Another new art piece

'A sound of pigs.'
10" x 8" mixed media on pre stretched canvass.
$50 minimum donation to my PayPal account.

More reviews

I don't know what it's like to be a minority and to grow up seeing people like me portrayed as buffoons, savages, noble stoic stewards of the earth, or drunks. Most all the people I saw in films and TV shows were the same color as me, so the things they talk about in this film didn't happen to me but I see where they're coming from.

Hollywood has willfully and woefully pigeonholed Native Americans into a few kinds of roles and it's only been since 1990 that things began to change. I grew up thinking all Indians lived in the southwestern USA and that they were either drunk or ready to start a war to take their land back. Then as I grew I saw that in the entertainment industry as a whole they got the same kind of treatment we had given them since the day we, European settlers, got here. This fine documentary tracks the evolution of how Indians are portrayed in Hollywood productions starting with silent film and going up through today. It's a fine film and it tells a much needed side to a heretofore lopsided story. I was glad to see that some of my favorite films featuring Native Americans (Little Big Man, Black Robe, Smoke Signals) were talked about in this documentary.

I highly recommend this one.


Thank gawd for Netflix. Without Netflix instant streaming I never ever would have seen this superb miniseries. It's not one I would have bought on DVD but holy shit am I glad I saw it on Netflix.

This miniseries is a satire on Victorian greed and societal mores. It's centered around a couple of families, the wealthy Melmottes and the struggling Carburys. The Melmottes are led by financial genius Augustus who seeks to win his place in British society by helping others get rich and the Carburys are led by matriarch Lady Carbury who seeks to get her children into marriages with rich partners so she can live the high society life. The problem with Augustus is he's a fraud and the problem with Lady Carbury is she can't see that her son is a feckless cad who's a drunk and a gambling addict. Other characters come in and out of the story and in the end Melmotte is unmasked for the fraud he is and Lady Carbury's kids get what they have coming to them.

This lavish production is rich in fine performances. David Suchet as Augustus Melmotte is chillingly good. Shirley Henderson is balls out great as his spurned in love daughter who ends up winning financially as her father is ruined. Matthew Macfadyen is funny and repulsive as the young cad Felix Carbury. Cheryl Campbell exudes sexiness as the matriarch of the down at their heels Carbury family, her cleavage is among the most magnificent I have ever seen, I'm pretty sure her boobs have their own gravitational pull. Cillian Murphy and Rob Brydon are great as the only honest men in London. Anne-Marie Duff shines as the girl who desperately wants to marry and who almost weds a Jewish banker but in the end is undone by her mercenary greed and religious bigotry. Paloma Baeza is sexy and winsome as the young daughter of the super sexy Lady Carbury. And Helen Schlesinger is funny and sad as the second wife of Augustus Melmotte, most of her performance is done without words so it's all pure reaction and her reactions are priceless.

This mini series is as true today as it was when it was first written. Greed is greed and it ultimately ruins those who worship it. Suchet's Melmotte could just as easily be Mitt Romney, in fact much of his dialogue sounds as if it was written by today's wealth apologists. The people in this mini series get wealthy off moving money around and just like in real life, when they do, they end up screwing working men and woman. For that reason alone I love this mini series, but I also love it because most of the honest characters who see what's going on behind the smokescreen the wealthy 'job creators' throw up are female. It's women who see the damage rich men do and by joining up with a couple of honest men, they bring down the greedy and those that need it, get punished, some get hit with the ultimate punishment.

The only thing I didn't like about this production was Miranda Otto's accent. It grates on my nerves to hear bad southern accents, especially when they come out of the mouths of actors who I usually like. But other than that, I was blown away by this timely topical and very funny satirical send up of Victorian era greed.

Super highly recommended.

For the cure my ass

Fuck you Susan G. Komen Foundation. Fuck you and your right wing appeasement agenda. I'll never give another dime to you twats. You've stopped providing grants to Planned Parenthood which helps more women than your shitty little rink dinky foundation ever will.

If you ever gave any money to these clowns at the Komen foundation I hope you give it to Planned Parenthood directly. The kunts at Komen want right wing money more than they want to save women's lives and cure cancer. Because after all, if they find a cure for breast cancer tomorrow, the kunts at Komen are out of a job, but the work that Planned Parenthood does will never see and end. Low income and working poor women will always have to rely on the health related services that PP provides. Give to the organization that really helps women, Planned Parenthood, and not the organization that is being run by right wing ideologues.

Brutally honest product reviews

This will be a semi regular feature from now on, these brutally honest product reviews. Don't look for it every day or even every week but it will be back as I encounter and try new products.

• Abita Turbodog beer-Barely drinkable dreck. It's a step above some beers but it's not too far off from being undrinkable swill. Which is surprising considering that Abita Raspberry Wheat and Abita Golden Ale are among my favorite beers ever tasted.
  
• Depot Street Brew's Eurail Golden Ale-Divine. I've yet to have a bad beer that's been made by Depot Street brewery. Sorry out of towners, it's a local brewery. You'll have to buy it here in the Tri-Cities to savor it's flavor.
• Messiah He-Brew Nut Brown Ale-Not bad, but not good either. It lacks bite and it's well not worth the $9.50 I paid for it. Leinenkugel's Fireside Nut Brown is a much better nut based beer and it's almost two bucks cheaper than the Messiah stuff.
• Want to know what evil tastes like? Here you go:
  

These noodles are shit. They taste like shit and they turned our homemade chicken noodle soup into a glutenous mass of ick. Mrs. Miller needs to go back to the test kitchen and come up with a recipe for noodles that doesn't suck as bad as these do. They are seriously bad, so bad in fact I'm willing to name them the source of all evil ever perpetrated since time began. I cooked them the according to the instructions on the over priced bag and they still sucked. No amount of cooking could help the taste and texture of these gawd awful tasting noodles. I've had good tasting no yolk noodles and these were not them. In fact, these were the stone cold polar opposite of good, they were bad. Horrible. Awful. DO NOT BUY THESE NOODLES. THEY FUCKING SUCK.

More brutally honest product reviews to come, stay tuned.

New work

'King Bea.'
Mixed media collage on 10" x 8" pre stretched canvass.
$50 minimum donation to my PayPal account, shipping and handling not included.

A Monkey Movie Report

A financially strapped elder care lawyer and wrestling coach takes some ethically challenged steps to provide financial security for his family and in the process he gains a wrestling prodigy foster son, the guardianship of an elderly ward, and gets involved in the life of a substance abuser who wants a steady flow of cash. The lawyer is basically a good guy who makes a wrong decision that nearly spirals out of control and nearly ruins all he's built.

Once again Paul Giamatti turns in a fine performance. His put upon portrayal of this nearly good character is spot on. He's everyman and the schlub you can't help but love and root for. He's all of us who try to do the decent thing no matter what and who pay the price when we for once try to take a shortcut. For my money he's one of the best actors of our time.

Amy Ryan is stellar as his wife who slowly accepts the new kid in her home. Bobby Cannavale's dickish sidekick friend of Giamatti's character is a standout as well. Alex Shaffer as the knocked around wrestling prodigy is a new talent to watch out for, at times he's a blank canvass for the other older characters to react to but at other times he's a mass of teen angst waiting to explode. My favorite Kiwi, Melanie Lynskey, is super as the kid's cash hungry mother.

All in all I really loved this fine character driven film. It's small in scale and scope but it tells a universal story about struggles we've all been through. Highly recommended.

Ooo, la la

And that's why we love them so.

Reminder

I don't write this blog for anyone but me. If you like my posts, fine. If not, then I don't give a shit. If no one read this blog I'd still write it anyway. Same thing with the art I make. I could care less if you don't like it.

Also if you're looking for 'A' list comedy material or searing political satire to be here every day, forget it. And if you feel the need to tell me I've done better posts than the one you just read, fuck off. No, really, fuck off. I don't need anyone to tell me shit like that. You don't write this blog, I do. I decide what goes on here and if you hate it, then stop fucking reading it.

That time you spent telling me much you hated my posts could be used to do something helpful, like oh, I don't know, perhaps picking up trash, reading to the blind, or eating something fatty that will clog your arteries, give you heart disease, and kill you before you have the chance to bitch about the creative endeavors of someone else.

New work

'The dead speak but we can't understand them.'
(Mixed media on pre stretched 8" x 10" canvass)
$50 minimum donation to my PayPal account, shipping and handling not included.

Business as usual

Bank of America is willing to work with, and by work with I mean bleed it's customers a little less, people who are in mortgage trouble, but they'll only do so if these people promise to stop saying mean things about them on the internet.

How very fucking nice of them. Bank of America makes a shitty shady mortgage deal that rips people off and when they complain about it they get told to shut the fuck up or they'll get no help. Thank gawd I never made a deal with those thieving bastards and since I didn't, they can't tell me to be quiet. So I'll use my bully pulpit to say that Bank of America is a criminal organization run by thugs and gangsters whose mission in life is to steal from the poor so that a few already rich white guys can get richer. Bank of America doesn't give a shit about anything but taking as much cash out of people's pockets as it can. They suck and they ought to be ashamed of themselves but instead they're proud as a peacock that they rob, ruin, and ravage neighborhoods all over this country. Fuck you and your sociopathic behavior you fourth rate robbing asswipes. I live for the day your corporation goes into bankruptcy.

Twitter is now going to censor tweets in other countries. But, let's be honest with one another, they're probably already doing it here in the USA as well. They say they have to do it in order to keep offices open in those repressive countries that need to censor their citizens. I say they're doing it because they put profit above all things and they don't give a shit about freedom or letting people speak their mind.

It's been well documented that people used Twitter during uprisings and protests. They used it to coordinate meetings, tell others where the cops were, and to get more folks out to demonstrate, and all these things are an anathema to repressive governments. People in our government praised plucky freedom loving protestors in other countries who used Twitter like that, countries like Egypt, Libya, etc, but they then turned around and demanded Twitter give them the names of people who used their service to do those very same things in our country. They are still in the process of prosecuting people who use Twitter like that during the G8 protests awhile back. And guess what? Twitter complied with their requests.

So yeah. Twitter sucks ass. Just like Yahoo who gave up Chinese dissidents, and Microsoft, and Apple, and all other companies that do the bidding of dictators and repressive regimes. People cry, "What are they supposed to do? They're just following orders given to them by governments where they do business." If they are a US based company what they are supposed to do is to extend the same rights and freedom of usage to people in other countries that hey do to US citizens and if the countries they want to do business with won't allow that, then they need to get the fuck out of those countries. "But they won't make money if they do that!" So the fuck what. Making money and securing profit is not the be all and end all of life. It's more important to do the right thing than it is to make a buck and if more people and businesses adhered to that principle, then this world would be a hell of a lot better off.

Business needs more ethics and we need to stop patronizing unethical companies. Do business with companies committed to making the change you want to see in the world. And if you don't fin any, then start one.

Betcha didn't know these fun facts about candy

The rich also made candy out of the poor. They found that candy made from Irish children tasted best.

Too bad they made precious little else or they would have remained a world super power.

Chinese children are among the most easily pleased children on earth.

Children in Mexico are well acquainted with skulls because of all the skull fucking their parents engage in.

Mud and the livers of Jews were also treats tykes in the Middle Ages enjoyed.

Bonus fact about the Middle Ages:

Pants were optional in most countries during the Middle Ages.

Brunette of the week

Misty Stone.

A Monkey movie Report

I sat through this piece of shit the other night:
I hate films like this. Making fun of obsessive fans is like shooting fish in a barrel, you can do it but it's not much fun and there's no sport in it.

I can hear the makers of this turd now, "Hey dude, not so fast, we put a few hot chicks and Olivia Munn in it so we're not making fun of these people who obsessively collect Star Wars shit. We love these people!" And to them I reply, "Bullshit, you love them only because you like to make fun of them. Hey, I've got an idea, let's all make a film about asshole filmmakers who like to mock obsessive sci fi fans."

Skip this mock fest and watch one of the original three Star Wars films instead.

Variations on a theme

One day at the wash-a-rama.

A Monkey Movie Report

This film was Francis Ford Coppola's feature length directorial debut and it's full of artsy shots, weird camera angles, and modern jarring music. It's also not bad but it's not very good either.

The film starts out with a man and a woman walking down a dock and getting into a boat. You can tell right away he's one of those henpecked movie husbands who is about to die at the hands of his super sexy scheming wife (played by the wildly sexy Luana Anders). They set out in the row boat and after it's made clear that the wife will scheme her way into getting her hands on the family fortune, the husband drops dead. She then tosses his body in the water and miracle of miracles, it sinks, it doesn't float. She then forges a letter telling his mother that he's been called away on business. After slipping the letter under the mother's door she tosses his suitcase and the typewriter in the same pond she dumped his body in.

The next day we find out the action is taking place at Castle Haloran in Ireland, but it's an Ireland where hardly anybody speaks with an Irish accent, in fact only men wearing hats and the woman who runs the pub speak with anything close to resembling an Irish accent. We also find out that the family, the mother, her other two sons, the scheming daughter in law, and the fiancee of one of the sons, have all gathered at the castle to get to know one another while the immediate family, the mother and her living sons, are going to have a private ceremony for the long dead last child, a girl named Kathleen.

Everybody with any connection to the castle sees that the family isn't right and things are downright weird. The youngest son who was playing with his sister when she fell into the pond and drowned has bad dreams and mopes around when he's there. The older son, a sculptor, and a bad one at that, tries to look moody and sexy while trying to scare his sister in law and cop a feel off his fiancee when he can get a minute or two alone with her. The mother has a breakdown at the grave of her dead daughter, as the younger son said she would, and her doctor comes to treat her and the rest of the family.

By the end of the film the scheming daughter in law has gotten hers, one of the Irish guys in a hat gets his head chopped off, they didn't come out and say it but I'm pretty sure he gets murdered because of his heinous fake accent. The mother has yet another breakdown. And the oldest son marries his fiancee and he tries to consummate their marital love by bedding his lovely wife on a pile of artfully arranged hay that looked so full of dust and allergens that I started to sneeze in sympathy for the actress who had to do that scene on top of that shit.

I'm sure when this film came out it was shocking and different. After all, it does feature an axe murderer and scheming women. But even overlooking some of the sillier stuff that bogs the film down, it really isn't very scary at all. Coppola tried to pack the film with red herrings that were simply not believable and modern 'scary' music that was a cross between the Twilight Zone theme and the theme from Psycho. He tried to rely on gimmicks rather than story, at one point they drain the pond and there's not trace of the typewriter, the dead husband's suitcase, or his body.

Of all the performances Luana Anders's stands out. She graces the screen with a burning sexiness that is riveting to see. She stole every scene she was in and after her character got killed much of the air went out of the story. I should have turned it off after she bought the farm.

There were quite a few performances I hated in this film and chief among them was the one given by Patrick Magee as the doctor who treats the mother, Lady Haloran. Magee runs, or should I say skulks around acting smug and above it all and when his character tries to connect others, either with the fiancee or the troubled younger brother, he comes off as a condescending asshole. His accent was also a sore spot with me, it was neither Irish nor British, it was some kind of weird quasi European accent that grated on my nerves so much so that I wanted to jump into the film so I could throttle him for using it. Eithne Dunne as Lady Haloran was also simply not believable, her attempt at portraying a psychologically fragile character came off as laughably funny.

The only way I can recommend this film is if you're a fan of Coppola's work and you're on a mission to see all of the features he's directed or if you want to see what horror movies used to be like. Or if you want to learn to worship at the altar of uber sexy Luana Anders, then this film is for you. Otherwise, it's not worth it, the whole thing is kind of dull, labored, and artlessly overwrought.

Reaction to the Newt's victory in South Carolina

"Newt won? Holy shit, that's great. I'll have this pig broke in and ready for him to marry soon as he divorces that scheming but soon to be ailing Calista."

"Son of a bitch! Newt's 'victory juice' smells and feels a lot like man spackle."

"I was hoping he'd win. Now, can we stop the covert racist talk and just do it all overtly? Fuck Juan Williams and his 'I hate work so let's kill whitey and take all his women' ass.


"Fear not my love, I voted for Santorum."
"That's what I was afraid of you asshole."

And finally:

Feel the Newt-mentum America!

Circles make every thing better

I made a few new mixed media art cards yesterday.

Double review

Our love for BBC produced period dramas is well known so last year on her birthday I gave Sparky the first series DVD of Lark Rise to Candleford. Then wonder of wonders, my local library got the rest of the DVD sets for the other three series they made of this show and after seeing series 2 and 3 this summer we just finished series 4.

We both really liked this show. It has all the requisite things in a BBC produced period drama, great costumes, locations, great acting, sets, and this one had the added pleasure of being overtly political. The basic story is that Laura, the cute blonde in the center, is from Lark Rise, a poor working class village, and she gets the chance to move to Candleford to work in the post office which is run by her distant cousin Dorcas. The lives of the citizens of both the towns inter mingle and as time progresses all sorts of interpersonal dramatic and gentle comedic things happen. Lives grow complicated, love finds those who seek it, and everyone's lives are a bit richer and better because they all got close and folks had their back at one time or another.

I liked the fact that this show got political at times, it showed the plight of the working people and the indifference of the wealthy towards them. I also liked the many guest stars that it had and the fact that they didn't wear out their welcome. The show had several characters that it was built around and other characters came and went as needed. It was all very British and all very good. My favorite characters were Minnie the post office maid, the Pratt sisters, priggish Postman Brown, Alf, Twister and Queenie, and Robert and Emma.

After seeing all four series of this show I liked the first one best but all of them are worth the time. This one is highly recommended.

I read this slender hardboiled Mexican mystery in a three day span. It's only 162 pages long and the story flew by at break neck speed.

A one eyed gimpy legged private eye is hired to find out why a woman's husband and brothers got murdered and why she's being muscled out of the money left behind in her father in law's bank account. The private eye is an intelligent but world weary guy who has seen his share of the ugly side of Mexico City and it's corrupt government officials. He's also old friends with a criminal who's high up in the crime world. His investigation takes him to places he doesn't want to go and he finds out that his hometown of Mexico City is even more corrupt than he imagined. With the help of a couple of retired pro wrestlers and a novelist named Paco Ignacio he solves the case and helps to bring a little bit of justice to a town that needs it badly.

I loved this book. I loved how fast the story moved and how Taibo painted all his characters. I'm sure things in Mexico City aren't as bad as they sound in this book and I'm sure Mr. Taibo his taken literary license with other tings about his adopted country. I also love how he made himself a character in the book. I could see elements of the famed Latin 'magical realism' in this book and they added to my enjoyment of it.

I highly recommend this novel and I'll be seeking out more books by this author.

Another one bites the dust

Rick Perry dropped out of the Republican race so he could spend more time with his homophobia.

Mittens is feeling mucho pressure to release his tax returns. He's reluctant to do it because he knows Democrats will make his vast wealth a huge issue in the general election, as well they should.

Newt is pissed off he's getting questions about his marriages and his infidelities. Poor baby, he made Clinton's infidelities an issue, so his should be fair game as well.

Ron Paul is claiming that the Federal Reserve...oh wait, I don't give a shit what the racist homophobe says. He's never going to be the Republican nominee and with a little luck, he and all his followers will travel to the libertarian paradise known as Somalia where there is no government and plenty of personal liberty.

Obama is licking his chops at the thought of any of these ass clowns running against him.

Today in unnecessary apostrophes

This photo was taken at my local wash-a-rama.

Hey, hey, Paula

The backlash against the critics of Paula Deen has begun.

Sure, she's diabetic and she withheld that fact from her public until she had a deal with a big pharmaceutical company. Now she says she going to cook healthy food by golly! I wonder if she hadn't got a deal with an insulin maker, would she still cook the same artery clogging saturated fat filled sugar cooked dreck she built her culinary career on?

Of course some of the defenders of Ms. Deen claim that people who are criticizing her are doing so because she's a woman and because she's fat. So that of course means that the men who criticize her for adding to the obesity and diabetes epidemics are doing so because they hate women in general and fat women in particular. Well, sorry haters, that's not true. I could care less if Paula was skinny or a dude, she made shitty fat filled food that will kill you if you eat it all the time. I'd say the same thing about a man if he had built his career on this kind of shit.

The last group of her defenders is the one I love to hate the most, those who claim that Deen with her cuisine of early death did nothing wrong and that no one forced people to make and eat the crap she made. Follow along here if you can, Deen went on TV and cooked fatty bad for you food for years. She sold cookbooks with her recipes, there was a magazine devoted to her and her cooking. She endorsed everything from factory farmed ham to gravy mixes, to whatever else she could make a buck off of. She plastered her name on cookware, on anything she could, and she made it known that she was the comfort food chef of renown. So given all that, did she really think people wouldn't follow her fat laden example and buy and eat the shit she relentlessly shilled? She now claims she's an entertainer, not the food police and it's not her fault if you watched her show and followed her advice. She's blameless if you bought her magazine and cookbooks and you had a heart attack from eating a bacon grease flavored cake with butter cream icing. I may be wrong, but in any of her shows, or cookbooks, or her restaurants, are there signs or disclaimers telling people not to eat her food or to eat it sparingly? No.

The fact is Deen encouraged people to eat shitty fat filled food and she charmed millions of idiots and they followed her advice. They bought into her spiel and now she wants you to believe it's not her fault that people get fat and have grave health problems from eating a diet that she has pushed on them since day one. The tobacco companies said it wasn't their fault that people got lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, they said no one forced people to smoke. Handgun makers tell you it's not their fault people get shot and killed by people who use handguns, no one forced them to use a handgun. If I go on TV for years, write books, and have a magazine that tells you to beat up and murder Estonians and Latvians, then I shouldn't be surprised when Latvians and Estonians end up beaten and murdered. But Paula Deen's logic says that I'm blameless because I didn't do any of the beatings or murders. Bullshit.

The fact is Deen wants it both ways. She wants to be famous for her gawd awful food that will induce heart disease, strokes, and send you on the path to diabetes, and she wants no blame for those who get a heart attack, a stroke, or get diabetes after eating her food for years and years. If she didn't have a guilty conscience then she wouldn't be doing a one eighty and taking up healthy cooking. The fact is she's a whore for corporate cash. She wants the fame, the adulation, and as much cash as her grubby little hands and her big bank accounts can hold.

Defend her if you like but don't insult me by doing it on my Facebook wall or in the comments section here. Rebut me all you like, just do it on your blog or your Facebook wall.

Who said it?

"I'll beat a man within an inch of his life if he calls me a Midwestern potentate masturbater."

"I got drunk and fucked a tree stump, so what?"

"Communists make the tastiest snacks. And I know that because I roasted one and made tapas out of him."

"I'd go to church more often if I sobered up in time. And if I wasn't a stone cold atheist."

"Sex tours to Thailand ate up all the profit I made last year, but boy was it fun."

"Middlesboro, KY isn't hell on earth, but it's close."

"My beard is made from the shaved pubes of homeless men that I murdered."

"Someone tell me again what I'm famous for and this time make it something interesting like brain surgeon or trapeze artist."

"If a negro can fart the melody to The Star Spangled Banner, I'll pay him a million dollars and I'll eat my straw boater."

"If you were a stock on the stock exchange, I'd buy you and hold you."

"I'm not interested in openings where I can't stick my penis."

"I want to be known as the father of orgasmic gardening."

A double movie report

I saw Videodrome back in 1983 when it first came out. I was pretty stoned when I saw it but I remember thinking that it was mindblowingly cool and Debbie Harry was even sexier than I had ever imagined in my feverish imagination. I saw it again the other day when the cold winter winds howled and it's still one of the most mindbendingly cool films ever. And Ms. Harry is still insanely sexy.

James Woods plays a skeevy TV executive who works for a tiny yet provocative TV station that broadcasts everything, as one character in the film says, "...from soft core porn to hard core violence." By chance he sees a snippet of a broadcast of a show called 'Videodrome' and his life is changed forever. Reality and hallucination begin to mix in his mind, and ours as well, until we don't know what's real in the film and what he is hallucinating. It's all very twisty and turny and I'm not sure what we're supposed to believe by the end of it all. Was the whole story a product of his imagination? Was none of it real? Was some of it? Either way, it's all very interesting, gory, and sexy at times.

Even though some of the film is really dated now, VCR's and video cassettes are featured prominently throughout, it holds up really well. This is highly recommended.


Green Grow the Rushes is exactly the kind of gentle comedy that made the British film industry a giant of the 1950's and '60's. And it's precisely the kind of gentle character study that would never ever get made today, especially if that asshole the Prime Minister of Britain gets his way.

This sweet little film tells the story of a small British coastal community that was given a special dispensation by King Henry the Third to elect their own magistrates, enforce their own laws, and to levy their own taxes, basically they're an autonomous province in all but name only. So for hundreds of years this corner of Britain got to do things their own way and as a result some of the residents have taken to smuggling and other slightly dodgy ways to make money. The powers that be can't let well enough alone and they investigate the little marsh community in order to bring it in line with the rest of modern post WW2 Britain and inevitably they clash with the locals and hilarity ensues. It's all very low key and very British, which means there's more than a touch of class consciousness and the like. It's all very effective and endearingly fun as well.

Richard Burton is impossibly handsome in this film and Honor Blackman, best known in the USA for her role as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, is super sexy in an innocent way in the movie as well. But the real comic performance that rocks this film is that of Roger Livesey as Capt. Biddle. His timing is impeccable and his dry as dust slightly crooked sea captain performance is a thing of beauty.

I highly recommend this beautifully shot black and white beauty.

Huntsman out

The least psychotic Republican candidate is dropping out out of the presidential race today.

But saying he's the least psychotic is like saying that being murdered by poison is better than getting murdered by being shot because it's less painful.

The king is dead, long live the king

More brilliant mid century graphic design. This one looks like something I might come up with.

More hypocrisy, Republican style

A Congressman, who went to college courtesy of benefits he got from big government, voted to cut Pell grants to low income students. When confronted over it, he told the young woman to shut up her complaints and go join the military.

I guess that's a step up from telling her to fuck off.

Positive art card message of the week

5.5" x 7.5" mixed media art card on cardstock. Minimum donation $15, shipping and handling included.

Brunette of the week

Claudia Bassols.

You know what the internet needs?

More pictures of British comedienne Melanie Hudson.

You're welcome.

Something to believe in

Some people who believe in one of the Bronze age religions love to claim that if you're an atheist then you believe in nothing. And that's untrue. I can't speak for, and would never presume to speak for, any other atheist but I believe in many things and here's some of them:

• I believe religion is a racket designed to enrich a few people, witness the untold wealth of the Vatican and the Protestant mega churches. The gospels speak against amassing great wealth yet modern Christian ministers have twisted and parsed scripture to allow themselves to become wealthy and to assuage the consciences of wealthy people.
• I believe all religions are a way for the few to control the many.
  
• I believe in science and the scientific method. Science doesn't claim to have all the answers but we know for a fact that what science discovers is true because of the scientific method.
• Even though we've been awful to one another and we will stab each other in the back if it suits us, I believe in the essential goodness of people. There are some bad apples among us, both religious and non religious, but by and large people do the right thing or want to do it and are kept from it by corporations, religions, or governments.
• I believe in doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because I fear the wrath or judgement of a deity if I don't.
• I believe that when we die our energy goes into other things, so that means I believe in reincarnation of a sort.
• I believe in speaking out against hypocrisy.
• I'm not perfect and I know that others aren't either. I don't expect perfection from myself or others.
• I believe that you should avoid: any one who says they have all the answers, anyone who tells you they are a Christian within 30 seconds of meeting you, any business that uses a Jesus fish in it's advertising, any business that calls itself 'Golden Rule_____.'
• I believe you can believe in any religion you like as long as it doesn't infringe on me or as long as you don't try to convert me to it.
• I believe religion is like your genitals. I'm happy for you if you like yours but don't try to show them to me unless I tell you it's okay to do so and don't force them on kids.
• I believe we all evolved from a single common ancestor. And the fact that we did so was a matter of chance and natural selection.
• I believe that we are not alone in the universe and that many planets contain all sorts of forms of life.
  
• I believe that the only reason we haven't found life on other planets yet is because the universe is so vast a place that looking for and finding life on other planets is like trying to find the head of a pin that's been dropped somewhere in the Pacific ocean.
• I believe that one day humans will get off this planet and colonize other planets and I hope that we don't make the same mistakes there that we made here.
• I believe the world will be a much better place to be when we leave all Bronze age religions behind. Or at least recognize that they are all myths.