Just Like a Woman

 

Or something like that.

I use that song title as a blog headline today because, frankly, it's the only Bob Dylan song I can remember off the top of my head.   This Nobel Prize winner has always been a mystery to me.  But, nonetheless, he is legendary.   And the kudos thrown at this film of his life were enough for me to learn more about it.

And see the movie, of course.

That said, I can say I did enjoy "A Complete Unknown."  It held my interest.  And, even better, it was a bit of an education for me.  It's like the college course that sounds boring, but you take it because you know you will learn something.

I did learn something from this James Mangold film.  I still am not a huge Dylan fan, but I understand him a bit better.  And it also provides a sweeping history of the folk music scene back in the 60s with such characters depicted as Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Johnny Cash.  With that in mind, there are Oscar noms galore here and Timothee Chalamet is a standout.  But, so is Elle Fanning as his girlfriend and Monica Barbaro as Baez.   Indeed, the two women almost steal the picture.  They are that good.

Indeed, what I like about this movie is that none of the actors really attempt to mimic the musicians they are playing.  That will never work as those voices are so recognizable that they are impossible to imitate.  But they put enough of their own spin on the songs and the audience is not cheated.

Now this movie didn't prompt me to find a Bob Dylan song on my Sirius/XM.  But the film did provide me with a sort of "Folk Music 101" and it was a class I was happy to take.

LEN'S RATING:  Three-and-a-half stars.

Dinner last night:  Leftover chili.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - February 10, 2025

 I am revisiting the original "Frasier" series and there is nothing like it.  And there was nobody like David Hyde Pierce who stole every scene he was in.

Dinner last night:  Sausage chili.

The Sunday Memory Drawer- Joe Namath and Vomit

 

Just to be clear, I hate the Super Bowl.  I rarely watch it.  I don't care who wins or who loses.  I try to avoid house parties built around watching the game.  There are dozens of reasons why you should invite folks over to your house for a soiree.  Watching an overhyped football game is not one of them.  And, each year, it's more of the same.  Nothing ever changes even though we're up to what Super Bowl number?  175?

And don't you just love how they amp up the importance of this contest by numbering it with Roman numerals.  As if this is even remotely Biblical??  What are we supposed to think?  Disciple Simon Peter was the treasurer for the big football pool set up by Jesus.  Come on!  Get a grip, gang.

Of course, there was a time and a year, ages ago, that I did care.  And it would be the first time in my very young life as as a crazy and likely obnoxious sports fan that I would be vindicated.

Super Bowl III.  My team was in it.  The New York Jets.  How lucky could I get?  Somebody that actually was rooting for was playing in the big game.  Woo hoo!  I might not ever get the opportunity to have a moment like this in my life ever again.  Of course, about nine months later, I would be in a frenzy all over again when the Mets...my Mets...came out of complete mediocrity to win the World Series.

Of course, I would get to see the Mets do this again...well, one more time...in my life.  As for the Jets and the Super Bowl?  Yeah, we're still waiting.

But, in that football season preceding Super Bowl III, it was all that this kid could think about it.  I hung on every pass and every penalty.  You may have remembered that I previously wrote about the year where I went to a lot of Jets games at Shea Stadium courtesy of my mother's boss and her amorous boyfriend.  Well, that ticket opportunity had dried up already.  I didn't get to go to any Jets home games in that championship season.  But I was glued to the television.  Or, in the case of the big American Football League championship game, the radio.  Back then, television coverage of pro football was not abundant. 

I did what I could to stay intimately connected to the New York Jets.

When it was clear that my guys were moving onto the Super Bowl, I could focus on little else.  I sat in class coloring in shapes on my textbook covers with shades of green and white.  Around the house, I walked around with my little toy Jets football all day long.  Tossing up and down.  Side to side.  In the air and then down.  Grandma started to get fed up.  She started to visualize some of her dining room crystal in pieces.

"You're gonna break something with that stupid thing of yours."

I didn't really listen.  If I put the little toy ball down, I almost felt as if I would be severing the connection to my Jets. 

Upstairs in our end of the house, I walked around nervously with my little toy Jets football all day.  Tossing it up and down.  My mother started to get fed up.

"One more time and that goes into the garbage."

Nobody understood what I was feeling.

As would be the case with most teams I rooted for in my life, the Jets never got any respect.  But, for that matter, neither did the whole AFL, which was essentially gum on the shoe of any pro football fan.  They can't be that important because, after all, it's not the NFL.  The AFL team had gotten destroyed in the first two Super Bowls by those assholes from Wisconsin, the Green Bay Packers.  What the heck could the Jets possibly do against this year's NFL juggernaut, the Baltimore Colts?  Especially with quarterback Joe Namath, who had a big mouth and might be a regular wearer of panty hose.

Nevertheless, I viewed the upcoming game with excitement.  And trepidation.

And a little toy Jets football in my hand.

For me, the week preceding the Super Bowl couldn't have gone faster.  I awoke Saturday mentally preparing myself for the contest on Sunday.  Back then, there wasn't the frenzy and chaos behind the Super Bowl that you witness today.  But, in my mind on that day, there was enough frenzy and chaos in my mind to cover a dozen Super Bowl parties in 2013.

But, as I tried to mentally prepare myself, something else weird was going on.  I had a headache.

Now, when I go for my annual physical every December, my current internist and I go through our traditional dialogue.

"You want a flu shot?"

"Doc, I don't get the flu."

"Then, okay, you don't need to get a flu shot."

And that's a fact.  I never get a flu shot.  Because there are only two times in my entire life when I got the flu.  On New Year's Eve freshman year in college.

And on the Saturday before Super Bowl III.

By that night, I was as sick as a dog.  It was the perfect storm of ailments.  Head, stomach, and every bodily portal of entry and exit.  I could barely lift my head off the pillow in my room to watch my favorite TV show, "Get Smart."  I prayed silently that I would be better the next day.  The Jets needed me in perfect condition.

Sunday morning was even worse.  I got parental approval to move my carcass from my bedroom to the living room sofa so I could at least watch the game with my father.

Hugging my little toy Jets football, I curled up on the couch just as the opening whistle blew.

And promptly fell asleep.

As you probably know, this would be the greatest moment in Jets history ever. 

I was in a coma for all of it.

My dad rustled me awake to tell me the final score.  In my body of aches and torment, I could barely muster a smile.

And then I ran down to the bathroom so I could throw up. 

Over time, I have gone in and out of fandom with the New York Jets.  But they have never been in the Super Bowl since.  And, given my luck, likely will be there.  Because, somewhere in this crazy world of irony, somebody will note that the one time the Jets made the Super Bowl, this fan slept right through it.

And then threw up.

Dinner last night:  Orange chicken lo mein.

Classic Newsreel of the Month - February 2025

 And I can hear my grandmother all over again.

"Ed Sullivan ruined this country."

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Your February 2025 Rap Sheet

 This month I am including the actual crime...some of them so weird that they are worth mentioning.

 Arrested for attacking herself with a sword.

 Substitute teacher caught selling narcotics to her students.

 College professor caught taping sexual encounters with his students.

Yet another member of college academia caught having sex with a student.

Broke into a u-Haul to save a rabbit.

 ROTC instructor caught having sex with his students.

 Threw her infant out of the car window into the woods.

 Kept 44 rats, 16 horses, 8 dogs, and one cat in her house.

 Regularly inhaled nitrous oxide with her child.

 Raped a boy at knifepoint.

 Arrested for regularly burying puppies alive.

Pledged on his Facebook page to kill Trump on Inauguration Day.

Dinner last night:  Taylor ham and cheese omelet.

Morons of the Month - February 2025

 

Well, it's got to be somebody's fault, right?

That's the way it works in America these days.  When one political party is in power, any problem and/or calamity is immediately their fault.   Right now, it's the Republican party in power and they are the evil empire with Donald Trump walking around like Darth Vader.  I know lots of folks who are so disgusted that they pledge to get off social media for the next four years.  Except they spend every waking moment telling people they're going off social media on...where else?...social media.

Clearly, there are folks out there who have watched every episode of "The West Wing" way too many times.  When the Democrats comprise the majority in DC, the Republicans act like only "24's" Jack Bauer can save us.  

This is the evil cycle our country is stuck in and it gets more and more pronounced with each successive administration.   As soon as one party gets in, they are responsible for every single thing that happens almost as soon as they all take their oaths of office.

Take, for instance, last week.  Admittedly, not a good week to fly in the United States.  Lots of souls lost, but it didn't take long for conspiracy theories to pop out like candy from a Pez dispenser.   

And it's all Trump's fault even though he's only been in office for two weeks.  Now if the parties were reversed and this happened a month ago, it would have been Old Man Biden's problem.  Equally as misguided.  

What the morons around us don't understand is changes don't have results that quickly.   Government moves at a snail's pace and things don't have immediate causes and effects.

The two deadly plane crashes last week are not the fault of Trump or Biden or Obama or Bush.   Actually, it is the fault of all of them.  Our leaders have taken their eyes off the ball and spent more time trying to get and keep jobs as opposed to actually doing them.

Trust me, there's plenty of blame to go around to everybody.   But the real culprits are those who have let this happen.  I mean, we embody all the positives of a democracy at work.   

We are also responsible for the negatives as well.   This is a worthy message but sadly people won't read it because they're boycotting the internet.

Dinner last night:  Leftover meat loaf.

This Date in History - February 5

 

Happy birthday, Laura Linney.  When you were younger, I had a great part for you.  I still have the part available, but you're too old now.

62:  A EARTHQUAKE IN POMPEII, ITALY.

Before or after the volcano?   Either way, it sucks to be in Pompeii.

756:  AN LUSHAN, LEADER OF A REVOLT AGAINST THE TANG DYNASTY, DECLARES HIMSELF EMPEROR AND ESTABLISHES THE STATE OF YAN.

And the second state will be called New Yan.

1631:  ROGER WILLIAMS EMIGRATES TO BOSTON.

This is not the guy who played the piano.

1778:  SOUTH CAROLINA BECOMES THE SECOND STATE TO RATIFY THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.

So it takes almost 80 more years for this fight to begin?

1783:  IN CALABRIA, A SEQUENCE OF STRONG EARTHQUAKES BEGINS.

Talk to the folks in Pompeii.

1818: JEAN-BAPTISTE BERNADOTTE ASCENDS TO THE THRONES OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY.

That's being a little piggy, if you ask me.

1852:  THE HERMITAGE MUSEUM IN ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, ONE OF THE LARGEST AND OLDEST MUSEUMS IN THE WORLD, OPENS TO THE PUBLIC.

And schoolchildren in Russia can be bored with the rest of us who had to endure class trips.

1869:  THE LARGEST ALLUVIAL GOLD NUGGET IN HISTORY, IS FOUND IN AUSTRALIA.

Thar's gold in them dere outbacks.

1900:  THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM SIGN A TREATY FOR THE PANAMA CANAL.

Over tea and scones, no doubt.

1900:  POLITICIAN ADLAI STEVENSON IS BORN.

And gets hit over the head with a picket sign in Dallas 63 years later.

1903:  BUSINESSWOMAN JOAN WHITNEY PAYSON IS BORN.

Meet the Mets!

1909:  BELGIAN CHEMIST LEO BAEKELAND ANNOUNCES THE CREATION OF BAKELITE, THE WORLD'S FIRST SYNTHETIC PLASTIC.

Like the guy told Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate...."Bakelite."

1917:  THE CONGRESS OF THE US PASSES THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1917 OVER PRESIDENT WILSON'S VETO.  IT FORBADE IMMIGRATION FROM NEARLY ALL OF SOUTHERN ASIA.

Can we bring this back please?

1918:  SS TUSCANIA IS TORPEDOED OFF THE COAST OF IRELAND.  IT IS THE FIRST SHIP CARRYING AMERICAN TROOPS TO EUROPE TO BE TORPEDOED.

And not the last.

1919:  CHARLIE CHAPLIN, MARY PICKFORD, DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, AND DW GRIFFITH LAUNCH UNITED ARTISTS.

Coming soon to a multiplex near you.

1919:  ACTOR RED BUTTONS IS BORN.

Had a birthday, but never a dinner.

1934:  BASEBALL STAR HANK AARON IS BORN.

As far as I am concerned, he still is the only one to break Babe Ruth's HR record.

1937:  PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT PROPOSES A PLAN TO ENLARGE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE US.

The Supreme Court, to this day, remains one of the biggest jokes in this country.

1939:  GENERALISIMO FRANCISCO FRANCO BECOMES THE 68TH CAUDILLO DE ESPANA OR LEADER OF SPAIN.

Whatever.   He's still dead.

1945:  GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR RETURNS TO MANILA.

Well, he said he would.

1948:  ACTRESS BARBARA HERSHEY IS BORN.

I'm sure that she endured some jokes in school with that last name.

1962: FRENCH PRESIDENT CHARLES DE GAULLE CALLS FOR ALGERIA TO BE GRANTED INDEPENDENCE.

Show of hands.  Who cares?

1964:  ACTRESS LAURA LINNEY IS BORN.

A talented actress.   Could have used her.  Too late.

1969:  ACTRESS THELMA RITTER DIES.

A talented actress.   Could have used her.   Too late...for her.

1971:  ASTRONAUTS LAND ON THE MOON FOR THE APOLLO 14 MISSION.

Not destined to be a Ron Howard movie.

1972: BOB DOUGLAS BECOMES THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN ELECTED TO THE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME.

I looked him up and an old newspaper clipping referred to him as the "first Negro."  How times have flipped.

 1976:  THE 1976 SWINE FLU OUTBREAK BEGINS AT FORT DIX, NJ.

Oink.

1988:  MANUEL NORIEGA IS INDICTED ON DRUG SMUGGLING AND MONEY LAUNDERING CHARGES.

Plus his penmanship was really bad.

1991:  ACTOR DEAN JAGGER DIES.

General Waverly in White Christmas.

1993:  PRODUCER JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ DIES.

All About Death.

1994:  BYRON DE LA BECKWITH IS CONVICTED OF THE 1963 MURDER OF CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER MEDGAR EVERS.

Thirty one years later??   That's one slow jury.

1995:  ACTOR DOUG MCCLURE DIES.

Trampas on TV's The Virginian.

2006:  ACTOR FRANKLIN COVER DIES.

Tom Willis on TV's The Jeffersons.

2007 ACTOR FRED BALL DIES.

Lucy's brother.   Really.

2020:  ACTOR KIRK DOUGLAS DIES.

I was Spartacus.

2021:  ACTOR CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER DIES.

Edelwas.

Dinner last night:   Fried shrimp at Musso and Frank's.