Divine Diversions

Divine was born on this day in 1945. From Pink Flamingos:

Reporter: Could you give us some of your political beliefs?

Babs Johnson: Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth are my politics, filth is my life!

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Pillars of Creation, from the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Don't shave your head and beard the way I did last night! I started by shaving off the right third of my mustache, then shaved up the middle from the bottom of my neck, over my chin, up to my bottom lip. Then I started taking off clipper-wide strips of beard until I got to my right ear, continuing around the back until I got to my left ear, and kept going until I returned to where I started. I shaved off the left third of my mustache and guess what- I was accidentally left with a perfect Hitler mustache!

October 19, 2020

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If there is no inherent meaning or reason to be alive, how should we live our life in order to make it worth living? 

Now this may surprise you, but I took my kids to see Toy Story 4 today, and that was indeed the central theme. It might have been the greatest existential film since The Seventh Seal. We all ate Sour Patch Kids and had a good time!

October 19, 2019

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From The Daily Show:

Neal Brennan figured out why Trump doesn’t respect any of our country’s institutions: he thinks he owns them.

Full piece: http://bit.ly/2IQkvwp

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I have a collection of notes like this somewhere.

From Found Magazine

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Washington Post Opinion- Trump encourages violence against reporters, and his supporters cheer

Critical info, short article. Excerpt:

When you see Trump praising a violent assault committed by a Republican congressman to laughter and cheers, and at the very same rally pretending to be horrified that “The Democrats have truly turned into an angry mob,” you might wonder whether the assembled crowd notices their own hypocrisy. But they just don’t care. Trump has instructed them that worrying about stuff like that is for wimps. Those who criticize him or even point out inconvenient facts — Democrats, journalists — are not just wrong, they’re enemies.

Against enemies no tactic is out of bounds. You can lie about them, you can stir up the most vile hatred against them, you can encourage violence against them, you can even assault them, and none of it matters so long as you win. These are the principles that every fascist and authoritarian operates by, and they have become core principles of today’s Republican Party.

I picture Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman watching Trump in action and then asking himself, “Gee, I wonder if that guy really has a problem with me ordering the murder of a journalist I didn’t like?” And then he laughs and laughs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/19/trump-encourages-violence-against-reporters-and-his-supporters-cheer

October 19, 2019

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Yip Harburg- "Words make you think thoughts, music makes you feel a feeling, but a song makes you feel a thought.”

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Emma- I feel like every kid who grew up in the 70s has his own version of this picture.

Same day...

October 19, 2015

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A mouse must have had babies somewhere in the house. Welcome, more the merrier!

October 19, 2010

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Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven was released on this day in 1980. Roger Ebert put it in his top 10 films ever, which put it on the map. Werner Herzog told Errol that he would eat his boot if he ever released it. Werner later did, and Les Blank made a film out of it.

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Swedish wrestler, Tor Johnson, was born on this day in 1903. He starred in the worst movie ever, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In Tim Burton's Ed wood, he was played by the legendary George "The Animal" Steele.

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Jon Favreau was born on this day in 1966. I have to admit when I first saw swingers in the mid-90s, I had no idea that he would be the next George Lucas 25 years later.

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Juana Maria left us on this day in 1853. She was known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, a Native Californian woman who was the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleño. She lived alone on San Nicolas Island from 1835 until her removal from the island in 1853, dying weeks later of disease. Scott O'Dell adapted her story into the award-winning children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins.

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Wyatt Earp's brother Virgil left us on this day in 1903.

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Gig Young left us on this day in 1978. He famously asked James Dean if he had any advice to those on the road. 

“Take it easy driving. The life you might save might be mine.”

A few weeks later, Donald Turnipseed, crashed into Dean, killing him.

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Son House left us on this day in 1988. He left us, but reunited with his honey?

DEATH LETTER BLUES

I got a letter this mornin'

I say now, how do y'all reckon it read?

I said I got a letter this mornin'

I say now, how do y'all reckon it read?

It said, "Hurry, hurry!"

"'Cause the girl you love is dead"

You know, I grabbed up my suitcase

And I took off down the road

I grabbed up my suitcase

And yeah, I took off down the road

You know when I got there

She's layin' on a coolin' board

Well, I walked up right close

And I looked down in her face

Yeah, ooh

Yeah, I looked down in her face

You know she was good ol' gal

She got to lay here 'til the Judgment Day

Well, it looked like ten thousand people

Was standin' round the buryin' ground

Yeah, looked like it was ten thousand people

They were standin' round the buryin' ground

You know I didn't know that I loved her

Until they began to let her down

Ohh, I folded up my arms

I said I, I slowly walked away

I folded up my arms

Yeah I, I slowly walked away

I said, "Farewell, farewell honey"

"I'll meet you on Judgment Day"

Yes, I went in my room

I said I bowed down to pray

I went in my room

Yeah, I bowed down to pray

I said but the blues came along

Yeah, and drove my spirit away

I gets up in the mornin'

Feelin' so sick and bad

Yes, I gets up soon the mornin'

I said, I be feeling so sick and bad

You know I'll be just thinkin' about the good times

And assume that I once had

You know I didn't feel so bad

'Til the good Lord sun went down

You know I didn't feel so bad

Until the good Lord sun went down

You know I didn't have a soul

To throw my arms around

https://youtu.be/ieekMD7kfpw

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Taste of Cinema- The 15 Best Movies About Lovers On the Run

Wow, the top 5 are among my 100 favorite films. And I have the list to prove it. Maybe my favorite sub-genre?

15. Love and a .45

14. The Chase

13. The Getaway

12. The 39 Steps

11. Kalifornication

10. Gun Crazy

9. Something Wild

8. Raising Arizona

7. Moonrise Kingdom

6. Pierre Le Fou

5. Bonnie and Clyde

4. Badlands 

3. Natural Born Killers

2. Wild At Heart

1. True Romance

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-15-best-movies-about-lovers-on-the-run/

October 19, 2016

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Hedy Lamarr

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The Hill- George W. Bush: ‘Bigotry seems emboldened’ in US

Reminds me of Aziz Ansari's SNL monologue from last year, how looking back he couldn't stand Bush but it now seems like he "guided us with his eloquence." Haha, a testament to today's topsy-turvyness.

http://hill.cm/0RCLyCp

October 19, 2017

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Randy Rainbow, national hero. He rhymes "shady wordsmith" with "orange turd with..."

https://www.newsandguts.com/video/randy-rainbow-takes-on-soon-to-be-former-lawyer-of-basically-soon-to-be-former-president/

Oct 19, 2019, 10:18 AM

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Bill Moyers- The Trump Campaign, by HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

At least now we know what the 2016 election would have been like if the tagline was, "But Chelsea's emails!"

I just heard that Fox News turned down the Hunter Biden email story over credibility issues. (Of course their pundits will still dig in.) The basic outline does seem crazy. From the article:

Last Wednesday morning, October 14, the tabloid New York Post ran a complicated and unbelievable story about Hunter Biden dropping off three laptops at a repair store and never going back for them, the FBI subpoenaing hard drives, and the repair shop owner making copies before turning them over and then giving the copies to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who gave them to the New York Post. Allegedly, the material on the laptops was incriminating.

The story was pretty transparently bogus from the start, especially since Giuliani has been hanging around with Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker who, according to the Treasury Department, is a longtime Russian agent. According to the Treasury, Derkach has been working to promote “false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning US officials in the upcoming 2020 election.” Giuliani was an eager listener.

https://billmoyers.com/story/the-trump-campaign/

October 19, 2020

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Confucius- "It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve, and bad things are very easy to get."

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Lucretius- "Nature repairs one thing from another and allows nothing to be born without the aid of another's death."

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Friedrich Nietzsche- "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened."

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Oscar Wilde- "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all."

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Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress- "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one."

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Bill Hicks, marvelling at a Waffle House waitress's question- "What are you reading for?"

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Stephen King- "People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk."

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Norm Macdonald, on the audience not laughing at his jokes:

“Comedy is surprises. So if you’re intending to make somebody laugh and they don’t laugh, that’s funny.”

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Addendum

October 19, 2008

Highlights from the Sarah Palin rally today.

-God Bless America was played so loudly it must have crumbled the foundations of all the nearby foreclosed homes.

-An ape-man yelled that Obama was a Muslim. The protesters smiled and he called all of us Muslims too. I think he was serious.

-A lady drove by really slow, rolled her eyes dramatically, and told us to "get a grip!" Then she sped off... no doubt to tell all of her buddies what she just said.

-A guy walked by and said he is voting for Palin because she's hot. A bunch of protesters got pissed ("that's exactly what's wrong with this country!)"... falling right in his trap.

-On my walk there, my shredded camo pants won me a few stink-eyes. Evidently you have to wear full camos to get that crowd's respect.

-A Palin fan yelled that he was for drilling. A protester yelled that he is for intelligence. The Palin fan yelled back that that was sexist.

-A lady pointed to her sign and yelled that she was voting pro-life. Really? I thought republicans were generally for the death penalty. And the war. What the hell was she doing there?

-A guy yelled that of the four heads on Mount Rushmore, three of them are republicans. Hell, that's just a great point.

-Someone yelled that Palin's "one of us." Yes, and they accept her, they accept her. Do all of these regular old people think they should run the country? 

-A protester told a guy wearing a Joe the Plumber t-shirt that Joe doesn't even have a plumbing license. Why do I have the feeling my kid is going to find that shirt in a Goodwill bin in 20 years and I'm going to have to explain it? What will I say? I think I'll just tell them that 2008 was a lot like 1932, and I'll have them watch I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang with me.