Hurricane Florence News Coverage

BQB: Hello, welcome to the BQB Network’s hurricane news coverage.  First, because everyone at home is too dumb to imagine what heavy winds and rain look like, here’s some asshole reporter we lashed to a post in the middle of the storm.  Asshole reporter, are you there?

ASSHOLE REPORTER LASHED TO A POST: I’m here, BQB!  Boy, this hurricane sure does suck big hairy donkey balls!  As you can see, the water is rising, rising, rising but I’m at the top of this post so I should be fine for awhile and…aw shit, the water’s at my waist, isn’t it?

BQB: You’ll be fine, Asshole Reporter.  Moving on, here’s an interview with Some Dipshit Who Didn’t Listen to the Evacuation Order.

SOME DIPSHIT WHO DIDN’T LISTEN TO THE EVACUATION ORDER: Boy howdy, them government boys told me I got to leave but I said, no sirree, bob.  I am staying put in this house because my great-grandpappy built this house with his bare hands and also I will be damned if I will allow looters to abscond with my precious collection of potato chips that bear a striking resemblance to Harry S. Truman.  But I do thank the 50 emergency rescue team members who risked their lives to save me once the water got so high that I had to tap dance on top of my roof with my dog under my arm.

BQB: And here’s some Bubba who, well, we’re not making fun of him.  I mean, it sounds like we are but he’s cool so we won’t.

BUBBA: My name is Bubba Bosephus Jones and I am from Kentucky and I done come here on my own accord so I could assist authorities in saving folks with my own rowboat and I done already saved 78 old ladies, 4 cats, 3 dogs and 1 hamster.

BQB: It’s like, I want to make fun of you, because the idea of volunteering to go to help people in a disaster is silly to me, but then when I say it out loud, I realize that you’re the good person and I’m the asshole.  Anyway, let’s talk a Democrat to see the political fall out of the storm.

DEMOCRAT: Trump is a demon warlock who causes hurricanes!

BQB: And the president had this to say.

TRUMP:  I will knock out the hurricane with my own penis.  That’s right, people.  My dong is so huge that it can knock out bad weather, believe me.  The fake news media will tell you that it can’t but it totally can, believe me.

 

 

 

 

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Movie Review – White Boy Rick (2018)

Hey 3.5 readers.  Do me a favor.  If any of you are in Detroit, MOVE ok?

BQB here with a review of “White Boy Rick.”

Based on a true story, it’s the 1980s and Rick Wershe Sr. (Matthew McConaughey) is a small time gun runner, doing illicit arms sales on the sly in the hopes of raising enough money to pull his family out of poverty.  His wife has left him.  His son, Rick Jr. (Richie Merritt) is going nowhere and his daughter, Dawn (Bel Powley) is a junkie.  Oh, and his parents (Piper Laurie and Bruce Dern) live next door and pull no punches in letting Rick know how disappointed they are in him.

Blah, blah, blah, I won’t give away too much but suffice to say that Rick Sr.’s petty dabbling in crooked schemes gives his 15 year old son a taste for the criminal underworld.  Alas, Rick Jr. is a better crook than his old man ever could be and is quickly welcomed into a black gang who affectionately dub their new recruit as “White Boy Rick.”

Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Chaos ensues.  The FBI (Jennifer Jason Leigh in a potential comeback role) sets up Rick with the “product” he needs to get in deep and become a major player, allowing him to keep his profits while he informs on kingpins.

After awhile, it all gets confusing and it is hard to keep track of who is playing who.  Rick Jr. is portrayed well by Merritt, who plays the character as a dope who doesn’t really understand the gravity of the situation he’s in and sort of just lucks his way into a life of crime, “luck” being a dubious word as the money is nice for awhile until the luck runs out and the shit hits the fan as it always does.

McConaughey turns in a great performance as Rick Sr. who truly loves his kids but…maybe it’s out of desperation, maybe out of stupidity, maybe out of a need to be somebody, goes along with Rick Jr.’s schemes and is tortured as to what is right and wrong.  Is it right to stand by while his son gets deeper into a life of crime?  Is it right to try to make him stop when all he has to offer is a life of poverty?

SPOILER: There’s a scene where Matthew really exercises his acting chops, caring for his daughter while she’s coming down off of drugs.  She screams at him.  Curses him.  Fights him.  Pukes all over.  Matthew just takes it with the face of a father showing his kid unconditional love.  Now that’s acting.

I have mixed feelings because while Rick Sr. and Jr. are portrayed as poor folk who fall prey to lack of economic opportunity, desperation to get ahead, and being duped by the criminal justice system.  In many ways I feel for them because yeah, holy shit, it’s tough out there and perhaps Rick got a raw deal given that, according to this movie, the Feds basically pushed the kid into a life of crime and if they hadn’t he probably would have just been a regular poor teen staring at the ceiling of his bedroom.

On the other hand, you know, they did sell guns and drugs and in doing so most likely got a lot of people hurt…I don’t know.  It’s not up to me to moralize.  Overall, a good film, good story….interesting subtext that White Boy Rick is instantly taken in not just by a black gang, loved and treated as one of their.  Not exactly sure this was Dr. King’s dream when he said he wanted black and white people to come together in peace and harmony but hey, it’s a movie.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.  Didn’t really get what Rick’s stoner accent was all about.  Possible Oscar bait.  Matthew’s already got one but he really brought the “I just don’t want my kids to think I’m a loser dad anymore” game.  Bruce has got one too and although he’s not in it for long, he does steal a few scenes as the irate grampa trying to teach his son and grandson a thing or two.

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The Last Driver Garage!

Hey 3.5 readers.

You didn’t get to be this site’s first 3.5 readers. That’s fine.  Few recognize genius in its early stages.

Toilet Gator: The Blog! already has 3 readers.  It’s not too late to become the .5th reader of that fine site.

Meanwhile, check out The Last Driver Garage

You can be the first 3.5 readers of that site.  It’s to promote my upcoming serial.  For the near future, I don’t expect to do much on either of the new blogs, but I think it will be good to establish a little web presence.

Toilet Gator: The Blog!

You probably missed out on the chance to become the first followers of bookshelfbattle.com

That’s on you.  You’ll never get over that epic fail.  I understand.

Don’t make the same mistake twice.  Be among the first to follow Toilet Gator: The Blog!

Burt Reynolds Retrospective

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“What I wouldn’t have given to smell his finger.” – Noted Blogger Bookshelf Q. Battler on the crushing loss of the notorious ladies’ man, Burt Reynolds.

Hey 3.5 readers.

As all 3.5 of you know, I am in a funk most of the time.  But one of the things that legitimately has me bummed lately is the death of noted tough guy actor and legendary poonsmith Burt Reynolds, tragically dead too young at the age of 81.  Oh, what more great movies he could have made.  Oh, what more foxy ladies he could have pleasured.  Why God, why?  Surely he deserved to live to be 100.

Now, I don’t know the exact figures, but here are some rough estimates of some BR related figures:

Number of Ladies He Pleasured: 9,091 (that’s just with his mustache when he gave free stache rides.  Most mathematicians are in agreement that the amount of vag he got busy with is incalculable by modern metrics.)

Number of Honest to God Legit Roles That Could Have Gotten Him An Oscar That He Turned Down to Do More Car Race Movies – 10,025.  Well, probably not that many.  OK, that’s a little high.  I only know of one.  He turned down the Jack Nicholson role to do “Stroker Ace” about a NASCAR driver and Jack went on to win the Oscar but damn it, Burt loved him some car chase movies.

Number of Car Chase Movies He Made – Roughly 40 million.

Anyway, like most artists, you don’t realize what you had until it’s gone and damn it, Burt was a macho, manly son of a bitch that you just don’t see around anymore, thank you, feminists.  Thanks a lot.  Shit. I’m going to grow out a feather duster on my lip right now in protest of Amazonian masterhood.

Whenever I get a chance, I’m going to wow you with some Burt posts and when I have some free time to relax, I’m going to watch some of Burt’s greatest hits and review them for you, because, and listen men, I really men this, we have got to get our balls out of the mason jars that the womenfolk have put them in and be manly men again.

Do you have a favorite Burt movie?  Discuss in the comments.

PHOTO CREDIT: Alan Light, used via Creative Commons.

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BQB’s Classic Movie Reviews – Groundhog Day (1993)

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Have you ever experienced deja vu, 3.5 readers?

Oh, and by the way, have you ever experienced deja vu?

BQB here with a review of the classic comedy, “Groundhog Day.”  SPOILERS ABOUND.

Bill Murray plays Phil, an arrogant, self-absorbed Pittsburg weatherman who can’t contain his disdain for local television, phoning it in until, he hopes, a job at a national channel will save him.  He openly mocks his job, his life, and all around him, never taking a moment to appreciate what he does have.

On one fateful day, Phil is assigned to cover the Punxatawney Phil ceremony, where a groundhog is pulled out of its hole and according to legend, if it sees its shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter.  This is the ultimate contemptible assignment for Weatherman Phil, who despises the idea of thousands of yokels dancing around in the cold to see a rat get yanked out of a cave.

Accompanying Phil are his goofy cameraman, Chris Elliot, and his producer/love interest, Andie MacDowell, a perpetually happy woman who always sees the bright side in everything, truly Phil’s foil.

Phil can’t wait to get out of this hick town but alas, every day he wakes up and it is Groundhog Day over and over and over again.  Why?  It’s never explained.  He’s just stuck in an infinite loop, destined to live the same day for eternity.

How many Groundhog days does Phil experience?  One can never be sure, but it has got to be in the thousands at least.  This is truly an experimental film that was ahead of its time as the timeline is manipulated to comedic effect.

Phil’s reaction to his plight ranges from depression (he kills himself repeatedly only to wake up safe and sound with Sonny and Cher on the radio again and again), to greed (robbing an armored car without consequence) to lust (he questions babes about the most intimate details of their lives, then meets them fresh the next day and presents their interests as his, making them believe they’ve found their soul mate so they’ll offer instant nookie.)

Are there any lessons to be learned?  Yes.  When you are stuck in a rut, you have to do a lot of work to dig yourself out of that hole.  Phil lives the same day over and over, really, for years.  He makes mistakes.  He learns lessons.  Ultimately, when he uses his repeated day to better himself (take piano lessons) and to be kind to others (he starts spending his days finding out about the townsfolk’s problems) he finally lives one great, amazing day, spent helping the local yokels all day, only to tickle the ivories at night, impressing his lady love with his musical talent while the locals regale her with stories of Phil’s kindness.

Improve yourself.  Be kind to others and they will tell tales of your goodness, tales that will reach someone you want to impress.  This seems to be the name of the game and if only we could compact that work into one day that we get to live for years before we learn the lessons and then get to start fresh the next day.  Unfortunately, when we are stuck in a rut, we must learn those lessons, obtain those skills, do those acts of kindness for years before they pay off, we may get old and croak before any of our hard work goes noticed.

So, the name of the game is start early.  Funny, I saw this movie as a kid and didn’t heed its warnings.  Today, I feel like Phil, stuck in a rut, turning people off with my constant mockery of everything, unable to find the time needed to improve my life and impress people.

I need a Groundhog Day!  Come on, Sonny and Cher.  Get on my radio!

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.

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I Now Have 2,511 Followers

Thank you WordPress followers.

As I promised long ago, if I can get 3,500 WordPress followers in honor of my 3.5 readers, I will hire the chainsaw juggling guy from Fiver to do a promo video for this fine website.

I don’t understand how I can have 2,511 blog followers but only 3.5 readers.

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Daily Discussion with BQB – Jim Carrey Drives Me Nuts

I love Jim Carrey.

I was a comedy nerd even when I was a kid and it was fun to see Jim’s unlikely success in the 1990s, an underdog story come to life.

In the pre-Internet days, your shot at becoming a major comedic actor was either get a gig on SNL or forget it.  Jim was turned down for SNL but managed to get on Fox’s In Living Color.  Fans of the show knew him as the white guy on In Living Color for a few years until he had a bunch of big movie roles right in a row – Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Mask, Batman (as the Riddler), Dumb and Dumber, the Truman Show.

Prior to all that, he grew up living poor in a van.  So it was cool to see him make it.  Made it seem like anyone can make it.

But sometimes it makes me sad when celebs do politics. He was on the Bill Maher show recently. I guess he has these strong opinions and he has a right to them, but here’s how I feel when I hear them:

JIM: We need to stop being afraid of the word, “socialism” we need to embrace it.

ME: Others who embraced the word socialism = the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the National Socialist Party of Germany (Nazis.)  More recently, it’s led to Venezuelans hunting zoo animals for zebra meat, but sure, let’s give it another try!

JIM:  We need to embrace socialism.

ME: You first, buddy.  Take your millions you made from talking out of your butt as Ace and cut a check to any one of many charities that help the poor.  How many poor kids could you send to college if you cash out your savings? And do you need that big mansion?  How many poor people can you take in?  How many refugees can we put you down for?

JIM:  We need to embrace socialism.

ME: Hey, you know what socialist countries aren’t known for? Paying millions of dollars to a man so he can talk through his butt cheeks in Ace Ventura.  In America, someone says, “Hey we can sell movies of a guy talking out of his butt!” In a socialist country, there is no job for a butt talker.  You just get to dig ditches for 12 hours and then wait in the toilet paper line for another 12 hours.  But hey you could entertain everyone else in line with your zany comedy, until you offend one of the commisars and get hauled off to the gulag because free speech?  Not really approved of in socialism.

ME AGAIN:  I get it.  People worry about the poor.  It’s a good thing to do.  Not knocking it.  And he’s right when he says that if you get sick, you shouldn’t lose your house.  And he was very poor once so he knows a thing or two about poverty…this isn’t the way though.  Socialism has never worked anywhere it has tried and it just depresses me that people still think it will work.  It’s like being that gambler who has been losing all night who by morning has liquidated the kids’ college fund, his 401k and sold his house but is still like “One more lucky roll!”

So I don’t know.  That’s it.  Jimbo has been driving me crazy lately.  Socialism is the “23” of economic systems.  The studios wouldn’t let Jim do another 23, but they’d let him do a thousand more sequels to Dumb and Dumber.  Stick with the hits.  Stick with what works.  Stick with capitalism.  Stop trying to do the same thing that’s failed a hundred times and see if it works again.

Maybe this is just what celebs do as they get older, hoping to stay relevant.  Alysa Milano is on that bandwagon too.  I spent most of the 1990s either laughing at Jim Carrey or rubbing one out to Alysa Milano and now they want to turn America into a socialist craphole.  Very sad.  Very depressing.

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Daily Discussion with BQB – 9/11

It’s hard to believe this was so long ago.  Two, two term presidents have come and gone and a third has been elected already.

I’m not sure the young’uns out there really get it.  We older people look at history as pre and post 9/11.  Sometimes I watch old movies or just even think about the 1990s and think wow, what a happy go lucky time.

I was a tail end Gen X er.  I remember the big complaint of the older people at the time was that everything was too good and there were no wars to contend with so we had all gotten too soft…and the alternate rock of the day reflected that – i.e. we’re so depressed our generation doesn’t have any meaning unlike our parents who had Vietnam and our grandparents who had WWII.

And then 9/11 happened and I think looking back, it was silly that everyone thought that times being good was a bad thing.  Because now it looks like we’ll never see a peace time again, at least not in our lifetimes.

It was the beginning of a lot of this political division.  Reps and Dems came together in the aftermath, but in the years thereafter, they really disagreed on the war of terror and that led to disagreements elsewhere.

And I do think it had longterm bad effects on the economy.  Economic wise, the 1990s were pretty good.  Papa Bush showed off America’s muscle in a quick, get in get out Iraq War and then thereafter, the 1990s were mostly peaceful.

Imagine the economy today if we’d just had 30 years of peace?

Oh well.  I remember when it happened.  I was fresh out of college, sad my life didnt seem to be working out as planned and then, in retrospect, selfishly I said well, now it really won’t get better and it didn’t.

OK yes I know.  I just made 9/11 about me.  That wasn’t my intent.  Who knows what to say?  It sucked.

Thoughts?

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TV Review – Paradise PD (2018)

My eyes!  What have I seen?  God, help me!

BQB here with a review of Netflix’s Paradise PD.

There’s a part of me that says the master print of this show should be burned, the ashes dissolved in acid, the remnants of whatever is left put into a rocket to be shot into the sun.  It’s that gross and I don’t know why, there’s just something about seeing cartoon animated disgustingness that makes me feel like my soul was warped upon seeing it.  There are scenes that haven’t left me feeling this weirded out since I saw Sausage Party, which, although I laughed at, I pledged I’d never see it ever again and to date, I never have.

On the other hand, I haven’t had such a good laugh in so long.  It’s hilarious – rapid fire jokes upon jokes upon jokes, jokes that are quick, jokes that you get right away, jokes that you get after you think about it after a minute.

Even better? It pulls no punches.  It takes no sides.  It whams, bams, and slams everyone and everything.  It is an equal opportunity offender to one and all.  If you haven’t been offended within the first five minutes, give it another five.  Don’t worry.  They will eventually get to something that offends you.

Ironically, that’s what unbiased comedy is.  When comedians savage one side, one group, one idea, then leave the opposite untouched, it’s biased.  We see that in comedy today when it comes to politics.  Comedians have their sacred political cows and they won’t touch certain topics with a ten foot pole.

Here, liberals and conservatives are parodied with equal vigor.  There’s a particularly funny episode that skewers the cable news channels – CNN, MSNBC and FOX, how they feature knee jerk commentators who skew things to fit their agenda.

I laughed.  I laughed.  I laughed some more.  Still, there’s something about seeing a cartoon penis that seems wrong, even in a cartoon that is intended by adults, and by the way, please, I don’t care if this is a cartoon, if you kid tries to watch this show, please do whatever it takes to stop them from watching it, even if you have to take an axe to the television.

The set up?  Kevin is a loser who ends up as a police officer under the command of his constantly angry police chief father, in the town of Paradise.  There’s the super fat Dusty, the disgusting Hobo Cop (a hobo turned cop), the walking poster for police brutality Gina, the elderly Hopson (owner of the cartoon penis the sight of which makes me want to power wash my eyeballs), the drug addled police dog Bullet and Fitz, the African American cop who, in one wacky episode, accidentally shoots himself in the penis and then gets arrested for committing police brutality against a black man, i.e. himself.

Part of me wants to apologize to Jesus for recommending this.  Part of me appreciates the good laughs it gave me as I watched it the past week.

The best description is that it is basically what you might imagine if Family Guy were able to take the freak outs that it does now but then crank it up to 1,000 with no holds barred.

Honestly, there should be some holds barred.  It’s funny, but I hope this doesn’t mean we’re moving toward a future where all cartoons meant for adults end up this disgusting.

I can’t give it a shelf-worthy rating.  I also can’t not give it one.  See it if you want to laugh and laugh heartily.  Don’t see it if you are easily offended, feint of heart, or if you just believe in common standards of decency…which I do, so why I watched this I don’t know.

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