One last visit to Wisteria Lane before kissing the gals goodbye

The last time I paid a visit to Wisteria Lane to see what the gorgeous ladies were up to on ABC’s "Desperate Housewives" (2004-2012) was when a young serial killer known as “The Fairview Strangler” was terrorizing the neighborhood. That was during season 6. I have been out of the loop ever since.

As the countdown to the May series finale approaches I have been paying a weekly visit to Wisteria Lane this season, courtesy of free episodes on Hulu.com, to see the latest soap opera entanglements that Republican cooking perfectionist, not to mention my favorite character, Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross), emotional basket case Susan Meyer (Teri Hatcher), self-absorbed unfaithful wife, Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria), and Miss “I am always right” - stay-at-home mom, Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman) have gotten themselves into.

When I started watching Desperate Housewives upon its debut in Fall 2004, I saw the series as the “I am Woman! Hear Me Roar Hour!” As a guy, I took personal offense at how Bree, Gabby, Lynette and Susan were seen as the pure white angels who can do no wrong despite their engaging in extramarital affairs and in some cases, even murder and cover-ups. Their behavior was in most cases worse than the men’s but for the past eight seasons it was the male characters who always got the shaft (literally) and harbored dark secrets.

They included a mentally disturbed pharmacist (Roger Bart) infatuated with Bree Van De Kamp, former residents (Mark Moses, Neil McDonough) with personal scores to settle against the whole neighborhood, spousal abusers (Gary Cole), crooked politicians (John Slattery), and an assortment of husbands who were either jealous alcoholics (Ricardo Chavira), into kinky sex (Steven Culp), adulterers (Richard Burgi), had a daughter with another woman without the current wife knowing about it for years (Doug Savant) or had backgrounds in criminal activity (James Denton and Kyle MacLachlan).

Every Sunday night the score was Women: 5 (when you count neighborhood sex-siren Edie Britt (Nicollette Sheridan) who got killed off in 2009) and for the Men: a big fat ZERO.

Ironically, it’s not the four actresses, as attractive as they are, or the sleazy storylines chock filled with unexpected twists and turns that was the reason I got hooked on the show. What I liked most about "Desperate Housewives" was how it presented a picture of community companionship where everyone knew everyone else on Wisteria Lane.

The last time I witnessed such camaraderie was back when I was a kid living on Newberry back in La Grange Park, Illinois during the early 80s. Because my sister and I hung out with the kids from three other residences two or three houses down, my parents got to know their parents. As a result, it was not unusual to see my mom or someone else’s mother drop by to chat while the fathers sometimes went golfing and played tennis together.

That’s what "Desperate Housewives" never lost sight of. This season in particular, for example, I took note during the Halloween episode how everyone on Wisteria Lane dressed up in costumes and took their kids trick or treating. I can’t remember when the last time was where I saw kids with their parents walk down my street on Halloween knocking on doors for candy. Today, the kids wear their costumes to school where they get all their goodies to bring home simply because it’s safer.

Sure, I may acknowledge the occasional dog-walker when they wave at me on my block or I may wave at the person next door as I head to my car today, if they wave back that is, but other than that I have no idea who any of my neighbors are.

So, as viewers bid farewell, I would like to take this moment to raise a glass of expensive wine and offer a toast to the four women of Wisteria Lane.

Me, being on a tight budget however and I am not a wine connoisseur and considering that Bree Van De Kamp could stand to cut down on the alcoholic beverages this final season (Hey I am only looking for you, Bree!), I’ll just do what the ladies have been doing on all those sexy commercials the past eight years and take a bite from a big juicy red apple. Those are, after all, healthier.

So thank you Bree, Gabby, Lynette, Susan and last but not least, you too Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) for your brief Rod Serling-Twilight Zone-Esque commentaries at the beginning and end of every episode from beyond the grave for taking me on a weekly entertaining, gossip mongering hour long stroll down memory lane, excuse me, “Wisteria Lane” these past few years. You gals briefly reminded me of the kind of street and neighborhood I once lived on minus all the soap opera drama and occasional run-ins with devious former residents harboring personal vendettas.

Your weekly adventures made me wonder if we all should take a moment to get to know who our neighbors are, or maybe not.

“It’s the age-old question isn’t it,” to quote Bree Van De Kamp. “How much do we really want to know about our neighbors?”

©1/28/12

No such thing as the perfect candidate

“When are you going to learn that in presidential elections there is no such thing as the perfect candidate?”

That was the response I sent a friend of mine after an email he sent me about the ABC "Nightline" interview that aired Jan. 19 with Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife Marianne where it was revealed the presidential candidate had asked her for an open marriage while he was having an affair with his current wife, Calista.

I did not watch the "Nightline" interview as I saw it as nothing more than tabloid trash. It’s not Gingrich’s “open marriage” proposal that I find appallingly sad that South Carolina voters thought the best candidate to beat President Obama this November happens to be someone with questionable moral character (whether Newt Gingrich is now a changed person or not). What I find more troubling is the fact Gingrich was brought up on ethics violations during his term as Speaker of the House back in 1997 and eventually resigned. That alone to me raises red flags.

“We all know the record,” said New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Meet the Press who endorses Republican front runner Mitt Romney. "He was run out of the speakership by his own party. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. This is a guy who has had a very difficult political career at times and has been an embarrassment to the party ... I don't need to regale the country with that entire list again except to say this: I'm not saying he will do it again in the future, but sometimes past is prologue."

Unfortunately, as much as I am loathe to admit it, Newt Gingrich made a few good points Thursday night when he went on a tirade against CNN moderator John King when he asked the candidate if he would like to comment on the “open marriage” issue.

“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that," Gingrich said. "Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it -- two days before the primary -- a significant question in a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”

Considering I have no love for the liberally biased “drive-by” news media in how they go after conservatives with a vengeance every time someone is involved is some scandal and do their damnedest to bury any negative stories about Democrats I felt like joining the South Carolina voters as they cheered.

The story is false,” Gingrich went on. “Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story was false. We offered several of them to ABC to prove it was false. They weren't interested, because they would like to attack any Republican. They're attacking the governor, they're attacking me. I'm sure they'll probably get around to Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul. I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans."

That’s what South Carolina voters were fed up with when Gingrich spoke and that’s the only reason why he won. This election is no longer about how many skeletons a candidate has in his closet. I don’t believe that has ever been the case. There is not a single president this country has elected who has not exhibited some sort of questionable moral flaw that upon finding out the supposed truth might have made one wonder why they voted for them in the first place.

This presidential election is going about whether or not that person will be able to beat President Obama this November and bring about a different kind of change versus the so-called positive change this country has witnessed since 2008.

Would I much rather see someone better than Gingrich come out on top at this point? Most definitely.

I have no idea who I am going to vote for at this point. I probably won’t even make a decision until Election Day this November. I will say this. As much as it pains me to say it, whoever it is I vote for my decision will be based on who I think can do the job as leader of the country and not so much on their negative past, despite my wish that there was someone out there who has some moral character to be president.

©1/25/12

Hard to accept North Koreans’ mourning of their “Dear Leader” as genuine

“They’re grieving like they knew the man.”

Such was the line uttered by disgruntled and supposed conspirator ex-FBI agent Guy Banister (Ed Asner) in Oliver Stone’s "JFK" (1991) as he expressed disgust watching Americans grieve at the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated Nov. 22, 1963. 

That was also the first thought which came to my mind as I watched images of North Korea’s citizens mourn the loss of their President Kim Jong-Il when he passed away from a heart attack Dec. 17, 2011, last month as a result of “physical and mental over-work” according to the country’s tearful news announcer.

I fought hard to keep from making any jokes.

“My leader, what will we do,” uttered one citizen. “It’s too much! It’s too much!”

“Leader, please come back. You cannot leave us. We will always wait for you, leader,” cried another.

Instead of making jokes, however, I let others do it for me like a couple of conservative talk show hosts sitting in for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity the last two weeks of December who said the North Koreans mourning should be the rallying cry for the Occupy Wall Street protesters here in the U.S. as they complain about how everyone else in America has a job and money to spend but they don’t.

Over at Mad magazine’s website, The Idiotical, was a picture of the mourners boasting the headline, “Why is this North Korean really crying?” with mocking quotes from the grieving crowds. Among the answers given was “Just found out that Col. Potter from "M*A*S*H*" died” and “She took Green Bay and the points.”

Watching such scenes of uncontrollable wailing the first question that came to mind was who amongst North Korea’s dictatorship had a close eye on everyone making sure their mourning was not actually acting. I figure there must have been someone behind those cameras holding a sign that said, “Cry or die.” The worst that could possibly happen is risk being sent to a labor-training camp, which is exactly what the North Korean government is reportedly doing to those who either didn’t participate during the country’s mourning period or “did participate but didn’t cry or didn’t seem genuine” according to a 1/13/12 article on www.huffingtonpost.com.

Like so many other “colorful” dictators of toppled regimes past from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-Il was no stranger to being the subject of mockery thanks to his eccentricities and rightly so. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone made the North Korean dictator the primary villain in the wooden puppet – equal opportunity offender comedy, "Team America: World Police" (2004). One scene has Kim Jong-Il walking throughout his immense palace singing, “I’m so ronery…so ronery…so ronery and sadry arone” which translates to “I’m so lonely…so lonely…so lonely and sadly alone.”

Like former Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi, all one has to do is type in “Kim Jong-Il trivia” under any Internet search engine to see thousands of humorous articles that show the “Dear Leader” clearly enjoyed the finer things in life while his people suffered that included the best wines, cigars and what might as well have been called his own private Blockbuster Video store owning a library of 20,000 movies. Among his favorites? "Friday the 13th" (1980) and anything featuring Elizabeth Taylor according to a 12/19/11 cbsnews.com article.

There is even a website called kimjongillookingatthings at tumblr.com that shows the dictator, to put it very simply, “looking at things.” The list is endless from him looking at an escalator and apartments to sewing machines.

Like dear old dad, the Dear Leader’s son and successor, Supreme Commander Kim Jong-un is already the target of Hollywood mockery. In NBC’s "30 Rock" last season, Elizabeth Banks’ journalist character Avery Jessup and wife of TV executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) was kidnapped while on assignment in North Korea and forced to marry Kim Jong-un.

In all seriousness, however, and I cannot speak for anyone else, my feelings for the people of North Korea are that of pity in how completely isolated they are to the outside world thanks to Kim Jong-Il’s leadership, or lack thereof, which will likely continue now under the oppressive rule of Kim Jong-un. All one has to do is look at the satellite photographs where at night thousands of lights can be seen from space in South Korea. Over in North Korea, however, the only light seen is just a speck coming from the capital of Pyongyang, if that.

While the North Koreans, whether they truly loved their “Dear Leader” or mourned out of fear of the government, we people in the real world know that Kim Jong-Il was no saint. In addition to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, the country’s population is ravaged by starvation and malnourishment while an estimated 200,000 currently reside in concentration camps according to The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

It is no wonder that when the “Dear Leader” passed away last month, the country’s neighbor and still current enemy, South Korea, offered their condolences to the people of North Korea and not so much for Kim Jong-Il even as they hope the transition of leadership can usher in a “new era” of peace.

©1/14/12

Reasons are many why, I and others, are not going to the movies as much, if at all

“We make a lot of shitty movies. Every one of them breaks my heart.”

Such are the words spoken by Universal Studios President, Ron Meyer, in a November article on www. huffingtonpost.com, who admitted his studio makes a lot of awful movies.

I cannot help but be forced to agree.

I saw over 40 films at the box office in 2011 and though I liked a majority of them, I cannot justify seeing them again on Blu-ray or on cable movie stations months from now. I blame my increasingly negative attitude about the amount of crap being released on unnecessary remakes, 3D releases and re-releases (No you will not find me at the local IMAX theaters come February and April wearing the dark sunglasses to watch "Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999) and "Titanic" (1997) in 3D), and comic book franchise movies and comic book reboots.

That may not be the only reason why box office attendance in 2011 hit a 16-year low according to an Associated Press article.

“There’s so many different ways to get content to the audience,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office division of Hollywood.com in an ABC news article. “They’re (audiences) pulled in a million different directions. That makes it a very competitive environment. The films have to be that much better otherwise audiences are going to do something else.”

Over the two-week holiday break I had in December I only saw two films, "My Week with Marilyn" and "Mission: Impossible -Ghost Protocol." There were a lot of others I wanted to see but my reason for avoiding the theaters unless I was able to make the before noon showings was because I HATE crowds, especially during the holiday season.

When I see movies, I like my space and cannot stand it when someone feels compelled to sit near or right next to me when they got the entire theater to decide where to sit. Honestly the best time I had at the movies in 2011 was when I attended a 1 p.m. IMAX showing of "Real Steel" in October. I loved it and I am not just talking about the film. I had the entire theater all to myself!

Then there are the inconsiderate a--holes who bring their one-year-old baby to the theater because they are stressed out parents and want to get away so what better way to tick me or anyone else off than to make us miserable all at once and bring the crying kid along! Oh, how I just can’t get enough of the sounds of all those candy wrappers being torn open! I’d much rather hear the sounds of text messaging (honestly can you really hear that in silent mode?) and ringing cell phones. And no, I am not going to tell you what theaters I frequent along with the days I go and exact show times so you jerks (you know who you are) can attend the same ones I go to in hopes of irritating me more.

The lack of originality and mass crowds are not the only reasons I have been hesitant to see movies. As Dergarabedian said, people can see movies now through several means thanks to the Internet that it might be cheaper to wait for them to hit video-on-demand three months after their theatrical run and watch them in the privacy of one’s own home where the only living bothersome thing to me is the dog.

At the same time, I have found some independent movies I really wanted to see were only released at one or two theaters for a week or so where I either didn’t have the time or feel like making the drive and just hoped they would expand to others within a few weeks. I found that did not happen in the cases of "Another Earth", "Margin Call", "Melancholia", "Monsters", "Taking Shelter" – which I am not even sure ever made it to the Dallas area and The Tree of Life. If there is any reason why The Artist will probably get a wider release in the coming weeks is because it is a likely contender for the 2012 Oscars.

Yet with all my griping, I still have some high hopes 2012 might be a better year at the box office than 2011 with films like "The Dictator", "Gravity", "Prometheus", "The Raven", "Rock of Ages", "Snow White and the Huntsman", "The Three Stooges" and "The Woman in Black" among them.

Notice I haven’t mentioned ANY remakes, sequels, 3D or comic book franchise movies and comic book reboots on this list that I know everyone else will be packing into theaters to see. I have no doubt “Hollyweird” studios will claim this is the reason why the 2012 box office attendance will either be worse or the same as last year’s, if that.

©1/4/12