Author Archives: ronqueens

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, October 26, 2025. It’s late here, owing to my being out with Elliot and his first girlfriend “Deborah” in Cobble Hill and us viewing a career-defining role for Ethan Hawke as fabled lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart in Richard Linklater-directed Blue Moon at the Cobble Hill Cinema. I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate, singular setting production of a night in the life of this famous American artist on the downslide in the early 1940s.

The film takes place in Sardi’s, a famous Manhattan bar located in the heart of Manhattan, where Hart arrives early before a celebratory party for Hart’s writing partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). For Rodgers, it’s the opening night for his latest production, Oklahoma! written with composer Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Hart tries to show how happy he is, but in realizing that the show is better than anything he wrote with Rodgers, he is quietly devastated.

Throughout the static interior of Sardi’s, Hawke as Hart fires off his lines at a breakneck pace as if words might protect him from his insecurities. I opined that the special effects guy made Hawke somewhat smaller and I was right. From reliable sources, Hart stood only at 4′ 10″ and, in this film, Hart’s diminutive size is matched by a fiery, verbose personality. Caustic, sarcastic, and trying to mask his sadness, we can see that Hart is facing the end of his run as collaborator with Rodgers for a quarter of a century. This is due to his erratic working style and his incessant drinking.

In the first half of the film, nearly all of Hart’s conversations are with Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), the trusted bartender, and Morty (Jonah Lees), a piano player hoping to be discovered by Rodgers later on. At one point, Hart reveals to Eddie his infatuation with Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20-year-old ingenue whose admiration of Hart as a songwriter extraordinaire has falsely led the lyricist to believe there’s a sexual spark between them, even though it was generally known that Hart was a homosexual. At another point, Hart declares he can appreciate both sexes for their beauty.

When Scott as Rodgers arrives, the tone shifts considerably and his performance brings a quiet dignity that counteracts Hart’s volatile nature. You can sense the palpable tension between them as they reminisce about their long-term professional relationship, but old wounds are recalled in terms of Hart’s erratic nature and why Rodgers was forced to collaborate with a more steadfast and reliable writer like Hammerstein.

Cannavale shines as Hart’s confidante and Qualley shines luminously in the film as a 20-year-old starlet who wants to break into the business as a costume designer who eventually abandons Hart to go with Rodgers to his opening-night party. Hawke conveys Hart’s devastation through his downcast eyes after she leaves and you feel for him, as his personal and professional worlds appear to be skidding toward destruction. Which does happen; as it’s revealed at the end that Hart died at an early age, 48, in the same year, 1943.

I will admit that this film will not appeal to many filmgoers who hunger for more action, more special effects, and less dialogue in their films. Overall, the look of the film is that of a staged play since there is only one predominant setting – the bar. However, Hawke’s performance anchors the entire film, with everyone around him performing as “extras” in a play. But look at the many songs that Hart wrote: “Blue Moon;” “The Lady Is a Tramp;” “Manhattan;” “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered;” and “My Funny Valentine;” among many, many more, and it’s just quite amazing. The Rodgers and Hart songs are standard repertoire for singers and jazz instrumentalists. That is why seeing this film offers an especially intimate portrayal of this tortured genius. And why I recommend it highly to anyone who won’t fidget without seeing a car crash or see body parts blow apart onscreen every ten minutes or so.

Well, it’s another week, folks, so have a great one.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, October 25, 2025. I know I’ve been absent from this site for the last two days and the reason being was that, on Thursday, Elliot and I were entertaining our young friend “Taylor” over meatballs and minestrone soup. He left close to 10 p.m. and yesterday, I was with my friend “Seth” seeing this crazy, madcap parody of The Parent Trap at the Orpheum Theatre called Ginger Twinsies. My friend was more impressed with it and I was less so, possibly because I have not seen either films, the latter starring Lindsay Lohan and Natasha Richardson. I’ll have to cite some reviews of it to familiarize yourselves – and myself – with the zany objectives of the one-man writer/director phenomenon, a man named Kevin Zak, behind this 80-minute lollapalooza in which I basically couldn’t hear many of the gags that richocheted off the characters’ lips (we were sitting in the last row of this theater). More of that later.

Going through some of my old blogs, I came across one I wrote exactly two years ago in which I denounced the promotion of Louisiana MAGAt Mike Johnson to the Speakership of the House. An opinion piece written then by Julian Zellzer for CNN laid out in stark terms why putting Johnson as Speaker of the House would bode badly for this country, and boy, has his prognostication proved true. Zellzner said that Johnson’s victory would be a win for MAGA and that fact, sadly, has come true in the two years since Johnson has catapulted into Americans’ consciousnesses. His positions are as far right as any could be in that he has been a staunch opponent of LGBTQ+ rights (I truly think he’s a closeted homosexual, but don’t ask me for any proof, though), an opponent of reproductive rights, and has opposed funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia. He also worked closely with the Orange Turd in opposing the certification of the 2020 election results, which certainly places him in a top Dump lapdog position. Thus Johnson’s ascendancy to House leadership has been an unmitigated disaster for this country, and the last twenty-four days of this government shutdown just proves how terribly bad he is for this country. Let’s hope and pray he is thrust aside in 2026 if this Orange Turd doesn’t suspend the midterms for whatever insane reason he chooses.

As for those reviews of Ginger Twinsies, one was written by Lane Williamson for exeunt and it was written on July 29. She comments that almost a decade ago, two creative geniuses, Josh Sharp and cocreator, Aaron Jackson, staged their own parody of The Parent Trap, a musical called Fucking Identical Twins (which I didn’t see) at the Upright Citizens Brigade (a venue no longer in existence) and that it was adapted into an independent film retitled Dicks: The Musical, which I did see but never knew it was an adaptation of that 1961 Disney film starring Hayley Mills in a dual role.

This parody that I saw yesterday “sticks closely to the 1998 remake into a canny bit of elder-Millennial nostalgia.” And forty years later, Nancy Meyers remade the film with Lohan as the title character, and Meyers herself shows up in the play last night, and both of us were saying, “Who is Nancy Meyers?” In the play, the gags come at you a mile a minute, and since we were in the back, the shouting and catcalls of the audience sometimes drowned out the dialogue for me.

In this loony version of the classic film, Russell Daniels and Aneesa Folds play Annie and Hallie, one a white man, and the other a Black woman, far from twins except for their red hair and are “instantly” recognizable as opposites, but which the play capitalizes on to great effect.

The plot, as it were, concerns the twins first discovering themselves at the same summer camp, learning they were separated at birth, and where they then concoct a fantastic plan to reunite their single parents, with one living in London and the other owning a lavish vineyard in California. They switch places, where Hallie goes home to her mother in London, while Annie returns home to their father in California, there portrayed by Jimmy Ray Bennett as Martin, who uses a recurring joke to refer to Hallie as his “squirt.” This is used quite a number of times to the delight of the young audience who roared their approval in guffaws and shouts.

In standout, riotous performances are Grace Reiter in the role of Hallie’s nanny or housekeeper, no one really knows, and Philip Taratula as Meredith Blake, a rival to the twins’ getting their parents together, as she woos the twins’ father in California and is about to get married to the rich businessman. One of the reviews mentions there are many references to Harry Potter in this parody, which I missed since I barely saw these films when they first came out. When the girls eventually get together, they scheme against their potential stepmother who gives a classic bitchy stepmother type of performance. In another review for New York Theatre Guide, Austin Fimmano writes her review on July 14, 2025, in which she writes, “Ginger Twinsies is pretty much 80 straight minutes of raucous laughter. The jokes are never-ending and they’re never dull, especially when Taratula, as Meredith, is on stage. It’s a compliment to the writing and acting, but the laughter also drowns out some of the dialogue, forcing the actors to project even louder than they already were.”

So, this critic, in her last statement, reinforces what I said earlier about not being able to hear some of the dialogue. I rest my case. Anyway, this play is definitely one that would be appreciated more by people in their 30s, I’ve realized. Sadly, the play ends its run at the Orpheum tomorrow.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are venturing to Brooklyn to meet our friend “Deborah” for a film and dinner. I’m not sure if I’ll be present here later in the evening, depending on what time we get back. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, October 22, 2025. I’m posting this blog rather late tonight since Elliot and I were being hosted by our new friends on the second floor, “Randy” and “Burton.” We were invited over for dinner and Randy prepared a lovely dinner consisting of roasted chicken, coconut-flavored rice, and marinated cucumbers. For dessert, we all shared some sweet delicacies from a bakery Randy patronized in Astoria. All during dinner, we were greeted by Randy and Burton’s lovely 14-year-old cat, a Main Coon-type cat called Poofy or some name like that.

We were invited for 7 and we stayed at least 2 and a half hours. Elliot announced a little after 9 that he was getting tired, as we also decided to defer to Randy who was leaving for Portugal tomorrow night to participate in some sort of marathon. He mentioned that he was also spending some time in Paris before flying home to New York, and Elliot promised to give him several tips as to where to go in the City of Lights.

The only article I will comment on tonight then is one that should terrify President Poop and that is the online article in WGTC by Jorge Aguilar entitled “‘They’re dominating media institutions’: The No Kings movement just got a lot bigger, and Trump should be terrified.”

The thrust of the article is that the No Kings movement, the people behind the massive anti-Dump protest on October 18, of which I proudly participated in, is officially rolling out a nationwide response network that’s going to call on supporters to take new actions every single week. Boy, will this fascistic president be shitting in his Depends over this! The leaders of the movement told The Guardian there’s serious energy for “some type of disruption,” and they’re not messing around.

Future actions could include targeted boycotts, campaigns at universities, more street protests, and electoral organizing in local communities. This is huge news, and it signals the era of passive opposition is positively over, as one organizer put it, “The No Kings era is here, and it’s defined by widespread mass defiance of this regime.”

The sheer scale of this turnout is what should have the administration quaking. Tens of thousands of people like myself joined a national call earlier this week just to hear what’s next for the growing resistance. I emailed Indivisible just today to volunteer my skills to the organization and to receive communiques about what the next steps will be. “This broad showing is a big deal because it proves just how much opposition to Trump there is in every single corner of the U.S.”

The idea of a general strike is also on the table, and it’s one that has some serious top-tier support. Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, brought up the idea at his city’s rally, and labor leaders like the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, and the Association of Flight Attendants counterpart, Sara Nelson, have both called for it.

The cofounder of Indivisible, Ezra Klein, said, “No successful antiauthoritarian movement in the history of the world has relied exclusively on one-day protests, even historic, incredible life-giving one-day protests like Saturday. Successful movements grow, they evolve, they diversify their tactics, and they do new things together. There are going to be big mobilizations in our future, but before that, there’s going to be overreach from this regime. We’re seeing it with our own eyes. They’re dominating media institutions, they’re dominating universities. They’re bullying businesses and political opponents, and we need to coordinate a way to respond quickly and powerfully with the full force of this movement. The era of capitulation and obey ion advance, that’s over.”

Some of the targets that this movement could be focusing on could be corporations or institutions that support the despicable MAGA platform. (By the way, I saw a wonderful sign this past Saturday in which the acronym was given a new identity as “MAGA = Morons Are Governing America.”) Other places of commerce like sports arenas could also be targeted to disrupt the flow of capital.

This is the only piece of good news I’ve heard about since the Orange Tyrant took office in January. Let’s show this corrupt regime the true power of the people.

Tomorrow I will probably be AWOL from here again since Elliot and I have invited this time our thirtyish friend “Taylor” over for dinner. He is the fiancé of our adopted niece, “Rebecca,” and we have cultivated his friendship ever since he entered our lives several years ago at our friends’ house in Easton, Pennsylvania, some Christmases past.

Have a good Thursday then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, October 21, 2025. Yesterday Elliot and I celebrated his birthday by first having breakfast at Russ & Daughters, on Orchard Street. We left the borough around 11:15 a.m. and got to our destination pretty quickly. However, when we entered the well-known eatery, we had to wait for a table, which was to be expected. The host mentioned that it would be a half-hour- to 45-minute wait, but I got a text message from him saying our table was ready in just about 20 minutes. I was still drinking my first cup of coffee at Starbucks around the block when I received the text, so I took my freshly brewed cup of coffee with me back to the restaurant.

From ordering an appetizer of pickled herring trio, consisting of cream and onion, mustard and dill, and curry and apple on pumpernickel bread to having what is called “lower sunny side,” which consisted of sunny side-up eggs, Gaspe Nova smoked salmon, and potato latkes (for me) to a new fresh cup of coffee, you can say everything was fine with the world.

When I entered the place, I was asked by our cousin in Scottsdale, Arizona, to text her and I did. The nature of her request became immediately known to me when the bill was delivered and our sweet server mentioned that the tab was picked up by “Joan.” And I foolishly thought she wanted to text Elliot herself when the food was being brought to the table. How very generous of her, I thought.

Our next stop was Codex, the bookstore on Bleecker Street. I was given about a half hour to browse inside, and that’s what I exactly took. I intuitively knew that I shouldn’t make any more acquisition of books, and I didn’t.

Then the fun part of the afternoon came when Elliot and I walked toward Elliot’s old neighborhood in the Lower East Side, primarily on Avenue C, on East 2nd Street, where he grew up. We thus took a memory tour around the neighborhood, with Elliot accurately pointing out all of the former stores and establishments that existed more than 60 years ago. I have always found Elliot’s long-term memory to be so remarkable that it’s uncanny. Me, I can’t recall what I did yesterday.

We finished our tour near Tompkins Square Park, on East 10th Street. The community near the park oh-so-many years ago – basically at the turn of the century – was known as “Little Germany” for its preponderance of German immigrants. In 1904, a tragedy occurred on a pleasure boat called the PS General Slocum, where a fire on the boat took the lives of a thousand local citizens, and in the park, a memorial called the Slocum Disaster Memorial was erected in 1906 to commemorate the disaster. We passed the plaque set up to commemorate the event, and I took a picture of it.

Then it was off to the Cinema Village East, where we went to see One Battle After Another starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. We took in the 3:30 show and it appeared as if we had a special showing of the film all to ourselves: no one came into the theater to see the film.

This long film – about two hours and fifty minutes long – couldn’t come at a more better time in our nation’s dark history, especially with the madman in the White House right now, as it tells the story of stoned and paranoid ex-revolutionary Bob Ferguson who is coaxed out of his weed-induced stupor by an old nemesis, corrupt and relentless Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who kidnaps his 16-year-old daughter Willa (here played by newcomer Chase Infiniti). As Bob is forced back into action, he is aided by Willa’s Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) who cautions Bob to slow down and breathe. Because throughout much of the film, DiCaprio is on edge and totally freaked out as he tries to track down his daughter. There are quite a number of funny scenes along the way, in addition to careening cars crashing, bombs exploding, and several bank robberies. One amusing extended scenario pits DiCaprio losing his patience over not remembering a password in order to be able to locate his missing daughter. He screams into a pay phone until his eyes practically bulge out because he can’t recall his goddamn password during a life-or-death emergency. How many of us can identify with that in a less than urgent situation, where you can’t remember a password and as a result can’t continue with a transaction until you do?

The film achieves real-world topicality as it deals with an out-of-control military machine hell-bent on ridding the world of any resistance to its authority. Does that sound familiar? Bob’s girlfriend, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), is shown at the first quarter hour of the film in which she, along with Bob’s explosives assistance, blows up military installations holding immigrants being held against their will. There are even scenes with immigrants being housed in cells; does this sound familiar? Perfidia, who is Black, is the true revolutionary it seems and when she is either killed or disappears, that’s when Bob loses his mojo to continue the fight – until now.

Interspersed with all of the craziness here is a secret organization, along the lines of a white supremacist group, but with better funding here, that is fielded by out-and-out racists who begin the process of making Lockjaw a member of their awful secret society. It is then that Lockjaw discovers that Ferguson’s child, Willa, might have actually been his due to a covert assignation with her mother that he decides to take the child in order for this secret to not see the light of day.

Anderson pulls no stops in showing Ferguson’s relentless search for his daughter, throwing in several car chases along the way. Even though the film is long, there is no moment where the action drags.

Now that I’ve seen the film, which is based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, I’m determined to read that book after I finish The Power of the Dog for my gay men’s reading club selection this month.

Next stop was John’s of 12th Street, which is a neighborhood institution for over 100 years. Elliot, in fact, has memories of his parents taking him there when he was quite young. So we finished up our memory tour on Elliot’s birthday by my taking him to a restaurant that he recalled going there in his youth.

When we got to the restaurant, we saw a crowd waiting outside, so we thought we had to wait for a table like we did at Russ & Daughters, but we didn’t. We were brought to a round table by a maitre d’ right away.

I ordered pasta fagioli as my appetizer and, for my entree, ordered the chicken parmigiana with spaghetti. Elliot was content with just having spaghetti and meatballs. For dessert, our waiter placed a candle in the tartuffo we ordered and weakly sang, “Happy birthday.” Afterward, Elliot had a long chat with the manager of the restaurant while I waited patiently at the side.

Now Elliot was ready to call it a day, while I decided to spend some time at the Strand and Forbidden Planet, a comic book store next to the Strand. I could only go to the Strand since Forbidden Planet was closed by 8.

When I got home, I observed that I was out close to 11 hours. It was time to rest for the night.

Here is the memorial in Tompkins Square Park where the boat disaster took place in 1904.

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, October 19, 2025. A day after one of the most peaceful protests was held in these here United States to demonstrate against the Godawful Dump administration, MAGA Mike showed his true despicable colors by double downing on the “No Kings” rally, declaring the widely peaceful demonstrations were evidence of “a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.” Is this secret pedophile serious? Is he smoking crack? What a fucking thing to say about these protests that went on without much ado in every state of the union. This absurd, clownish criticism of the rally appears in an online article for Politico entitled “Speaker Johnson doubles down on ‘No Kings’ criticism following demonstrations nationwide,” by Cheyanne M. Daniels.

In an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on “This Week,” the Louisiana Republican said the protests were “political cover” for Democrats as the government shutdown continues. This does not compute and doesn’t even make sense. What did this asshole mean about these protests providing “political cover” for Democrats? Especially when it is truly the fault of Republicans for the third-longest shutdown, not Democrats.

Here is what this fascist Speaker thought was offensive during the nationwide protests in over 2,500 locations throughout the country: “I mean, we have video and photos of pretty violent rhetoric calling out [does this fucker realize that Dump is the principal source of the most vile rhetoric in his horrible political career for the past 9 years now?] the president, saying fascists [not that he would ever admit that the Republican Party is now the Fascist Party] must die and all the rest.” Again, Fucker Johnson, there is no violence here, these are words; but your entire party should know how injurious these words could be since your party engages in name calling and far worse for the longest of time!]

When Fucker Johnson was pressed as to his earlier vile comments decrying Democrats as anarchists, Antifa, and pro-Hamas, he defended his remarks rather than offering an apology to highlight his humanity. But he’s not, folks, human, I mean!

He now attempted to walk away from his all-generalizing comments regarding the composition of the Democratic Party, saying, “I never said it was the whole Democratic Party [but he did, folks; this is a lie], but you and I have to acknowledge the reality,” which means he was singling out New York City’s Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is a Democratic socialist. But here, Johnson and the rest of his party cannot even define what a Marxist or a socialist is, so he labels Mamdani “an open socialist Marxist.” Mamdani has previously stated he is not a “communist,” as Dump and his party have called him. He does identify as a democratic socialist and not as a communist. So this puts a pin in Fucker Johnson’s argument about the candidate identifying as a communist.

He then offered a very spurious explanation as to why the Supreme Leader should not be called a king. He stated, “If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now. If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise on the (National) Mall,” Johnson stated. Don’t give us any favors here, Fucker Johnson, in even giving King Drumpf any ideas as to declaring mass rallies illegal since there’s always time to do this. I cannot bear this man and wish him to disappear.

A day after the largest mass demonstration in U.S. history flooded the nation’s streets and thoroughfares, this deranged president’s response to peaceful opposition to his unlawful policies was to post an AI video of himself as a bomber pilot [is that hilarious!} dropping what appears to be feces on protesters below. Huh? Is this an educated, articulate response to what just happened yesterday? Thus this sickening clip is covered in a People online article entitled “President Trump Fires Back at ‘No Kings Day’ by Posting AI Video of Himself Bombing Protesters with Brown Liquid,” by Escher Walcott.

The video shows the idiot dumping brown sludge, or – to be more frank – shit, if you will, on protesters in response to their participation in the “No Kings” rallies. In the fake clip, the president is seen wearing a crown while sitting in a fighter jet marked “King Trump.” He is then seen flying over large crowds of demonstrators and dumping brown liquid on them in what appears to be Times Square in New York City.

Does anyone think this is a measured, intelligent response by a President of the United States to criticism lodged at him by millions of disgruntled Americans? No, it’s actually sickening! To me, this is the work of a fevered, adolescent brain. Also, this offensive video truly shows how this president is hugely disdainful of millions of Americans. This is the true “Hate America” personification of what Fucker Johnson was talking about right before the rallies took place. A president who truly hates his constituents. And that is why millions of us demonstrated yesterday to drive home that message!

Tomorrow is Elliot’s birthday, so we have a full day planned to honor that occasion. We hope to finally see the new Leonardo DiCaprio film, One Battle After Another. For breakfast, we intend to enjoy a genuinely Jewish-flavored breakfast at Russ & Daughters, on Orchard Street. Then Elliot – depending on the weather – would like to walk around his old neighborhood on the Lower East Side. Thus I will not post anything tomorrow. I’ll see you on Tuesday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, October 18, dubbed “No Kings” Day at 2,500 events throughout the nation in response to the authoritarian bent of this mad president. I proudly participated in this event here in New York at 47th Street and 7th Avenue, where a humongous crowd inched its way down toward 14th Street where it just broke apart. This was a 33-block walk that seemed to take forever. There had to be thousands and thousands of energized marchers besides myself on line; at one point, I even thought I spied Broadway diva Patti LuPone standing right behind me with her own sign declaring Trump has to go. Of course, I didn’t approach her since I’m sure she didn’t want to be recognized and fawned over during this protest. So I just looked the other way and tried not to focus on staring at her as I stood for almost 90 minutes before beginning the march.

This time I convinced a friend to accompany me, “Jerry,” whom I met by the subway stop in Forest Hills at 10. I set my phone alarm for 8:30 and had a little breakfast before rushing out at 9:50. We then waited for the F train and boarded it, heading toward 47th-50th Street.

I had a large shopping bag that contained my large anti-Dump sign, plus other signs for Jerry who failed to bring his own placards. We headed for 47th Street and waded into the huge crowd that gathered to show their disgust with this administration. As we waited to get the go-ahead to start walking, that’s when I believed I saw Ms. LuPone in back of me.

In an online article for AlterNet entitled “Trump opponents have a plan for exposing his ‘power’ as ‘fragile’ – not ‘unstoppable,'” by Alex Henderson, MSNBC’s Antonia Hylton told host Ali Velshi that the protest outside was turning out to be much larger than previously thought, corroborating my personal suspicions about the true size of the crowd. Hylton reported, “Originally, they thought about 200,000 people.” She added, “But right now, best guesses are that they far exceeded that.” To confirm this, remember that on June 14th, I had to wait a full half-hour before being able to start walking toward the designated end point, whereas today, I had to wait almost 90 minutes before being able to start marching. To me, this signifies that the protest crowd had to exceed 200,000 disgruntled marchers.

In an op-ed published by MSNBC’s website that day, Ezra Klein and Leah Greenberg (two cofounders of the progressive group Indivisible), emphasize that the size of the protests is important – as it sends a clear message that Chump’s power is “fragile” rather than “unstoppable.”

Klein and Greenberg argue, “Right now, this regime is invading and occupying cities across the country. Their masked officers are terrorizing American communities and immigrant families. They’re attacking the final provisions of the Voting Rights Act. And the White House is using the powers of the executive branch to go after political opponents of all stripes, from New York Attorney General Letitia James to comedians to peaceful protesters. Each of these moments might seem isolated, but together, they form a single authoritarian project: silence dissent, project strength and convince the rest of us there’s nothing we can do to stop it”

Klein and Greenberg argue that Dump needs us to believe he’s unstoppable, “that his grip is permanent, that resistance is futile.” They add, “And if we believe him, it just might work. Here’s the truth: It’s all a lie.”

Therefore, I will provide some pics of the protest that I took as I marched proudly today. Look at this acronym made of Dump’s name from one protester: “T (traitor), R (rapist), U (ugly), M (mendacious) and P (pedophile).” Seems to fit, don’t you think?

I just got the figures then for this huge protest: “More than 350,000 people across New York City protested on Saturday,” organizers said. This quote is from an article covering the nationwide demonstrations in Independent. Now the figure for the entire country is pegged at “nearly 7 million,” not 10 million.

As we marched, I forgot to say that we chanted, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” and “What does democracy look like?” The answer, “This is what democracy looks like!” Also, in Washington, D.C. alone, more than 200,000 demonstrators turned up. In Chicago, a massive crowd of 100,000 showed up to register their disgust with Dump and his craven enablers. Even actor John Cusack was interviewed on Chicago streets, where he had a direct message to this monarchical president: “No, you can’t put troops on our streets. You can’t create enough chaos to invoke the Insurrection Act so you can stay in power. We all know what your plan is. He also added this wish for the administration, “Go to hell!”

The city of Atlanta had 35,000 protesters in which Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock told the rally crowd that Americans should be “concerned” about Dump’s recent cringeworthy remarks to the military. This is where he talked about handling “the enemy from within,” code word for Americans citizens who disagree with the asshole’s policies and that “we have to handle it before it gets out of control.” Chump had the audacity to tell the commanders in the room that some of them would be involved in using U.S. cities run by Democrats as “training grounds” for troops. Can you believe this fucker saying something as batshit crazy as this to a roomful of generals and top military brass?

Have a good Sunday!

And so it went!

Two great signs showing some creativity here.

Here is the convicted felon without makeup. Truly ugly!

Here is the crowd at the New York protest!

Here is another creative sign.

Standing around.

More protesters marching down 47th Street.

Another creative sign declaring the enemy within is really made up of Dump’s own cabinet: creepy Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and Russell Vought, the horrible architect of Project 2025 and is now the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget.

A very clear declaring “No kings” here!

I really like the “release the Trumpstein Files” sign, where Drumpf’s and Epstein’s faces merge into one.

This pic is probably at the beginning of the march. We’re still milling around here.

This is the sign that I carried for 3 hours.

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, October 17, 2025, the eve of our upcoming “No Kings” rally tomorrow. I’m going to make this entry brief since I’m prepared to join thousands of others on the street tomorrow early in the morning.

Maybe in preparation for attending this nationwide event, I saw Raoul Peck’s new documentary on that revolutionary and prescient writer George Orwell entitled Orwell: 2 +2=5 at the IFC Center today. The close-to-two-hour documentary unspools scene after scene of present- and past-day abuses of power as witnessed in totalitarian governments, the U.S. included here, with the rendering of MAGA world embodied in President Dump’s first term. Peck is the director of I Am Not Your Negro, chronicling the writings of James Baldwin.

In this timely documentary, Orwell is heard in voiceover by actor Damian Lewis detailing scenes from his life, beginning with his birth in 1903 during the Bengal Presidency of India. He was the son of a career civil servant who held the post of Sub-Deputy Opium Agent, and when he was born, he was known as Eric Arthur Blair. He adopted the Orwell pen name in 1932. At one point , he served as a police officer in Burma, an experience that opened his eyes to colonial imperialism and aggression toward a country’s native population. As he wrote later, “In order to hate imperialism, you have got to be part of it.” And he certainly was and always regretted it.

Peck’s biodocumentary is drawn from the author’s diary as well as his published writings and proceeds in chronological fashion across a minefield of Orwell’s political and literary provocations, from Hitler to Stalin to Franco to M16 to rival leftist journalists to his own ill health. The injustices Orwell saw raised hackles that stayed with him for the rest of his life. He is credited with writing, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism.”

The film unearths a large trove of clips of films that illustrate the Orwellian antipathy toward authoritarian societies. His one famous work, adapted several times for the cinema, and a television production (which I never knew existed) was 1984. The most recent adaptation was released in 1984 and starred Richard Burton and John Hurt as Winston Smith. The TV production starred Eddie Albert as Winston and another 1956 adaptation starred Edmond O’Brien as Winston. There are also numerous animated treatment of Orwell’s animal fable called Animal Farm, most noticeably by John Stephenson and Ralph Steadman.

In his comments on Nazism, Orwell pondered how the “goosestep is one of the most horrible sights in the world. It is simply the affirmation of naked power.”

The images of Dump and his clueless supporters drew guffaws and sneers from me in the audience. I was surprised no one said to hush up. Actually, I wanted to throw my nonexistent popcorn at the screen, but I didn’t.

Some of Orwell’s entries were written on the Isle of Jura in Scotland, where he wrote his masterpiece, 1984, and in sanatoriums, where Orwell was treated for the tuberculosis that took his life in 1950.

The origin of the documentary’s title comes from an infamous scene from 1984 where the protagonist, Winston Smith, is shown four fingers, and told it’s actually five by his tormentor. This is the 1956 version starring Edmond O’Brien as Smith.

It’s the applications of the themes inherent in the book to today’s world that burn the brightest. It starts with the way Orwell described the malleable nature of language and how regimes have always twisted their words to hide their crimes. Does this sound familiar? A more recent example was in 2022 when monster Vladimir Putin called the invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.”

Our own country is not spared either from using “Doublespeak,” a central tenet in 1984, in a montage of former President George W. Bush’s orders to invade Iraq, which were later to be debunked by reality. There are examples of doublespeak in such authoritarian countries like China, Sudan, even Israel, and right here in the United States.

One particularly disturbing montage displays the thousands of books that are banned in this nascent totalitarian country; I believe the actual number was over 3,000. One list that scrolls on the screen shows book bans in U.S. states from 2022 to 2023, and the list is so long that it only gets through the authors whose names start with “A.” Contemplate that little kernel of truth here! We’re now a country that bans books.

Censorship, like rewriting history which is the province of today’s Republican Party, is of a piece of the totalitarianism playbook. Then we see the footage from the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol and attempts to rewrite the history of this event ever since it occurred. A chilling quote from this prescient writer on this phenomenon, “From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.”

The scariest observation Orwell made in 1984 is the notion that “no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” It’s almost 80 years since Orwell wrote that and it’s just as true today as when Orwell wrote it, and it will become more true unless the people speak up, march, and vote.

For those marching tomorrow, I wish a safe and enjoyable experience.

Depending on how I feel, I’m not sure I will post my blog tomorrow. I might stay in the city after the demonstration breaks up. It’s not definite.

Anyway, have a great weekend.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, October 16, 2025. In just two days, the nation will witness the largest protest rally during the Orange Turd’s second term, and this one might prove to be the largest ever. You can thank these ugly repugnicans who are addressing the spectacle of millions of people demonstrating on the street with loathsome lies and misinformation regarding as to who is actually demonstrating. To a man, all of those in this neofascistic party are describing the demonstrators as belonging to “Antifa” (which is not even a centralized group with any leader), pro-Hamas, and even Marxists, which many of these lawmakers could not even define for you if their lives depended on it. Also, as a result of drawing attention to these protests across the country, they are actually doing the opposite: emboldening even more people like myself to sign on to one of these protests in their community. Which means that this Saturday could see millions protesting this brutal regime modeling itself on Nazi Germany, as I’ve mentioned before.

Today the retribution campaign of the Orange Turd turned even uglier with yet another superfluous indictment, this time in which Chump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, has been indicted on eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of retention of national defense information. This whole series of charges are laughable, considering that Drumpf himself should have been indicted on similar charges by former special counsel Jack Smith years ago – but wasn’t.

Allegedly, part of Dump’s Justice Department’s investigation centers around notes Bolton was making to himself in an AOL email account – at times writing summaries of his activities like diary entries – when he was working for Drumpf.

Bolton asserts he is a victim of Dump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice. In a statement, Bolton said, “When my e-mail was hacked in 2021, the FBI was made fully aware. In four years of the prior administration, after these reviews, no charges were ever filed. Then came Trump 2 who embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.'”

This weaponization of the Justice Department is just one reason why millions of disgusted Americans are taking to the streets on Saturday. There are a million others as to why people are protesting this Saturday. I can’t list them here. I’m sure you have some idea as to what they are.

An article in my online edition of the Daily News is quite unsettling. It concerns what the current “Extreme” Court could do to the landmark Voting Rights Act, passed during Lyndon B. Johnson’s tenure. Every American should fear the potential decision from this right-leaning court that has given the current president too much damn power. The article is written by Dave Goldiner and there seems to be no title for some reason.

As of now, this disreputable court has heard a challenge to the landmark legislation yesterday that could erase many Black-held congressional seats and help the hideous GOP keep control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms and beyond. The possible result of this challenge is totally frightening if this court sides with the challengers to the Voting Rights Act which was designed supposedly to even the scales in minority voting rights.

If this patently conservative court agrees to gut provisions barring racial discrimination in redistricting, this could then open the door for Republican-held legislatures to redraw congressional maps across the South and potentially eliminate 10 or more seats held by Black or Latino Democrats. This would be a total disaster.

Such a decision would amount to a political and racial earthquake that could conceivably tip the scales of control of Congress in favor of the Orange Turd and repugnicans.

As expected, Democrats warned the court not to eviscerate the law that formed the centerpiece of the civil rights movement. Talking about this, Representative Hakeem Jeffries said, “The unfettered right to vote is as American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie. It’s the cornerstone of our democracy.”

Republicans this week moved to grab another Democratic-held seat in North Carolina and could seek to eliminate two such seats in deep-red Indiana.

The case before the Extreme Court concerns the congressional map in Louisiana, which has two majority Black districts and has four other seats held by white Republicans.

If the court now weakens or strikes down the legislation, states would not be bound by any limits in how they draw electoral districts, potentially setting off a new rush to extreme gerrymandering.

Even though this matter does sound dreadful as to what the court’s potential decision could be, the justices are not expected to rule anytime soon, and it’s unclear how quickly any decision could be implemented, although it could be in time for the 2026 midterms. Let’s hope these radical justices see the error of their ways before they even consider weakening or gutting this legislation. How could they live with themselves if they give this country away to these disgusting repugnicans for far more than they should be in charge? Don’t they see what their little Donnie is doing as president? Are they fucking asleep all through his second administration?

Today I worked on my protest sign that I will proudly carry on Saturday. It’s a little offensive, (it shows Dump – not really him at all – taking a dump on a toilet seat, with the caption, “The only throne for this asshole!” written across it, with a “No Kings” crown above it), but it certainly delivers the message that this country had a revolution against a king close to 250 years ago, and this is a good time as any to register our disgust with our president displaying monarchical tendencies at this present moment.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, October 15, 2025. In just three days, the nation will rise up in massive protests throughout the land to demonstrate against the sliding authoritarianism being practiced by the current regime led by the Orange Idiot. Today I went to a local hardware store on Metropolitan Avenue to buy paint stirrers to use as handles on my protest signs. Today an online article for Who What Why, written by Klaus Marre, covers how the fascist party, formerly known as the Republican Party, views these protests and it is called “Republicans Are Terrified of the ‘No Kings’ Mass Protest.”

Though the article states that the Republican Party may not have been committed authoritarians themselves before Trump 2.0, “these Republicans are now accessories to upending American democracy.”

“And the one thing authoritarians fear more than anything else is that the people rise up against them, because, while they may control all of the levers of power, there is a strength in numbers that they can only match with excessive violence.”

This explains why repugnicans are so worried about the “No Kings” demonstrations that are scheduled for this Saturday and are expected to draw millions of participants in more than 2,000 separate events.

To counteract what may turn out to be a record-breaking protest, they have settled on the talking point that this will be a “hate America” rally. This type of garbage is being peddled by that hidden pedophile in the House, House Speaker MAGA Johnson, who is Dump’s personal toady. This is the actual shit that “Clark Kent”ish Johnson spewed out and it should be condemned by rational people everywhere: “We call it the Hate America Rally that will happen Saturday. Let’s see who shows up for that. I bet you’ll see Hamas supporters, I bet you’ll see the Marxists on full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

Here of course, Johnson has no fucking idea on what this country is founded on: people coming together to peacefully protest a monarch (in this case, Dictator Don), and exercise their First Amendment rights.

The plan that these ugly repugnicans is pursuing is to pretend that the people attending the protests will be a bunch of radicals hellbent on destroying the country. How can they dismiss then millions of disgruntled Americans who take to the streets to protest this harsh administration.

To help counteract this alternate vision of these protests, it’s important that demonstrators this Saturday not commit any violent acts or destroy any property. Because it’s these repugnicans who truly do hope that violence and chaos erupts on Saturday, but I strongly believe that this won’t happen. All of the demonstrations I attended here in New York were extremely peaceful.

The article ends with detailing what a true “Hate America” really looks like: It occurred on January 6, 2021, during Donald Chump’s first administration.

And if you still believe this rotten party isn’t a fascist party, a new scandal is swirling through the repugnican party involving 2,900 pages of chats between leaders of Young Republican groups in which members of the group chat spoke freely about “the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing,” which is actually an accurate observation. As the chat’s contacts were leaked, it was discovered that members referred to Black people as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people,” all the while musing about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

Confronted with this ghastly scandal, the repulsive person known as JD Vance did not just condemn the texts as racist and violent, his first instinct was to downplay the imbroglio and go after a Democrat. He went after Virginia’s Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for state attorney general this year, for sending violent texts in 2022. If this were true, those texts first appeared three years ago, not today, with the publication of these vile texts written by young Republicans in their 30s and currently working for elected officials, ostensibly serving the public. These were not random high school or college students exchanging silly, male bravado in hugely offensive texts. These could be future elected officials – hope not!

Vance’s fucking weak response to this scandal just illustrates how bad he would be as president also if the Orange Guy ever leaves the public stage. Boy, are we fucked!

And so it went!

Here is a huge skeleton appearing as a Halloween display at Austin Street Pizza. Doesn’t it send shivers down your spine?

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, October 13, 2025, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Of course, the purists out there prefer to cling to its old name, Columbus Day. And here, the day was marked by intermittent rain, bringing to three the number of days it has rained here. However, few away in the Middle East, the dumbskulled president heralded a new beginning for the war-torn region in remarks delivered to Israel’s Knesset, its parliament. In an online article for NBC Politics entitled “Celebrating a hard-won ceasefire, Trump pushes for ‘lasting harmony’ in the Middle East,” and it’s written by Peter Nicholas.

As all of the 20 living hostages rejoined their families in Israel, Dump spoke to the nation’s parliament in Jerusalem and marked a momentous breakthrough in a war that began just over two years ago.

The U.S. president stated that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over.” But is it?

Being overjubilant , Dump rejoiced, “This is not only the end of a war. This is the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.” (Little does he know of the Divine One!)

Already, an accusation of bad faith came immediately when family members said Monday that Hamas had released the remains of only four of 28 deceased hostages, breaking what they felt was a commitment to release all of the remains. These families called for an “immediate suspension” of the ceasefire agreement until all of the bodies are returned.

When hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on television yesterday, he clearly indicated “The campaign is not over,” thus breaking Dump’s jubilant bubble of peace right away. He also indicated that “some of our enemies are trying to recover in order to attack us again.” Does this sound as if the matter has been completely resolved in favor of peace? I would dare say no here.

Of course, when the delusional president was confronted with Netanyahu’s comments on Air Force One, Dump repeated to reporters: “The war is over. The war is over. The war is over, OK? You understand that?” As if repeating this mantra three times makes it so!

When addressing the Knesset, Chump chastised Netanyahu, saying, “Now, you can be a little nicer, Bibi, because you’re not at war anymore, Bibi,” using Netanyahu’s nickname.

After finishing his speech (which I refused to watch), Dump flew to Egypt to take part in a peace conference with the leaders of 20 nations, posing for pictures in front of a sign proclaiming, “Peace in the Middle East.”

Notably absent from the signing ceremony were the two factions who had been at war: Hamas and Israel. Netanyahu was indeed invited to the ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, but he declined to attend because of observing the holiday of Simchat Torah. And there was no representative from Hamas there either. Thus the day lacked what often turns out to be an iconic picture at such Middle East peace observances: the U.S. president and the combatants linking arms.

As for maintaining that peace long term, the Dump administration has less of a specific plan for achieving that. In the 20-point plan that was released last month, the administration’s 19th point lays out certain conditions that include reconstruction of Gaza and political reform that must be met first and then, once that happens, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” The authors set no hard deadlines or timetables for deciding the Palestinians’ fate.

I now learned that Dump inevitably went on for far too long: a full hour. During this longwinded speech, Dump went so far as to beseech the Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon his other Trumpian Little Me, Benjamin Netanyahu, which is definitely an abnormal thing to say during such an address proclaiming the end of hostilities between two hostile foes.

Foreign policy analysts now say that this “leader” needs to stay involved in the situation even if the fighting has temporarily stopped and the hostages have been returned to make progress on his vision of a transformed Middle East.

If he doesn’t, then things can easily fall apart. Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations, says, “You have to wonder whether he stays with this. That will depend primarily on whether there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the elusive Nobel, which he believes he deserves.” So, as former President Ronald Reagan famously said during that presidential debate with Jimmy Carter, “There you go again!” Could this jockeying for peace be just another ploy in order to snag the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026, given if he’s still around by then?

I will probably be absent here tomorrow since Elliot and I are meeting our two adopted “nieces,” “Esther” and “Rebecca,” for dinner in Astoria at 7. We haven’t seen them in a while and we might just stay late catching up with current developments in all of our lives.

So have a good Tuesday. Let’s hope it won’t be marred by more rain, even though it seems it has been forecasted again.

And so it went!