Movie Reviews: Purge: Election Year

The Purge: Election Year
directed by James DeMonaco

If I had known that Mykelti Williamson played a prominent role in this movie I probably would have skipped it. Everyone has to eat I guess but something about many of Williamson's roles just rubs me the wrong way. If you're looking for a black actor to spout some cringe worthy dialogue then Williamson's your man. I've always looked a little askance at him since his turn in Species 2 where he grabs a machete and says he wants "...to get African on some alien a$$" (and where coincidentally he's the only male human the sex hungry female alien has no desire to mate with). In the latest Purge installment Williamson's character is basically the Wise Old Negro who serves no real purpose except to provide service to other (non-black) people. He gets to have wonderful dialogue like saying that his team is like "a bucket of fried chicken about to be attacked by hungry negroes" or telling other black people that he "likes these white folks so I'm not going to let you negroes kill them". Hmm. We all have different things that annoy us I guess but a lot of the dialogue and assumptions in this movie seemed more than a little reactionary to me. Williamson is not exactly a desperate young actor who's willing to take any role to get his name out there so he can stop living in a studio apartment. I would have thought that a black actor with his success could have requested some script changes but who knows. His sensitivities are not mine. Ultimately it's all just pretend fun and games, right? Anyhow my hangups aside The Purge: Election Year is not a great movie, either in execution or in the meaning behind it. It's heavy handed and over the top. Every now and then there is a good scene but usually it's something that viewers have seen before, whether it be from Death Wish or strangely enough Jaws. If you are a person who is sickened by cinematic violence then this probably isn't the film for you. It's not super explicit but it does have more than its share of mayhem. But as this is the third installment in this series most of us have figured out by now that there's bloodshed in this film.

Election Night SNL Skit

President Trump. Wow. Depending on the vagaries of the Day Job and the insistent demands of merciless supervisors there might be other more detailed and substantive posts on the election results, political parties and what all of this means at a later time, but for now I did want to put this out there for your consumption. I thought it was humorous. Enjoy.

Book Reviews: Bad Guys, Red, Here There Be Monsters

Bad Guys
by Anthony Bruno

This novel was the debut fiction offering of now deceased true crime and mystery author Anthony Bruno. It is also first in a series. It was pretty quick reading with very little fat. I did find it a little over descriptive at times but on the other hand Bruno was able to bring you into a story which had only a few well drawn characters. Everyone else was more of a stock type in some aspects. But Bruno did make you feel like you were actually in the New York and New Jersey neighborhoods which he described in such detail. This book was just under 300 pages in paperback and can likely be found in any of your better used bookstores. It's set in the eighties so some of the references (pay phones, slow computers, video cassettes) can feel a little dated. The story is something that you've read a million times before -two cops who are wildly different in both morals and personality must work together to bring down a bad guy. The difference here is that one of the cops may be the real bad guy. This book tries and I think succeeds in having it both ways. It definitely doesn't make heroes out of the organized crime people who are the book's primary antagonists. There's no love for any of the mafiosi, who are depicted here as uniformly greedy, corrupt and personally dangerous. On the other hand the younger protagonist is indeed breaking the law. The fact that he's an FBI agent who values doing what's right more than he values upholding the law can leave the reader feeling a bit conflicted, which presumably was the author's intent in creating the character. It's the 80's and one Richie Varga, counselor to at least three New York based crime families has provided evidence and testified against his former bosses, helping to sentence them to life terms and destroying large portions of the East Coast Mafia. Varga has since disappeared into the Witness Protection Program. But word on the street is that Varga is also the man responsible for the grisly murder of three undercover FBI agents, although no one can prove it.

One man who thinks he has all the proof he needs is renegade FBI agent Mike Tozzi. If Tozzi wasn't an FBI agent he would have been a mobster. He's got the looks, connections, aggression and disregard for rules. He also has an overdeveloped sense of vengeance and justice. Alleged criminals who were found not guilty or who escaped indictments because of political connections (a Congressional pedophile) are turning up dead. Everyone believes Tozzi to be responsible. Tozzi's looking for Varga. And he's probably not trying to deliver roses to Varga. The Special Agent in Charge of the Manhattan FBI office brings back Bert Gibbons, Tozzi's former partner, from retirement. Gibbons is ordered to find Tozzi and stop him by any means necessary. Ivers hopes that Gibbons' long experience with Tozzi will give the Bureau the inside lane on catching or teminating Tozzi. Ivers wants to get Tozzi tagged and bagged as soon as possible. Ivers has career plans that would be derailed permanently if news about Tozzi's alleged activities becomes public. But the straitlaced Gibbons may be more loyal to Tozzi than he is to the concept of law and order. And Gibbons notices some irregularities within Ivers 'office. Someone is watching his every move. And someone is rebuilding an underground Mafia family. Gibbons must decide what's the right thing to do when all of his choices look bad. And Tozzi must not let his quick temper and weakness for women influence his at best shaky judgment. Tozzi has tracked down Varga's wife Joanne, who did not follow her husband into witness protection. Tozzi's sure that his good looks and charm have convinced Joanne to help him in his search for Varga. Gibbons wonders if his ex-partner is letting the wrong body part do his thinking for him. This was a good read that you can finish in 1-2 days. Don't expect more than that and you won't be upset.



Red
By Jack Ketchum

This is another older book. The best way to describe it is a cross between John Wick and Gran Torino. I was a little leery about reading it if only because the author has a well deserved reputation for over the top violence. I wasn't in the mood for that. So it was good then this wasn't that sort of book. There is violence -the entire story kicks off from a senseless act of brutality- but the author didn't rub the reader's face in it. I thought the story was very realistic in that there was nothing supernatural involved. And if we want to live in a certain type of society we agree to let the justice system handle our grievances. Overall that's probably a good idea. Otherwise the weak could never bring the strong to justice. But obviously even though a justice system may work for all of us on a macro basis there are many times when it fails on an individual basis. There are many times when the strong, wealthy or political elite may corrupt the justice system to use to their own malicious ends. So when that occurs the only justice may be found in an individual taking the law into his own hands. It's a paradox. Red is about that sort of situation. Avery Ludlow is a semi-retired widower who lives alone in Maine. His only companion is his fourteen year old dog Red. Ludlow's in his late sixties. His late wife gave him the dog for his birthday shortly before she died. Just as Ludlow is slowing down, his dog Red is as well. Red is positively ancient by canine standards. Red has serious arthritic and ocular issues. But as dogs tend to be Red is still loyal to and protective of Ludlow. Ludlow likes taking Red with him when he goes fishing. One day when Ludlow is out with Red he's waylaid by three teens who claim to be hunting. Well maybe. But what they are actually hunting for is the pure pleasure that comes from hurting people weaker than they are. Angered when they discover Ludlow has no money for them to take, the boys shoot and kill Red. 

After they leave, Ludlow embarks on a quest for justice. It's important to know that this is not just about the dead dog nor is Ludlow a homicidal time bomb waiting to be triggered. There are however incidents and reasons in his background that the reader slowly learns about which show that the three boys made a very very bad mistake. There's only so much a man can take. Ketchum takes his sweet time drawing all of the characters, especially Avery Ludlow. This is just a much a character study of a aging man living with tragedy as it is a revenge novel. It's also a novel which may make you think about the relative value we put on human and animal life and why we do so. Laws vary by jurisdiction of course but as the police explain to Ludlow most district attorneys are not going to spend a lot of resources pursuing those who commit crimes against animals, particularly when the penalties are very low. The love and affection of an old half-blind dog may be priceless to Ludlow but prosecutors and judges and the law don't put much value on that. Ketchum teases the reader with a class resentment theme which I thought could and should have been brought out more. At least two of the teens who assault him and kill his dog are spoiled rich kids. And their wealthy father shows that the rotten apple didn't fall far from the tree. Ketchum also shows some links between the kind of people who would harm animals for fun and the kind of people who do the same to humans. The two sets have a lot of overlap. If you aren't a big horror fan or don't like constant explicit written depictions of violence this book might be just the thing for you. Ketchum showed that he's not reliant on the gross-out to get the reader to feel things. Ludlow's loneliness and sense of loss is as much a part of the story as his murdered dog.



Here There Be Monsters
By Tim Curran

This is a fourteen story collection of short stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Some are better than others, as is true of any collection but almost all of them are good, which is pretty unusual. There's no huge clunkers here. There is a fair amount of humor as well. The stories all range across different places and times. Some stories are written in a deliberate pastiche of Lovecraft's verbose style ("A shuttered and silent place was Kobolddamn, one that inspired a sense of claustrophobia, a sense of macabre foreboding. At first look I would have thought it deserted, such was its inexplicable  aura of degeneration and rot.") while others reference 1930s and 1940s tough guy patois (" But I didn't want Brennan's badge. He was strictly small potatoes. After facing off with that sweetheart up in the steeple, guys like Brennan were strictly small potatoes. I was sore and pissed-off but the only thing broken was my pride.") My favorite story here is undoubtedly "Eldritch-Fellas" which is as you might suspect a parody of the movie Goodfellas. Here Cthulhu is the wild enforcer with a quick temper and a mean streak who takes deadly offense when one of the other Dark Gods has the temerity to tell him that he's funny. This story will amuse anyone who's watched Goodfellas or who has a familiarity with some of that film's most intense scenes. "Six Feet of Moldering Earth" is more of a gothic tale which details the events which happen when two antiquarians and occultists open the grave of a wizard, hoping to make a Hand of Glory. Something in the grave isn't dead and needs a new host. "The Shadow of the Haunter" is a classic hardboiled detective story in which a beautiful woman wants a private eye to look into her brother's death. She doesn't think he was killed by lightning.  "The Procyon Project " finds a WW2 vet suffering from PTSD taking a job as a security guards at a Defense Department research facility. "The Naming of Witches" imagines an entirely different reason for the witch trials at Salem and elsewhere. "The Seal of Kharnabis" is about as generic as Curran gets in this collection. It's a somewhat prosaic tale of curses and death brought back to America by an expedition that opened an ancient Egyptian tomb. "The Wreck of the Ghost" details the adventures of a whaling ship crew who slowly discovers that something extremely dangerous is hunting whales and them. "The Eyes of Howard Curlix" revisits Lovecraftian themes about links between cutting edge physics and banned 12th century magic. "Nemesis Theory" tells of a problem in a max security prison where the inmates are horrified to learn that something else is locked in with them. There's little flab on any of these stories. They move quickly. I have seen Curran's name around in a few places. He's from Michigan. I'm going to be looking for some of his other work.

2016 Election Predictions

Unless something really strange happens, by 10 or 11 PM EST on Tuesday we should know who will be the next President of the United States. I'd like to raise an issue which is related to the post I did on the last election. I didn't originate this point but I've made it before. Let's say there are four candidates. Let's call them Crazy Man, Corporate Stooge, Hippy Dippy and Weed Man. If you vote for Hippy Dippy, none of the other three candidates get your vote. Hippy Dippy gets one vote. If on the other hand you decide to vote for Weed Man because like Peter Tosh you think it's time to legalize it, then again none of the other candidates get your vote. But Weed Man gets one vote. Now Crazy Man and Corporate Stooge may have much larger followings then the other two candidates. They and their supporters may hope that you don't understand math. They will say that since one of them is going to win the Presidency you shouldn't waste your vote and vote for Hippy Dippy/Weed Man because a vote for one of those people is a vote for their opponent. This is not true.The only way that Crazy Man or Corporate Stooge get a vote from you is if you place a check by their name. The point here is that your vote and your reasons for casting it are yours and yours alone. The only wasted vote is a vote which is not cast according to your conscience, values, analysis and political interests. You have no obligation to vote for a candidate who is not your best choice. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. The amount of vitriol which the larger parties and their supporters spew onto smaller parties and their voters is amazing. Here's a thought. If you must insult or bully people into voting for your preferred choice, maybe your choice isn't that great. It's always the right thing to do to vote for your preferred candidate regardless of their chance at victory. I couldn't vote in 1984 but most adults I knew voted for the Democrat Walter Mondale even though they doubted he'd win. Mondale not only didn't win he led the Democratic Party to an apocalyptic election night massacre that made the Red Wedding look like a minor after dinner squabble and caused Michael Corleone to urge mercy. 

But if you believed in certain values Mondale was your man and you voted for him. You didn't say "Oh he can't win so let's vote for Reagan". No. Stick with your conscience and values no matter what. You get one vote just like everyone else. Vote for the candidate who best meets your values, worldview and criteria.
Although the race has tightened I still think that Clinton will win. The Democratic Party nationally has many paths to 270 electoral votes. Thanks to demographic changes in the electorate and conservative intransigence on various issues, the Republican Party has a very narrow path to victory. Clinton would have to collapse completely in the next 48 hours (get caught on tape spewing racial slurs, sneer about stupid people voting Republican, joke about starting a war with Russia, or something similar) for her floor to fall below 205 electoral votes. It is possible that Trump's appeal to white ethno-nationalism and economic nationalism and anti-pc will bring out the "missing" white voters in the Upper Midwest and Appalachia but I still don't think there are enough of those voters for Trump to win all of the states he'd have to win.

So I'm betting that Clinton wins 290-248. Her advantages in the densely populated East Coast states due to the demise of the Northeastern Republicans combined with the loss of California are ultimately too much for Trump to overcome. Trump needs to flip a "blue" state or two in the Upper Midwest, win Pennsylvania, or steal back North Carolina and win in Florida. That's a tough assignment. We'll see who's smiling on Tuesday night. Whoever wins on Tuesday, about 45% of the country is going to be angry and possibly surprised. We live in interesting times.

http://www.270towin.com/maps/jKkGX

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

The Janitor's prediction for tomorrow (see below).  I think she ekes out a narrow victory in Nevada due to the heavy Latino vote who Trump has unwisely incentivized to vote against him.  She holds on to New Hampshire's 4 points, but I think she loses the battleground states of Ohio and probably North Carolina, although I was conflicted on North Carolina due to the Black vote there which could push her over the edge.  It's certainly one of the closer states and is currently tracking on 538 as 51.6% Trump, 48.4% Hillary and appears to be holding steady for Trump.  Similar situation in Florida but unlike Shady, I think Hillary pulls out a win in Florida.  It went for Obama in '08 and again in '12 and the demographics have only gotten increasingly more diverse since then.  Iowa, which is a 90+ percent White state, easily goes for Trump, while Pennsylvania continues to be "fools gold" for Republicans and remains Blue in the Hillary column.  So I think Hillary takes it 308 to 230:

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Old Guru's prediction:

I think Hilary wins Florida, which means Trump’s path to 270 dwindles to zero. I think that although there is a large Cuban bloc that supports the GOP, the group is not big enough to match the influx of Mexicans and Puerto Ricans that Trump has turned off. I think New Hampshire goes red this time. Obama won the state in 2012 by about 5% but I think Clinton has taken enough of a beating in that state that Trump might squeak that one out. I think North Carolina goes to Trump. Obama lost the state in 2012 and I don’t think the black vote there is energized enough to pull it out for Hillary.

Grand Central's Prediction:

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Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Music Reviews: Fever

"Fever" is a Blues/R&B song which was written by the African-American singers/songwriters Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell. Both men had more success in the music business writing songs for other people than they did as performers under their own names. Blackwell in particular was a relatively unheralded early songwriter of many rock-n-roll hits. Elvis Presley considered Blackwell to be a favorite songwriter. Some of the Blackwell written Presley hits include such songs as "All Shook Up", "Don't Be Cruel",  and "Return to Sender". Blackwell also co-wrote "Great Balls of Fire" for Jerry Lee Lewis. "Fever" first was a hit for teen African-American singer Little Willie John in 1956. Afterwards, as was often the practice in those days and today, it was covered to even greater acclaim by Euro-American singer Peggy Lee. Lee's sultry voiced version turned up the sex appeal although ironically Lee dropped some of the original lyrics because they were thought to be too risque for the white market. Much as would latter happen with Aretha Franklin's version of Otis Redding's "Respect", most people probably know Lee's version of the song instead of Little Willie John's. There have been many different singers who have done versions of the song including Madonna, La Lupe, Beyonce and Buddy Guy. I like Little Willie John's version best although Buddy Guy's overwrought James Brown approved take on the song is certainly worthwhile listening. All of the good versions of the song, regardless of who is interpreting it, capture the utterly irrational and insistent nature of love and lust. People do things that they otherwise wouldn't do and may later regret under those influences. When that part of our brain is fully engaged insanity or fever may be the best way of describing the experience. Little Willie John was from Detroit. Despite only standing 5'4" (hence the nickname) Little Willie John was a pugnacious fellow with a quick temper who rarely backed down from fights. He died at age 30 in prison in the late sixties where he was serving time on manslaughter charges. A drunk 6'2 "fan" punched Little Willie John in the mouth. Little Willie retaliated by stabbing his assailant to death.

Cheryl Mills, Corruption, Infrastructure and Sweatshops

If there were a generic Republican who was running for President and we learned that this person had not only assisted foreign companies in setting up sweatshops in third world countries but also that this person's top advisor was doing the same while they were on the government dime many people would have an issue with that. Some people have argued and really believe that sweatshop labor is just what third world countries need to bootstrap themselves into prosperity. Other people argue that no one ever got rich providing slave labor for corporations. In my view the second view is closer to being correct. The business model simply doesn't allow for that. So it's a fair question as to why Clinton lawyer, advisor and former government employee Cheryl Mills has been helping a low wage textile firm to set up shop in Haiti while simultaneously using the company's expertise to pursue her own low wage business dreams in Africa and the Caribbean. 

As chief of staff and counselor to Hillary Clinton at the State Department, Cheryl D. Mills worked ceaselessly to help a South Korean garment maker open a factory in Haiti, the centerpiece of United States government efforts to jump-start the island nation’s economy after the 2010 earthquake. Ms. Mills took the lead on smoothing the way for the company, Sae-A Trading, which secured millions of dollars in incentives to make its Haiti investment more attractive, despite criticism of its labor record elsewhere. When she presided over the project’s unveiling in September 2010, she introduced Sae-A’s chairman, Woong-ki Kim, as the most important person at the ceremony, which included Mrs. Clinton and the Haitian prime minister. Mr. Kim would later become important to Ms. Mills in a far more personal way — as a financial backer of a company she started after leaving the State Department in 2013. The company, BlackIvy Group, is pursuing infrastructure projects in Tanzania and Ghana, the only African nations in the “Partnership for Growth,” an Obama administration initiative that Mrs. Clinton helped introduce that promotes investment in developing countries. 

Since teaming up through BlackIvy, Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim have maintained close business ties, appearing together last year for the opening of a new Sae-A factory in Costa Rica where they cut the ribbon alongside Costa Rica’s president, Luis Guillermo Solís. In Africa, representatives of the United States Agency for International Development have consulted with BlackIvy and Sae-A about efforts to expand the textile trade in Ghana, where BlackIvy says the country’s 23-cents-an-hour minimum wage “compares favorably” to higher wages in China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. 

Federal officials are barred from using their positions to negotiate future employment or exchange services for something of value, and no evidence has emerged to suggest that occurred with BlackIvy. Both Ms. Mills and Mr. Kim deny that his investment was influenced by the substantial assistance she provided his company while serving as Mrs. Clinton’s right hand at the State Department. 

BlackIvy’s rationale did not sway labor advocates like Scott Nova, the executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, who had criticized the Haiti project as a misguided American relief effort that glossed over Sae-A’s labor-relations history. “When you urge garment manufacturers producing in countries like Bangladesh, where wages are far too low for workers to adequately support their families, to move production to countries with even lower wages, it undercuts the efforts of apparel workers across the Global South to persuade governments, employers and major apparel brands to lift wages to a decent level,” Mr. Nova said. FULL STORY

If this sort of thing were going on in China or Russia or anywhere in the Middle East then we'd point and laugh and talk about those funny foreigners and their funny accents and their cultures of corruption or crony capitalism or so on and so forth. But it's happening right here, right now. And this is not a partisan problem. Both parties do this, have done it and will continue to do it. The only party difference may be which industries are favored. But that's not really a difference is it. I don't mind if government workers are well paid. I do mind if they are using government contacts to set themselves up for lucrative private business in the future. I do mind if they are using government power to assist private industry with the unspoken expectation that they'll get a little something something as soon as possible. I do mind if US government agencies are helping to outsource labor to cheaper markets.There is nothing illegal with what Mills has done but frankly that's the problem. Government policy should be based on what's best for the people of the United States, not what is best for a well connected cabal of wealthy lawyers, financiers, bureaucrats, corporations and lobbyists. The fact this group's membership may be more diverse than previous years is hardly something that should make any difference to the rest of us. I don't see that government assisted searching for sweatshop labor to make Mills and her friends richer does all that much for me. Black faces in high places means nothing if we have the same patterns of exploitation. This sort of both sides do it malarkey is exactly why the "tear the temple down" feeling is spreading in different ways on both the left and right. 

Michigan Trump Supporter Pulls Gun on Kids

The problem with extreme partisanship is that people can no longer distinguish between a group of people who do not agree with you on some important issues and a group of people who are evil and need to be violently suppressed, expelled or exterminated. This problem is something that impacts both putative sides in American politics. There is one side that is much more likely to be armed however, and when you start mixing politics and guns usually bad things happen. I can understand the sense of violation experienced when someone steals something from your porch or commits an act of vandalism on your property. However you can't threaten deadly force in retaliation. You certainly can't do that when the alleged offenders are children. And it's that much worse when the people you threaten aren't even the people who committed the offense. Then you're not a man standing up to protect your property or your family. You're just a hothead who wants to get revenge.
An Allen Park man upset that his campaign sign was destroyed, grabbed his gun and now he's facing charges for pointing that weapon at children. It appeared Michael Kubek wasn't home Thursday night after being released from lockup for allegedly holding six kids at gunpoint at about 8 p.m. Saturday night.
FOX 2: "Did the kids seem scared?"
"Yes, yes," said a neighbor.

The neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said she was spooked too. The News-Herald reports Kubek made the kids sit in the grass at the corner of Pennsylvania and Sterling in Allen Park as they stared down the barrel of his gun. Kubek was fuming because he thought they destroyed his Trump lawn sign.
FOX 2: "What was he saying to them?"

"He was using very profane language," the neighbor said. "Real bad language."
Kubek reportedly told police he neither saw or had proof the kids wrecked his sign, he only heard them outside of his house, saw the sign ruined and the kids running. He reportedly told police he showed the kids the business end of his gun because he felt threatened and outnumbered and his pistol was unloaded. Kubek is now facing six counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. He got out of jail on a $5,000, 10-percent bond. Legal experts say that's pretty low considering the circumstances.

When you consider that Michigan is among the states that doesn't prohibit guns at polling places Tuesday could be very interesting indeed.