Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Assorted Thoughts on Lunch with My Brothers, Dinner with My Son Under the Fedora: Marriage, Money, Traps and the value of Time and stuff Under the Fedora

Posted: May 18, 2024 by datechguy in American Success Stories, culture, personal, under the fedora
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Yesterday I went to lunch with my two older brothers. The oldest of us is 74 the middle turns 70 this December and I’m bringing up the rear at 61. We are all very different but we have one big thing in common, one marriage very long. I’ve been married 36, the middle one 39 years and my oldest 54 years. That’s a combined 129 years of being married without a divorce.

I’ve failed at a lot of things in life, but marriage is something all three of us have aced.

Of the three of us my oldest brother is the best in managing money and avoiding debt. In fact he said he had done so well lately he insisted on paying for lunch only asking for a fiver to make the tip come out right. He’s not what anyone would call “rich” but he’s doing OK and his children, grandchildren are pretty much set. He was once been asked what was the secret of his ability to make smart financial decisions and avoiding debts.

His answer, getting married at the age of 20 and having a daughter at 21 forced him to be prudent with his cash and make good decisions to keep his family going.

So many people run away from responsibility at 19 and 20 saying they have their whole life ahead of them but the reality is that if you run toward responsibility when you are young you won’t end up living with your parents with a bunch of college debt and no prospect to have a house.

It’s ironic because that’s the trajectory of George “Georgie” Cooper in Young Sheldon. He ends up getting married before 20, having a child before twenty and having to, while raising his own family help keep things together for his mother and sister with his fathers sudden death and eventually grows up to be, as the older Sheldon describes him “A loser who sells more tires than anyone in Texas”.

My brother never got rich but he also only had the one marriage, advantage Tony.

One of the reasons why neither of my brothers are rich is that both while civil servants who worked for the state for decades were incorruptible. Both had plenty of opportunities for graft if they had chosen to take them and had temptation put out in front of them in terms of money and women etc but turned it down.

They were wise enough to recognize these temptations as traps because once you cross that line those who know you did or find out you did own you. I suspect this drives a lot of the corruption in both the state and federal governments , people crossing the line, people who want favors using that to gain more favors. That’s how a Joe Biden and a Nancy Pelosi become multi millionaires on a member of congress’ salary.

I also suspect this is why Joe Biden and the left is so determined to crush the middle class out of existence. A person who is content with a middle class life isn’t owned by others and can’t be easily manipulated.

I arrived second for our lunch yesterday and found one of my brothers sitting outside in the beautiful day for us and sat with him. I had just had a VERY annoying experience in solving a problem that shouldn’t have existed that had put me off and relished the chance to vent about it to my brother outside of other people’s hearing. It was just what I needed at the time.

One of the hardest things about being the generation whose turn it is to die is you start to run out of people to vent to. You don’t have parents or elders for advice because you’re the elder and the number of people who you’ve known all your life decreases with age as people start dropping dead.

I suspect I won’t have both of my brothers for more than a few years at most. So I plan on taking advantage of this and having regular bi-monthly lunches with them while we still can.

My youngest son realizes this dynamic as well. He walked over to the house after his work yesterday and we spent a hour chatting and then hitting the local 99’s to watch the Bruins be eliminated from the playoffs on a late goal with under 2 minutes (their specialty) It was two hours of talk, chat and company and I found myself talking to him about the times my dad would drive me to the nearest comic book store in Harvard Square which was 60 miles away (this was in the 70’s when such stores were rare) those were good times. My youngest is a lot like my father, gregarious, cooks up a storm and seems to be loved by everyone around him and he seems to recognize the value of this time we get together while it’s still in play.

That’s wisdom.

One of the few really bright points about the cuts and work and my current shift. My best mass window is the 6 PM mass right after work on Sunday which happens to be the mass my sons attend together weekly. So I am spoiled in terms of time with them lately. Of course at the end of a 10 hour day that starts a 5:17 AM I’m not up for much

Today however I have off, alas my wife will be working but both sons are free so we’ll be heading up to Manchester on a road trip to the Tycoon Arcade (we talked about them during my Pintastic ne 2024 coverage)

While my youngest is into the pinball scene my oldest oldest isn’t a big arcade guy but again it’s the time together that is of value. Last weekend DaWife and I went with him to help setup at a New Hampshire Renaissance Fair where he was volunteering to spend time with a friend. The time together was of great value and as he grows closer to a decision on a vocation within the church these times together become of even more value because if that what he is called to such times will likely cease to exist.

That’s also one of the advantages of not actually having a machine, it gives an excuse to do something and makes such a trip more enjoyable. Because when it comes down to it no matter what you have, whether it’s pinball machines or games or anything else it’s pretty much stuff and how much of the stuff you have do you really use on a regular basis? One of the best parts of getting older is the realization that stuff does not bring happiness. It can be the basis for a pleasant memory but it’s the memory, not the stuff that produces the smile.

I made some pleasant memories with my brothers yesterday. I’ll make some pleasant memories with my sons today. Take my advice and if your day is free or if you have a free day coming up, use it to make pleasant memories with people you like while they are available. It will pay a higher dividend than any of the stuff you aquire.

Trump-ified A Man in Full on Netflix comes up empty

Posted: May 12, 2024 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

If you only have a minute and you want to know, in a nutshell, what the Netflix adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s novel from 1998, A Man in Full, is all about, here it is: The lead character, Atlanta businessman Charlie Croker, is Donald Trump–orange hair and all. Then throw in elements of the George Floyd and Rodney King stories and add an even more shocking ending than the one in Boogie Nights.

Earlier this month, Netflix started streaming the six-episode series, which stars Jeff Daniels and Diane Lane. 

Wolfe, who is my favorite writer, after a two-decade career in journalism, made a smooth transition into fiction with his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It encapsulates the boom years of 1980s–along with the mayhem of pre-Rudy Giuliani New York City. Three years later, the film version was released. It is godawful, starting with the miscasting of Tom Hanks in the lead role as “the Master of the Universe,” Sylvester McCoy. After I suffered through the movie, I said to myself, Vanities is a mini-series not a two-hour movie.

I had hopes, misguided ones it turns out, that A Man in Full would be better, because it is a mini-series. Adding to my anticipation was Netflix streaming last year the insightful documentary, Radical Wolfe.

As A Man in Full begins, Charlie Croker (Daniels) is celebrating his 60th birthday at a party with Shania Twain entertaining his friends, family, and business associates. Two of those guests are executives from PlannersBanc, his principal lender, Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) and Harry Zale (Bill Camp). While it appears that Croker is an Atlanta version of a Master of the Universe, he’s broke–Charlie owes PlannersBanc $600 million. He’s overextended with other lenders too. Peepgrass and Zale want to carve up Croker’s empire, starting with his quail hunting plantation and his corporate jet. A rescue is offered by the mayor of Atlanta, Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), who is campaigning for reelection, and Croker’s attorney, Roger White (Aml Ameen). But to save his neck, Croker will have to betray his former Georgia Tech football teammate, Norman Bagovitch (John Lacy), who is running against Jordan.

Bagovitch–wait for it–decries the status of the white male in his campaign. Jordan is Black.

David E. Kelley wrote the script, and he should be ashamed. No serious candidate for public office would campaign on such bigoted idiocy. And in Atlanta?!? Why does Kelley insult his audience?  

Oh yeah, he wants to demonize Trump. Orange Croker Bad. Oops, I mean Orange Man Bad.

Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu) is an alleged victim of a sexual assault from Bagovitch. In the book, well, let’s just say there is fear of a race riot because of the racial angle of that alleged rape.

Wolfe, brilliantly in my opinion, centered much of his plot on racial contrast and conflict, but also on Croker being an anachronism. The series is set in 2024, but events in the book take place a quarter of a century earlier. Croker, nicknamed the 60 Minute Man because he starred on offense and defense for Georgia Tech, played a lead role for a national championship Yellowjackets team, at a time when major college sports teams in the South were not integrated. Croker came of age just as the civil rights protests were picking up steam, and when Jim Crow laws were still in force in Georgia and other southern states. The world changed, but Croker, not so much. Sure, of course Croker in the novel knew blacks had equal rights, but they still belonged– and I’m not endorsing his sentiment–“in their place.”

Kelley, and the directors, eliminates that angle by turning Croker into Trump. He even does away with Charlie’s redemption in Wolfe’s novel.

There’s even a climate change dig included in the series. I mean, why not?

As Croker, Daniels, who is usually very good, is an embarrassment, beginning with his overwrought Foghorn Leghorn southern accent and his Trump-sized abdominal paunch. On the other hand, Diane Lane, as Charlie’s first wife, shines. I had the pleasure of seeing her at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth a decade ago.

Wolfe’s novel is over 700 pages long, so it’s understandable that some storylines are condensed. 

For instance, Conrad Hensley in the book is the child of worthless white hippies who, in spite of them, still manages to develop a strong moral compass. He works for Croker Foods in the East Bay area of California Hensley’s life, like Charlie’s, collapses. He ends up on the wrong side of the law after he violently tries to retrieve his towed car. By the way, anyone who has had his car towed and is forced to pay usurious fees to retrieve it, will sympathize with Hensley. In the series Hensley (Jan Michael Hill) is Black, and well, I already mentioned Rodney King and George Floyd. 

The subplot with Peepgrass and Martha Croker remains, with the Boogie Nights twist added. If you crave more details on that, click on this Daily Mail link.

Oh, the Crokers’ son, Wally (Evan Roe), sure looks a lot like Barron Trump in the series. 

Astonishingly, Trump-hating Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t appear here. Maybe she was on a cruise with Nathan Wade during filming.

I guess I needed to suffer for some forgotten sins, because I endured all six episodes of A Man in Full. Of the other Netflix series that I punished myself with, in full, only The Pentaverate and Vikings: Valhalla were worse.

On the flipside, the cinematography for A Man in Full is sharp–Atlanta never looked so good. The soundtrack, compiled by Craig DeLeon, is spectacular, it’s as splendid as the best work of T-Bone Burnett. Keep an eye on DeLeon.

Wolfe, who died in 2018, didn’t like The Bonfire of the Vanities film. I don’t think he’d care for the series based on A Man in Full either.

I hated it.

A Man in Full is currently streaming on Netflix. It is rated TV-MA for violence, foul language, sex, and nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Eurovision Protestors Unfair to Israel’s Entry and Unfair to all the other entries.

Posted: May 12, 2024 by datechguy in culture, Israel, middle east
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The Eurovision song contest is the latest front of the war on Israel.

It’s seem a tad odd that I’m writing about the Eurovision Song Contest at all. All I really know about it comes from the Monty Python World Forum skit and the Doctor Who Episode that parodies the contest as the Intergalactic song contest in Bang a Bang Boom and frankly I’m a tad confused that Israel, a country not in Europe has an entry in it but be that as it may.

The “death to Israel” crowd has been rather vocal in protesting the Israeli entry to the contest to the point where massive security is needed to protect her from a loud and unruly mob both of Islamists and those who wish to curry favor with Islamists (the ‘kill me last caucus’ as I call them) among leftists in general and even among governments and broadcasters who lean left.

This is horribly unfair for two reasons.

The first be obvious in that it puts a young woman at risk for the ‘crime’ of “singing while Jewish” in the same way that the anti-Semite mobs at US colleges put students in danger for the crime of “learning while Jewish” The height of idiocy came from a reporter in a press conference actually asked if by her presence he was putting other contestants in danger:

The irony of course is that this has caused a backlash to the point where she has not only easily moved toward the finals…

But it had made her the odds on favorite to win the public vote

And that leads to the 2nd bit of unfairness of all of this.

You see the Islamic mobs and their enablers have been spending the last decade making a lot of European places unsafe for Europeans and it has become VERBOTEN in the woke world to call them out for it. It’s been bad. How bad? Well the best example I know of actually comes from Canada which is going down the same path as these guys:

Because the pubic can vote on this a lot of Europeans who don’t dare speak out publicly are able to take revenge on the Islamic mob by voting for Israel in this contest because they can do so without fear of retaliation. It’s a great way to stick it to the woke establishment in the same way that declining to buy Bud Light was a way to stick it to Anheuser-Busch when they insulted their customer base.

And while that might be satisfying it does defeat the purpose of a song contest which should be about one thing:

The best performance of a song.

These protesters are not just being anti-Semite bastards and putting people at risk they are also screwing other contestants in this contest who worked hard to get there and may, thanks to these ignorant bastards, not be judged by their performances. In other words they will be robbed of their chance to win.

Now I didn’t watch Eurovision as I have no interest in it And it may be that the final result (Israel 6th overall and 2nd in the public vote) might be what it deserved but the question is: if there wasn’t a mob trying to intimidate the 20 year old Israeli singer. Would we have seen a different result?

We will never know.

BTW Ukraine won the public vote, I wonder how much of that was sympathy as well?

Bonchie Nails It. Let them Reap

Posted: May 5, 2024 by datechguy in culture, education

You know the more I read this tweet the more I agree with it:

For decades blue states and even bluer universities have decided to enable and encourage this stuff. They have done so of their own free will and when given the choice of doing so nor not have made the choice to do so.

Maybe for status, maybe for Arab dollars, maybe because they hate their political foes or those who practice the Judeo-Christians faiths in earnest so much that they’d rather suffer if it gives them the slightest hurt.

But for whatever reason they have decided that this is how they want their states, cities and universities run and have rejected chances to change direction.

Part of freedom is the freedom to be stupid and self destructive. So be it:

  • Let these states hemorrhage the productive and the faithful.
  • Let these cities lose their tax base
  • Let these universities lose their reputations and their graduates become unemployable

Let it continue until the pain is so great that they cry out and do something about it, because they will not learn otherwise.

And we must accept the fact that they may never learn at all, so be it.

Closing thought: This reminds me of an exorcist who described the encounter with a demon during exorcism. The demon under noted that at the time of their rebellion they understood what would happen when they rebelled and the suffering of Hell that would be upon them and did it anyways. When asked by the priest doing the exorcism if he would do it again if given a second chance the demon answered with a quick and unequivocal “Yes!” It reminds one of an important point.

Every single person who is in hell is there by their own choice. As so many people choose hell in death, why should we be surprised that they make such choices in life?

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