Currently Watching Coverage of Historic Nasa/Space X Mission!

Been postponed till Saturday due to weather, but boy that was exciting!!!!

 

 

 

 

There was a time in this nation where– when men went into the stars, the whole nation stopped and looked up. I don’t know if the whole nation, whole world is looking up today, (I think the very fact that the corporate owned News Stations in the US, aren’t covering this live –says everything about the lack of value in broadcast television, and the price politics play in news coverage) but I do think (thanks to streaming) we have more people looking at the stars, than we have in many decades. Sometimes — with pandemics and wars and hatreds and corporate malfeasance, it is easy to lose sight of something else, something larger— that we live in wondrous times.

 

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” -John Fitzgerald Kennedy

DEONTAY WILDER VS TYSON FURY II and III??? : The Final Word

So I recently watched this kinda hilarious back and forth video on the 2nd Deontay Wilder/Tyson Fury fight. It goes off the hinges in the last 15 minutes, with the guy outside the ring, who had good points up to then, trying to write off everything to Fury’s height, which is incorrect.

It’s a bit long, so you may want to read this post first than view the video.

So I thought I would chime in, on my (hopefully) very quick thoughts, as just a fan of the sport, on the fight.

First, those of you not giving respect to Deontay  Wilder, let me quickly ask you this.

• How many times have you fought Tyson Fury?
• How many times have you knocked down Tyson Fury?
• How many times have you been in there fighting him round after round?
• And beyond the fight, the really crushing thing is often all the draining bs circus that revolves around it, how many times have you and your family had to suffer the tirades of people who have never stepped foot in a boxing ring a day in their life?

If the answer to any of those questions is 0, then you lack the background to disrespect or to berate, and so you should learn.

If supremacy in Boxing is defined by how many  men can get in a boxing ring with Tyson Fury, and throw hands with him for multiple rounds, that’s a very short list, and top of that list is Deontay Wilder.

So keep your hate and disrespect in perspective. And say nothing through the keyboard or twitter or facebook or chat, whatever, that you would not say to that person’s face in private.

Ok— onto my thoughts on the fight —

I think the fight illustrates a few different issues with the Heavy Weight division. One that I have stressed for sometime.

From 200lbs to say 235lbs, to be generous, you are a heavy weight. That is the HT, completely arbitrary Heavy Weight range, but I’ll let you know why and where that comes from as we go on.

Beyond 235 you are a super heavy weight.  There is a reason fighters our penalized money and fights are called off, if you go over weight. Every pound, in a sport that is all about pounds, is seen as an advantage.

I am one of those who thought the first Wilder/Fury was a draw.

I think in this 2nd fight, they both came in with game plans, and Fury’s was the better, if not exactly legal, game-plan.

I think Tyson stacked the deck with a lot of advantages going into that fight, and part of that is on Wilder’s team for letting the date, and the venue, and so many other things– be to the advantage of Fury’s camp. On top of that, by my measure of the weight range– my definition of what makes a heavy weight, Wilder is a natural heavy weight. He can come in at 215 or 220, and be a wrecking house at that weight.

Wilder’s gameplan was he came into this fight at the heaviest he has ever been, to try and deal with the weight advantage of Tyson Fury, who at nearly 280 is a natural super heavyweight.

It is the gameplan that a lot of real heavyweights have had to do, to try be competitive against these Super-heavyweights;  and unfortunately it generally does not work. You blow yourself up, to a weight you are slower at, less resilient with your cardio,  all in the hopes having enough mass to stay in the fight. But what generally happens in that scenario, is talent being equal, the one more comfortable at that weight… wins.

Without doubt Fury used every dirty trick in the book, and a few not invented yet, in that fight; from illegal rabbit punches, to finding creative ways to extend his reach and nullify the padding on his glove. And without doubt he is an extremely talented boxer, but the deciding factor was the weight. All of this and Fury knows how to drape all of that 280lbs on you, so you are spent –just trying to stand up, much less evade punches and try to deliver your own. That 40lb difference, on top of everything else– on top of the fact that Wilder is not used to carrying his own beefed up weight, just decided the fight.

But Wilder has nothing to hang his head about. In a world of nearly 8 billion people, I don’t see too many others who were there that night, in a hostile venue, standing in front of a 280lb skilled Super-Heavy weight. And still after the fight,  there are not too many legitimate fights for talented Super heavyweights, which is doing a disservice to the heavy weight division.

There are a lot of fighters in the heavy weight division that can be the next Jack Johnson, or Marciano or Ali. But we won’t see them as long as we let Super Heavyweights fight in the heavyweight division. We are stagnating a whole generation of potential great heavyweights.

Limit Heavy Weight to 235. If you are over that weight, you fight in the super heavy weight division. That is the only sane option to make the heavyweight division the exciting, competitive, packed dream division that it once was. You negate Fury’s weight advantage (which he has had in both fights) and you are talking two very different fights.

That fight, between Wilder and Fury played out with both men at no more than  235lbs, I think while Fury is  the slicker Boxer, Wilder pound for pound is the stronger man, and at the 235 limit, against another 235er, I think Wilder puts Fury on his butt. Puts anyone on their butt.

 

I will also say, again just as a fan, I do not think Wilder’s corner did him any favors. I think Fury looked at their first fight and (beyond any of the questionable, potentially illegal hijinks done) adapted.

Whereas Wilder’s camp beyond putting on additional weight, I don’t really think they adapted a fight plan for Fury. Just based on their first fight, and watching previous Fury fights, I think the plan sensibly would have been… “what to do to negate Fury’s movement and reach and angles”.

And the answer that comes to me as just a fan (with no boxing  or coaching experience, so I think it would be 10 times as clear to someone who is a boxer or trainer) is you put the fight on Fury’s chest.  Realizing that if you headhunt a 6’9 lightning slick Fury, hoping to land a ‘hail mary’ punch, you are not going to win.

Rather you put the war on his body, attack the arms, attack the ribs, attack the gut, slow him down, get the arms to drop. A war of attrition to negate that motion, to control the pace and the ring, and get into the later rounds. I think that is the gameplan that gets you into the championship rounds.

Seemingly they did not come with that gameplan, or it was jettisoned in the ring. And instead we got the fight we got.

But regardless of my take, both men deserve and have earned respect.

The world is full of a few types of people. In sports, one of the best are those who aspire, and risk winning and losing.

WIlder and Fury are an example, both of them, of that best. Of those who aspire, and risk losing, in order to win. It is courage, anyway you stack it.

Then there are those, fans who , not as gifted, celebrate those who excel at a thing. Now your being a fan, may buy you an opinion to like or dislike a thing. but at no point, should you lose sight of the respect you need to hold, for someone who is better than you at something.

Whether a soldier or a cook or a boxer— at the thing they are better than you at, you respect the man or woman, who does their job well. To fail to do that, is just envy, and it is not a good look… it defines you— not them.

Would I like To see a Wilder Fury III? If Wilder comes with a real game plan, ok, sure.  But I’m tired of there only being 3 or 4 viable super-heavyweights, and therefore a shallow pool of options. So what I really want to see, is a Heavy Weight Division, for the good of the sport, institute a 235lb limit.

Till they do that, the Heavy Weight division will be a suppressed division.

 

 

Here endeth the Lesson.

 

Almost. 🙂

*****************

WHY DO WEIGHT CLASSES MATTER?

 

And lest you think I am making too much, of a 5 or 10 or 40 lb advantage, here is a brief breakdown of weight divisions for those of you who do not know…

The reason we have weight divisions, is to make fights competitive.

Let me repeat that, the reason we have weight divisions, is to make fights competitive.

There is a reason that at every ten pounds you are generally in a new division. Being the best at a specific weight class is an art. To fight at that weight, against others who have trained to fight at that weight, and to be the best at it, is an art.

If you are a champion at the light weight division and knocking out people at 135lbs, it is a whole different level of power when you go ten pounds up to 147lb Welterweight division, and then go up ten more pounds to the 160lb Middleweight division ( historically where the most exciting fights have happened, often the perfect combination of speed, power, finesse, and just entertaining wars). These fights are competitive, and the division is competitive because you have a lot of great fighters  at that weight, with similar reach, etc, to make for competitive fights.

And that competitiveness continues as you go up in ten pound increments to the 175lb Light Heavyweight Division and 200lb Cruiserweight division.

Today that competitiveness stops when you hit the heavy weight division.

And the reason for that is that lack of a strict weight range that makes for disciplined, competitive fights and fighters.  And while the heavy weight division managed fine for most of the 20th century without doing weight limits, the reason was that even though you may have the anomaly of the extremely tall or extremely heavy  fighter, they were not really competitive against the standard, a 6ft/6ft 2″ 200lb to 220lb  world class boxer.

George Foreman in the 1970s was arguably the World’s first TRUE super heavy weight. He was big and he was strong he was fast, and he was a brilliant boxer, he was the unbeatable man, and dwarfed the heavyweights of the day. When you see Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, that was George Foreman in the 1970s. He was a frightening force of nature. One reason Ali is remembered as the greatest is he fought all these unbeatable men, and found a way to beat them. But the young, mean, “I will Break You” George Foreman was a glimpse of what was to come. 

After very competitive years in the heavyweight division with Ali, Holmes, Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe, and the return of an older, nicer George Foreman, the curtain began to descend on the division with the rise of the Super Heavyweights on the Heavyweight stage. These 6’6″+ and 250lb+ behemoths, the age of  Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, Tyson Fury (while all great fighters) led to an extended period of stagnation and disinterest in the heavyweight division. Largely because you only had 2 or 3 competitive super-heavy weights at any one time, so you had a lot of legitimate heavy-weights, blowing themselves out, putting on weight to try and be competitive against someone who naturally outweighs them by 50lbs, or has a massive height/reach advantage.

Only recently, having 3 such exciting and flamboyant fighters in the division at the same time, Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, and Tyson Fury; has the heavyweight division become prominent again. And really it was largely the rise of Deontay Wilder, as a flamboyant, and exciting prospect in the mix (and someone who legitimately, in my opinion,  is a heavy weight, rather than a super heavyweight), that really galvanized the division.

 

Okay history lesson over, that’s a little bit of why tightly defined weight ranges matter, and why the Heavy Weight division needs that instituted.

 

Feel free to like, comment, subscribe and spread the word! 🙂

 

Thanks!

 

Today’s Rant Brought to you by THE FEARMAKERS (1958)

“Millions of people being lied too. Taken for suckers.

You know it’s a funny thing. They have pure food and drug laws, to keep people from buying poison to put in their stomachs, and you’re pedaling poison to put in their minds!”

Dana Andrews in FEARMAKERS (1958)

A good film by the always impressive Jaques Tourneur. Currently available via Amazon Prime. But against the day when it becomes unavailable on streaming (which happens often), get your DVD (is not available in Bluray) here.

 

-Wow that quote could be directed at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FACEBOOK and FOX.

Okay I am about to rant here. So if you don’t want to hear one of my always outrageous and “witchhunt society incorrect” rants, then enjoy the above poster and quote, and come back next installment for more cuddly teddy bears. For those masochists and sadists among you who get off on my occasional tirades… enjoy the following.

****

One thought on FOX… people tend to toss the ‘fake news’ appellation at FOX, when every other network is just as guilty of it. Do you think it is coincidence that when a major story breaks, NBC, CBS, and Disney owned ABC, are reporting the same news, at the same time, using nearly the same sound-bites?

Without a doubt FOX and Sinclair Broadcasting have agendas, and positions to pedal, but I appreciate the fact, that they are at least original when composing their coverage, rather than just a member of a ‘greek chorus’, that the other bought networks are a part of.

I hate slavery, and I hate programming, and I hate the stupidity of the mob, and network news relies on all three.

So yes FOX news, culpable and biassed, but do not fool yourself into thinking CBS or ABC or NBC or CNN is any less culpable and biased.

I wish Bill Cosby — back in the day, before he became the pariah for this witch-hunt generation, had bought CBS (he was always an excellent businessman), and this idea of a major network in the US, not part and parcel of the Industrial War Complex, would have at least given us some modicum of balance in our ‘news’; instead of what we have, which is… who we should deify and who we should demonize, being fed to us by multi-national corporate interests and the children of slavers.

 

The Truth is out there, to borrow an old slogan. But so are lies, and determining the one from the other, takes being informed as much about yourself, and your prejudices, and biases , and agendas, as it does being aware of other peoples.

We have to work harder at finding the news, and not trust that we will get it delivered to us. We have to some extent — be our own journalist, and for medical issues, don’t accept the regurgitation of middlemen be it newscasters or youtubers or personalities or bloggers. Go to the source for any rumor or ‘news’ you hear.

You want to know about the state of the Covid Virus, you don’t watch the effing news, you go to the World Health Organization and the Center For Disease Control. This is for everything, crime, movies, weather, employment, entertainment, you see a headline, you fact check it, and cross check it with multiple established and respected resources.

Yes it requires work.

And no, it is not as much fun, as joining the mob, and playing “who do we lynch today”, who do we pile on and castigate for their sins, so we do not have to look at our own.

Bill Cosby recently came up in the news, a letter from his representation, requesting release due to this Covid situation.

For those of you who do not know, America has one of the highest prison populations in the world, and one of the most corrupt and mismanaged. The endpoint of this being it is a hotbed for the current outbreak.

So Bill Cosby’s representation, naturally put in motions for release.

Any of you reading this blog for any length of time, know where I stand on Bill Cosby.

Namely a lot of people rushing to castigate Bill Cosby. And if none of them have done the accused evil of a Bill Cosby, I guarantee you, no ten of them have done the good.

But it is easier to pretend that a man’s falling down exists, and his standing up never did. His honors and accolades removable, his faults are all… they are to be weighed above and beyond all… they eradicate the good, so all we see is the bad.

Is that the measure by which we judge, and should be judged?

If guilty —  treatment is what he needed, not prison. But America continues to use the media for lynching, and the legal system for enslaving, and between the two… justice is a distant land, and the echoes of Jim Crow and slavery… alive.

Hopefully the new motions from his representation will get Mr. Cosby, who is not a violent criminal, released.

And to the rest of us, those who are quick to judge, and damn, and delight in a person’s fall.

Be hopeful you be not judged, as harshly as you judge.

Or none of us will escape crucifixion.

None of us will escape the fires.

 

Here endeth the Rant.

Recommended Movie : INFERNO (1953) By Roy Baker

 

Received this film in the mail, less than 24 hours ago, courtesy of Blu-ray label Twilight Time and having already watched it have it say… it is a keeper.

This 1953 directed Roy Baker film, starring Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming and William Londigan is a surprisingly intense, gripping and even brutal affair. What begins as a seemingly routine 1950s period film, becomes something far more compelling and intriguing, something that surprised me, watching it for the first time in 2020, in its sophistication of storytelling, and attention to detail, and the efficacy of its survival narrative.

You get a real appreciation for Robert Ryan as an actor, who rarely got the chance to play anything besides vicious heavies, and can appreciate why this was one of his films that he liked. Also actors Rhonda Fleming and William Londigan, likewise give strong performances. Also the accompanying film commentary (if you are watching via Twilight Time disc) gives a thoroughly informative and enriching look into all involved in the film, and the film itself. You particularly learn that contrary to Robert Ryan being typecast largely as heavy, and racist; that he was actually a champion for human and civil rights, and was an erudite and learned man.

Now regarding the Twilight Time Blu-ray disc for this film, it looks good but it does not look great. It looks DVD quality, not remastered, with artifacts, which is most likely the print Twilight time was given by the studio to work with, so I do not hold it against them. But I did want to make you aware you are not getting this release for its picture quality.

As of this writing this film is not available via streaming, and with it being one of the Fox inventory that is now owned by Disney, the chance of a future Region A disc release of this film is currently unlikely.

Though eventually I see this film making it onto a streaming service, and when that happens, it will likely be a better print, higher quality than presented on this disc.

You may think that’s an odd admission from me, considering I am always praising the importance of physical media, and I do prefer physical media. However in some cases, streaming gets it right, and the physical media… doesn’t. And this disc quality wise, leaves room for improvement.

That said, it could be years before this film hits Disney streaming or is re-released on disc, and considering how good of a film it is, that would be a bit of a loss, to film fans and to film history.

And the Blu-ray/Hi-Def limitations of this Blu-ray disc aside, it is perfectly presentable, and worth owning for the special features, and commentary alone. And Twilight time is one of the few labels doing the hard-work of releasing these often long unavailable films. That then get picked up by bigger labels that have the money to remaster the films, etc.

 

So Twilight Time is definitely a company worth supporting. And as of this writing you can still pickup the INFERNO Blu-ray. 

And even if the streaming version was available today, I would still recommend owning the physical version of this movie, because it not only offers you the film, and the special features, but also the ability to donate it or sell it when you are done with it. Something you are not going to be able to do with a digital version that you ‘own’.

The physical version still has inherent resale value.

 

Grade: Recommended

 

Get your copy Here!

 

Book of the Day : ALEISTER & ADOLF

Like most of you reading this I have a backlog of material to get to. Being a collector I likely have more of a backlog than most. Books, comic books and graphic novels, music, cds, movies, streaming, old time radio, podcasts, youtube, and the list goes on.

So it is not unusual for Books that I get with all intention of reading, getting parked in a very long queue. For any of you with Netflix or Amazon Watchlists, you’ll understand this.

So often times books only make it to the top of that list when going out the door.

Case in point with ALEISTER & ADOLF. I have started finding new homes for books I have not had a chance to get around to, ALEISTER & ADOLF became one of those books. I was packing it up to ship to its new owner, and while I had flipped thru it never really had gotten a chance to read it. Well about to pack it up to ship off, I wanted to read a bit of it.

I opened the book, and ended up reading the whole thing, standing in one spot…. and I found it, riveting. I found it an interesting tale of the part symbols play in history, and in our concept of reality. That advertising and salesmanship, while seen as a very modern thing, is actually since time immemorial… at the heart of empires, their rise and their fall. The hearts and minds of people, is where wars and peace are won, and oligarchies sustained.

If you are a fan of writers like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, while not told with the elegaic poetry of these writers, Douglas Rushkoff‘s writing and Michael Avon Oemings‘ art, weaves a succinct and engrossing page turner of strange fiction, based on even stranger facts. 

A worthy addition to the writings, both fact and fiction, on that most pivotal and bloodiest of Wars, what Roosevelt would come to call… The Survival War.

Great read. And I see myself re-adding this to my collection in the future.

Grade: B+.

 

Get your copy here. You may want to hurry as they are almost out of stock.

News you can Use!… And a RanT.

DISNEY QUIETLY DELETES ‘TOY STORY 2’ SCENE AMIDST ‘ME-TOO’ BACKLASH.

https://frompage2screen.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/disney-quietly-deletes-toy-story-2-casting-couch-scene-after-metoo/

 

This is a bit longer than I intended it to be, so feel free to read in pieces. I think there may be some grain of wisdom in the wildness of it. It goes hither and yon, but its heart is in the right place.

 

First I have never liked Disney.

I don’t.

I do not like their stance on copyright. I do not like their stance on creator rights. And I do not like that they famously, or infamously bought a news station, rather than being the subject of the news.

I do not like any company that is above the law. All laws. And masks their absolute earth shaking power, behind this facile facade of familial values.

But you do have to respect Disney.

Respect what they have done, and how they have done it.

But cheer-leading is another matter.

I think people who were championing for Disney to buy Fox, or this company, or that company. the mass of people without a stake in Disney, championing Disney so they can see fictional characters share the same screen, are morons who do not understand larger issues of monopoly, and wage manipulation and price fixing, and law making, that comes with allowing a company to get that big. Real tangible issues that affect the people and the quality of life of the people, not at the very top of that economic pyramid.

I think people who take an ownership view of how much billions more, billion and trillion dollar entities like Disney make (oh we have to get the Avengers movie over a Billion or to 2 Billion) are ignorant slaves, cooing for their masters to build a bigger house, and expand their plantation, when you barely have a pot to piss in.

I like the Marvel and Star Wars movies and think Disney has done well by them  (However I would have been happier if neither Disney purchase was approved, and they remained separate companies, because competition and a free market and quality of life and choice… is more important than getting a specific type of movie), and I want entertainment I consume to be good, but as far as being a cheerleader for how much more billions these movies make for their global overloads. I sincerely could not care less. If the movies lose money they lose money, if they gain money they gain money.

The fact that studios have helped destroy local theaters and distribution, that 40 years ago, that money a  blockbuster made would go into the local economy,. Into the Independent theaters, the distributors, the retail companies. That money a movie made, a nice portion of it, went back into the local economy. Not so any longer. Now a studio owns a stake in everything from the distribution company, to the chain of theaters it is shown at, to the theatrical equipment and media used. The Billions a movie makes, is literally billions moving out of the pockets of the many poor, and into the pockets of the few rich.

Only if you are a stock owner should you feel some tiny type of fiscal ownership or incentive in Disney’s financials, and I guarantee you most of the idiots who are clamoring for a movie to break this record or that record, do not own a single Disney stock. They are penniless slaves taking ownership in their masters house, rather than any ownership in their own.

So that is my background on how I feel regarding Disney.

 

Now onto them cowtowing to ‘Me Too’ mob.

 

This is the reason DVDs and Blurays can not be replaced by streaming, because of this tail wagging the dog syndrome, this knee-jerk reaction companies and politicians and courts are engaged in of cowtowing to the mob, and acting and punishing at the whims of the mob, before thinking.

We can have great intentions, but the 2nd those great intentions transcend due process or replace ‘innocent till proven guilty’ with ‘guilty till proven innocent’; you become a mob rather than a movement.

And businesses and courts and the media, cowtowing to this witchhunt atmosphere become part of that lynchmob mentality.

Let us start with the big picture and some historical perspective and work our way down.

A lynch mob mentality. That’s the type of atmosphere, where people lose their job and livelihoods and lives before their day in court, where books get banned and burned, and in the age of streaming, films get… altered.

So that’s the reason if you have a movie you love, you only truly own it, if it is in a physical format. Any item you own in the ‘cloud’ or even on your hard drive (if it is accessible to updates) is subject to this re-writing of content, this editing of content, to placate the unreasoning, scared, power-hungry mob.

Most people have good intentions.

To protect their communities, to support democracy, to fight against discrimination, to oppose sexual harassment, to protect children, to defend women.

But we have allowed people with bad intentions to weaponize these good intentions, with unthinking rigid slogans that replace and usurp the rule of law, and dispense and enact punishment before due process, popular American slogans such as “Make America Great Again aka Keep America White” or “Better Dead than Red” or “Me Too”, when you become a knee jerk defender of slogans over reason and due process, you move from a defender against crime, to a committer or crimes. A lynch mob and a witch hunt.

And I’ll have no truck with that.

Too many people have been lynched in this country, both literally and most recently social media wise, to let anyone get away with mob justice, or mob punishment, as our new normal.

Someone is accused of a crime, guess what people… IT IS STILL AN EFFING ACCUSATION until proven in court. You should not immediately go from reading a headline to attacking that person, and calling for punishment and calling for them to be fired or banned or stripped of their earned honors.

(One thing on that — If an honor a university or organization has given to a person that has earned it, is removed at the behest of the mob, you do harm to the value of that honor. To the integrity of that organization.

What matters is not who the person you gave an honor to… becomes, or was in the past, but that you gave your word. If the reason the honor was given remains a fixed point in time, a fact, than that honor must likewise remain a fact, a fixed point in time.

We do not get to only immortalize a man’s falling down, his standing up, the reasons for those accolades must likewise be a fixed point. For accolades and honors to be removed with the mutterings of the mob, is to make those honors and the institution that gives them and takes them away… of no more value, than spit in wind. I’m looking at you Yale and Xavier and the Navy… to name a few.)

What we do not do, is 4 years before their date in court, pronounce them guilty, fire them, hound them, and generally destroy their life and livelihood on an accusation. That is the definition of a witchhunt and mob justice.

A man or woman’s bad, does not erase their good, and in this ME TOO slogan age, we seem to want to  make a person the one, and erase the other. And that is not how judgement works, or none of us will see the paradise.

Because if men who have done more good, than any twenty of us walking this planet, can be demonized by the mob in the blink of an eye, with none of that good taken into account, all those accolades edited out, and only the bad judged, then none of us, judged that way, will escape hell.

We must weigh the good a person has done against their bad, and only then can they be judged fairly. And they must be judged by people impartial, without axes to grind, or an agenda to put forward, else it is not judgement, it is crucifixion.

This censoring and editing of content, because ‘we’ no longer agree with an actor who is in it, or a joke that is portrayed, is a very slippery slope. And we have been here before, and it does not work out well for anyone.

A bit of an off-topic rant, but one that was brewing for a bit.

And shows how potentially widespread and damaging to every facet of our lives, cow-towing to the mob can be.

Final take away: slogans are for outside the court, not in place of it, and more trivial take away… if you have content you love, be it a book, a song, a movie, in this new digital/streaming age, while accessing it has become easier, so has altering and censoring it. So if you have something you love, own it in a form that can not easily be changed, a physical/tangible form.

 

Here endeth the Rant. 🙂

 

 

Filmic Fridays! AVENGERS ENDGAME early thoughts

While everyone is busy pondering and obsessed with how many Billions of Dollars AVENGERS ENDGAME will eventually take in, I find myself not really on that hype train.

I do intend to see AVENGERS ENDGAME (quick aside: that is a terrible title. While perhaps definition-wise apt, the actual use as a memorable, imaginative, compelling title… leaves much to be desired) and given the Russo’s track record in their past three Marvel movies I expect it to be great. But as far as getting into the speculation game is how much richer this movie will make one of the richest companies on the planet, I could not care less.

This sense of ownership comic fans show toward these films they own no part of, and corporations that 99.999% of them own no stock in, is very reminiscent of house slaves taking a sense of ownership in the gaudy trappings and parties of their masters.

I dislike Disney.

I have always disliked and distrusted Disney.

From a little kid there was something off about the company, an undercurrent always contrary to their seemingly family friendly/kid friendly fare. As a kid I always felt about all their product there was something so…. forced and insincere and cloying.

Time and egregious acts such as Disney being one of the first companies to buy a news division, (ostensibly to not be scrutinized by a free press, but to actually be the owners of the news) to now being one of the biggest monopolies in the world, has only strengthened my distrust of the company.

All these morons clamoring for Disney to subsume Fox, for no better reason than to see a movie with fictional IPs interacting, to have their Avengers meet their X-men, not understanding the broader real world implications of one less movie and TV company, one less alternative, in a world clearly running out of things not owned by Disney.

Disney has proven themselves historically to be an opponent of concepts such as public domain and creator owned, concepts that enrich culture, and move us forward.

And now that they in little more than a couple of decades have completely eaten any promising rivals to their claim of being the ‘Dream Studio’ from PIXAR, to MARVEL STUDIOS, to LUCAS FILMS, to now FOX, they are the textbook definition of a SUPER MONOPOLY.

About a 108 years ago the Supreme Court was RIGHT in breaking up Standard Oil. The Rockefeller’s monopoly of the oil business. Understanding a company with such broad reach could set prices, fix wages, even create and change laws. They were right to break Standard Oil all to pieces. And they are wrong to not actively be doing the same to Disney.

One company, especially one with as combative a policy on public domain and creator rights, should never have been made the owner (jailer?) of so many cultural and pop cultural properties, a large portion of which, like Shakespeare, like the writings of Mark Twain, Like the works of Poe, should already be in public domain. Batman, Superman, Captain America, these are concepts around long enough to become part of the cultural lexicon and conversation and hence, owned and own-able by all.

So just like any studio or TV station can put out Poe derived properties, the same should be the case with many of the early properties of Disney. Public Domain not keeping companies from making money off these concepts, it just keeps them from being the only entity to do so. it spreads the wealth, understanding that at some point, if a story lives long enough, it becomes the story of all men, and not the property of a single man or monopoly.

And Public Domain being only one of the rights of man trampled on, when a company grows too big. A company of sufficient size can set wages for an industry, effectively blacklist or put out of work who it chooses, suppress and eliminate competition/ choice.

Marvel Studios getting bought by Disney was not a good thing.

We are the poorer when viable competition to Disney or Microsoft or Apple or Google gets taken off the board.

So I hope for my own enjoyment that AVENGERS ENDGAME is a good movie, but as far as if it makes money, breaks even. I don’t have a dog in that fight. I’m not a theater owner, I’m not a studio stock holder, I’m not one of the people who worked in or on the movie, so in no way am i profiting from whether the movie does well or badly, anymore than as a film fan.

And for a fan to be interested in if he will see more of a franchise is understandable, but for a fan to be rabid about a film breaking records or how much billions it makes or its opening Weekend hall, is to lose sight of that money is largely going one way, out of many diverse people and  communities into a very few pockets.

In many ways those Billions a movie makes are further funds siphoned, to widen the gap… between rich and poor.

Now i do not fault a movie for doing well, but I will be much abused or maladjusted, before I cheer billionaires becoming bigger billionaires, when the bulk of people in this world, are getting poorer.

That’s my take on how completely, a monopolized media can skew us against our own best interests.

Here Endeth the Lesson.

🙂

 

 

 

The worst thing that can happen to movies and free news is for Disney to gobble up Fox Studios and yet another news channel..

There is a reason a hundred years ago antitrust laws , and labor laws and child labor laws and unions came to be… because we learned the hard way… unchecked capitalism and greed is indistinguishable from tyranny and murder.

Companies were literally killing people to make a penny more in profit.

Let us not go backwards.

Say no to Disney gobbling up another studio and another network and news division. That would make them even more, the makers of truth..

Too much power for any company or any man.

Comcast is no prize, but in this situation, having them buy the Fox portfolio, it is clearly the lesser of two evils.

 

Here endeth the Lesson.

 

My All Over the Place Rant… Beware, there be Dragons here

It’s 0330 dark of the morning and I’m listening to Disaster-Piece’s IT FOLLOWS film score on CD (not something I would particularly recommend if you are in the house by yourself at this time of night), and I’m thinking…we are all adrift in the fields of the Lord.

That’s what I’m thinking.

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And I’m thinking of Carlos Castaneda and a Yaqui Indian called Don Juan and truths and fictions, and how the one becomes the other and the other the one.

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I’m thinking of the quality of person that would have actually voted for Resident Trump and be not ashamed.

I think the clinical term would be somewhere between fool and sociopath.

I’m thinking of seas relatively unspoiled by man, and islands far from this benighted shore.

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I think…

I think there are other worlds…

but this one is not quite done with me.

I think of duty and honor and truth and justice and loyalty, words co-opted by the venal to keep a nation of young men killing and dying and being mutilated and maimed for the 1%ers’ Dubai pleasure nations.

I’m listening to track 9 of IT FOLLOWS, the stereo panning in my Avanti Headphones, is working for me. Left, right… left, right. My brain relaxes, and formulates something beyond questions and answers.

It is a truly brilliant album, to accompany one of the standout horror films so far this 21st century.

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I’m thinking I can’t get down with media lynchings, especially by a notoriously untrustworthy and historically lynching obsessed nation as America. So the more they tell me to demonize anyone, whether a Cosby or Simpson or insert famous Black male target of the day, the more I have to question it. In a world full of evils to fight, it’s funny to me how the press never tackles the evil that really controls and infects their viewers lives.

Like the evil of Pharmaceutical companies that are getting rich selling you not ready for human use drugs that have more dangerous side-effects than the conditions they are created to combat. “Oh you have acne, oh use our product, but oh, it might sterilize or kill you. Heehee… but we told you up front so we’re not liable.”

No you pieces of offal, that’s not how it works, if someone buys a hamburger from me and it is laced with arsenic, that may make them very sick or kill them, that’s called attempted murder. Even if the burger was a good tasting burger, did its advertised job, side effects of food poisoning and possible death are not acceptable or allowable risks to eating a hamburger.

So that burger is not ready for human sale or consumption and is recalled, pulled from the market.

The pharmaceutical companies instead market you these not ready for human usage products, and lawyer up against their products being filled with arsenic.

The actions that would get an individual arrested for attempted murder, these companies are using to get rich on the sick and desperate . Now that is something the press should for 3 decades be raging against. Not a suspect celebrity murder case, and not an even more vacuous charge of sexual assault.

So when the press avoid the crimes of their rich corporate sponsors and overlords instead to pile on with, ‘what Black celebrity can we pull down today’, well that’s a train I’m not going to board, and that is a Dachau I’m not going to populate.

There are lots of racist cops walking around free that have committed worse crimes than either Simpson or Cosby have been accused of. There are lots of you judging them, Cosby, Simpson,… that should be wary of casting that first stone.

Simpson I don’t care about, except that the fact of a white owned media embroiled in demonizing him over 2 decades after his acquittal shows clearly the new face of lynch mobs. We have young men and women coming back from parts of the world we didn’t even know we were still fighting in… damaged, and having damaged, for reasons that stink of lies, and true evil, and rather than the press demonize the real monsters that fill our nightly news with blood, they want to waste energy on cases that in the scheme of things while significant to the families of the victim and the families of the accused, to the larger body of society, are not of import.

As far as Cosby, Cosby I was raised on, and in a world that would have you be less, he was one of the ones breaking barriers and opening doors so that a whole generation of young Black men and women could be more. There are very few people drawing breath on this planet that can claim to have done the good that Bill Cosby has done, and if you can not equal a man’s good, you are unfit to judge his evil.

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If he committed a crime, that is to be determined in a court of law.

But a man’s falling down does not erase his standing up, including the many times he stood up for a castigated people. So to take arms against him now is beyond ungrateful, it is cowardice of the highest order.

To let yourself be so crudely used, in this war of Black and White.

Now transitioning to another rant…

Why is local autonomy in nearly every walk of life being replaced by autonomy of these very few companies and oligarchies and families.

Once a blockbuster movie meant not only the studios did well but the regional independent local theater did well. These days theaters are mostly studio owned, so we have this incestuous chain of the studios getting paid in every part of the process, and local economies are obliterated by it. Reduced to only the most minuscule piece of the proverbial pie.

AVENGERS makes a billion Dollars, I don’t really care.

I care that it is or isn’t a good movie, but do I care if a Billion dollar studio make more millions and billions? Not in the least.

As it stands now these studios such as Disney and Fox and Warner Brothers (pieces of larger snakes) should have been broken up years ago and their anti-competitive and local economy suppressing monopolies ended decades ago.

The best thing that could happen to America is a nation where all the Disney Properties, most of which are over 50 years old went into the public domain where they belong so everyone can legally make money off of them and be enriched by them.

An America without the endless shadow of Disney and its lie of family values would suit me fine.

The album is over, the clock has moved on, and my rant…

My all over the place rant… ended.

For now.

“Come back and throw stones later, Mother will be more receptive”

—LION IN WINTER

Currently Listening to : Nate Parker’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION (2016) The Inspired by Album

This is a really odd post, it starts as a nice, fluffy love letter to an album I’m completely loving, and at the end goes completely off the rails and becomes a tirade.

I would say, read the warm, fluffy part, and leave the tirade alone. Especially if you know nothing about the Nate Parker controversy, or better yet care nothing for it.

I’ll give you ample warning when to stop reading.

Not sure where it came from, but it came.

My ire, and disgust with the media.

But it came.

And I thought it was honest, not necessarily right, but it was honest and deserved its say. So I left it.

You have been warned.

I think what Nate Parker is doing with BIRTH OF A NATION, a hundred years after DW Griffith’s love song to racism by the same title, is nothing short of inspired. The audacity of it, the brilliance, the balls of it, Something Percival Everett does wonderfully in literature, overturning assumptions, and re-appropriating those parts of our shared consciousness, our story, that we have relegated too long… to the worst angels of our nature.

I can’t wait to see the movie when it breaks on wide release. It sounds completely on my page. However I haven’t seen the movie so the jury’s out, but I have listened to the soundtrack, and… I LOVE IT!!!!

LOVE IT!!!

To listen to this one album was reason enough to sign up for Spotify.

And speaking of Spotify, how did I get involved with it?

Well I’m not at all a social media type. But I like things that enrich us and after a month of using Spotify I have to say… I’m feeling enriched.

This is going to sound hyperbolic. And maybe it is. I’m too close, I can’t say. I can only say I’m listening to THE BIRTH OF A NATION as I write this and I’m feeling… thankful.

I think as we get older, and side-tracked by adult concerns, one thing that falls by the wayside, is our time to enjoy and follow and discover music. And I think that moving away from that discovery of new sounds, new voices, new visions, new wonders to buoy our souls, is when we begin to die,

I know, extreme.

But bear with me.

What if the world began with a song, and will end with one.

What if all we are is notes, in some unfathomable composition.

That would mean that what we feed on more than food is music. And it would mean what we starve for lack of, more than food, is music.

The lack of it, the relinquishing of it, perhaps just a little death.

A little death we let wedge its tip into our hearts.

And widen, till everything we are… escapes.

So I’m finding SPOTIFY, with its easy ability to allow me to find and listen to this music I would otherwise not find or find time for…I’m finding it, in my emotional state of listening to THE BIRTH OF A NATION, I’m finding it… of great value.

That said MP3 is great for sampling music, and SPOTIFY is great for introducing me to music, but great music deserves to be listened to on the highest quality CD you can find. I’ve spent a month on SPOTIFY and I have bought easily a couple hundred dollars in CDs.

I’d like to buy BIRTH OF A NATION but unfortunately it is not yet available on CD. But when it is, it’s going on constant rotation in my portable cd player.

It is that good.

 

 

“When they say make America great again, they mean make us all slaves again.”— WAR Nas

“No matter if you’re red, white, black, if you want freedom, then we’re all like Nat!”— WAR Nas

 

OKAY STOP READING HERE!!!! Beyond this place, like the old maps once said… “There be Dragons!” I’m bat guano ranting in the next section, and it goes strange quickly, so if strange is not your friend, stop reading NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh and if you have a problem with Nate Parker, and are part of this new spate of using the media to lynch Black Men before trial, be it Bill Cosby or Nate Parker, or really going back 20 years to OJ Simpson, eff you and the horse you rode in on.

“Oh, but they are guilty, they did this, they did that.”

Then let a court prove it. Not the news, not talk shows, not soap boxes.

I don’t stand with lynch mobs, whether you wear a white hood and a shotgun, or a TV camera and a microphone.

Because for a lynch mob it’s never about innocence or guilt, it’s about creating an atmosphere of fear and horror and distrust, so they can sell a message, usually to keep a certain demographic in line.

Me, I’m not the message buying type. In a Nation where less than a hundred years ago, thousands of Black men (many of them war heroes) were lynched by ‘god fearing’ ‘people’ I’ll side with Black ‘villains’ before I side with a biased lynch mob media, everyday of the week, and twice on Sunday.

If they are guilty try them in the courts. Do not effing try them on your TV program, or radio show, or ‘news’ show, or at the water cooler, or on your lynching scaffold.

Until you’ve done the good of a Bill Cosby, or a Nate Parker, or even an OJ Simpson; don’t presume to judge their evil. That’s for a court room… your soul is not sinless enough for the task.

I say again…

Your soul… Christian, or Muslim, or Jew, or Hindu… is not sinless enough for the task.

I think any Presidential candidate you can name has done more evil than all three of those men combined. The pursuit of power is a bloody road, and the achieving of it even more so.

You kill one person (allegedly) they call you what, OJ? 🙂 You kill thousands of people, they call you Reagan or Bush.

Save your hate for mass murderers, but for other flawed men, and for yourself, pray to be better.

That is the justice of honest men, who are wise enough to know, there… but for the grace of God… go I.

 

Woah… that came out of nowhere.

But hey, that’s what you can expect in a nation that is honestly considering Trump for the highest office in the land. Derision. :).

God keep you all from rage, and keep you all from harm, and most of all god keep you from the folly of thinking you are bloody better than the poor slobs the media chooses to lynch today.

Amen.

If you like this crazy post, or just like the blog, support by checking out and purchasing the following cool and recommended items!

Sylvania SDVD7029 7″ Portable DVD Player-Swivel Screen (Certified Refurbished)
Kids these days, in this age of MP3s and Itunes and Spotify have no idea what CDs are, or how good they can sound. For $40 you can give them the gift of not only a portable CD player, but a portable DVD player.

But it’s as the former, a portable CD player, that currently interests us. In addition to the portable player you want to get them a couple CDs to play on it, and I recommend the following two:

It Follows (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) I really enjoyed IT FOLLOWS and the soundtrack on CD is equally brilliant, and stands on its own as just engaging and creepy and addictive listening experience.At once an influenced work, yet highly original in its own right, and sure to be influential. Disasterpeace hits a homerun with this score. Nice use of stereo imaging. Highly Recommended.

Sinister (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – I’m not a wimp, and am a huge fan of a variety of scores, especially the dark, strange ones, but I have to say this Christopher Young score is on a level all its own. I find it truly disturbing, and yes… scary. A huge achievement, and essential listening!

Azend Group Corp BDP-M1061 Maxmade Portable 10-Inch Blu-Ray DISC/DVD Player (Black)

Sony S1500RF Multi System Region Free Blu-Ray Disc DVD Player