It was a mediocre movie, that didn’t deserve a single sequel, but Cameron has the juice to force anything.

I spent a summer in college working in a piano store. It was totally empty 90% of the time, and my job consisted mostly of keeping it from burning down until people came in for piano lessons after school.

They were the local Bosendorfer dealer, so I had lots of time to play a full size concert grand all summer, the one with the 8 extra low keys at the bottom. It was such a smooth playing instrument, that it nearly ruined me for all other pianos. After playing that Bosendoerfer, a mere $50,000 piano felt like a toy.

“Prepare Your Anus For Cock” is probably going to get you kicked out of a lot of places.

Religious freaks are predisposed to believe the most outlandish nonsense, so they’re the perfect target for political indoctrination. If they can believe in imaginary friends to the point of tithing to them, they’ll do that with a real life guy who promises to protect them from evil, just like Jesus.

Can’t take no chances. Better safe than sorry.

All Marketing Zero Everything Else Extra Profits

I just say I’m a “standard-issue white guy,” and people know what that means.

Waterworld was a flop that got a reappraisal, and is now considered a pretty cool movie. It was really a victim of a critical wall that was against it from the start. That happens with some movies.

Babylon is another. That’s going to get a reappraisal at some point, and become a cult classic.

Showgirls is going through a reappraisal, and people are starting to see it differently. It was a Paul Verhoeven movie, of course it was great.

They remade Dune, and somehow managed to make it worse.

It’s been done a million times: 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s the Man, West Side Story, The Lion King, Ran, Forbidden Planet, etc.

Why does everything have to be a huge production? Paranormal Activity was an effective horror movie, on a budget of $55K. Most of that went to the main characters computer rig, and hardwood floors for the director’s house, where they shot the film.

That’s an extreme example, but there is no reason they can’t shoot an original idea on a moderate budget, and in fact, they do it ALL the time. The idea that everything is a remake or a reboot is an exaggeration. Look at all the streaming platforms, filled with original material, and begging for more. Obviously, original screenplays are getting shot every day.

A buddy and me were the first in our circle to get an apartment after college, so we became the meeting place. It wasn’t a party house, we drank beer, and smoked weed, but it was calm and quiet, and the old folks below us never complained. They were frequent visitors, as a matter of fact.

People would start showing up around 8. My buddy and I managed different record stores, and we were into all sorts of music, and we had ALL the latest promo recordings, so usually we had a ball game on the TV with no sound (for our buddy Mark, who loved sports), while we listened to music, smoked, and talked. There were usually a dozen people, guys and girls, all ages, right up to old folks downstairs, sometimes. He’d had a stroke, and he could understand everything, but couldn’t converse, beyond random curse words, which he would deliver with either exasperation or disbelief, which we all thought was hilarious, and so did he and his wife.

At 11:30, we’d watch Johnny Carson’s monologue on the TV, and at midnight wed switch it over to two episodes of Twilight Zone. After that, everybody went home.

That was our ritual about 3-4 nights a week for a couple of years, until everybody started to scatter as they found jobs in different places. We’d go out now and then, but only because we weren’t going to meet any new girls hanging around our apartment. Going out often meant moving the party to someone else’s place for the night.

We couldn’t afford to go out to party much, but we always had a better time at home with our friends, especially since there were no threats of judgemental parents, RAs, etc. Our first real taste of true adult freedom was sweet enough to keep us happy.

Nah, if we get that far, I’m going out BIG.

Take EVERYTHING from them. Confiscate their money, nationalize they corporations to operate for the benefit of the American people, and throw them in prison.

We need to reconfigure this annation so that the wealthy, and their fortunes serve the Citizens. Profits need to be regulated so that the bulk of them are shared by the employees. Q

Usually, the others are just bored, so they show up to hang out and shoot the shit. Of course, when you have a group of them, there’s a good chance one of them will decide he has to prove what a man he is in front of the other dipshits, and you’re the guitar he wants to tune up.

And even if you don’t take a beating, or worse, all your neighbors are driving by, seeing all those cops around your car, and immediately presume you’ve been stopped for DUI, or domestic terrorism, or drug distribution, etc.

Now you’re the guy that everybody side eyes at the block party, because “you remember when he got stopped by the police, and there was at least a dozen cars there? He must have did something really bad, that’s for sure. I heard it was suspicion of murder, but he got off on a technicality.”

I lost 100 pounds, and now I don’t know how old I am.

I’m a 3.

Nonsense, there are Brits everywhere around here. Florida is the only part of America they actually like. Nobody is deporting perfectly good white immigrants. They could probably make a case that they need asylum from their health care system. MAGA would buy that.

Close enough.

My job includes going to a lot of weddings, and I probably do two weddings a year where someone shows up in a kilt. One wedding had the entire Groom’s side in kilts. Not the groom, though, he had on a tux. The Bride wasn’t letting it go that far.