Today is Saturday, November 18, 2023. Here’s something I don’t usually write about and that is a recent Bill Maher monologue delivered on his program Real Time this past Friday on the phenomenon in which everyone is expressing his or her opinion on social media platforms these days. Maher excoriated these opinion makers on such platforms with this statement, . . .”especially if you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And if you’re getting your facts from TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, I don’t want to hear your hot take on asymmetrical warfare, because there’s a term for someone who gets their news from Facebook: Mom.” Maher’s rant against these people is covered in an article by Ross A. Lincoln for The Wrap entitled “Bill Maher’s Thanksgiving Wish: ‘I Don’t Want to Hear Your Hot Take.'”

Maher criticizes social media for doing this: creating the situation in which everyone feels he or she has to weigh in on every controversial issue or breaking news story. Maher contends that it’s his job to weigh in on current news topics, not every Joe or Jane.

In addressing this situation, Maher noted that “the more time everyone spends telling everyone else their political positions . . . the more we’ve been at each other’s throats.” Then he adds, “Here’s a trend I would love to see on Twitter: No opinion.”

During his monologue, Maher noted that it’s Thanksgiving next week where “distant friends and scattered family members gather together to fight about Donald Trump. The other butterball.” The acerbic comedian indicated that “We will argue about abortion, and critical race theory, and guns and prisons and schools. And this year, we’re fighting about Israel,” Maher mentions. However, Maher adds, “But here’s the thing: You’re not actually legally obliged to have an opinion.”

Maher also cites the example of “one executive who was interviewed about the pressure companies have felt to make a statement about the Hamas war, said ‘we’re not historians. A lot of us didn’t understand the issue very well. Didn’t understand the history.’ Maher zings back this comment to that executive: “Exactly. And I bet you still don’t, so why not just shut the fuck up.”

Concluding his monologue, Maher vows to do this: “This Thanksgiving, I’m going to make beer can chicken with Budweiser and Chick-Fil-A, and anybody who doesn’t like it can fuck themselves.” He cites these two companies for the controversies they have recently generated in the media: Budweiser for hiring a transgendered woman as a spokesperson for the company (the far right had a field day condemning this move by the company) and Chick-Fil-A for its antigay agenda and its Christian philosophy. Maher is saying he’s going to enjoy these two repasts without feeling any guilt over it.

I haven’t watched this latest installment of his program, even though I do tape it every Friday. Recently, I’ve become very disenchanted with the uninhibited host for his choice of guests at the beginning of the hour; he’s recently had X’s owner, the obnoxious Elon Musk, which I hated, and he’s had the despicable Ted Cruz last week as his first guest. This interview almost had no controversy in it until the very end when Maher reminded Cruz that he was one of the senators who refused to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election. One thing Cruz said that I agreed with is that Maher allows voices from the left and right to spar on his program and there is no other show that does this. Maher also had Democratic candidate Dean Phillips on which I didn’t watch and Maher has made no bones about his wish that someone else run against Joe Biden in 2024. He is no fan of the current president because of his age. There I disagree with him.

As for what our plans are this coming Thanksgiving, Elliot and I are jetting to Italy on Tuesday, November 21, and returning on Tuesday, November 28. I was originally going to go with my son on a Thanksgiving cruise, but that fell apart. In the meantime, Elliot made plans to go to Italy by himself. So now we’ll be going together.

Today Elliot and I drove to Rockville Centre, Long Island, to meet Elliot’s daughters, “Jill” and “Emily.” We also met Elliot’s granddaughter, “Sadie,” who will turn 9 next January. We all met at the Golden Reef Diner, a very large traditional diner. We had a very lovely time with both daughters and Elliot’s very poised granddaughter. After breakfast, we walked across the street to browse in Parrots of the World, a pet shop on Sunrise Highway, specializing in hand-fed parrots plus other exotic mammals, reptiles, and related supplies. The store boasted several ferrets even. One of the strangest animals featured there was an axolotl which is in the salamander family. Sadie discovered the animal close to the front entrance in a small tank. Walking through the store provided some moments of nostalgia for both daughters and their father since they all frequented the store when they were much younger.

Our day didn’t stop with kissing everyone goodbye in the diner parking lot. We went to see a new Todd Haynes film, May December, which stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman as two adversaries, in a psychological way. This was playing at the Malverne Cinema, so we were able to make the 1:30 showing. The film is a thinly veiled recounting of the Mary Kay Letourneau story in which a teacher went to jail for second-degree rape of a male student in 1997. Here Moore plays the older woman who is now married to her under-age sexual conquest, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is 36 at the beginning of the film. Portman plays an actress who invades the pair’s beach house in Savannah, Georgia, as she is invited to interview the two principals in this two-decades-old sensational scandal where she is expected to portray Julianne’s character, Gracie Atherton-Yoo, in an upcoming film. It’s not too long that the presence of Portman as Elizabeth Berry throws a wrench into the couple’s outwardly idyllic existence as a married couple almost 24 years later after the original scandal of their relationship broke out and things begin to unravel. Soon Gracie begins to unravel; the calm facade she evinces begins to melt away and her henpecked husband, Joe, suddenly questions the appropriateness of his decision to marry his much older sexual partner – at the tender age of 13, which sent Gracie to prison for an indefinite length of time. All in all, the film was a slow burn, in that it takes awhile for things to percolate. I have to admit that the acting here was uniformly excellent, especially Portman in the role of a provocateur who upsets the apple cart in these two peoples’ lives.

Have a good Sunday.

Stay safe and be well.