Ignorance is bliss when addressing my intense lack of knowledge of the most horrific crimes

I knew less than zero about the horrific murders of pregnant mother, Shanann (Rzucek) Watts, 34 and her unborn baby boy, Nico, and her two daughters, Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, at the hands of no-good-piece of shit, supposedly happily married father and husband, Chris Watts, the morning of Aug. 13, 2018.

Up until June 2021 upon my watching the Netflix crime documentary, “American Murder: The Family Next Door” (2020), I was thankful I didn’t know all the depressingly grisly details.

Unlike everyone else who apparently can’t get enough of all these so-called regurgitated investigative documentaries, made-for-cable tabloid movies of the week about mass murderers, serial killers and sexual predators I avoid most all these programs almost as much as a diabetic with a death wish avoids taking their insulin daily. (Not me of course)!

I do know sometime during the early morning hours of Aug. 14, 2018, chances are I did hear something about a missing 15-weeks pregnant mother of two somewhere in Anytown, USA as I browsed the internet and had “Good Morning America” on in the background.

I was so oblivious to the news segment that I didn’t know the piece-of-shit the drive-by media interviewed was the killer himself (before law enforcement along with the rest of the country, if not the world, learned the truth).

Talk about this isn’t going to end the way you think!



I was so ignorant in my knowledge of the case that when I did watch the Netflix documentary in June three years ago, I thought the streaming service was promoting that current month’s original new programming. The streaming service, however, had an ulterior motive.

Much like I didn’t believe for one minute it was perfect timing that Netflix aired the Ebola virus thriller, "Outbreak" (1995), in March 2021 when the country went into lockdown at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the service’s attempt to draw more viewers.

They pulled the same stunt last July airing "Titanic" (1997) a month after the OceanGate disaster. Don’t tell me it was a coincidence the service already had Cameron’s romance catastrophe already on their list of that month’s releases. They did the same thing again when O.J. Simpson died in April adding the 2016 ESPN documentary, "O.J.: Made in America" to their viewing list.

Netflix wanted to cash in on "American Murder: The Family Next Door" because of the media attention at the time on the Watts case thanks to a book author Cherlyn Cadle was working on about the murders who interviewed the confessed killer in prison, along with the Lifetime movie, "Chris Watts: Confessions of a Killer" (2020) which Shanann’s grieving family denounced.



“It’s a false narrative that does not accurately depict who Shanann was in life, who Bella was in life, who CeCe was in life,” family attorney Steven Lambert told "Inside Edition" back in 2020 when the film aired. “This is their tragedy, their story and it’s being taken away from them so when people go out and make things without their input and do the facts straight from the horse’s mouth, it does pain them, it does hurt them.”

Upon watching the Netflix documentary which director Jenny Popplewell uses Shanann’s social media posts that practically chronicles her entire life story with her husband and kids, along with a combination of ominous text messages, and law enforcement interrogations it didn’t take long to figure out the rosy picture everyone thought was happening on the outside was much darker on the inside.

The couple declared bankruptcy in 2015 with over $70,000 in debt despite a combined income of $91,000. The thought only infuriates me more questioning how people like the Watts couple were allowed to have a luxurious home in the best Colorado suburb, go on expensive vacations and raise two kids with a third one on the way at the time of Shanann’s and the kids disappearance and the rest of us with either bad credit and/or bank history can’t even be allowed to get near to buying a home.

During those 82 minutes, I felt uneasy watching the documentary as I already knew something foreboding was about to happen and could do nothing to stop it. I had the same feeling watching "United 93" (2006).

I wanted to yell at the flatscreen telling Shanann to turn around as house security cameras caught her making her way to the front door at 2825 Saratoga Trail the morning of Aug. 13 as she let herself in after friend, Nicole Atkinson, dropped her off following a weekend Arizona business trip.



I asked myself, why the hell didn’t Shanann fight back as Chris strangled her? Despite Chris telling her he wanted a divorce, admitting to an affair with co-worker Nichol Kessinger to which he wanted to start a new life with her, was the last thing Shanann expected was that the husband she thought she knew and loved would murder her and her unborn child? Was the shock of that alone the reason she couldn’t bring herself to fight back? (Chris had no injuries on him when arrested).

“Every time I think about it, I’m just like, did I know I was going to that before I got on top of her,” Chris Watts said in a 2019 prison interview. “Like, the whole-everything that happened that morning I just-I don’t know, like…like I try to go back in my head…I’m just like, I didn’t want to do this, but I did it…everything just kinda like…it just felt like it was. I don’t even want to say it felt like I had to, it just felt like there was already something in my mind that was implanted that I was gonna do it and when I woke up that morning it was gonna happen and I had no control over it.”

I still ask myself to this day, as I’m sure so many others do, especially those closest to the investigation, what causes a father to strangle his pregnant wife, place her lifeless body wrapped in the same bedsheets they slept in on the floor of the back seat of his truck. He then puts his two kids, still alive, in the back seat, proceeds to drive them to his worksite in the early morning hours to bury his wife in a shallow grave. Bella and CeCe are still alive all through this. Then go back to strangle first CeCe and stuffing her body in an oil tank. Then the same to Bella who when asked if her own father was going to do to her what he just did to CeCe, the words the four-year-old screamed were “Daddy, no!”

“I don’t think there is a logical explanation for what he (Chris) did,” Nichol Kessinger told The Denver Post. “It’s a senseless act, and it’s horrific.”

I’m amazed at how just when I thought I’ve seen all the evil displayed by humanity today daily to the point I think nothing could surprise me anymore something like this atrocity happens.

“The man she (Shanann) loved choked the life out of her,” said Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke at Watts’ sentencing in Nov. 2018. “What must Bella, age 4, and Celeste, age 3, thought as their father, the one man on this earth who was supposed to protect them snuffed out their lives?”

I couldn’t fuckin sleep for a week after watching that Netflix doc!

“You don’t annihilate your family and throw them away like garbage,” Rourke said. “Get a divorce!”

In a perfect world no good pieces of shit like Chris Watts would be erased from our minds like as though these monsters never existed upon their incarceration. Yet, their horror stories continue to be told by the fake news media as though something new about the cases has come out since the original investigation when it’s just repeats.

The lurid fascination crime enthusiasts have for Chris Watts is no more different from the public’s obsession with Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Robert Hanssen, Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Bernie Madoff and O.J. Simpson.



In the case of Chris Watts, legal commentator Nancy Grace summarized why the familicide case still haunts some of us six years after the murders along with investigators close to the case.

“He had it all,” Grace said. “He had this gorgeous wife, Shanann. He’s got the children, Bella and Celeste, beautiful. They always wanted a boy. They’re having a baby, Nico. He’s on the way. Beautiful home. It looked like a postcard. It was perfect. When you look at somebody like Chris Watts in court, this picture perfect setting, it’s hard. It’s like the mind is tricking the eye. You’re seeing one thing but the evidence tells you something different, that he in fact is a cold-blooded killer who killed his own children, so I think that’s the fascination. It’s like trying to put together a Rubik’s Cube. You can’t sort it out in your head.”

At least there is some consolation. If I am to believe what the tabloids say. I really don’t but I can dream.

As much as I am for the death penalty depending on the case, such a sentence would have been way too lenient, too easy compared to what Watts, a supposed born-again Christian now, who calls himself a “servant of God” did to his wife, unborn child and two daughters.

Since his permanent place of residence serving five life sentences at Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin in 2019, it is that other than the reading materials short of the Bible (even Bernie Madoff had access to television and the prison library), family photos of his wife and children he murdered, and the letters he receives from and replies to female pen pals, the father killer spends 23 hours a day in lockdown.

“He knows exactly what he did,” said a source quoted in People. “He’s haunted by what he did. He can’t shake the memories of his family, and they haunt him. He is in his own psychological torment, every day of his life. He knows he deserves it. He knows that he made many mistakes in his life, and this is his punishment.”

What better life sentence could there be than to spend all one’s remaining days inside a prison cell staring at the pictures taped on his walls of the ones he killed wishing how much he could go back in time to take it all back?

©6/5/24

The Force is back!

In honor of "May the 4th" here is my original review of the much-loathed Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace written 25 years ago.

Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace «««½

PG, 133m. 1999

Cast & Credits: Liam Neeson (Qui-Gon Jinn), Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala/Padme), Jake Lloyd (Anakin Skywalker), Pernilla August (Shmi Skywalker), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Ian McDiarmid (Senator Palpatine), Hugh Quarshie (Captain Panaka), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Anthony Daniels (C3PO), Frank Oz (Yoda), Ray Park (Darth Maul). Screenplay written and directed by George Lucas.

"Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace" invokes a keen fun, familiar sense of déjà-vu filled with both moments of greatness and silliness.

I have read all the negative reviews in Time, Newsweek, Variety, and Rolling Stone commenting how short Phantom Menace is on the emotional human element and only big on digitized special effects wizardry. Many would say "Return of the Jedi" (1983) was the same way. What director/creator George Lucas, who hasn’t been behind the camera for over twenty years since "Star Wars" (1977), lacks in fast paced storytelling and borrowing sequences like the chariot race from "Ben-Hur" (1959) and battle scenes from "Spartacus" (1960) and "Braveheart" (1995), he makes up for it in The Phantom Menace providing us with interesting new worlds and incorporating cultures and celebrations seen in various countries today and making them a part of his intergalactic planetary outposts and vivid imagination.

The much talked about ten-minute pod race brings back memories of the scenes in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) where Tie Fighters pursued the Millennium Falcon in the asteroid field and of the speeder bikes in "Return of the Jedi" that could be the 21st century’s answer to police motorcycles.

There is a much more exciting and well-choreographed lightsaber clash that takes place above a chasm similar to Cloud City in "The Empire Strikes Back." Whereas Darth Vader was the product of a grade school kid’s nightmares back in the late 1970s, we get a villain who says even less but whose looks are just as frightening all the same; a horn-rimmed, red and black faced devil with rotting teeth who might as well be called the Prince of Darkness named Darth Maul (Ray Park).

We meet old favorites like R2-D2 and C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels), who even at birth, vows he will never set foot in a starship and Yoda (Frank Oz), the wise old but notably younger (simply because he has more hair) Jedi Master who presides over his own council of Jedi Knights.

Instead of hundreds of cuddly, furry little teddy bears called Ewoks who often made the young ones laugh in Return of the Jedi, we meet a clumsy digitally enhanced character with the voice of a real actor played by Ahmed Best. He is called Jar Jar Binks who speaks in a dialect we cannot quite understand but can, to an extent, comprehend and sticks his tongue out to pick up food much to Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn’s (Liam Neeson) annoyance. The creation who eats up the scenery, however, is Watto, a short, flying blue bird slave owner who makes bargains the way Robert De Niro’s young Don Corleone in "The Godfather Part II" (1974) did and seems to speak in both an Italian and Spanish accent but whose dialect is still completely alien to us.

The planet, Tatooine, isn’t just a sandy desert as we saw in the original but a spaceport with a hodgepodge of homes designed like those adobes the ancient Indians lived in that were built on top of each other. While lush green forests, much like the one in Return of the Jedi’s Endor, boast of what look like Aztec statues. The pod race is a thrillingly, clever futuristic rendition of the Olympics. Aliens of all sorts wave flags signifying their racer’s nationalities from different planets while the slug crime lord, Jabba the Hutt, bites off a lizard head and spits it out on a large gong that signals the start of the race.

Like Jedi though, whose sequences looked as though they were broken down into chapters that screenwriters Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan had a hard time trying to fit together, Menace’s storyline is bogged down with a plot about intergalactic politics between a Trade Federation who want to take over the planet of Naboo run by a young queen (Natalie Portman); an attack Qui-Gon and his Jedi apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), are assigned to stop.

When the group takes shelter on Tatooine, Qui-Gon meets young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd). Sensing the boy is “The Chosen One”, he decides to train him as a Jedi Knight. Here, Lucas, who also doubles as the movie’s scriptwriter, cleverly incorporates subplots from The Bible’s New Testament.

When Qui-Gon asks Anakin’s mother (Pernilla August in one of the film’s best performances) who the boy’s father was, her response is there wasn’t one.

“I carried him, I gave birth,” she says. “I can’t explain what happened.”

Perhaps on that level, the mother could be like the Virgin Mary who was told by angels she would give birth to Jesus. What’s made the Star Wars trilogy so timeless in the twenty plus years it’s been out is how some people think the film’s ideas reflect issues we face today. They have compared lines like Yoda’s “Do or do not. There is no try” to mean in today’s world, you should finish what you started. Even President Ronald Reagan borrowed from the series’ slogans during his term of office in the early 1980s calling Russia “The Evil Empire” and starting up the “Star Wars” defense system.

I have no doubt some fans will take the prequel’s aspects on good and evil to mean a number of things we face in our lifetimes. When Anakin quotes his mother saying the biggest problem in the universe is no one helps each other, the statement could apply to what we often witness in society today. The thought of this brave, innocent, mischievous boy who most everyone knows in episode three will grow up to become Darth Vader might have ourselves asking “how could young boys grow up to become killers?”

The Phantom Menace is more than that. The film is what Greg Hehn, a friend of mine and co-worker calls a “popcorn movie.” It is short on violence (other than a few laser battles and sword fights which look like harmless fun), great for the kids and big on adventure and fantasy. Such is the reason why this series is still popular today. We can cheer on our heroes and applaud when the villain gets his just reward and maybe even a shed a tear or two when the hero dies.

Portman’s dual role as the Naboo queen and servant isn’t as feisty or ambitious as Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia was in the first trilogy but she makes a good authoritarian leader. While McGregor, who reportedly studied Sir Alec Guinness’ Oscar nominated role in the original Star Wars before playing the younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi, invokes the older character’s mannerisms and wisdom. Neeson’s performance bears resemblance to the mentor relationship the older Ben Kenobi had with Mark Hamill’s Luke in the first set of films.

The one performance that doesn’t quite work though, and I can only hope will get better in the next two movies (Anakin will be played by Hayden Christensen in the next two films) is with Lloyd who looks as though he needs more acting classes, or Lucas just doesn’t know how to get his actors to be convincing with his dialogue. No matter how silly it might sound coming out one’s mouth, if an actor is supposed to utter the word “Yippie!” in reaction to being told by his slave owning boss that he can go home for the day as in one early scene between Lloyd’s Anakin and Watto, I would think he would do it with some emotion.

The same applies to if a young kid like Anakin; old enough to a point to understand slavery, was told by someone he is a slave as in one early scene, he’d express his anger at being told such a thing. Hearing Lloyd utter such lines, it’s almost as if he was just reading the words off a set of video cards the way newscasters do. The end result is a far cry from watching Harrison Ford’s Han Solo yell out “Yahoo!” at the conclusion of the Death Star battle in Star Wars.

I didn’t walk in expecting The Phantom Menace to be anything like the first Star Wars. This was a major mistake practically everyone I know did and the end result was disappointment from both fans and critics. I learned my lesson years ago when one places high expectations on something only to walk out pissed when their favorite filmmaker fails to deliver. The only solution is to not get caught up in all the hype and false promises and decide for oneself after seeing it.

When Senator Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), who will later become the dreaded Emperor of the Imperial Empire, tells Anakin, “We will be watching your career with great interest,” it is a message to the fans who will be watching as well when episode two comes out in May 2002 and ending with episode three in May 2005.

The best in the whole series was "The Empire Strikes Back" because it showed the saga wasn’t just about a battle between good and evil. The trilogy grew into a personal struggle between father and son; the dark side of “The Force” versus what I can only assume is the light side.

I like movies with dark themes. "Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace" is Lucas’ way of saying, “Be patient because the best is yet to come.”

In the character’s case, that probably means the worst. Those planetary celebrations and ticker tape parades we see in The Phantom Menace after all happened, as an older Ben Kenobi said to Luke Skywalker in the 1977 predecessor, “before the dark times, before the Empire.”

Originally Published ©5/19/99

My “positive” thoughts on Super Bowl LVIII

I already know the one or two people reading this who pay any attention to my blog will immediately say “I’m just being Darth Stumpo…” or “That’s just Darth Stumpo…” with this commentary on what I what I thought of Super Bowl LVIII.

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you picture me as Jack Torrance from “The Shining” (1980) sitting at my desk at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. Instead of my using a typewriter I’m on the keyboard on a computer attempting to bang out this week’s latest blog. Or so the one running my blog from the back end might think. Imagine the horror on her face when she learns all I typed out on two pages of the MS word document was “All work and no play makes Darth Stumpo a dull boy!”

Truth is though I did have Super Bowl 58 playing on the flatscreen I wasn’t paying much attention. I was harder pressed in getting my online class assignments that were coming due on Monday (I’m still behind on two courses) than I was caring about whatever was happening at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada that evening.

That’s not to say I didn’t look up during commercial breaks which depended on the Hollywood icon I heard appearing. There were a few. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t pronounce “neighbor.” Jennifer Aniston suffered a President Biden memory lapse. Tina Fey promoted booking.com only to see Glenn Close on a horse. Matt Damon (“Sometimes it’s really hard to be your friend, man”) was embarrassed being included with pal Ben Affleck’s ‘The Dunkings’ promoting Dunkin’ Donuts.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the devilishly eye-catching ad created by American Values 2024 promoting independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s run for president. The ad made me feel like this was 1960 all over again when John F. Kennedy ran for president. RFK Jr. later apologized for the $7 million ad saying it was not approved by his campaign.



Just when I thought things couldn’t generate any more talk then came the latest Jesus He Gets Us ad titled “He washed feet” which showed mostly “white” people washing the feet of minorities and members of the same sex.

The ad made me say to myself maybe they should have just featured dominant women and/or men dressed in leather S/M (sadism and masochism) garb, sporting 5-inch stiletto boots and heels with submissives naked on leashes kneeling before their mistresses and masters doing you know what with their tongues. Now just imagine the uproar such an ad would have done let alone the revenue it’d generate! Or just imagine the backlash I’m going to get writing this which will be less than zero!

I suppose somewhere during all these ads I could have taken actors Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Roumie’s advice and say “God, we take this moment to give You thanks.”

I didn’t.

Then there’s the upcoming movie trailers, none of which, to quote Judd Nelson’s rebellious high school character in “The Breakfast Club” (1985) pumped “my Gnads.”

I only looked up from my computer once and that was when the trailer for “Wicked” aired. I noted how “wokeism” /political correctness struck its ugly head again with the casting of the two leads Cynthia Erivo, a black actress, as the bad witch Elphaba and Ariana Grande, an Italian American singer as the good witch Galinda versus how those women characters were cast in the long running Broadway play (the lead women characters were played by Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenowith).



And before you pull your liberal baiting race card out of your ass accusing me of being racist, it’s not the actresses skin color/nationalities I’m questioning. It’s the casting choices. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton was not Puerto-Rican you know!

This “Wicked” version is yet another case of questionable “Hollyweird” casting choices dating back to the big screen musical adaptations of “The Phantom of the Opera” (2004) (Gerald Butler can’t sing) and changing the identity of the character, Anybodys (Iris Mensas), as being transgendered who was nowhere to be seen let alone suggested in the 1961 Robert Wise classic that won 10 Oscars. (Steven Spielberg’s wokeism 2021 remake flopped at the box office).

I didn’t learn the trailer for “Twisters”, an unnecessary sequel to the 1996 blockbuster that starred Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton had aired during the Super Bowl until the day after.



In short, I have one word describing the new trailer. “REMAKE!” Much the way “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) was a needless money grabbing remake of “Top Gun” (1986). Nothing changed! I predict the one surprise to happen in the “Twister” sequel is Helen Hunt will make a cameo appearance since actors Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman are no longer with us.

The one politically incorrect trailer that did catch my attention is the one I didn’t see until Tuesday night this week. Yes! You guessed it! Those of you paying any attention! “Deadpool 3” which as of Feb. 13 has drawn 365 million views online.



Don’t waste time telling me the trailer will finally change “Woke” Disney’s way the studio promotes their bleeding heart “Hollyweird” liberal agenda at the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” pushing personal politics on audiences when all viewers really want is a good movie. To date, I can’t remember when Disney EVER made a good Marvel movie that was worth seeing more than once!

At least the Ryan Reynolds trailer had me laughing within seconds watching it on YouTube (“Pegging isn’t new for me friendo but it is for Disney.”)

More of that “political incorrectness” was what would have caught my attention Super Bowl Sunday. Even despite my being more involved with classwork, nothing happened on the field between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs that made me pause what I was doing.

I started channel surfing within the first hour doing what I normally do when I have the flatscreen on. Something to listen to while I’m doing something else. If I hadn’t been doing classwork, I would have been writing this blog or building a LEGO set during the Super Bowl.

Instead of waiting to see if singer Taylor Swift would make a grand entrance during those four hours or find out if I really have heard a song by Rhythm & Blues singer, Usher, over the years during his halftime performance, I wondered why Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelcie was yelling at his coach Andy Reid in a clip I saw the next day.



I found the football tight end’s behavior to be the equivalent of actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock on stage at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022.

Although Travis Kelcie did apologize on a post-Super Bowl episode Sunday night speaking with brother, Jason, on a "New Heights" podcast, I believe the only reason Travis apologized was because of the fake news media attention.

“People are all over this (incident with Reid), and I mean – I get it,” Travis told his brother, Jason. “I immediately wished I took it back.”

The only question that came to mind upon learning the next day the Chiefs won their third Super Bowl, in this case two years in a row, was what the hell is the Kansas City team doing that made them win again this year that the Dallas Cowboys haven’t been able to do in close to three decades.

The last time “God’s favorite team” won a Super Bowl was in 1996.

I’m sure every diehard Dallas Cowboys fan reading this will tell me the reason they haven’t won a Super Bowl has absolutely nothing to do with owner Jerry Jones.

©2/14/24

A night that will live in infamy!

Feb. 4, 2024, was a night that will live in infamy. The same kind of infamy that Feb. 1, 2015, was when I told the world, or those one or two people who follow my blog besides myself that was the first time I watched the Super Bowl.

Or June 13, 2012, when I told the world I still don’t know who shot fictional Texas oil tycoon J.R. Ewing actor Larry Hagman played on "Dallas" (1978-1991) (2012-2014). Someone on my “Fakebook” page told me to “Please turn in my man card right now."

On Feb. 4, 2024, I did something I never thought I’d do so long as live. I not only listened to and watched a music video by one of the artists who won a Grammy that night for Record of the Year on youtube but the popstar I watched perform was Miley Cyrus.

“Who had to come here after Miley won the Grammy for this song, just cuz it is so freaking amazing?!?!” wrote a user on Miley Cyrus’ youtube channel. (Sorry it wasn’t me who posted that!)

I already envision the backlash coming…from guys no doubt who are too afraid to admit their own shortcomings. (The older I get the less I give a rat’s ass what people think).

They’ll probably tell me, “Miley Cyrus?!?!?!? You couldn’t have at least listened to Taylor Swift’s album, “Midnight” which won Album of the Year or Billie Eilish who won Song of the Year?”

For the record I have heard a few songs since the mid-2000s by Taylor Swift, more than I care to admit (“You Need to Calm Down”, “Shake It Off”, “You Belong With Me”, “Bad Blood”) two decades before she made the front cover of Time’s Person of the Year in 2023 because hey, with all the crap going on in the country and the world right now, we could use someone to take our minds off all this misery, right?

I’ve also heard of Billie Eilish thanks to her winning an Oscar in 2022. But for what song I don’t know. And before you start saying how I should know this useless information I’m going to take the liberty (since this is MY blog) and throw the egg back in your face and ask, “Do you not only know what singer won an Oscar but for what song and movie without finding the answer on the net? The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Carly Simon, Lionel Ritchie?

Yeah! Thought so!

Like this Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII who I didn’t learn who is playing until a week before, I was as ignorant in uselessly trivial knowledge on Miley Cyrus’ attention getting background short of her knowing she starred in “Woke” Disney’s "Hannah Montana" (2006-2011).

Prior to watching Cyrus’ music video “Flowers” I had heard tidbits the past year about how the song came about detailing her supposed disastrous marriage to actor Liam Hemsworth but paid less than zero attention to what the morning entertainment shows supposed attractive looking talking heads on “The Today Show” and “Good Morning America” discussed in their “nothing burger” segments.

Up until watching “Flowers” I saw the song as just another attempt by Miley Cyrus, who like Madonna, to draw attention to herself in hopes of making herself still seem relevant.

Her “I don’t think I’ve forgotten anyone, but I might’ve forgotten underwear,” comment at the Grammys during her Feb. 4 acceptance speech comes to mind.



I won’t lie and say the video didn’t catch my attention as she danced in a golden dress and heels on her way up the driveway to her home. Then slipping the dress off down to her black bra and panties (it looked nothing like a bikini) strutting through the grass with the sprinklers on before jumping in the pool for a brief swim. Then doing some yoga exercises showing off her “I am woman, hear me roar” persona which wasn’t far from the truth since Grammys night in terms of who won could be called “Woman Power.”

Seeing all those tattoos on her body I said to myself, well the 31-year-old singer/actress is sure not daddy Billy Ray Cyrus’ little girl anymore from “Hannah Montana.”

Believe it or not I could see where she came from in terms of bad relationships reading the lyrics. As someone who every once in a blue moon does want some female companionship I am just as happy being alone 1000 percent of the time. I’ve got plenty of hobbies and things to occupy my “me time” – so much that I don’t think I will get to finishing all of them before I leave this world both literally and physically to become one with “The Dark Side of the Force” when my time here on Earth is done.

Watching Cyrus dance with no one around was equivalent to the happy dance I did back in November busting out moves like Les Grossman – the bald quick tempered movie producer Tom Cruise played in “Tropic Thunder” (2008) when I heard “Woke” Disney’s “The Marvels” had its worst box office opening for a Marvel movie to date. (I HATE MARVEL MOVIES)!

I liked “Flowers”! There I said it! I’ve watched the music video a few times on YouTube since 2/4 (no it’s not because I liked Cyrus showing off a lot of skin working out and showering). Even as I write this blog I still cannot get the lyrics out of my head.

Rest assured one of these days if time ever allows, I will add "Flowers" to my growing list of iTunes music to listen to while doing something else. (yet another project on my to-do list I may never get to). If there is any reason why I won’t is since it only takes me less than 15 minutes to get to work and all I do is drive to work and home five days a week, I see no reason to hook up my iPhone to the auxiliary port in my car to jam to my music choices. The port doesn’t work anyway.

I suppose I could have the radio tuned in to one of those pop music stations while driving instead of on WBAP 820 for news and commentaries or KEOM 88.5 for easy listening oldies songs. The trouble is I wasn’t born with patience and having to wade through a lot songs I’ve not heard of on those pop stations in hopes they will play “Flowers” for a little over three minutes airtime won’t be worth it.

Even less will be how when listening to the “Flowers” lyrics I may wind up yelling at the top of my lungs in the car like Cyrus did at the Grammys telling drivers “Why you acting like you don’t know this song” which some irate driver will mistake my actions as starting a road rage incident that will make the evening news.

I’m not ashamed to admit I liked a Miley Cyrus song. That’s more than I can say for all the guys who are clearly not man enough to admit they watched “Barbie (2023)” and liked the movie, which to date, I still haven’t finished watching.

©2/7/24

My first time Super Bowl viewing experience

Feb. 1, 2015 was a day that will live in infamy.

For the first time in my life I did what everyone else does on a certain night that concludes the NFL football season.

I got to watch Super Bowl XLIX (49). (Ok I admit it there was nothing else on). The last time I got this excited about a Super Bowl game was back in the days when I worked for Blockbuster Video’s IT helpdesk and the weekend night supervisor gave us all a chance to make our score predictions. 

I pulled my predictions out of my ass and somehow I won. My reward? I could go home to watch the remainder of the Super Bowl instead of working my 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

Of course I didn’t watch the game when I got home. I was just happy I didn’t have to work.

As for Super Bowl 49's New England Patriots 28-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks my first time watching the game was…BORING!

Within the first hour, I texted my best friend, Mr. Fucker in Chiraq (once known as Chicago) typing “This is what you people get your nads all pumped about? So far, I’m fucking bored! No memorable ads either!”

Mr. Fucker texted me back saying, “I agree. Boring. But chicken wings r good.”

I didn’t have wings that night. Instead I devoured a small Papa Johns pepperoni-mushroom pizza with extra sauce minutes after one of the teams scored 7 (sorry I don’t remember who which goes to show you how much I was actually paying attention) against the other. If I was on edge about anything it was the heartburn I was going to get later that night as I never learn my lesson when it comes to certain foods affecting my health.

The only reason I watched the Super Bowl was to see the supposed entertaining if not controversial or gross ads that air in between the game. I was eager to know that for the first time I would finally know what the drive-by fake news media would be talking about on the morning shows Monday instead of having to play catch-up on youtube to see the best and worst commercials I missed the night before.

I was disappointed. There were no sexy GoDaddy ads featuring NASCAR racer Danica Patrick and fitness trainer Jillian Michaels. In fact, some of the ads that year were not only politically correct (again no sexy GoDaddy ads demeaning women as sex objects) but were depressing. I thought the whole point of watching the Super Bowl was to be entertained? So why did I see ads about domestic violence or a dying kid who dreams about the things he will never get to do in life like being kissed by a girl for the first time or learning to fly?

The only bright spot to Super Bowl 49 was the halftime show, which was seen by 118.5 million viewers where singer Katy Perry made her grand entrance riding a top a slow-moving mechanical tiger. If that lion and those lumbering Imperial snow walkers from "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) competed in a race I’d have no idea who’d win.

As for Perry’s performance, to rephrase her hit song, “I Kissed a Girl”, I am not ashamed to say that “I knew all of Katy Perry’s songs and liked them.” I wonder if she has a greatest hits CD out so I can sing along in my car like that Dover police officer I saw on youtube singing Taylor Swift’s "Shake It Off" on the dashcam back then.

I concluded Super Bowl 49 was the equivalent of the Oscars, except more viewers watch. 

Up until Feb. 1, 2015 I only knew I could happily go to my grave one day knowing that “I am the only guy who can handle something like this” (like dying) when people search my name on youtube and find that Oscar nominee Michael Keaton plays me in the movie "Clear History" (2013).

Hell, up until I posted this blog I was about as clueless as to who is playing in this year's Super Bowl as I was wondering if there was ever a single song by Rhythm & Blues singer Usher (who is this year's halftime show performer) I heard on the radio. 

To date I now know what teams are playing (San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs). And I still don't know if I've heard any songs by Usher in my lifetime, nor have I bothered scouring youtube to find out.

Yes, I'll likely have Super Bowl LVIII playing on the flatscreen Feb. 11, 2024 but only to have something to listen to while doing something else. 

Perhaps sometime during those four hours whether it's preparing the current week's blog if time allows and, provided I have a subject I want to write about or work on my online class assignments which as of this writing are about two weeks late, I'll find out if Taylor Swift will arrive on time from her Tokyo concert to cheer on her beau Kansas City Chiefs Travis Kelcie during the game.

If not, in between a possible ad paying tribute to actor Carl Weathers who died Feb. 1 at 76, there's always the less-than-one-minute upcoming movie trailers to look forward to. 

Here's hoping those trailers are nothing like last year's "The Flash" and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" both of which I stupidly thought evoked promise only to crash and burn at the box office last summer.

©2/7/24

Celebrating Beatlemania 60 years on

I have often heard that if you sing to yourself, it means you are happy. I don’t know exactly if that’s true but for the past few weeks now I have found myself trapped inside a Yellow Submarine singing to myself songs from The Beatles.

At times I was off either searching for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or taking that “Magical Mystery Tour.” Sometimes, I’d feel like I want a “Revolution.” When having H & R Block do my taxes, I couldn’t get the lyrics to “Taxman” out of my head.

There is a reason for this. While Americans every year look back on “Yesterday” recalling such somber anniversaries as 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City, the Newtown and Aurora Massacres, the Titanic disaster and most recently, the JFK Assassination, finally there is an actual event that is worth celebrating: the 60th Anniversary of The Beatles coming to America that began with their arrival in New York in Feb. 7, 1964. On Feb. 9, "The Fab Four" made their first US television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" which drew 73 million viewers.

I am not going to waste newsprint regurgitating the past. You want to read about The Fab Four’s arrival in America, read Rolling Stone. I wasn’t born in the early 50s, so I don’t know what it was like to go through a traumatizing event as President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 and yearning for something, anything positive to look forward to a mere three months later with the arrival of four British mop tops from Liverpool.

Instead of paying attention to the documentaries that might air this month about The Beatles, I'll do what I've done so many times before - celebrate in my own way watching the band’s movie debut in "A Hard Day’s Night" (1964) which was both a clever mixture of British comedy and documentary.



I was amazed watching these four mop tops acting so naturally in front of the camera without making their performances look like they needed coaching.

There is John; the practical joker and smart aleck who often calls his manager (Norman Rossington) a swine. The minute he finds out the train station is swarming with girls Lennon asks jokingly if he can perform surgery.

Paul is the polite one who answers all questions reporters ask him with either the comments, “I like to keep Britain tidy” or “Actually, we’re just good friends.”

George, on the other hand is the opinionated one; always speaking his mind in situations even when he is not solely involved in a project.

Finally, Ringo: the sensitive one who gets the most fan mail and hates it when other people touch his drums.

To my surprise I wasn’t too far off in describing their characteristics. According to IMDB.com, writer Alun Owen created their stereotypes saying, “John Lennon is a smart-ass, Paul McCartney is cute and sensible, George Harrison is quiet and shy, and Ringo Starr is dim-witted and sad.”

The story is like a day in the life of a classic rock band as The Beatles prepare for a television concert where the audience consists of no one but giddy schoolgirls (not a single male member of the audience can be spotted).

The picture, shot entirely in black and white, not only spawned a half-hour rock and roll sitcom two years later on NBC called "The Monkees" (1966-1968), but made it possible for future filmmakers to create imaginative music videos for other successful bands and recording artists.

Prior to the performance, the band frequent nightclubs where their number one hits like "All My Loving" and "I Wanna Be Your Man" are played and run around in open fields like kids.

Watching the group smile and sing over the loud cries and cheers of adoring fans in that packed, small auditorium, I can understand why The Beatles didn’t perform that many concerts in the United States. They wanted the audience to hear their voices over all the commotion.

This is where the real joy of "A Hard Day’s Night" comes in though; hearing the soundtrack that includes along with the film’s title song, "Can’t Buy Me Love", "If I Fell", "Tell Me Why", "She Loves You", and "I’ll Cry Instead". They are songs that one friend of mine, Greg Hehn, called “feel good hits.” Songs you can dance to, he said, but they are lyrics with not much meaning.

Hehn said he thought the band’s later works he heard on "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), "Abbey Road" (1969) and "Let It Be" (1970) were some of their best and showed how much the group matured.

Those hit albums though came a few years later when the four were no longer the handsome, innocent looking, clean cut gentlemen from Liverpool you see in this film. As they got older and their hair grew longer, the outfits changed, and so did their attitudes.

The rest is history as the band’s personal and creative differences would eventually cause their break-up in 1970.

Seeing them run freely throughout England’s yards and kidding around with each other in this movie, however, I got the notion back in The Fab Four’s early days that being a Beatle was as much a joy for them as it was for the fans who embraced their music 60 years ago this month.

©1/19/24