Another Snippet from My Book

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I’ve been trying to speed up my writing but there’s always something distracting me.  but I thought it would be fun to post a little part of a scene.

“After the meeting, Director Sparks called Chastain and told him to meet him at Sparks’ temporary office in the Pentagon.  When Chastain arrived Sparks briefed him.  “We can’t play around anymore.  I’ve been given unlimited resources to catch this man.  I want you to act as the lead.  There will be three separate teams.  One will investigate the physical evidence at the Hoover building site to figure out what the hell we’re up against.  The second team will pursue the cyber trail of whoever released the video.  That leak must be plugged.  But most important, the third team will find Boghadair.  You will have first priority on all the surveillance infrastructure, public and private.  You can write a blank check for whatever you need but I want that man in custody within the week.  If not, your head is on the block.  And that’s not a joke.  If Boghadair isn’t in shackles in a week from today you’re done.”  Chastain bit back some bitter words and said, “Okay, I’ll need a command center with a room where I can crash; bed, shower, kitchen.  Tell me the cost center numbers I can charge to and give me the contact information for my three team leads.  I’ll find Boghadair for you or you can have my job.  But I wonder what else I’ll find.  Apparently, this thing is a lot bigger than one man.”

Sparks handed him a briefcase.  “All the documents are on a drive.  There’s a folder with all the contact information and the codes you need to access the databases and the systems you’ll need.  I also want a list of government officials that Boghadair might target and conjecture on the order of attack.  I want that list by tomorrow morning.”  Chastain nodded his head.  Sparks growled, “That’s all.”  And Chastain left the office and walked out of the building.  As he was leaving the building he thought, “You’re at the top of that list you fool.”

As Director Sparks left his temporary office that night that very idea occurred to him.  He was headed home to a gated community in one of the most expensive suburbs of Washington.  And he was scared.  He decided to travel back to his home by a different route.  Taking this circuitous route and seeing no cars following him he slowly calmed down and by the time he was within a mile of his home he felt foolish about his fears.  When he was caught at a red light that usually never changed on him he was a little confused.  Then he noticed that the video display on his dashboard shifted from the typical menu view to a video feed.  He could see a man in the driver’s seat of a car.  After a second or two he realized he was looking at an image of himself.  He was for a second stunned and by the time he comprehended his peril the bullet was already entering the side of his head.  When his foot slipped off the brake his car rolled into the intersection and was struck by traffic going through the intersection.  The local police were on the scene rather quickly and alerted the FBI based on the car’s license plate number.  Late that night the report reached George Chastain and his first thought was, “I guess I should let the Attorney General know he’s next on the list.””

Gee, it’s fun killing bad guys.  It just feels right.  Well, on to the Attorney General.

What’s Really Wrong With the Oscars?

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I don’t know why I would read an article in Vox magazine entitled “This is the most populist Oscars in a long time.  So why doesn’t it feel like it?“   I guess it’s because sometimes I wonder what Hollywood thinks about its own destruction.  I really should stop wondering.  But anyway.

This article is centered around a recent Saturday Night Live skit about how no one can name any movies in the last five years.

“This is an interesting problem for me, a film critic, to think about. I watch more movies in a year than some people watch in a lifetime, and hear about hundreds more. The situation is different for most ordinary folks. In the SNL sketch, Yang asks Pascal to “name three movies from the past five years.” Stunned by the challenge, Pascal ventures, “Oh, wow. Three? Okay.” He contemplates, and comes up with Top Gun. Then he tries another: “The Hangover?”

“That was 20 years ago,” Yang says.

“The Night … Man,” Pascal says.

“Sounds like you’re just saying words. Come on, all you need is one,” Yang coaxes. “Can’t you just name one more movie?”

“Nope,” Pascal says, resigned.

“That’s right!” Yang crows, jubilantly. “Nope! You won the speed round!””

So, this is supposed to be funny but it’s just reality.  Hollywood can no longer make a good movie.  At this point if one happens it’s an accident.  All we’re left with are sequels and superheroes.  When they stray away from those mainstays we end up with a dreary story about tortured people that have some affliction like transgenderism or Tourette’s syndrome who we’re supposed to cheer on as they bravely struggle to force the world to struggle along with them.  Or maybe it’s a genre film; science fiction or film noir where the protagonists are transgender or have Tourette’s syndrome and the people who aren’t transgender or don’t have Tourette’s syndrome are the evil villains.  Or it’s a story about lesbian or gay love.  Or it’s a documentary about a woman who was being kept down by “the man” but now she’s the head of a multi-national non-profit that makes bean bag furniture for everyday people.  Or it’s a documentary about a mostly peaceful riot during the Summer of George Floyd.  Or best of all, maybe it’ll be another story about slavery in the antebellum South.  What a joy that would be!

But, no!  The authoress then reveals the real problem, it’s just poor marketing!  So, get that.  In a world in which you are bombarded with ads on every device you can possibly own, on every site you enter, giant media companies aren’t able to tell you they have a movie coming out.

“The abundance of options and possibilities tend to strip the context and intentionality away from the viewing experience; you didn’t have to talk to your friends about what movie you wanted to see, buy a ticket, and create an experience out of it. Now it all just flows toward you, content in an endless stream.”

This is gibberish.  I suspect this woman was dropped on her head at some point in the past and never recovered her wits.  Or maybe she thinks we were.  Of course, people heard about movies from friends.  The problem is all the movies are now unwatchable so our friends don’t have anything to tell us.  It’s like what happened to broadcast television.  The profit model changed so they stopped making things that were good and filled up the time with reality shows and police procedurals where the police are all young women who have really nice hair and clothes and only arrest straight white men who are keeping the BIPoCs, LGBTQ and women “down.”

There are no good movies to see.  Even the superhero movies have become infested with woke characters and plots.  And that why Top Gun made a bazillion dollars last year.  It was an old-fashioned movie with a plot and likeable characters and it didn’t show you anything weird that you had to make believe you liked.

“It’s okay if you haven’t seen most of the Oscar nominees, or even heard of them. In 2023, that probably means you live a normal, well-balanced life, one full of going outside to toss around a softball and maybe, I don’t know, reading books and whatever normal people do. But if you find yourself wondering why you can’t name three movies that came out in the past five years, remember, it’s not just the movies’ fault — and it’s a fixable problem, with a little effort.”

It’s not a fixable problem because Hollywood cannot be fixed.  It has been in a death spiral and that’s now approaching impact.  When it splats it will leave a lot of stupid emotional people without jobs.  Good.

It can only be replaced by something willing to provide entertainment that people are willing to pay for and willing to watch.  And that is why no one with half a brain will be watching the Oscars this year or any other year.  Pass the popcorn.

 

 

Bu-bye Beetlejuice

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No big surprise but apparently allowing gangbangers to kill everyone that walks down the street is even too much for brain dead Chicago voters to re-elect Lori Lightfoot.  But never fear.  With the blithering idiot they have for state’s attorney the killing will continue unabated.

Update:

Hat Tip to TomD, well done!

Mayor.jpg
Mayor.jpg

01MAR2023 – Quote of the Day

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The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt. The economic and intellectual conditions of his homeland do not permit the individual to develop. The spirit of the country has been weakened by centuries of useless struggle and broken treaties. Individual initiative has been paralyzed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while the body has been shackled by peelers, duty officers and soldiers. No self-respecting person wants to stay in Ireland. Instead he will run from it, as if from a country that has been subjected to a visitation by an angry Jove.

James Joyce

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 28FEB2023 – Musk Earns the Two Minute Hate

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Hopefully more people are noticing how quickly the apparatus composed of media, academia, and government figures turns on those highly public figures who speak heretically such Elon Musk. Disagreeing with the DEI ideology is unforgivable in their eyes. Once he was identified as an enemy of the Hive, the attacks became merciless. A quick search online currently brings up accusations of him being practically a Neo-Nazi from South Africa, a fraud in his educational path, or a P.T. Barnum figure for Tesla or SpaceX.

However, the Internet is forever, and it doesn’t take too long to pull up glowing articles from a few years past on Mr. Musk’s achievements in business and furthering technological advancement.

Whatever one’s opinion on Donald Trump, this technique of demonization was swiftly employed against him once he became a potential candidate for president, and continued throughout his term as president. For those of us of a certain age, Mr. Trump was a constant public figure in the news, entertainment, and media.

From the 80s onward into the 2000s his presence and relevance was seen. While not always receiving positive news coverage, the accusations of racial, sexual, and overall caricatured evilness did not begin until he ran for president.

The astounding thing is how arrogant mainstream media was towards the American people in that they expected us to fully accept the new narrative on Trump. The same NY real estate developer that these industries used to sell newspapers, advertising dollars for ‘The Apprentice” show, hell, even Domino’s Pizza commercials he starred in at one point. The man they helped build up with all the exposure became the Anti-Christ incarnate.

How insulting it was, it least to me, that they all but demanded we believe this new presentation of the man. To now see the same strategy and playbook used on Elon Musk is pathetic, yet predicable.

February in Dunwich Came in Like a Lamb and Is Going Out Like a Shoggoth

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April Snowstorm

We got about six inches of wet snow last night and we’ll probably get another coupla-three-inches over the course of the day today. So, for the first time this winter I took the snow blower out and ran it around the upper driveway.  It was repaired before the winter and the foot of the housing was adjusted higher.  So now it leaves about a half inch of snow on the ground.  With dry snow this isn’t an issue but the wet stuff we got last night can gum up the works and you end up with snow compacting into slushy ice and the blower riding on top of the ice and before you know it there’s a four-inch frozen layer that you have to remove by shovel.

But honestly, I think it was enjoyable to go out and do some work.  All of this will be gone in less than a week.  All I’ve got to do is make sure I can get the cars in and out of the driveway and the rest of it will melt more or less on its own.  So I spent a couple of hours today with about half the time being shovel work on very heavy wet snow.  And I’m feeling energized because of it.

Winter is rearing its ugly head for sure.  Eight or nine inches of wet show is nothing to scorn but knowing that it won’t be lying around for three months is a big deal.  It’s three weeks to celestial spring.  Sure, we can have three feet of snow on April Fool’s Day.  It’s already been proven.  But winter has run out of time to break our backs or our spirits.

Right now, I’m looking out the balcony door at the snow sifting down through the still winter air.  It’s kind of beautiful.  I can hear the red winged black birds squawking around Camera Girl’s bird feeders.  This week hundreds of them have appeared and swarmed the area.  Maybe it’s their mating season or something.  But all the noise tells me something about the imminence of Spring.  The daffodils that appeared last week are buried in the wet snow.  But they’ve got some kind of anti-freeze in their cells that will keep them from dying.  The mallards have been wading around the pond and their ducklings will be sure to appear soon.

Around Dunwich there’s all kinds of excitement.  The budget is a shambles and we have no money.  The peasants have broken out the torches and pitchforks.  They’ll be marching to First Selectman Cthulhu’s lair soon just in time to be his first Black Sabbath feast.  In my new role as his “Least Lackey” I will be in charge of manning the barbecue sauce pumping station.  It will be my responsibility to hose down the marchers so that His Honor can swallow them quickly and enjoyably.  I hope he notes that I’ve selected the roasted garlic and lemon-flavored sauce this season.  It adds just the right touch of piquance to the flavor of what the First Selectman likes to call “Dunwich sushi.”  Oh, he’s so droll.  Who says Great Old Ones have no sense of humor?  Well, gotta go.  The snow, it calls me.

Elon Musk Makes a Suggestion

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I guess Musk is serious about speaking the truth when it’s not popular or even safe.  But it makes him a more relatable figure.  Now if only he’d get around to that billion dollar funding for OCF.  Then I’d call him a genius.