The Republican Ticket: Cheeto and The Porch Light

So! The Republican ticket for the 2024 election is set. Their presidential candidate, chosen more or less by acclamation by the reactionaries in attendance at the convention, has annointed the next target for the mob -- a fate that has thus far awaited all his vice-presidents -- Ohio senator J.D. Vance, best known for writing a book about what's wrong with the hicks in Appalachia, and for being super-rich and tied in to the super-rich.

J.D. Vance. Wow.

Who is this guy?

For those of us who don't live in or near Ohio and so don't pay much attention to their politics, Vance is the guy who 

said he would rather vote for his dog or a Democrat than for Trump. [Vance] also then referred to Trump as a “total fraud,” a “moral disaster,” “reprehensible,” an “idiot,” “cultural heroin,” “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” “a cynical as**ole” and “America’s Hitler.” 

Since that time, of course, Vance has apologised to the frothy-mouthed wing of the party and kissed the Don's ring. Don Jr, ever the best judge of character, likes him.

So the Cheeto has chosen as his running mate one of those color-changing LED porch-light bulbs that you get for holiday nights. Fine.

 

 

Grannie Will Love It

Thelma

starring June Squibb

  Fred Hechinger 

  Richard Roundtree

  Parker Posey

  Clark Gregg

  Malcolm McDowell

written and directed by Josh Margolin

 This is a cute little movie about an elderly lady who gets taken in by a scammer, and decides to seek revenge. At some point in the writing of the script, Josh Margolin decided what he had was good enough, and ran with it. Too bad: it could have used another two or three read-throughs for a little punching up. And when he put on his directing hat, it would have been nice if he hadn't been in such a hurry to get the thing done. 

 For example: in one scene Thelma (June Squibb) forgets to engage the handbrake on the scooter she's stolen from Ben (Richard Roundtree). She left it on a sidewalk as the two of them argue. When she turns to go back to it, it's sitting in the roadway, and of course gets hit by a passing car. It's an amusing bit, but I was distracted by the fact that, even if it had really rolled away unattended, it could not have ended up there, as it would have had to go uphill past a deep-ish gutter to its final perch on the crown of the roadway (where any driver not in a movie would have had plenty of room to go around it); and it was oriented in the wrong direction, neatly stopped perpendicular to the curb, as though, upon its improbable arrival on the crown of the road, it executed a sharp ninety-degree turn before coming to a stop. Here it is hours later, and I'm still thinking about that. It would have been so easy to get right in the filming.

 The performances were uniformly okay. Except for Malcolm McDowell as the villain, who delivered at a higher standard, all the capable actors (and the ones that I only assume are capable) were half a beat slow on the dialog. That consistent flaw makes me suspect the editor (who is, probably not coincidentally, also the writer and director), Josh Margolin. 

 If there were such a thing as dollar movies these days, this would have been perfect, As it is, though, I was disappointed at having paid full matinee price to see it. Now, if I hadn't read any of the promotional material for this movie I might have liked it a whole lot more than I did.The promos promised "a clever spin on movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE..." That is a promise far beyond this production group's ability to deliver; and a couple of shots of Tom Cruise and a clip from one of the films in that franchise don't take the place of intricate high adventure. 

 The audience, when I saw this movie, consisted of me, one husband-and-wife couple, and about two dozen elderly women, attending in pairs and small groups of up to four. I found the film amusing, if a bit trying of my patience for oft-seen tropes and stereotypes. They, however, hooted and laughed like kids at their first circus. Everything in the movie resonated with every one of these women. 

 So take your grandma to see Thelma. She'll love it.

A Modest Proposal

 The Supreme Court, seemingly determined to force US law back to a time before FDR's court-packing scheme, has decided that the President is not to be accountable for any "official" action taken during his tenure in office, even after he leaves that office. The Court's radical-right majority evidently believes that no one in their right mind would take the sort of actions that the Maga Cheeto is propounding in tweets and speeches; and they're not worried about him, even though he's not in his right mind, because, of course, he only threatens people they don't like anyway.

 Maybe ol' Sleepy Joe should surprise them, by embracing their ruling while he still has a majority in the Senate. Maybe he should order the FBI or whoever one would order to do such things inside the territory of the United States, to shoot the six members of the Court that moved such abominable actions outside the scope of the law's review. He could then quickly nominate six replacements and get them confirmed, and the entire court could then revisit the question. Having taken this action -- this official action -- in furtherance of his obligation to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from the sort of unprincipled interpretation that produced such a ludicrous holding (not to mention a score of other, similarly unprincipled interpretations of the law), the Court would then be able to overrule itself, and return us to the rule of law. Of course, since Biden's official action was performed while immunity was in force, he wouldn't be subject to any accountability for that.

 I'd say that's a win-win. And if he were to take out the big Cheeto too, well, that'd just be the icing on the cake. And I couldn't object if he were to deal with a few of Putin's Senators, too.

/s, with apologies to Jonathan Swift

The Last of LA

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This is the fifth post in a series; sixth if you count the prologue. You really should read them in order, so click on this link for the Prologue or on this link for Part One. And if you want to see all the pictures from this trip, click here. 

Saturday in Los Angeles

 This time we actually made it to the cafe I'd been aiming for the other day, on Wilshire near the Petersen Museum. It's called ... well, now I've forgotten. Cafe Fresco. They've changed their signage but it's the same place I went to last time, on the Stained Glass Trip. Excellent service. Good food, too. I had lox and bagel; it came with huge slices of cucumber and some red onion that made it hard to eat, but well worth the trouble. 

 Since by this point we had pretty much done everything we wanted to do, we decided to take a cruise down toward a part of town we hadn't already seen, and ended up at Venice Beach. Hank's trainer used to work there, at the original Gold's Gym, and had asked Hank to say hello to the manager for him. So we went by there. I dropped Hank off and drove around the block, then found a parking place and just waited until he texted me. The manager wasn't there but Hank got a swag-bag to take back with him. I wonder what's in a gym swag-bag?

 We decided we could just make the 1:30 tour at Paramount Studios, so we drove there. Got there with about 5 minutes to spare. Paid $24 to park but the attendant promised us a refund if we didn't make it to the tour (which was just across the street). Practically ran over there, only to discover that the 1:30 tour was just starting but there were no more spaces available, despite what it says on the web site. "Yeah, I know," said the ticket-office guy, "The web site's wrong." Like it's apparently always wrong. So we got our parking money back and went to the hotel to prepare for the evening's entertainment. Which, considering how tired we'd gotten in three days, was probably a good idea.

delivery robot, Melrose Ave

 The Hollywood Fringe Festival started the day we got to town, and I've kept mentioning to Hank that we should do something. He seemed unexcited by the idea, so I had to insist, and on Saturday night we had dinner at a little Mediterranean place on Melrose, and then walked up to the Actors' Company Other Space for a play. I'd thought it was just around the corner, but I had misremembered the street number, and it was three long blocks away. We still got there in time to see a stageplay called The Altruists, a dark comedy of errors involving people who concern themselves with Causes. We both enjoyed it, and I was happy to have gotten to see something of the Fringe. If I had somebody to go with, I'd come back every year just for that. But I don't.

 We stopped for some gelati before heading back to the hotel, but that was about as much nightlife as the two of us could take.

 Sunday in LA and gone

 We checked out of the hotel and went for breakfast back to the Continental Kitchen, which we'd enjoyed so much the other day; but it doesn't open until 10AM on Sunday, so we went looking for somewhere else. Hank found a place on Google Maps, not too far away, called Lazy Daisy, and despite the unimaginative name, it turned out to be pretty good. Kind of trendy, I guess, but it managed a really good cup of coffee. After relaxing there for a while, we went to Mass at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church on ... Santa Monica? I think so. It was a very diverse congregation, which surprised me. And there were about 300 people in the church, which surprised me even more. Last time I went to a regular mass, there were about 20 old ladies in a gigantic cathedral, and me. That was a long time ago, so I guess the most recent popes have had a positive effect on the Church.

 It was Father's Day (surprised me!) and the homily was all about ... abortion. The priest was agin' it. That did not surprise me.

It's a Jag.

 When mass was over we drove basically across the street and looked for a parking place to go see the Rodeo Drive Concours d'Élégance Car Show (sic). Several blocks of the iconic Beverly Hills shopping street were closed off and loaded down with fancy European sports cars (and a few American products, some old, some just gussied up so they'd seem special) There were a lot that I just didn't bother taking pictures of ... Shelby Cobras, Mustangs, Porches, new Aston Martins, yet another tranche of commonplace Lamborghinis and some of the more ordinary Ferraris, but there were also a lot that I did take pictures of, and I know you're gassed up about the prospect of seeing them; so click on the photo link at the top. Go ahead; I'll wait.

 Having had a nice lunch at a sidewalk cafe nearby (Via Alloro, if you're wondering; Italian, and some of the staff is actually Italian, including one waiter who takes as his model for service the performance of Magenta and Riff Raff in the feast scene of Rocky Horror Picture Show; but otherwise very good), we drove up into the Hollywood Hills to see the ugly new houses. They used to be pretty small places, and kind of ordinary. No longer. They now sprawl across as much land as can be built on, and none that we saw had any architecturally redeeming features. 

 That did it for our guys' weekend in L.A. I drove Hank to the airport, getting there around 4pm, and then took off east for my reserved room in Blythe, on the Arizona state line, and what I'd hoped would be an uneventful drive home. 

 The start of it was inauspicious. First I had to stop in West Covina, just outside LA, for a nap in a shaded spot in a liquor store parking lot, as I found myself almost falling asleep at the wheel. I must have slept for about half an hour, until some guy in a truck that had pulled up next to me unobserved shouted in Spanish to someone else that I was sleeping. That woke me up, and I found myself feeling refreshed. I got to my hotel, a Motel 6, just before 9pm, but there wasn't anyone in the office. Just a sign saying they had "stepped away for a few minutes." I waited a few minutes, then knocked, then tried calling the motel on the local number. It rang for about 5 minutes but nobody ever came. I waited a while longer -- about half an hour all together -- then made a reservation at another motel in the area and left a bad review for the Motel 6. Turns out I'm not the first person that has encountered this eventuality at that motel. If it shows up as a charge on my Master Card bill I'm going to be pissed. I expect to be pissed.

 The Travelodge I moved to wasn't a whole lot better. The new owners had just taken over the day before, a young couple from LA. The first room they gave me was clearly not ready for occupancy, but they found me another one (there were plenty of choices) and in the end I was satisfied with the room, except that somebody in the neighbouring room started slamming doors at 1AM, and the light and fan in the bathroom kept turning itself on. Weird.

 Now, Monday night, I'm in El Paso and have one more day's drive to deal with. My car's "engine coolant low" light has come on again, so I'll top off the reservoir in the morning when it's had time to cool. I know when I open it it's going to be full. It's the sensor; it sticks. If I ignore it the light will go out.