FERRERMAN- AGAIN?

 Blimey! I remember reading once that there are people in England who could pretty much pinpoint the block that you live on, just by listening to you talk. I thought was a little fantastical. Watching my new favourite (<--- I'm learning British speak) show, the one with the starkers people in the coloured pods, I've learned the Brits are very  interested in their own people's accents. As with anything involving humans, there's a bit of prejudice in play. Like here only we're much bigger. What do we have for accents? You have your southerners, New Yorkers, Chicagoans, "Yinzers" in Pittsburgh- and that's pretty much it. I don't think even most southerners can tell where each other are from, in a simple conversation. I lived in Tennessee and I wasn't aware of any distinct accent's native to Tennessee, or any tells from surrounding hillbilly states. Beyond country mouse and city mouse in the south, I don't think that there are any offici...

 "No Kings" rallies/protests come in all sizes these days. In my smallish, Illinois town they are pretty well attended, numbering in the hundreds, and they are festive and well behaved. Other towns in this general area of northern Illinois have them too, but the numbers might be in the dozens instead. Well, that figures. Chicago can draw tens of thousands because there are several million people to draw from. It's pretty basic math. Maga can't grasp it though. You know how maga is. If you are maga you are either stupid with no purpose, or you are stupid with a purpose. Some are both. Still stupid though. Regardless of crowd size, maga mocks the attendance figures. They wonder why anyone would protest Trump in the first place, and they giggle when only twenty or so show up to do it in Podunkville, Illinois. And the sentiment of "No Kings" is ridiculous to them because, "This country has never HAD  kings and, if Trump were one. you wouldn't be allowed...

 I always thought rich people were weird. But were they weird to begin with or did the money make it happen? People who don't have money are fascinated by those who do. Wealth almost immediately brings both fear and respect.  Way back in grade school, there was a Greek girl in my class that I'll call Gina because that was her name and, let's face it, if you were going to make up a name for a Greek girl, it would probably be "Gina". Gina lived in a mansion. You could not not know this because she would remind us almost daily, "I live in a mansion!" Like seemingly all Greeks, her dad and his brothers were in the restaurant business. They were popular, very nice places in the western suburbs, which really meant nothing to us kids because we were more interested in candy stores. And it was  a mansion. Italianate, I'd guess, with a corner lot extending from one street to the next in a part of town where the lots were already the deepest. One day, a bunch ...

 Last night was "The Running Man" night here at the Home for Unwed Ferrermen, where I am chief cook and bottle washer. I have seen the original (1987) with former California governor, Arnold Swartzenegger, a few times over the years, and liked it. He's a horrible actor, but the story was good and the cast was bolstered with the lovely Maria Conchita Alonso (AY CARUMBA!) and Richard Dawson was perfect as the game show host, Damon Killian. Other guest stars like, Jim Brown, Mick Fleetwood, Dweezil Zappa(!) and Jessee Ventura, a former Minnesota governor make up the cast. It is set in a 2017 dystopian America that has become totally owned and operated by corporations ( IF  you can fathom that ever happening) where people live pretty much like one would expect republicans would expect a perfect society to be. There are the corporate super rich, the well-off middle-class consumers and the poor standing around burning 55-gallon drums, trying to stay warm in ragged clothing. Yea...

 Kinda piggybacking on my recent "The Deciders" piece here, of several posts ago. I still look at the show, because it's there, and I find it oddly relevant to normal, non-naked dating. You see, people are being honest on this show about what they  want in a love interest. That's good. Honesty is good to a fault. It doesn't make you right, except in the context of you being you. Where people go wrong is when they try to speak for their own gender, race, political party or etc. and etc. That is disingenuous and only occasionally on the mark.   Back in the 90's/00's there was a pretty popular men's magazine called "Maxim". There was also a sister publication- "Stuff". Neither were nudie mags like Playboy or Penthouse (which were pretty much on their way out thanks to the growing internet) but instead were pics of beautiful, scantily clad models and stuff about cars and girls that were of interest to somewhat sophisticated young, strai...

Did you ever watch "Gomer Pyle USMC"? How about "Forrest Gump" with Forrest and his buddy, Bubba? You had to look at these shows and think they were just too over-the-top to be true. How could those three-room temperature IQ men ever make it in the military?! And the other "Private Pyle", Vincent D'Onofrio's character in "Full Metal Jacket. That sure didn't end well. Clearly, he did not belong in a combat-centric outfit like the Marines! Ridiculous that anyone would conceive this was plausible! Well, former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara did. He was the creator of "Project 100,000". You probably never heard of that. I hadn't until yesterday. He was Secretary from 1961 to 1968. The Vietnam war had never gone well for the US. It was all body counts and victories that went nowhere for the Americans who had fought and sacrificed during the very righteous war in Europe and the Pacific that had such an obvious storyline to i...