Despite my recent rant that binge TV watching was not the most ideal way in which to enjoy a television series, the word of mouth from Facebook friends lured me over to Amazon Prime's "Modern Love." And I wrapped up the eight half hours in just three nights. Maybe you can blame the Dodgers for falling out of the playoffs early. So you are probably wondering. If I watched the show so fast, I must have loved it. Well, not really. I enjoyed some elements of this anthology more than others. You see, each episode was a little movie all to its self. The only common thread was that New York City (and, in one episode, my favorite Westchester town of Hastings-On-Hudson) provided the back drop. And the source material for all of this was a "New York Times" regular column of essays on dating, marriage, and love called...wait for it..."Modern Love." As a non-reader of the Slimes, this was all new information to me. As I nestled into the first episodes, I was nagged by a strange comparison. This all reminded me of the old 70s comedy anthology called "Love American Style." But, while that show featured weekly plots that would have two back number sitcom stars on a date and getting stuck in a tuba (that was a real episode), "Modern Love" is not as comic. In some cases, it's downright depressing. But, I guess, what isn't in 2019? "Modern Love" comes from writer-director John Carney, whose main claim to fame was the Irish musical comedy "Once." That sense of humor comes through in some of the episodes, but not enough. You'll get the idea as I relate to you the plot lines. A young single girl in Brooklyn whose main relationship in the world is with her apartment doorman. A NYT journalist interviewing the inventor of a dating app, which prompts the two of them to share sad dating stories. Anne Hathaway as a woman trying to date successfully despite going through almost daily bi-polar mood swings. (I was on the receiving end of somebody like this back when) Tina Fey and John Slattery as participants in a crumbling marriage. They take their anger out on the tennis court. A young couple on their second date begin to disrobe for their first sexual encounter. He falls on a broken martini glass and severs a nerve in his arm with a chard of glass. (Actually this was my favorite for some strange reason) A young girl cozies up to an older male co-worker because her father died when she was 11. Two gay married guys want to adopt a child and engage themselves with a pregnant homeless woman. Jane Alexander has a widow who finds a second love with an Asian man who then dies himself. So you can see...no stuck tuba to be found anywhere. If indeed this is the content of the Slimes column, there are a lot of people on Xanax writing essays about their love lives in New York City. You can see my conflict. I hung in there with "Modern Love" because there was the hope that the next episode would be a little less sad. But, in reality, that never happened. That's what I get for binge watching again. But, on second thought, I began to think about some of my dating stories. Hmmm. Are they still taking submissions? Because the "Modern Love" TV show has already been renewed for a second season. Dinner last night: Had a big lunch so just a salad.
Happy birthday, Sally Field. We like you, we really, really like you.
355: ROMAN EMPEROR CONSTANTIUS II PROMOTES HIS COUSIN JULIAN TO THE RANK OF CAESAR.
And his sister Romaine Lettuce to the rank of salad.
1528: SHIPWRECKED SPANISH CONQUISTADOR ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA BECOMES THE FIRST KNOWN EUROPEAN TO SET FOOT IN TEXAS.
We'd also tell you about the first known Mexican to set foot in Texas but we lost count.
1789: POPE PIUS VI APPOINTS FATHER JOHN CARROLL AS THE FIRST CATHOLIC BISHOP IN THE US.
Meanwhile, comedian Joey Bishop was Jewish. That's what I call irony.
1844: THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC IS ADOPTED.
I think there were about two dozen revisions.
1854: COMPOSER JOHN PHILIP SOUSA IS BORN.
March!
1861: JEFFERSON DAVIS IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.
Movin' on up to the South Side.
1869: RUTGERS COLLEGE DEFEATS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, 6-4, IN THE FIRST OFFICIAL INTERCOLLEGIATE FOOTBALL GAME.
Sounds like a snoozefest? Only four points?? Two safeties??? Really????
1913: MOHANDAS GANDHI IS ARRESTED WHILE LEADING A MARCH OF INDIAN MINERS IN SOUTH AFRICA. You have the right to make one call. And change your bedsheet once. 1914: ACTOR JONATHAN HARRIS IS BORN. Dr. Smith from "Lost in Space." Meanwhile, he died on November 3, 2002. Three days short of his birthday. What a gyp! 1916: COMPOSER RAY CONNIFF IS BORN. And now we'll have something to listen to in the elevator. 1918: THE SECOND POLISH REPUBLIC IS PROCLAIMED IN POLAND. The fourth Polish Republic was proclaimed two years earlier. Is that the joke you were expecting from me? 1931: DIRECTOR MIKE NICHOLS IS BORN. Married to Diane Sawyer. Yeah, they don't sleep in the same bed. 1934: MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE BECOMES THE FIRST MAJOR CITY TO JOIN THE TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY. Even though they tried to get into the Ohio Valley Authority. 1935: PARKER BROTHERS ACQUIRES THE PATENT RIGHT FOR MONOPOLY. Three hotels on Baltic Avenue, please. 1942: DURING WORLD WAR II, THE GUADALCANAL CAMPAIGN BEGINS. Quick, somebody start keeping a diary! 1944: PLUTONIUM IS FIRST PRODUCED AT THE HANFORD ATOMIC FACILITY AND WILL BE LATER DROPPED ON NAGASAKI, JAPAN. Weather forecast: 100% change of mushroom clouds. 1946: ACTRESS SALLY FIELD IS BORN. Wait till you see my Gidget. 1947: MEET THE PRESS MAKES ITS TELEVISION DEBUT. By 2019, it has tripled its viewers to three. 1955: JOURNALIST MARIA SHRIVER IS BORN. Whatever you do, don't trust her to hire your housekeeper. 1962: THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY PASSES A RESOLUTION CONDEMNING SOUTH AFRICA'S RACIST APARTHEID POLICIES. I'm dying to know who voted against it. 1965: CUBA AND THE US FORMALLY AGREE TO BEGIN AN AIRLIFT FOR CUBANS WHO WANT TO GO TO THE UNITED STATES. Well, that will make for a lot of hungry sharks swimming off the coast of Florida. 1986: A BRITISH HELICOPTER CRASHES, KILLING 45 PEOPLE. IT IS THE DEADLIEST CIVILIAN HELICOPTER CRASH ON RECORD. My question is how did they cram all those people into one chopper. 1991: ACTRESS GENE TIERNEY DIES. She starred in "Leave Her to Heaven" and "Heaven Can Wait." So be it. 1995: ART MODELL ANNOUNCES THAT HE SIGNED A DEAL THAT WOULD RELOCATE THE CLEVELAND BROWNS TO BALTIMORE TO BECOME THE BALTIMORE RAVENS. This is about the time I started to lose track of which pro football franchises were where. 1995: ACTRESS ANETA CORSAUT DIES. Miss Crump from "The Andy Griffith Show." 1998: WRESTLER SKY LOW LOW DIES. Hint to his wrestling name: he was a midget. 2007: MANAGER GEORGE OSMOND DIES.
A Mormon heads to his own personal cloud. 2012: BARACK OBAMA IS RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE US. When people get past the marketing angle of this candidate, historians will conclude that his presidency was a very mediocre one. Dinner last night: Still working through some lasagna.
Here we go again. Today is Election Day and millions of people will be going to the polls thinking that they are making a difference. Er, have you looked around lately? You're not. Primarily because you keep electing the same one-sided hacks to the House and the Senate and the local City Council. Let's face it. There are two reasons why somebody would go into politics. 1. To make money. 2. To make money for friends by giving them contracts, government positions, etc.. Admittedly, this is an off year in the election game. No major races are out there as everybody waits for the Big Kahuna...2020. But, still, some of us march off to polling places like lemmings headed to the slaughter. Thinking that the next person they vote will be the one who is different. Again, have you looked around lately? Consider some of the fools you have pulled a lever for in the past. Representatives of the House? Well, if they are on the Democratic side, they have done nothing for the last three years except call for the impeachment of the President. Special counsels, secret testimonies, charges of collusion with anybody and everybody. Is this what you wanted when you elected them? Did they seek out your opinion? Did any of them even call you back if you made an inquiry to their office? I didn't think so. They're all the bloody same. Look at the abject failures running for the Oval Office in 2020. They have continually failed at the jobs they have now. Why would anybody give them a bigger job? BTW, this goes for both sides of the political aisle. This country is in the hot soup if it continues to neglect those of us in the middle. Oh, we moderates are out there. But it is impossible to be heard when all the current job holders are the extremes of one side or another. We have let this country become fatally bi-polar. The time to fix this would be today. And the next Election Day. And the Election Day after that. Demand accountability. Make them listen to the sane voices, not the lunatic fringe. Until that happens, we will troop off to the polling places every November and toss our democracy in the garbage. Morons. Dinner last night: Lasagna.
When I saw that documentary about movie palaces last week, it conjured memories for me of my own hometown movie houses from Mount Vernon, New York. We were blessed to have two in town and within walking distances. There were others we frequented in the Bronx and Yonkers. But there was nothing more glorious about those two cinematic cathedrals near by. It is worth remembering them once again. Take, for instance... The Loews Mount Vernon movie theater. This cinema house of worship was the site of my first ever movie going experience. My mom took me to the first afternoon showing of "Tom Thumb." Unfortunately, we didn't get far into the movie. I was totally frightened by the dimming of the lights and the opening of the curtain. I screamed mercilessly, which was a bigger problem given that there was nobody else in the theater and the echoes had to be piercing. Disgusted, my mother dragged me out into the sunlight. I can still feel her anger as she ripped up the tickets out on Stevens Avenue and flung them into the gutter, waxing loudly about this big waste of money. At the time, the two tickets probably cost no more than $1,50. For several years thereafter, my movie attendance was predicated on start times. If it was the first show of the day, we always entered the theater ten minutes into the movie. Curtain already open. Lights already out. I was a happy little camper. But, once I got over these phobias, the Loews Mount Vernon (like the RKO Proctor Theater a block away) would be an unbelievable childhood haven. Pronounced inexplicably "low-wees," this was one of these three-level movie palaces that just reeked of opulence. I remember the smoking lounge on the second floor was huge. I remember the smoking lounge mostly because my mother was there mostly. The magnificent lobby was always full of fun little gadgets that heralded movies that would be there in "coming weeks." Sometimes, there would be a big display that clicked through View Master-like screen shots of the movie starting next Wednesday. Indeed, I knew by heart the studios that had deals with Loews. They always got the latest films from MGM, Paramount, and Columbia after they came up from "downtown."
And always the latest Jerry Lewis offering. When "The Nutty Professor" opened there, Jerry stopped there on a tour of theaters throughout Westchester. I remember watching the movie and then it suddenly stopped. The house lights went up and out bounced Jerry for about 2 minutes tops. Then, he left, but still it was exciting for me and my little friends since the only other celebrity we saw in Mount Vernon was TV Kiddie Host Claude Kirschner at the opening of a bank. When I was old enough (probably 8 or 9) to venture to the movies by myself, I would spend whole afternoons and days at Loews. I probably saw "Bye Bye Birdie" four or five times in the one week that it played there. For some bizarre reason, I became entranced with the movie "Jumbo" and devoured that a few times over a weekend. After all, once you were in the theater, you could stay all day right through the double feature and then over again. This theater was also where I experienced the Beatles for the first time. Yep, I was there for the very first Mount Vernon, New York showing of "A Hard Day's Night." For a little while, one of my neighborhood chums had a grandfather who was the chief ticket ripper at Loews. Even better, he would let us in without the ticket or the ripping. No matter what was playing, he got us in there. One day, we got the pass and settled in for the movie which made us all incredibly uncomfortable. It was a lot of women and men doing some things we had only heard about in passing whispers. I felt so dirty that I left, raising the eyebrows of the elderly ticket taker who actually got pissed that I was throwing back the free entry. My mom asked me why I was home so early. I replied simply that it was something with the Three Stooges and I had seen it already. Years later, I saw the offending movie on TV. "Walk on the Wild Side." Jane Fonda barely dressed and living in a whorehouse. Uh-huh. So much for Parental Guidance. Loews Mount Vernon didn't last for too many years after that as it died several years before the city did. It was replaced by a huge parking garage, which is ironic because there is absolutely no reason to go there. Next week, we go one block east for the marvelous RKO Proctor's. Dinner last night: Chicken apple sausage at the Arclight.
That time of year for these TV commercials. And this one is such a catchy jingle. Does the male singer in this sound suspiciously like the old TV talk show host Mike Douglas? Dinner last night: Chicken pasta soup.
