within the hour and this person was the only one able to save him/her and/or b) you had credible knowledge that a hit man was hired to murder this person within the hour, ergo the person needed to be warned.
That’s it! Those are the TWO AND ONLY TWO reasons why anyone would ever, EVER need to be called while they aren’t home and I say we should all go back to that.
By the way, did you know that before the invention of the phone, people just…didn’t even talk to people unless they were seeing them face to face? If you needed to tell the person something, you had to either rip a feather off of a duck’s ass and use it as a quill to write a note on a piece of parchment that you’d then give to a neighborhood boy to walk ten miles to deliver the message in exchange for a six pence, or b, if it was really important, you’d rustle up a horse and go tell the person.
Honestly people, before you call me or anyone else, think to yourself, “Is this message so important that if we were in the 1800s, would I steal a fucking horse and gallop thirty miles just to inform the person about it?”
If yes, call away. If no, shut your cake hole and go have a cookie.
Bah! Cell phones are the worst.
Bookshelf Battle 