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Casual Sundays with Mr Curry
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Summing up Liberalism:
"We would have Heaven on Earth if everyone would just do as I say."
Conservatism:
"Leave me alone, I'm busy." |
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| If I've learned one thing in my half century of life, it's this; when politicians start talking about 'fairness' (flipside; trust), it's time to hide your daughters, your gold and your whiskey. |
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In Mary Shelley's classic story, Frankenstein, the mad doctor doesn't get to pick and choose the pieces of cadavers that he puts together to form his creature; he takes what he can get, brings the thing to life and is so horrified by what he's done that he runs off, abandoning the creature to it's fate, which turns out to be tracking the doctor down and destroying his life and his family.
It's the quintessential horror story, centering around child abandonment and the responsibility of fathers.
I've thought for years that this story needs to be updated and told for modern ears.
A new twist on the story presented itself to me this morning, listening to Mark Steyn talk about the four remaining contenders for the GOP presidential nomination.
The field has been narrowed down to Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
I would love to be able to create a Conservative Creature made from Romney's business experience with Gingrich's ability to articulate conservatism, Santorum's pro life stand and Paul's ideas to cut the size and power of the federal government by abolishing three fourths of the cabinet agencies and getting spending under control.
But all four of the guys still standing also have aspects to them that I find extremely troubling.
Here's a horror story; what if you wound up with a candidate that had Romney's health care system, Santorum's extreme youth and inexperience, Paul's lunatic foreign policy and Gingrich's God complex?
You'd have Barack Hussein Obama.
Scared yet? |
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This week from netflix I got an old movie and a new movie. The new movie was Margin Call, which is a look at one of the big Wall Street Banks in the twenty four hours leading up to the financial melt down of '08.
I liked it. I know some folks found it dull and it is very slowly paced but I knew that going in. I found it to be suspenseful, even though I knew what was going to happen. I liked the performances of many of my favorite actors. Jeremy Irons was fun as the ruthless top man of the bank. He cheerfully admitted that brains are not what got him to his place of eminence. He said in order to win at this game, you must be first, be smartest, or cheat. He said "I don't cheat, I'm not that smart so lets be first."
I think he may have been right as far as his responsibility to try to salvage the bank. Yes, lots of people, real people got hurt but the bottom line is that the pain was inevitable. What the banks had to deal with in September of '08 was a bullet that had been fired ten years earlier finally hitting it's mark. No one gets out of that situation without shedding blood, the most you can do is try to make sure it's not your blood.
I liked Kevin Spacey's character; he didn't want to go along with the sell off because he knew they'd be wreaking havoc all over the world, destroying the bank's reputation and the career's of all their salesmen. But the choice they were faced with wasn't 'be the good guy or be the bad guy' it was 'be the bad guy who's broke or be the bad guy who's not quite broke'.
I love Zack Quinto. He played the rocket scientist who ran the numbers and saw the tidal wave approaching. He also happens to be smoking hot.
I love Stanley Tucci. Have loved him since I saw him play a bad guy in a story arc on Wiseguy, back in the eighties. He's always fun to watch. He played the head of risk-management whose research lead Z.Quinto's character to the truth. He couldn't finish the project himself because he got sacked the day before.
My favorite scene in the movie was Stanley T's character, sitting on the steps of his home in Brooklyn, describing his former career to his former boss, who had shown up to try and talk him into coming back for one day (and a mega million dollar bonus) to try and help the firm out of the mess they were in.
He described being an engineer and helping build a bridge that linked two communities in Ohio and West Virginia. This bridge spanned a river and cut 35 miles out of the commute between the towns. He calculated how many cars crossed that bridge a day, how many miles of driving were saved, not only each day, but each year since the bridge was built. He calculated how many hours behind the wheel were saved; the people of those community had saved over a thousand years of their cumulative lifetimes from behind the wheels of their cars because of that bridge.
All I could think was that environmentalists would prevent such a bridge from being built today. Even though it's obvious that over all, the bridge was a huge boon to the environment as well as the lives, livelihoods and economies of the people it served.
Jay hated the movie. He spent an hour and fifty minutes waiting for something to happen. He wanted explosions and gun fire. When it was over he told me he hated every second of it.
oh well.
The other movie I saw this week was 10, the 1979 movie that made Bo Derek a star. Well, a trivia answer, anyway. I haven't seen the movie since it came out and I remembered it as being gut bustingly funny.
It's not.
There is one very funny sequence through the middle where Dudley Moore's character is full of novacaine, pain meds and booze but aside from that it was pretty dull.
What I did find very interesting was how out of sync it was with modern cultural sensitivities.
In case you've forgotten, the movie is about a guy having a mid life crisis. Dudley Moore plays a very successful songwriter. His character has won four Oscars for his music. But something is missing. He catches a glimpse of a bride on her way to the church and becomes completely obsessed by this vision of the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.
His shrink tells him that the fact that she was decked out in her virginal white veil and gown, added to his sense of her perfection.
Got that? she was more beautiful because she looked virginal.
unable to shake his obsession, he tracks down her father to find out where she's gone on her honeymoon. Fortunately, her father is a popular Hollywood dentist so a famous songwriter had no trouble getting an appointment. Unfortunately, the dentist finds no less than six cavities in Moore's mouth and insists on filling them all.
Hence the sequence involving novacaine and pain killers.
But despite all that, Moore does find out where Virginal obsession is Honeymooning and he follows her down to Mexico.
This is where things get really (culturally) interesting. When he manages to meet her, he discovers that contrary to his dream of perfection, she's not a virgin at all. In fact her sexual code of conduct is so loose that despite being on her honeymoon she has no qualms at all about boinking this old guy she met on the beach.
At first, Dudley Moore can't believe his luck! He's climbing into bed with the girl of his dreams! But then, he's so overcome by the disgustingness of her behavior and her whole cavalier attitude towards sex that he can't go through with it. He leaves, goes home and asks his girl friend (Julie Andrews, who sings two completely forgettable songs) to marry him.
In the age of No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits, slimecapades masquerading as 'romantic comedies', can you even imagine a script like 10 getting a green light these days?
I'm beginning to think that culturally, we sailed off the cliff a long, long time ago. The fall is so deep that we can't tell we're falling. Occasionally, someone looks out a window and says "Are things supposed to be zooming up past us out there?" but no one listens and soon everyone goes back to what they think is normal.
And when we hit the bottom, all the king's horses won't be able to put the pieces together again. |
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to watch a basketball game with referees who learned their craft in a hospital for the criminally insane?
Me neither but I'm pretty sure that's what I saw last night.
Let me give you some perspective; I've been married to a basketball coach for over thirty years.
I'm very proud of Jay's career. He's a great coach. I think he's the best coach on earth but I accept that I may be biased because I really like him and I admit I know nothing about the game.
My point here is that although I'm married to a coach, I'm not a 'Coach's Wife'. I make no pretense that I either understand or care at all about the game. Thirty two years of watching my husband's and all four of my kid's games, (for a few years there, I went to six or seven games a week) I still don't understand what I'm watching. It took me ten years to figure out the difference between double dribbling and traveling. I still can't tell if I'm looking at a zone or man defense. I'm not even sure what those terms mean but I hear them a lot. Apparently there's such a thing as an illegal screen but I couldn't tell you what that is if you waterboarded me.
Because I don't care.
My life is quite full enough without bothering to learn something as inane as the rules of basketball.
My concern for Jay's win/loss record begins and ends with how happy he'll be when he gets home. I don't care one way or the other about championships. Trophies, a week after the event, are just more crap I have to dust.
But the games are fun. I may not understand the rules or intricacies of the sport but I can appreciate the athleticism, power, beauty and emotion of trying to win. I get caught up in the moment and cheer myself hoarse every game even though I don't give it another thought once it's over.
Here's what I have learned from more than thirty years in the bleachers;
Any team can beat any other team on any given night.
Winning is a lot more fun than losing but the next day you still have to live your life.
I've seen way too much basketball to be comfortable with less than a thirty point lead with more than two minutes left in a game. I've seen a team come from seven points back to win by scoring ten points in the last three seconds. I've seen Hail Mary shots still in the air when the buzzer sounds, sink for three and win the game. I've seen teams that were so hot they couldn't miss in the first half go so cold they couldn't make a layup in the second. I've seen players who can make free throws in their sleep miss one, two and three in a row with championships hanging in the balance. I've seen championships won on the tip in of a missed free throw as the last second of the season ticks off the clock.
I thought I'd seen it all. Until last night.
Referees always suck so I waste no time worrying about them. With the exception of the 1972 Olympic final, I don't believe the officials ever decide a game. Making your free throws is what decides a game.
I don't think the officials decided last night's game. Two very good teams faced off and played a close and exciting game that was within our reach until the last minute of play. We missed too many free throws.
But last night was by far the weirdest game I've ever seen.
Again, some background; Jay's teams are notoriously well disciplined. His teams control themselves. They do not fight. They do not bait the refs. They do not lip off. On the rare occasion when two players on the court get to shoving, our bench stays put. They do not rush the court to defend a team mate, they let the officials restore order and do not make a problem worse. In short, they are trained not to attract technical fouls.
The technical foul is a very effective way for the officials to prevent coaches and players from being abusive or obnoxious. They can call T's at their discretion, for anything they feel is out of hand, as a way to maintain control of the game. The call carries with it a severe penalty; the opposition gets to shoot uncontested free throws and keep possession of the ball. No coach wants to cost his team that much so the threat of T's is a real deterrent to bad bench behavior, including abusive language.
Our teams do not get technical fouls.
We got four called on us last night.
Four.
Two T's called on a coach means expulsion from the bench, the gym and the building. It means a mandatory suspension from the next game as well. So one T is usually all it takes to get a coach to sit down and shut up. When Jay was very young he was wild and firey but he was only ejected from a game once and that was twenty six years ago. He hasn't gotten T'd up at all since before Josie was born.
Last night he got two.
In the first four minutes of the game.
It happened so fast I didn't realize he'd gotten two T's until he walked out the door.
Before the half was over, one of our players had been T'd up as well.
And one of our fans had been ejected from the game.
Shortly after the second half started, Ron (Jay's right hand man, who took the reins after Jay's exit) got T'd up. I've never seen Ron get a T. Not in twenty one seasons.
By now you must be thinking that the game last night was a blood bath; a free for all; an Occupy Wall street riot.
It wasn't.
It was an example of how basketball looks when the officials are completely nuts.
There's no bad blood between the two programs, no history of fighting or grudges. Both teams played well, played hard, had flashes of brilliance and moments of butterfingers. Rochester is a really good team. We only beat them by three early in the season and they didn't need bad officiating to beat us last night.
In fact, they seemed as unnerved by the Insane Clown Posse school of refereeing last night as we were.
I've seen dirty games. I've seen cheap shots and vicious fouls and games where tension and violence between rival teams brewed beneath the surface until fights broke out or the refs were able to get a lid on it and cool things down. I've been at games where teams had to be escorted from the gym with police protection.
Last night was the first time I ever saw a case where both teams and all the fans wanted police protection from the officials.
Jay got T'd up for suggesting (loudly) that the official's job is to protect the shooter.
Ben got ejected from the gym for yelling "You're terrible!"
That's all I heard and I was sitting right in front of him. I've known been since he was a little kid and I've been at games when he may have deserved to be asked to leave. He has a loud voice and it does carry and when he was a teenager and very young adult, he demonstrated a colorful vocabulary. But he's a grown man now. He had his four year old daughter with him, he wasn't screaming profanities. If a fan can't yell 'you're terrible' at the refs after a bad call, what's the point of going to the game? He got no warning to keep it civil. No second chance to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of the dangerously touchy extremely sensitive officials. The security guard seemed as embarrassed by the situation as Ben was and would've been satisfied with a warning for him to dial down the volume but the refs declared that the game would not resume until Ben (and his darling daughter) had been removed from the building.
For "You're terrible."
These refs were so bad it went from outrageous to funny to a little bit scary. I haven't seen so many traveling calls since my kids graduated from the KCYO. I don't remember another game where both teams were in the double bonus in the first half. There were so many whistles the first half took an hour to play. The second half was no better. They actually called one of our guys for 'delay of game'. First of all, they made that call as play occurred so I have no idea what it was supposed to mean, second of all, there's no such call.
I don't even know what Ron got T'd up for and it doesn't even matter! By that point of the game, everyone in the gym, players, fans and coaches alike, were so appalled no one would've been surprised if the ref had punched someone!
It's the first game I've ever seen in which the officials were 100% successful in making the entire game about them.
At this point, I'd love to be able to say that the real referees were later found bound and gagged in a closet of the Sal and three escaped lunatics had officiated the game. But this is real life and real life doesn't always make sense.
Just like basketball. |
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If there's anything I hate these days, it's learning a new skill.
Yes, I enjoyed learning to shoot guns a few months back and I look forward to getting out to the range again. I still think getting a handgun permit is a good idea. I usually enjoy any new tricks I learn how to do, it's the learning that I hate.
Last Christmas (010, not 011) Jay gave me an Ipod and Zack's gift was to put as many of my cd's on it as he could. Every time he came over to the house, I'd give him a stack and he put them on.
Turns out, I have a lot of cds.
Both Josie and Zack showed me how to put a cd into the computer library and then load it onto my Ipod.
I watched, listened and promptly forgot everything they showed me.
My brain doesn't want to know how to load my Ipod.
But earlier this week, I realized that I really like having all my music in one tiny appliance and I only had one of my Peter Gabriel cds loaded so far.
So...since I had the day off and had already gotten my check and week's worth of orders...I sat down at the computer and tried to recall what my kids had shown me.
It didn't take all that long. Soon, I was inputting cds, building my library and filling that little gold Ipod with music. I went about my day, only remembering to check the computer every few minutes to do the next step, put the music on my device or load the next cd.
By the time Josie got home from school I think I had added fifteen or twenty more cds to my Ipod. I like that I can load a whole cd or just the songs I like. You know how it is; a cd you loved in high school but now you realize only two of the songs are worth listening to. Now you only have to have those two. You can put only Peter Gabriel's good songs on your Ipod. I love PG and think his good stuff, like Steam, is as good as it gets but his bad stuff like the Family and the Fishing Net is equally as bad. Now I can delete it from my files!
Several of my cds didn't transfer all the data digitally which puzzles me. Why did Billy Joel's greatest hits disc one transfer song titles etc to the computer, but disc two didn't?
When Josie got home from school, she showed me how to add that info by hand.
She mocked me, of course.
Snotty kids.
"Jeez, Mom. Use your eyes!" she said, showing me to double click a song to hear it and single click to add the artist and album title.
"Hey!" I snapped, not in the mood to put up with any whippersnapperism. "You just learned to drive. Did we toss you the keys and say 'Drive now.'? Or did we say 'Put the key in the ignition, turn it and keep your foot on the brake while you put it in gear'? Of course I don't know when to single or double click yet; YOU HAVE TO SHOW ME."
She was contrite and showed me what I wanted to know but she rolled her eyes. She couldn't help it.
Now I know how to put music on my Ipod.
And as a bonus, I've learned a new way to make Josie roll her eyes. |
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It's the second week of January and it's 48 degrees outside.
I love it! I wish every winter were like this!
Although, we could use some rain. We've been in drought conditions for so long that even the massive amounts of snow we had last year, and the rain that wouldn't stop between April and July, our ground water levels were still below normal in September. So we really could use the precipitation and if it rained today, it couldn't turn into snow. Perfect would be rain that stopped two hours before the temps dropped back below freezing. That way the roads could dry out a bit and not become icy roads to hell.
But it's sunny and warm. I just went for a run.
Now I have to continue dismantling my Christmas decorations. It's a big, boring job. At the moment, I have a naked tree staring at me against the backdrop of brilliant blue sky out the picture window.
It's gotta go. |
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I watched the final version of A Star is Born last night. The 1976 version stars Barbra Streisand as Esther Blodgett Hoffman and Kris Kristofferson as Norman Maine John Norman Whatsisname. Instead of a charming, alcoholic, self destructive movie star on the down side of his career, he plays a charming, coke addled, alcoholic, self destructive rock star who seems to hate the life, the fans and himself.
And he's smokin' hot in the role.
Barbra Streisand was awful. Yes, she can sing but my GOD, she couldn't act her way out of an elementary school production. Through most of the movie it doesn't matter but I've never seen a less convincing portrayal of a broken heart than the scene in which she catches her husband cheating. The depth of emotion and the feeling of betrayal she displayed was more appropriate to someone sitting in your spot in the lunch room than walking in on your husband and some chick in your bed together.
I have to admit; I'd rather listen to Kris K. with an acoustic guitar than Barbra with a full orchestra seven days a week. The final scene, rather than introduce herself to the world as "Mrs. Norman Maine", like both Janet and Judy did, Babs sings a tribute to him in concert. Not only does she sing the last song he wrote, she turns it into an all out homage to him by segueing into his biggest hit.
Watching Babs try to rock out was not only painful, it was embarrassing.
But I liked this version much better than the Judy Garland/James Mason film. Mostly because the music was better and Kris K was awesome.
I do love me some Kris Kristofferson. |
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After my sojourn through Middle Earth and by that I mean my laying in a recliner for thirteen hours watching others sojourn through Middle Earth, I felt the need for some fresh air.
Especially since I went up to the Picket Fence to pick up my check and discovered that it was a balmy 25 degrees outside!
I love El Nino winters! I wish global warming was happening.
When I got home from the bank, I called my folks and they came into town and we walked around the lake. It was great; sunny, no wind and warm enough to break a sweat in my winter coat. There were a lot of fellow Minneapolitans out there, enjoying the warm weather.
That's why Minnesota weather is so great; we actually consider a January day in the high twenties to be great weather.
Except for the ice fishermen. They're all grumpy because the high afternoon temperatures are keeping the ice on the lakes too thin for walking on. Since, as a breed, ice fishermen are insane, I'm sure we'll lose one or two through the thin ice before March.
Which is just around the corner!
The days have been getting longer for two weeks already. I feel like spring is almost here. I know we're in for some severe cold and I hope we get some serious snow; we're still in draught conditions, after all, but I feel like spring is so close I can almost touch it.
The ice rink across the street is funny. They've been watering it since late in October but the afternoon sun keeps melting the top layer. The result is ice as smooth as silk for the skaters who show up around sun down. We didn't know if they were even going to put up the hockey boards this year but they did it yesterday afternoon. The ice was pretty watery by the time I got home from my walk.
Then, around 4:30, MJ called. She'd had a house full of kids all day and wanted some fresh air so she popped the babies in the car, picked me up and we walked around the lake again.
The sun set while we were down there and it was a spectacular, pink, blue, yellow, gold, red, magenta and violet sky we walked beneath. The sky was cloudy, which always leads to the best sun sets. The downtown skyline was lit up by the setting sun, with a dark, slate blue cloud bank behind it. It looked like it was made of polished gold. El Dorado never looked so gilded in the fevered imagination of the explorers. I could barely take my eyes off of it. It stayed lit up long after the sun had sunk too low for us to see it, reflecting off the upper stories of the glass towers downtown. The moon was out, too. It's like everything and everyone wanted to enjoy the glorious evening.
Then I got home to find my darling husband cooking up steak and lobster for dinner.
So far, 2012 is awesome! |
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Thanks to those wacky Mayans, 2012 has as ominous a reputation as 1984 did. I remember Johnny Carson had giant eyes put into his backdrop in reference to Big Brother. They were so unpopular they didn't last long.
Just like Big Brother didn't quite show up in 1984, but modern day London is working hard on making it a reality, the world isn't going to end this year, just because a bunch of Mayans got tired of extrapolating out their calendar.
And if I'm wrong, well; Good job, Mayans!
We rang in the new year the way we always do; at home, sound asleep.
Steve and Pam came over for dinner early in the evening. We had owed them a steak dinner since Christmas 2010 so it was about time we all had the same night free.
Jay cooked a sirloin tip roast and served it with all kinds of veggies. It was spectacular.
We watched some sort of sporting event, I paid no attention to that. Pam and I talked movies and books. We both have new Kindles and are excited about the technology.
It poured rain all evening and at nine the rain turned to snow. That's really the worst of all possible weather; snow over ice. So Pam and Steve hit the road early and although I stayed up till midnight, Jay went to bed as soon as the year turned on the east coast.
2011 was a good year for us. We had a lot of fun and I for one, did several big new things; I went to NYC for the first time. I learned to shoot guns. I went hunting.
2012 is going to be even better; I'm going to be a grandmother. That's fairly huge.
Yesterday, Carolyn came over and she, Josie and I watched the Lord of the Rings from beginning to end. Mostly extended editions. I say 'mostly' because when I opened up my copy of Fellowship, I discovered to my horror that the second disc of the movie was missing. This is troubling for obvious reasons but also because I swear I checked to make sure all the discs were there when the last person who borrowed them brought them back.
Also, Target doesn't carry the extended edition anymore and neither does Best Buy. I made them check their inventory.
So, we watched the first half of Fellowship with extended scenes but had to watch the second half on a theatrical release version.
No biggie but that's not the point, is it?
I like lending my dvds to people. I like spreading the joy. I can't do it anymore if folks wreck them.
Zack and Katie came over and joined us for awhile in the afternoon. Zack had to work so they couldn't stay too long. They watched a few hours and left before the battle of Helm's deep.
Both Carolyn and Josie fell asleep during parts of the movie. Who could blame them? The room was dark, the sofa comfy and the fire warm. They only slept through some of the down times. They woke up in time for all the cool battles.
Our tv room dvd is a boze sound system. Great sound, not so great dvd player. It's very temperamental. It won't play a dvd if it has even a microscopic blemish and once it declares that it can't read a disc, it won't. All my other dvd players will play the disc but the boze just says "No. Go read a book, you lazy brutes. You've been watching for ten straight hours, are you in traction, or what?"
So we had to finish The Return of the King on the porch. It's not as warm but the couch is very comfortable. The screen's not as big but the picture is even better. And the dvd player works all the time.
We finished shortly after nine. A little over twelve hours. That's not so bad. In fact, I loved every minute of it. The girls humored me, and I appreciate that.
Carolyn did say she wants to read the books now. She should. Parts of the movie are way cooler than the book, there are parts that I'm glad were left out (Tom Bombadil, anyone? Anyone?) but there are also really cool parts in the book that are ignored by the movie; The Scouring of the Shire, for instance. Plus, everything makes more sense in the book, ie; who wore the Three rings? Why were their futures also bound to the One? Where were the elves going and what was the feud between the elves and dwarves about?
I know.
I'm such a geek.
"Six baby horses! Who cares? I love myself." |
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