Classic TV Theme Song of the Month - January 2019

The wayback machine remembers when there were 10 or 11 soap operas on every day.   Today there are just four.   Here's a vintage opening and closing of NBC's "The Doctors" which is being rerun on Retro TV.   Dig the name of a very young Julia Duffy in the cast.

Dinner last night:  French toast and bacon.

Your Weekend Movie Guide for January 2019

A heartbreaking photo.   The Loews Theater in my home town of Mount Vernon, New York.   Meeting the wrecking ball.   This happened a long time ago but I still can't get over it.  So many hours of my childhood spent there.  Weep, weep.

The single screen movie palace is disappearing.   But, then again, many of them are not worthy to present the films coming out these days.  You know the drill, guys.  I'll sift through the entertainment pages of the LA Times and give you my gut reaction to what Hollywood has unleashed of late.

Meanwhile, I need to grab another Kleenex.

The Upside:  From the reviews, I hear there is none.

Mary Poppins Returns:  For no good reason apparently.

If Beale Street Could Talk:  Blog review coming.  The good news is that I saw this via a free screener.

The Favourite:  STAY AWAY!!!!!!

Mary Queen of Scots:   Isn't there a show on PBS about her every other week?

Roma:  Blog review coming.   How do you say "meh" in Spanish?

Vice:  I hear this is not what you would expect.   I have conservative friends who liked it and liberal friends who hated it.  Now that's your parallel universe.

Stan and Ollie:  Blog review coming.  A very charming little movie.

Destroyer:  Zero in the clue department.

Bohemian Rhapsody:  Okay, enough friends have talked me into seeing this at some point.  Who's got a screener??

Green Book:  The surprisingly Best Picture of the year for me.

On the Basis of Sex:   Are you trying to tell me that Ruth Bader Ginsberg looked like that when she was young???!!!

Ben Is Back:   I wanted to see this, but it disappeared faster than a Trump supporter at Nancy Pelosi's backyard barbecue.

The Wife:   I hear Glenn Close is phenomenal.

Second Act:  Recently reviewed here.  I still don't believe I saw a J Lo movie.

Spiderman - Into the Spiderverse:   Who's got some Raid?

Aquaman:  Reviewed here the other day.   I saw it because I needed my car serviced.  What's your excuse?

Cold War:   A love story in 1950s Eastern Europe.   Yawnski.

Welcome to Marwen:   Steve Carell once again dead on arrival.

All These Small Moments:  I see Molly Ringwald is in the cast and I am wondering whose basement she was stashed in.

Adult Life Skills:  Most Americans don't have any.

The Brawler:  For those who have been anxiously awaiting a movie about boxer Chuck Wepner.

Don't Come Back from the Moon:  James Franco is in this so that's a warning for you #MeTooers.

Glass:  Bruce Willis and M. Night Shyamalan.  Come on, guys.  You made one good movie together.  Give it a rest.

I Hate Kids:  A bachelor discovers he has a 13-year-old son.  Sounds like every sitcom made in the 1970s.

The Last Man:  All about PTSD hallucinations.  Well, there you are.

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek:  All about a shooting at a police funeral, which is an oxymoron.

Unbridled:  Matching girls who have been abused with horses who have also been abused.   Hopefully not by the same father.

Egg:  A pregnant woman and her surrogate.  I'll have mine scrambled.

Dinner last night:  Chicken caesar salad.

Morons of the Month - January 2019

Well, our monthly moron is certainly not this kind.   He's the full embodiment of the "mailman myth."  You know, neither snow nor rain deters him from delivering that day's mail.  I am sure this fantasy still exists in the less populated areas of our country.  The friendly postman that every grade school kid in town knows by his or her first name.

Back when I was a kid in Mount Vernon, New York, that was certainly the case.  On 15th Avenue, we had the same mailman for years.   Totally reliable.  You could set your watch to his travels.  

Those were the days.   Because, in 2019 and for most urban areas, the reliability of the US Postal Service has gone out the window.   This is largely due to the caliber of "qualified" employees that are hired due to diversity quotas, etc..  It's no longer about the best person for the job.   Nowadays, it's about your last name or your ethnicity or your skin color.  

So, here's the latest ineptitude of what used to be a solid aspect of American life.  My apartment building in Los Angeles had its mail stolen from the boxes in the lobby.  Luckily, nothing of mine was pilfered.   As it turns out, the culprit was actually a Post Office worker who was taking the pass keys of apartment buildings all over our neighborhood and helping himself to what he could find.  By the way, this thief qualifies for one of these three criteria in the previous paragraph.   Ahem.

But that's not the main subject today.   As a result of this theft, I became aware of a new Postal Service feature.   Informed Delivery.   If you go on their website and apply, you can receive by 9AM every morning an e-mail from the local Post Office that shows you, by scanned screen shot, all the mail that will be delivered to you later (usually much, much later) that day.   Okay, I sign up.

And, like clockwork every AM, I get said e-mail.   The only problem is that the contents of that day's mail doesn't always jibe with what actually winds up in the box.   Sometimes, it's a day later.   Or two days later.   Or, in the case of one holiday card from a good friend, still has not arrived a week later.

So, I now know that the problem is not necessarily with the sorters in the actual Post Office but the mail carriers themselves.  The ones that work my neighborhood are often the dregs of society.   I remember seeing one such lady, a grossly obese Black woman, sitting in her truck and taking her lunch break down the block from my building.   She was leafing through an Entertainment Weekly magazine while chomping down on her sandwich.

Guess whose Entertainment Weekly showed up later that day with a mustard stain on it?

Because of this new Informed Delivery feature, the US Post Office in my area has effectively shot themselves in the foot.   I have always figured out that my postal carrier seems to show up every other day.   Is this now the case?  Hmmm.

So, when I never got the holiday card from my friend, I went back on the USPS website and asked the question.   The response I received back was even more confusing.   Essentially, they told me that those items mentioned in my Informed Delivery daily e-mail could take up to a week to arrive.   Huh?   So what the hell is the point of all this anyway??

I long for the days of the friendly carrier shown in the photo above.   I guess we all have to move to Nebraska.

Dinner last night:  Sausage and onions.

This Date in History - January 16

Happy birthday, Albert Pujols.  He turns 39.  Which means he will be totally useless when his contract with the Angels ends in another dozen or so years.

27 BC:  GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR OCTAVIANUS IS GRANTED THE TITLE OF AUGUSTUS BY THE ROMAN SENATE.

That's an awful lot to put on one business card.

378:  GENERAL FIRE IS BORN CONQUERS TIKAL, ENLARGING THE DOMAIN OF KING SPEARTHROWER OWL.

Okay, that looks like bad grammar, but it's not.  The guy's name is Fire Is Born.

929:  EMIR ABD-AR-RAHMAN III ESTABLISHED THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOBA.

Cordoba...I love their plush leather interiors.

1362:  A STORM TIDE IN THE NORTH SEA DESTROYS THE GERMAN CITY OF RUNGHOLD ON THE ISLAND OF STRAND.

Which left them all......okay, everybody, together......strand-ed.

1412:  THE MEDICI FAMILY IS APPOINTED OFFICIAL BANKER OF THE PAPACY.

And later renamed themselves "First National Vatican."

1492:  THE FIRST GRAMMAR OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IS PRESENTED TO QUEEN ISABELLA I.

Her response: "you ain't kiddin'"

1572:  THOMAS HOWARD, FOURTH DUKE OF NORFOLK, IS TRIED FOR TREASON FOR HIS PART IN THE PLOT TO RESTORE CATHOLICISM IN ENGLAND.

Did he really want to bring back "meatless Fridays?"

1581:  THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT OUTLAWS ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

I guess they didn't.

1786:  VIRGINIA ENACTED THE STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AUTHORED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Sadly, I think this needs to be re-enacted in 2019.

1883:  THE UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE BEGINS.

And you still can't fire them.

1908:  BROADWAY STAR ETHEL MERMAN IS BORN.

No surprise.  She was the loudest baby in the maternity ward.

1910:  BASEBALL PLAYER DIZZY DEAN IS BORN.

Short for Dizzathon.

1909:  ERNEST SHACKLETON'S EXPEDITION FINDS THE MAGNETIC SOUTH POLE.

What's the attraction? 

1919:  THE UNITED STATES RATIFIES THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT, AUTHORING PROHIBITION IN AMERICA.

Talk about your black days in history.

1920:  THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS HOLDS ITS FIRST COUNCIL MEETING IN PARIS, FRANCE.

And good news....no designated hitter.

1942:  CRASH OF TWA FLIGHT 3, KILLING ALL 22 ABOARD.

Including....

1942:  ACTRESS CAROLE LOMBARD IS KILLED.

Sorry, Clark.

1945:  ADOLF HITLER MOVES INTO HIS UNDERGROUND BUNKER, THE SO-CALLED FUHRERBUNKER.

Clever name, Nazis.

1950:  CHOREOGRAPHER DEBBIE ALLEN IS BORN.

Thereby ruining about a dozen or so future Oscar telecasts.

1956:  PRESIDENT GAMAL ABDEL NASSER OF EGYPT VOWS TO RECONQUER PALESTINE.

Sixty three years later, this nonsense is still going on.

1972:  ACTOR ROSS BAGDASARIAN JR. DIES.

Alvin?  Alvin?  ALVIN!!!!!!

1973:  ANNA CHRISTIAN WATERS DISAPPEARS FROM HER BACKYARD.  SHE IS NEVER FOUND.

Yet, it was Etan Patz who everybody thinks was the first one on a milk carton.

1979:  THE SHAH OF IRAN FLEES IRAN AND RELOCATES TO EGYPT.

Location, location, location.

1979:  ACTOR TED CASSIDY DIES.

You rang?

1980:  BASEBALL STAR ALBERT PUJOLS IS BORN.

There will be no birthday cards with the postmark "St. Louis."

1991:  THE COALITION FORCES GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ, BEGINNING THE GULF WAR.

The Gulf War....sponsored by Exxon.

1997:  ENNIS, SON OF BILL COSBY, IS KILLED.

About two miles from where I am typing this.

2003:  THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA TAKES OFF FOR ITS FINAL VOYAGE.  IT DISINTEGRATES 16 DAYS LATER UPON RE-ENTRY.

Cheap foreign parts.

2009:  PAINTER ANDREW WYETH DIES.

Wyeth?  He stopped breathing.

2014:  ACTOR DAVE MADDEN DIES.

A partridge in a casket.

2017:  ASTRONAUT GENE CERNAN DIES.

Outer space and beyond.

Dinner last night:  Leftover beef stew.

Need to Have Your Oil Changed?

Might I suggest you choose a car service place right near a movie theater? Luckily, that's what I do when the oil needs to be swapped out.   Instead of sitting with a bunch of losers in a waiting area, I walk the block to the Arclight Theater in Culver City and spend the two hours watching a movie.  Sometimes, the showing times work in my favor.   Other times, not so much.

And that's how this super hero-movie-hater wound up going to see...gasp..."Aquaman."  

Since I'm pretty much under exposed when it comes to anything Marvel or DC Comics, I had no clue about this particular character except, of course, I figured the guy lived in the water.  Duh.   Have no fear.   They give you the back story in the first five minutes.   Some lighthouse owner finds a mermaid (Nicole Kidman???!!!) washed up on the shore.   They fall in love and she immediately gets pregnant and gives birth to young son Arthur.  

Then we go off the rails.   It turns out the mermaid is really the Queen of Atlantis and a bunch of water logged centurions abduct her.   They allegedly kill her but, because you know Nicole Kidman wouldn't take a role with such little screen time, she figures to turn up around the end of the picture.   Oh, spoiler alert.   She turns up around the end of the picture.  

But, meanwhile, young Arthur has special powers and, since the Queen also had a son with another denizen of the ocean, he's got an evil half brother.   And then the battle begins to rule over Atlantis, the seas of the world, and maybe even Robert Mueller.   Indeed, this movie takes longer to finish than the latter's Washington investigation.

So, Arthur AKA Aquaman run around the world fighting all sorts of things until the inevitable final battle.   Some of it is amusing.  Some of it is downright confusing.   But Jason Momoa as Aquaman does get the joke and there are a lot of clever one-liners (PS, in real life, he is married to Lisa Bonet of "The Cosby Show").   But the rest of the characters act like they are doing Shakespeare and this renders a very high level of stupidity.  Particularly out of place is Nicole Kidman, who hasn't shown this much confusion since she was married to Tom Cruise.

But what the hell do I know??  "Aquaman" has made a fortune and I am guessing there will be at least six or seven sequels.  I will be likely to see any of them.

Unless, of course, if I need my tires rotated.

LEN'S RATING:  Two stars.

Dinner last night:  Sandwich.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - January 14, 2019

Nope.  Don't miss this at all.

Dinner last night:  Cajun beef stew.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - Grandma Won't Wait

She didn't like to.  Seriously.  

Yep, it's back to my grandparents, a very popular theme.  Here they are again starring in yet another Sunday Memory Drawer.

We all get our personal traits from the very early adult influences in our lives.  I can tell you that I can be overly stoic and that came from my father.  I can be a bit impulsive and that was handed down from my mother.  If you think about those two particular attributes, you probably can deduce that they don't co-habit in my body very easily.  A mental tug-of-war.

Living with my grandparents, I got to experience even more influential behavior that wound up embedded in me.  Dad and Grandpa were alike so it was a double espresso dose of stoicism. 

From Grandma?  I got my tendency to be incredibly impatient.  If patience is a virtue, impatience is a sin.  And I am a sinner.

Not impatient with people.  That's not the issue here.  No, like my grandmother, I can get very obstinate about having something done when I want it done.  If there's a broken handle on a cabinet, I want it fixed immediately.  If there is a warning light on my car dashboard, I can barely wait until the next morning to get it serviced by the dealer.  Over and over and over.  When I get a bee in my bonnet, I don't let it buzz around long.

Just like Grandma.

This, of course, makes me recall many skirmishes in my house.  Because when my grandmother wanted something done, Grandpa was usually the one who had to do it. 

"Rake the leaves in the yard, Pop."

If it wasn't done within a day, guess who started the job herself.

"I want to go down to the Bronx to pick up some cold cuts."

If they weren't in the car within a day, guess who wasn't talking to Grandpa until they went.

This was the pattern I saw for years. 

Later on, Grandma decided to have aluminum siding put onto the house.  This would be a summer-long project with scaffolding and workmen all over the place.  When you enter into such an undertaking, most folks will take a number of bids from contractors, deliberate on the colors, etc..  Not Grandma.  The first bid was accepted.  And there was absolutely no discussion on the colors.  Green and white.  I guess she made the right choice.  The same panels exist on the house to this day.

Grandma's impatient streak did upend her once.  Actually, she wound up in a whole puddle of trouble. 

Grandpa was gone from our world.  Mom and Dad were both working nights.  The bulk of my day, once I would come home from school, would be spent with Grandma.  Eating dinner, doing my homework while she watched Walter Cronkite, and then enjoying our favorite TV shows together.

Except there was one day when I arrived home to find something amiss.  Major league.  I walked into the house to find Grandma in her living room.  With gauze all over her legs which were bleeding.

She shooed me and my questions away for a few minutes, but I persisted on getting answers.  Was I going to have call my mother to come home?

"NO."

Okay, got it.  Then please tell me what happened.

As I finally got the story out of her, I was mystified, aghast, and impressed all at the same time.

While taking out the garbage, the back door had slammed shut.  And locked.   Okay, I said, there's that hidden extra key that we all knew about and had access to.  On a hook underneath the curtain rod in the vestibule.

Grandma looked at me.  Surprised and ashamed.  She had forgotten all about the key.  Instead, she had resorted to more drastic measures.

She had taken a rock and busted one of the cellar windows.  Somehow, this almost eighty-year-old woman had crawled through the opening and had essentially broken into her own house like a cat burglar.  When I went outside to look at where she had manuevered herself back in, I couldn't believe how she had done this.  Houdini would have been proud.  Of course, the oozing of blood showed me that she had not come through the magic trick unscathed.

I asked Grandma when this had all transpired.  My parents usually left around 1PM.  It was now 4PM.  Had she been outside all this time?

Nope.  She got locked out at 3PM.

I was confused.  She couldn't have waited a single hour for me to come home from school.  After all, I had my own key.  I remembered where the hidden key was.  And, at the very least, I could have gotten through the cellar window a lot easier.  Why, Grandma, didn't you wait?

"My stories were coming on."

She was much less impatient after that.  

Dinner last night:  Grilled brat and German potato salad.