Pride Month

Weird, I thought last month was pride month given all the promotion only to find out via google calendar it is this month. 

Too many months and days for validation of different identities. Obviously.

Question for AI Fans 

For those who think AI will write good dramatic or literary material - do you currently enjoy getting computer generated birthday cards from your employer, dentist, etc? Second question - you like those cards better than ones sent by actual human beings?

Warner Brothers

Used to have the reputation as being the best studio in town. Zaslav seems hellbent on destroying it. First, the change from HBO Max to Max? What the fuck was he thinking? Taking one of the few brands in the industry that means anything - HBO - and getting rid of it? Insanity. Now, they try to change director and writer credits to "created by" where they include executive producers, etc alongside the director of old movies and shows, etc. WGA president calls this "tone deaf." It's way more than that: it's credit theft and stolen valor. It should be a crime. 

Mental Health

You want to know why teenage mental health is in crisis: here's one explanation. 

The parent also said that the girls will not speak out about their disappointment of Ryan's inclusion in their sport because it could be considered "bullying" and affect their ability to compete at all. 

"The student athletes' reactions are very tempered and controlled as much as they can because they're not allowed to show any reaction whatsoever to potentially not affirm what is happening," the parent said. "We've been advised that anything that potentially can come off as bullying is a code of conduct violation. And so by CIF rules [the girls are] unable to speak out about this."

You force people to accept lies, it will even wear on the strong.  

Terrible

An indy film just shut down because insurers won't bond the film for fears of a strike. 

These are good lessons for studying the ecosystem of filmmaking/Hollywood but very bad for the people trying to make a living. Something is quite wrong with the system where it's the writers, the production people, and the actors who will suffer before the executives and agents, but that's where we are. 

Logging

Film: The Mighty Ducks

Kids watch...they liked it. Sports movies good... 

TV: Succession second to last episode

Good, not sure why folks consider great...

Those Insane Scandinavians

Norway moves to eliminate gender ideology.

As a kid I always wondered what kind of regular folks "went along" with Nazism . The only good thing about this insane gender ideology coming to our shores is that now I know: all the folks who use pronouns in their email signature. 

Sports

Why do transgender activists pick women's sports as their target for "equality?" They pick the subject precisely because it will spark the most outrage. They pick the subject because it so clearly a bad idea. Because their goals are not to integrate into the fabric society, but rather upend "normal" to make everyone and everything feel broken.

No More Tips

During the pandemic, I started tipping a lot more than I ever did. This was because I realized how much I valued take out. But I've grown annoyed with automatic tipping on screens and on online orders. Coupled with inflation, the take out spots have pushed it too far.

So no more tips. If I tip going forward on this shit, it'll be cash.

Pot Legalization

Is an unmitigated disaster.  None of the arguments in favor of pot legalization were ever compelling to me. Here's my simple retort:

1) I've never seen any person improved by the use of marijuana.

2) It's so obviously worse than drinking booze despite all efforts at pot users to claim otherwise

3) Legalization will (and has) lead to increased use for all ages (including teens)

Nevermind all the additional downsides - it's a gateway drug, it's anti-social, it can possibly increase odds of schizophrenia -

The only reason to legalize it is that people will use it anyway. By that logic, we should outlaw speed limits but no one thinks that would be wise.

Esteem

The major problem with "diversity" is that it isn't about diversity, but rather esteem. We're entered a perpetual game to make every minority group feel good about themselves. But like children who receive excess praise from parents, it doesn't build esteem but rather arrogance, entitlement, and delusion with the perverse side effect of making them less centered and resiliant.

Logging

Film: Living (2022) 

Got hyped up incredible reviews from some people at work. Maybe I was missing something on my watch. It was solid, but slow and a tad frumpy as one might expect. A few beautiful scenes toward the end of the 2nd act, but didn't blow me away quite in the way I anticipated. Still think Kore-eda owns this tonal space.

Nailed It

NYT commenter. 

ESG Investing

Great line in podcast I'm listening to: if we keep villainizing fossil fuel companies, in a decade we'll see them go private. Investing won't change the environment, only consumption will. 

And my guess is that most people who want to change the world couldn't run a taco bell.

Not A Good Sign

Buffet sells entire stake in Taiwan Semiconductor. 

A More Elaborate Waste of Time and Money

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is too divisive, so now some companies are doing Diversity and Belonging. 

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Florida Teacher

In trouble for showing Strange World in class because it features a gay couple.

Forgive me, but isn't the bigger issue: why is a teacher showing a full movie in school? Back in my day that was only for when substitutes came in at the last minute and clearly had nothing planned. 

And as for the backlash, let's just say: liberals brought this upon themselves. I was in Target yesterday. Recently, this store has moved to basically all self checkout. But 2 of the 4 self checkout things didn't work. There were hardly any employees around. The one "helping" with self checkout clearly had no idea how to fix the machines. Meanwhile, in the kids clothing section are shirts that read: "Queer,  Queer, Queer" in big rainbow letters featured prominently. What the fuck is going on here? Here's what it is:

The only thing people in charge of these organizations hate more than 75% of their customers are their employees.

If I Wanted to Goose Along a 2nd Civil War

I'd invest all my energy into pushing a reparations agenda.  Few things would drive Americans more crazy than taking money from people who committed no crime or sin and giving it to others to whom no demonstrable harm has been committed.

Talking About Mental Health

There's a lot of commercials, etc that urge people nowadays to talk about mental health. Is it just me or has all this mental health talk not really improved mental health?

Someone needs to explain to me why not "get off social media," "exercise," "read," and "socialize" are not the solution.

A Distinct Possibility

Perhaps the reason our elites are so terrible is they all practice and believe in their own duality because they've watched too much drama and mistakenly think of themselves as characters. 

Logging

Film: Sisu

John Wick meets 3 Kings in WW2 Finland. Like a lot of these types of films, better in concept and trailer that movie-going experience. Definitely fun, worth the theater watch, etc. The main character doesn't speak for the entire film until the last line...I think. But it runs into the same type of flaw that John Wick does (at least for me) - that the genre expectations and movie-ness aren't grounded quite enough in human reality. At times, only a certain number of bad guys show up to deal with our main character - just enough so he might dispatch them. At other times, bad guys deliberately don't kill our main guy out of some indecipherable code or whim that is so clearly the filmmakers having dug themself a plot hole they couldn't get out of. Maybe I'm misreading these films in a way...but I'm of the generation who raised on at least semi-grounded action films. Even the campy, spoofy action films like Commando, Blood Sport, and later, The Rock felt superficially to belong to the physical universe we inhabit. At the end of this film, the main character (a gold miner), drives a motorcycle at a plane and stabs his pick axe into the bottom of the plane and holds onto the plan as it takes off. Is this less believable than Arnold Schwarzenegger climbing out of from the wheels in the plane and jumping into a Florida marsh before take off in Commando? Yes, I think it is.

Of note - strikes me a lot of this genre evolution has to do with the influence of action action flicks which come from a less grounded in physical reality space - basically action with fantasy elements mixed in. Historically, the martial arts films but you can feel the influence of Jackie Chan, John Woo, etc. 

Film: Border (2018) 

Super interesting film. Maybe not great, but highly compelling, original, strange. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but for those who like their films challenging, weird, different...a must see.

TV: Succession S4 E7

Am I the only one who cringes when there's a Tom-Shiv scene? 

California

The Democrats have done the following in this state:

1) Done nothing while housing costs have skyrocketed

2) Turned our major cities into homeless camps and open air drug centers

3) Demoralized police and tacitly encouraged crime through bail reform movements and non-prosecution of crime

4) Made already failing public schools inexplicably worse and more contentious 

And yet, we won't vote them out of power. Because the Republicans are too stupid and weak to capitalize on a major political opportunity.

Sums It Up

Wesley Yang on transgenderism and what's driving it.

There's a lot of industry in America that's basically drumming up business for a non-existent market...it's just the transgender body mod lifestyle cult makes it super obvious.

Well...

The guy from the Church of Satan sounds at least as reasonable as most talking heads on TV. That's not an endorsement, mind you.

Logging

Film: Like Father, Like Son

Devastating moments. Kore-eda one of the greats.