The Line

 "The stupid store just called and they're all out of you."

This is the caliber of wit being bandied about these days as conservatives try and match the onslaught of trolling being dispensed at the hand of one Gavin "Governor Handsome" Newsom. The   ALL CAPS social media storm has been almost constant for months now. The more bizarre the rant coming from the White House, the more twisted the response comes from Newsom. And every so often, Gavin mixes in just enough truth to keep it real: "DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN," California's troll in Chief tweeted, "The courts agree -- his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL."

Add to this relentless tide of pointing a finger right back in the face of the former game show host on top of Epstein's List the steady and ferocious bite of Colorado's own South Park. Some have made the mistake of suggesting that the convicted felon's decision to move Space Command to Alabama has something to do with the allegiance of Tommy "Not Making This Name Up" Tuberville. I believe it is the spite generated by this season's laser focused parody coming from Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

But, getting back to the weak sauce being delivered from the comic geniuses on the other side, we have everyone's favorite Texan, Ted "When The Going Gets Tough, We Cancun" Cruz. In Laughing Ted's Newsmax response to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker telling the Trumpreich and their stormtroopers to stay out of Chicago, he went after Pritzker's weight: “Listen, I don’t want to get between JB Pritzker and the Domino’s Pizza line, but I’ll tell you what I am willing to get between is him and his open doors for every human trafficker, every drug trafficker, every MS-13 and Tren De Aragua gang member." 

I know Ted has been busy fleeing whatever the current disaster occurring in his home state is, but to reference "the line" for a pizza delivery chain is just a poorly constructed bit. He could just as easily have suggested that he didn't want to get between the Domino's delivery driver and JB Pritzker. But he didn't. This is the guy who showed up on Tucker "Mister Podcast" Carlson's show and let the former Faux Newsboy dance circles around him. Something about never letting yourself get into a battle of wits with a guy who used to wear a bow tie all the time. That's okay, I'm sure the next time a fire, flood or blizzard threatens the Lone Star State, Ted will be somewhere out on the road, working on his standup comedy career. 

And looking for that Domino's Pizza line. 

Envy

 The convicted felon at the top of Epstein's List must be so disappointed with his pals Vladimir and Kim. Didn't they say that they wouldn't be friends with the despot in China? They promised. Pinky-swore, I believe. Even though the felon's hands are tiny and bruised, that should count for something. 

But there they were, the three of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in Beijing, watching all that military might pass in review. What's a would-be-king got to do in order to be able to sit at the popular dictator's table? 

The former game show host at the top of Epstein's List couldn't get any of his so-called-buddies from the tyrant club to watch all those squeaky tanks pass by at his big birthday parade. Just his dumb son and his wife and some folks who used to work at Fox News. 

And where were the missiles? Squeaky tanks were fine, but how about some ICBMs on trailers to really put some phallic imagery on display. Say what you want about those communists, but they know how to showcase their guns and ammo. 

Which may explain why the bloated sack of protoplasm at the top of Epstein's List chose to announce that he was about to stage a military takeover of a foreign city: (checks notes) Chicago. The City of the Big Shoulders can't be a U.S. city, since it's where that foreigner Barack Hussein Obama resides. Maybe when the invading armies aren't otherwise occupied with mulching and litter, they can ransack a few houses in a search for that guy's real birth certificate. "We're going in," the cankle model at the top of Epstein's List proclaimed, and like all proclamations from the TACO in chief he added, "I didn't say when."

The element of surprise, it seems, is vital when attacking the third largest city in your own country. Don't give them time to hide their PBS tote bags and clear out the farmer's markets and libraries. Mister Impotent at the top of Epstein's List is on his way to overcompensate. 

Well, he won't actually be there. He's far too busy visiting golf resorts that he owns. That, and pining for an invitation to one of those really big parades. 

With missiles. 

Countdown

 What have I put up with for more than four years? 

College? That took me six.

I lived through it. 

I worked at Arby's for more than four years. I am just starting to get that last layer bit of grease off. But I survived. 

I would like to believe that there is some sort of Nietzschean experiment at work here. What doesn't kill us will make us stronger.

But first it will perplex and frustrate us to the point of extinction. 

I am talking here about the Second Trumpreich. Each new day brings a twist or revelation that makes us, the common folk, echo that line from Working In A Coal Mine: "Well, how long can this go on?" 

Here is where I would like to draw a line between "putting up with" and "surviving." Sadly, there are already far too many folks who were not afforded the chance to live through the second administration of the convicted felon who once hosted a game show. There will be no parting gifts for those who died as a result of having their benefits eliminated, or those who died in ICE custody. The looming specter of those who may perish as a result of the elimination of vaccines or simply pushed off the rolls because they were too old, too poor, too blue to continue. 

How long?

The courts are trying to keep up, but a Federal Judge ruling that it was illegal for Epstein's favorite client to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles a month after they had been sent home or the actual accounting behind the trade wars being started by a guy who managed to bankrupt four casinos that he owned. A guy who insists that cheating on his taxes makes him "smart." 

How long?

What will it take until every single one of the sycophants and minions wake up to the notion that this guy is only working for one person: himself. It has only been eight months. 

Eight exhausting months. 

What's The (Gray) Matter?

 A three day weekend can offer one quite a lot of time to wonder. 

For example, somewhere in the midst of Labor Day weekend, I found myself wondering about that whole switched-brain bit in the 1931 version of Frankenstein. I am certain this came about after I had watched a trailer for Guillermo del Toro's version. I was curious which path Guillermo would take: the abnormal brain transplant or the misunderstood romantic creature found in Mary Shelly's novel. 

I was made aware of this mild Hollywood conceit when I was still quite young. As I was a rabid follower of the Universal monster movies, I was also brought up to read the classics and besides reading the Classics Illustrated adaptation of Ms. Shelly's work, I worked my way through her novel as a pre-teen just like I absorbed Bram Stoker's Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A grounding in the source material was made important to me by my mother, a voracious reader. She was also a movie fanatic, so I was encouraged to wade into all of those nightmares with her blessing. 

But now back to that brain: I was made aware, in an article I found in Famous Monsters Of Filmland, of makeup artist Jack Pierce's inspiration for the flat headed look of the creature when it came time to decide on a look for the 1931 film. He had reasoned that Henry Frankenstein (renamed from Victor in the novel to avoid any trouble with the German haters) would not be first and foremost a clever surgeon. He was stitching together a bunch of corpses, and when it came time to install a brain, the easiest option would be to open the skull like a lid and then clamp it shut. Jack Pierce delivered. Now, how about that brain?

As it turns out, the poet Walt Whitman chose to offer up his brain, after his death, to science. It was hoped that over the course of time, scientists could examine and study great men's gray matter to determine just what exactly made them tick. Unfortunately, when it came time to move Walt's brain from one container to another vessel for safekeeping, there was an accident. Brains, it turns out are actually pretty hefty and quite slippery. 

Oops. 

Of course, Mister Whitman's cerebrum was not destined for the cranium of a meat puppet created by some mad scientist in an abandoned castle somewhere in the hills of Bavaria. It was a cervelle destined for the compost. No need for the hunchback assistant to pull a bait and switch. Just a wet clean up on aisle five. 

Can't wait for Columbus Day to see what I can figure out then. 

Feelin' It

 This past Sunday I awoke with a song in my head. This happens somewhat frequently, but in this case it wasn't precisely a song so much as a jingle. A commercial jingle. I started singing to my wife's confused awakening: "Feelin' Seven Up, I'm feelin' Seven Up." Again, the limitations of a jingle compared to that of a full-length song is that lyrically I could only loop back and repeat how I was feeling, which happened to be Seven Up. 

I can only imagine where this earworm found its way into my Sunday morning, but I suspect it could have been repeat viewings of Alex Cox's Repo Man, which features a scene early where that little bit of pop (pardon the pun) culture is used to affix a level of suburbia to the viewer so from there, all manner of craziness can ensue. For what it's worth, in that moment, Kevin remembers far more of the lyrics than I did on Sunday morning. 

Then I found myself faced with a mild dilemma. I had no idea from where the name "Seven Up" came. So I asked Google, which is kind of surrender for me, but it was Sunday morning, as I have mentioned prior, and I wasn't going to spend the entire day wondering. I was presented with two similar answers, the first being that it described the seven ingredients found in the recipe for the soft drink. The second was that it came from the atomic number of lithium, which was at one time a key ingredient in Seven Up. 

What?

For the majority of my life I have been privy to the "secret ingredient" of Coca-Cola: Cocaine. Long before the sugar and caffeine content was considered the source for the pep one might enjoy from a bottle of Coke, there was an addictive substance in America's favorite soda pop. Concerns about this ingredient caused it to be removed from the family recipe in 1903. 

It wasn't until 1948 that lithium was removed from the Seven Up formula. Up until that time, it was marketed as a mood-stabilizing soft drink with "health benefits." Seven Up was introduced just weeks before the stock market crashed in 1929. Considering Prohibition was still in full swing at that time here in the United States, I'm guessing a bottle or two of Seven Up might have come in handy for those who had just lost their life savings. 

All of this because I woke up on a Sunday morning leaking commercial jingles. And I wonder if we could convince the folks at MAHA to switch our fluoride in our water supply for lithium. "It's a feeling, a lift, and a rhythm in your step." Feelin' Seven Up. 

Feet On The Ground

 “She thinks I’m a fascist?! I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce!” This is how Barbie reacts to being called a fascist by a group of high school girls. 

If you didn't catch the movie, perhaps being stuck on the horns of the dilemma of which to see first: Oppenheimer or Barbie, I can sense your frustration with my opening. Perhaps you thought the story about the making of the first atomic bomb was about fighting fascism. What was that overtly political quandary doing in a movie about a plastic doll? 

Well, let me set you down easy by saying that both of these movies dealt the the American Zeitgeist and how we have all been affected by the last eighty years. As Barbie seriously ponders how she could be called a fascist, she is culling up images from Mussolini and Hitler, who both took great pride in "making the trains run on time" as well as restricting and controlling the economy. 

That second part probably sounds familiar as "MIster T" (that stands for tariffs) continues to twist and bend the US economy like it was some high school economics class project, trying to find a way to turn making money for himself the focus while bankrupting the country at large. This scheme has been paired with his lust for power, having recently deployed governmentt troops to our nation's capitol ostensibly to battle crime, but actually to pick up trash. 

When Vice President Jo-Jo Dogface Vance, Defense Secretary Pete "This Round's On Me" Hegseth, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen "Who Shall Not Be Named" Miller showed up last week at Washington DC's Union Station, they were jeered and booed, and called fascists. It was the mocking of these central figures of the Second Trumpreich that brought down the fury of the guy who is just trying to keep us from talking about the Epstein Files. It was the convicted felon that commanded the already deployed National Guard to seize control of the train station, partially obscuring the fact that Joe Biden had made restoration of that historic spot part of his infrastructure plan continuing a process that began back in 1983 via a non-proft organization. Joe, as you may remember, was a bit of a glassy-eyed rail freak himself. 

Which brings us back to Barbie, who made the valiant choice after disrupting the patriarchal takeover of her native land to leave her dream house and come to live in the real world. Her first stop? Spoiler alert: her gynecologist. Here she hoped not to control the means of production, but her own means of reproduction. 

Not an atomic bomb or a massive reworking of our nation's economic plan, but a pretty sizable choice. 

Eye Of The Beholder

 Let's all agree not to tell Snoop Dogg the story about the fourteen year old girl who chose to live in communal housing with a group of incel little people where she was kept as a house slave.

And while we're at it, please don't ask him to deal with the tale of a preteen who harbored a wish to be "a real boy." 

For sure we don't want him coming anywhere near the creepy old guy who brought a group of children into his factory just to bump them off, one by one. 

Or the cannibalistic orgy being planned by an old woman who was enticing children to her house with candy. 

Let's just say that the auteur behind "Gin and Juice" won't have to be stuck with the task of explaining the nasty underpinnings of the stories we have been telling our children for generations. Apparently Mister Dogg was taken aback by the appearance of a lesbian couple in the Disney movie Lightyear. He was confounded by the prospect of having to explain to his grandson about the freakish, to him, notion that two women who love each other might choose to make a family of their own. Rather than hagnin' out in Grandpa Snoop's living room "gettin' it on all night." 

Or maybe Grandpa Snoop could have gone with an even easier explanation: It's a move, see? And it's pretend. And sometimes things happen in movies that don't happen in real life. 

Except they do. And the idea that Snoop Dogg is embarrassed by anything does make the mind wander just a bit. He is, according to his press, the ultimate family man "by Hollywood standards." Just not families that include two mommies. Which in turn reminds me of my own father, who once went to see the film, Natural Born Killers, and I asked my generally open-minded dad what he thought. He knew he was talking to his cinema geek son, so I could tell he was tempering his reaction. "It was, um, interesting," then a long pause, "but did it have to be so violent?"

Well, yeah. It's about Natural Born Killers.

I wonder how Grandpa Snoop would explain that one.