Franchise the 13th Part XIII: Jason Is Not Your Way Right Away

Ah, movie franchises!  The assured theatrical comfort food for the masses. And audiences eat them up accordingly.  A franchise movie series brings along a comfy and familiar concept.  If the formula for the follow-up sticks relatively close to the series predecessors, the worst the audience would say is “Well, that wasn’t too bad, right?”  Oddly enough, …

How We All Can Lick Hatred, COVID, and Everything

As we head into another year of these unprecedented, unusual, trying, uncertain, challenging, extraordinary, difficult, hard, and tough times in this virus-laden world, many have tried to assign blame on others for how we ended up in these circumstances.  “It’s Trump’s/China’s/the Democrats’/the Republicans’/the governors’/Fauci’s/George Soros’/the CDC’s/Bill Gates’/Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s/O.J. Simpson’s/(insert other name here)’s fault!”  The …

Witnessing the 5th in Line While Being 5th in Line: My Experiences at the May 2018 Royal Wedding™ of Harry and Meghan

With all the recent hoohah and flapdoodle surrounding everyone’s favorite non-royals, I thought I would go reflect to happier times, before lucrative Netflix deals and huge interviews with Oprah.  Back before these plucky innocents were undoubtedly tormented by the trappings of incredible wealth and status and privilege through their being members of the British monarchy.  …

Concerted Efforts Part 1: The Fifth Best Audience In The World!

With the holidays reasonably in our rearview mirrors and the possibility of summer concert tours mistily ahead of us, I would like to take a moment to halfheartedly exaggerate what I remember about some of the concerts that I have had the good fortune to see in person.  Keep in mind that I am aging rapidly, …