Tag Archives: books

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, December 19, 2025. As I indicated yesterday, I was out last night first having a late lunch/early dinner with Elliot at Peter Luger’s, in Williamsburg, and then rushing to the Lyceum Theatre where I saw Oh, Mary! for the very first time. All of the reviews deem it a rip-snorting, 80-minute compendium of sight gags, puns, and irreverence, and boy, does it deliver.

Originally conceived by nonbinary writer Cole Escola and starring him in its initial run in 2024, the play farcically examines the life of our 16th president’s First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, and her not-so-well adjustment to life in the White House with her husband, Abraham. At this performance, Mary is assayed by well-known comedy actress Jane Krakowski and her husband is portrayed by John-Andrew Morrison, a man of color.

The other person of note in the cast is Cheyenne Jackson who plays Mary’s acting coach, John Wilkes Booth. Get the snide revision of history here. Abraham Lincoln is covertly gay in Escola’s imagination and he is actively having an affair with the actor who will subsequently assassinate him at Ford’s Theatre, on April 14, 1865. But in Escola’s wild imagination, it’s not Booth who shoots him, but someone else, whom I won’t say here.

The night belongs to Krakowski who cavorts, screams, and plots against her husband and staid Washington society. She lets everyone know that she is bored with life in Washington and wants to pursue a career in cabaret, which her husband is intent on preventing her from doing so.

The 80 minutes or so fly by very quickly, as character after character struts on the stage and engages in the campiest exhibition of farce there is. Mary is shown to be an raging alcoholic always trying to hide some of her hootch. In one extended loop, she addresses a portrait of George Washington as “Mother.” Encouraged to try oil painting, she guzzles a bucket of paint thinner, throws it up, and drinks it down again.

Anyone who thinks he or she will be getting a true history lesson from watching this comical take on events leading up to the assassination of our 16th president would be better advised to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s account of Lincoln in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln or any other historian’s account of our Civil War president.

But if you don’t mind mindless irreverence for 80 minutes or so, hightail it to the Lyceum Theatre for Oh, Mary! You won’t be disappointed.

In the meantime, back to reality in the form of our madman president who delivered one of the worst speeches of his horrible political career on Wednesday. In an online HuffPost article on the speech, MS Now host Lawrence O’Donnell delivered a blistering assessment of the Orange Turd’s address in “Lawrence O’Donnell Says Trump Was ‘Angry’ At 1 Irrefutable Thing in Address To Nation,” by Marco Margaritoff.

O’Donnell dubbed this president the “worst public speaker” in America and fact-checked his White House address on the economy from earlier in the evening. He said, “America’s worst public speaker struggled mightily reading a teleprompter full of lies tonight.” Then he went on to debunk every comment made by the lying dotard in the White House. One of those claims was that “inflation was the worst in the history of our country.” O’Donnell called it a lie, saying that “inflation was at 3% when Donald Trump took office. Inflation is at 3% right now.”

O’Donnell further debunked claims that he was “elected in a landslide.” Actually, he won the popular vote – if he even did so – by 1.5 percentage points. He claimed his tariffs aren’t being footed by the American taxpayer (of course, they are). He also debunked the claim that Democrats are demanding costlier health insurance. This is also not true.

The “Last Word” host went on to note that Grump delivered his speech “in a monotone anger” and argued that he shouted the Oval Office address because he still hasn’t “learned how microphones work” – before concluding, “He seemed to be angry at the truth.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) offered his assessment of this terrible speech as well, saying, “It was an unhinged speech that was of course untethered from reality and truth.” He continued, “Donald Trump has made things worse for the American people. He refuses to acknowledge that the tariffs that he is solely responsible for have actually increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year.”

Jeffries castigated the clueless president for breaking his promise on Day 1 to make prices more affordable. He said, “And life isn’t getting more affordable in the United States of America. It’s getting more expensive. And that is the problem that Donald Trump refuses to confront.”

Oh, and this windbag spent most of the cringeworthy address blaming his predecessor for things he deserves all the credit for. What a total moron! Let’s hope Americans are not fooled by this charlatan any more and will do the right thing in November 2026.

Have a nice weekend.

And so it went!

Here is the playbill from this wildly funny show.

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, December 16, 2025. Just two days after the demented president posted a vile, insensitive, disgusting post on the death of Rob Reiner, today I’m learning that the behind-the-scenes Drumpf chief of staff Susie Wiles scorched Grump and his present regime in a sweeping Vanity Fair profile published Thursday. This blistering account of the chaos within the Grump administration is covered in a Daily Kos piece published today entitled “Trump’s top aide exposes White House chaos – and regrets it.”

As if we didn’t know already, Wiles described Mascara Vance as a “conspiracy theorist for a decade.” The remark lands amid lingering speculation over Vance’s political transformation – from once likening the toddler in chief to Adolf Hitler – which is accurate, in my opinion – to becoming one of his staunchest defenders. Wiles suggests the shift was less ideological than opportunistic, calling it “sort of political.” Anyone could have guessed that after he was one of Grump’s most strongest critics who then executed a 180-degree turnaround when he ran for the Senate in Ohio and was backed by the odious billionaire Peter Thiel. I’m ashamed to say that Thiel is patently gay.

Responding to Wiles’ assessment of Vance being a conspiracy nut, Vance himself offered a wry caveat. He said, “Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in conspiracy theories that are true.” Yuck, yuck, yuck! So droll coming from such an insipid personality!

In her interview, Wiles is unsparing in her criticism toward Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, calling him “a right-wing absolute zealot.” Which is no surprise here!

The magazine notes that Vought was the “architect of the notorious Project 2025” which is being carried out by this lying son of a bitch who originally claimed he had no knowledge of it when he was campaigning. This is the Heritage Foundation-backed blueprint to radically reshape the federal government.

Wiles also weighed in on the despised Elon Musk and his short-lived effort to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, an initiative that ended with Musk conceding he could cut only $150 billion by the end of 2026. And when asked about Musk’s continually erratic behavior, Wiles did not mince words.

The chief of staff said that Musk was actually microdosing when he was being erratic. In a since-deleted post, Musk originally argued that fascistic leaders like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler “didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.”

As for Musk’s suspected drug use, Wiles confirms all of the speculation. She claims that the Tesla mogul is an “avowed ketamine [user],” echoing The New York Times‘ claim that Musk heavily used drugs while working in the White House. Not only does this current White House protect pedophiles, it also protects drug users, according to this interview with Wiles. Wiles said Musk sometimes mixes ketamine with other drugs. The liberal newspaper also notes that Musk is an avid user of ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, and Adderall. Oye, was little Muskie high all that time while he was slashing the federal government’s supposed excess?

Her own Orange Toad of a boss wasn’t even spared in the magazine, with Wiles describing Grump as having an “alcoholic’s personality,” drawing a comparison to her father, legendary NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall, who struggled with alcoholism before getting sober.

Here I dispute Wiles’ assessment of Grump’s horrible personality, describing it as an alcoholic’s. She claims that alcoholics have “exaggerated personalities when they drink.” This is true, I won’t deny that, not that I know many alcoholics. I just feel that Grump has a cruel, vindictive, and soulless personality arising from lack of love given him when he was young. That is the assessment made years ago by his estranged niece, Mary Trump, in her psychological profile of him published years ago called Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

We all know that one of the things this idiot doesn’t do is drink. He cites his older brother Fred’s addiction to drink and his early death as the reason why he doesn’t drink. However, he does drink Diet Coke continuously. Because of this nasty habit, the president can point to a button on the Resolute Desk that summons the beverage at the press of a button.

While the media-shy Wiles made the comments to Vanity Fair’s Chris Whipple, she has been one of Grump’s most loyal and influential advisers, previously managing his 2024 campaign.

Talking about her boss’s unfounded allegations of mortgage fraud against Attorney General Letitia James, Wiles concedes that Drumpf did carry out a retribution campaign against her. Here she makes a laughingly absurd remark about Trump’s thirst for vengeance, “I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution. But when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.” Like always, I’d say.

Now that the interview with Wiles is on the record, the camera-shy Wiles attempted to push back against the narrative of a chaotic and frenzied White House, saying that the Vanity Fair profile was a “disingenuously framed hit piece,” arguing that key context had been omitted to paint the White House as chaotic and negative. I don’t think that if Susie Wiles sat down with this Whipple fellow to give a candid interview about what goes on in the Dump White House and then literally blows the roof off the building in the process that she can now walk back what she already said in the profile.

But don’t think Ms. Wiles has changed her MAGA roots from doing this interview. She has drunk the Dump Kool-Aid like so many gullible Americans when she insists that the administration had “already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years.” My jaw just drops from reading this hogwash. She signals out Drumpf’s “unmatched leadership and vision” and says that nothing in the story would slow the push to “Making America Great Again.” Give me a break, lady! You certainly didn’t paint a rosy picture of your boss’s regime for Americans for Vanity Fair and people reading it will just shrug their heads in agreement.

Today I did have lunch with my former colleague “Sally” and her husband “Stuart.” We met at a very chi-chi place on East 70th Street and held forth for almost 2 hours. After that, I walked to the West Side to browse in my favorite bookstore on 80th Street and Broadway. I succumbed to buying a book for only $1 this time: Susan Isaac’s Compromising Positions, a book from 1978. I think I saw the movie that the book was adapted into from 1985 that starred Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. It was a comedy/mystery.

Talking about mystery, I saw the latest Knives Out entry on Netflix last night on the recommendation of my friend “Harold.” At the outset, I have to say I was ecstatic over the whole production: the scenery, the setting, the characters, and the marvelous acting from a rich ensemble, headed by Daniel Craig as the detective Benoit Blanc. This is the third entry in the series created by writer/ director Rian Johnson, and I aver it’s the best in my opinion.

This film is called Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and mystery it is, as Blanc is called in to a small parish to investigate the mysterious murder of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (a bellowing Josh Brolin who is unrecognizable at first in a flowing white beard and hair). This fire-and-brimstone pastor is found stabbed in the back during a Good Friday service, moments after having ducked into a small stone alcove, just off the main altar, in full view of the congregation. Soon the visiting priest, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) is suspected of Brolin’s murder since he has had words with the monsignor and is opposed to the church leader’s methods of attracting parishioners. The young priest who maintains his innocence throughout, here brilliantly played by O’Connor, is brought into Blanc’s confidence to investigate the remaining flock who become the true suspects.

Here the cast is fleshed out by Glenn Close as perennial church assistant and overall factotum Martha Delacroix, the failed far-right politician Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), the once-popular novelist Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), the hard-driving lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), and the town doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner) who is nursing his depression after his wife leaves him for someone else, and the wheelchair-bound former star cellist (Cailee Spaeny), who hopes that the thousands of dollars she’s donated to Wicks will generate a miracle cure for her chronic pain. Before long, we learn that all of them had good reason to kill the monsignor. During all of this chaos, there is even echoes of a Third Day Resurrection. Mila Kunis plays the local police chief who brings Craig into the case, as she finds herself out of her league with this mystifying murder.

I won’t give much else away, only to highly recommend the film for great writing, in which themes of faith, spirituality, and immortality are tackled. Craig and O’Connor make a very intriguing pair as they conduct their investigation into Brolin’s murder. They also spar over religion, as Blanc notes his skepticism over Catholicism, while young Father Jud tries to nudge him toward something more spiritual throughout their association.

Go see it if you have Netflix.

Good news: I’ll be here tomorrow since I discovered that only four people were going to attend the TCM meeting at the Tick Tock Diner. So I texted our organizer and said I was now not coming.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025, one day before Thanksgiving 2025. Sadly, we learn today – just a day before this national holiday – that two National Guard members were shot in an ambush-style attack in Washington, D.C., this afternoon. This breaking story is covered online by CBS News in an article by Cara Tabachnick entitled “2 National Guard members shot in D.C., suspect in custody, officials say.”

The two Guard members are in critical condition, but it was erroneously reported that the troops had died by West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey. He has since cited “conflicting reports” as an explanation for the error.

The Metropolitan Police Department said the crime scene was secured and a suspect is in custody. Police said the suspect was wounded and was taken to a hospital.

Now that suspect has been identified as a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021, multiple law enforcement sources confirmed to CBS News. Law enforcement believes he has acted alone.

The shooting took place near the Farragut Metro stop, a few blocks from the White House, at 17th and I Street NW.

Eyewitness accounts suggest the gunman waited in concealment before striking as they stood outside a Washington, D.C., metro station. Multiple Guard personnel inside the metro station ran out to assist after hearing shots.

The attack, meanwhile, is prompting some concern among officials about the widespread deployment of National Guard personnel for domestic security. The shooting has been described to CBS News by several law enforcement officials as “devastating” and “cautionary.”

Of course, the idiot in chief did not offer words of consolation to the families who have been affected by this tragedy, but only stoked more fuel for the fire, saying the shooting was “an act of terror” and “an act of evil, an act of hatred.” He also decided to deploy 500 more National Guard troops to the area rather than pulling back as a result of this shooting. Let’s not forget who is responsible for deploying these troops to American cities in the first damn place? None other than Donald J. Grump and, it’s my belief, he shares some responsibility in this heinous act.

In addition, this cruel and irrational regime is now asking a federal appeals court for an emergency stay of an order from a federal judge to remove the National Guard from Washington, D.C. Last week, the judge ruled the deployment was unlawful.

Possibly, the only silver lining amid all of the terrible news coming out of Washington is a special election being held next Tuesday in all places, Tennessee, which is formerly a Grump bastion, but is now exhibiting remarkable progress made by a progressive Democrat who is running against Republican Matt Van Epps in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Green. The Democrat’s name is state Rep. Aftyn Behn and she is running almost neck to neck with her opponent. Van Epps is leading Behn by just two points, 48 percent to 46 percent.

The substantial closing of the gap suggests an even nastier political climate for Republicans than previously anticipated heading into next year’s midterms.

However, the expectation among strategists is that Behn will not win anyway, but her strong performance so far in a deep red state means that next year’s elections will be an uphill battle for repugnicans overall. This is music to my ears!

Dump’s approval in the district is completely underwater, a new poll shows. After winning the state by double-digits, only 47 percent approve of his job performance while 49 disapprove. The change has been driven by Independents, with 59 percent disapproving.

I urge everyone to keep their eyes peeled in next Tuesday’s race in Tennessee to see if there could be a surprising upset there.

Anyway, it’s time to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you can enjoy the holiday with your loved ones without arguing about trivial and not-so-trivial matters. It’s time to bury our differences and be more understandable of others’ differences across the holiday table.

Tomorrow Elliot and I will be guests at our friend “Patricia”s West Side Tennis Club, in Forest Hills, for Thanksgiving. There will be a buffet around 1:30 and we’re going to meet her in the Club’s front room. We were her guests last year and everything was fabulous. It’s great not to have dishes to wash and no mess in the kitchen after hosting either one or two guests. So the same will be true this year, as well.

I’ll be with you on Friday evening.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, November 22, 2025, 62 years after the assassination of our 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Kennedy was the third president to be assassinated in office since Abraham Lincoln and the first since President McKinley in 1901.

Today I did attend the Big Apple Comic Con Show at the New Yorker on 34th Street and 8th Avenue. I left the apartment around 11:15 and took the E directly to 34th Street, where I had breakfast at the Tick Tock Diner.

I entered the lobby of the New Yorker around 11:45 a.m. and was now on my way to the show and to my avowed intention to sell about 37 comics. I basically had no notion as to what to ask for the comics; I didn’t think any of the dealers would be interested in any of them. After going to one dealer and showing all of the books to him, he showed only interest in one, a Silver Age Batman. He asked me what I desired for the book; I said $20 off the top of my head, and he consented to pay me that amount.

I then went around to more dealers in the room. Most of them declined to buy any of the books – until I got to the other end of the room. I then found myself at another dealer who allowed me to show him the books. I was shocked when he offered to take the older books off from me for $60. When I showed him the more recent books, he offered me $15. I had emptied all of my books at this point. I couldn’t believe it! I had made $95 in less than an hour. This far exceeded what I made last year, when I only could sell a few books for only $5.

I felt buoyed by this success, so I went around other dealers and bought just five new comics. I tried not to spend too much money on any book since some books went for big bucks. Some of the prices being charged were insane!

After a while, I then left the site to have a bite at McDonald’s across the street. I had my blue band around my wrist, so I was able to return to the hotel anytime after lunch.

I waited for 3 to attend a lecture on Wonder Woman. There were two women speakers, Amy Chu and Alitha Martinez. After speaking for a while, it was evident that these two women were not really speaking about the drawing or genesis of Wonder Women. They concentrated on their careers in a male-dominated industry. They spoke about how they have carved their own special niche in an industry not known for being that progressive. One characterized her job as that of a writer, while Martinez stated that she was more of an artist/illustrator. I stayed for the whole lecture, even though it didn’t fit the description of the topic, in my opinion.

After this lecture, I stayed in the room for the next one, scheduled for 4. This one was moderated by one person, author Danny Fingeroth, who has written a biography of Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of JFK. This was more intriguing to me since I have some memory of that terrible day on November 22, 1963. I even asked the speaker, Fingeroth, a question concerning whether Ruby worked for someone who wanted to silence Oswald before he could spill the beans about whether he had accomplices in the killing of JFK. Americans sure love a conspiracy and this cataclysmic event 62 years ago illustrates that beautifully. Fingeroth then spoke about the type of man Ruby was. Of course, I didn’t know much about him. So his elucidation of Ruby’s character was quite interesting.

This time I spent more time at this event than any other occasion. I left the show at 5 and then walked to 47th Street to decide to see a play. I now became more exhausted from being at the show for so long. So, I resolved to just have dinner than see a show; it was also late. Most shows now begin at 7, not 8, on a Saturday night. I didn’t get to 45th Street until 5:15 or so. I thought I wouldn’t have time to both have dinner and see a play, so I abandoned the idea of seeing one.

I then walked to 45th Street and 9th Avenue to have dinner at the Westway Diner. I read my book A Life of My Own, by Claire Tomalin, while eating my chicken salad melt and cup of chicken noodle soup. I actually finished the book before leaving the diner. It is so satisfying to be able to finish a book, I feel. And this memoir was so fascinating. I’m sure none of you have even heard of this writer; I know I hadn’t heard of her until I saw her book at the Vanderbilt Bookstore in Nashville. In more than 300 pages, she discourses on her colorful life growing up in England and of her genesis as a biographical writer in her 40s. In the 70s and 80s, she wrote biographies of such diverse characters as Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Jane Austin, Samuel Pepys, and Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, at the tender age of 18. She is married to writer Michael Frayn and has had so many tragedies in her life that would cripple someone less resilient than her. She has endured those calamities as stoically as anyone could in her circumstances; some of those events include the death of a child, the death of her first husband in a military accident, and the disability of one of her children, who has been suffering from spina bifida all his life. That’s enough heartache for an entire life, wouldn’t you say?

Now I still have to finish my gay men’s reading club selection for December: Disorderly Men. That might take some time since the book is a long-form paperback. I have read over 200 pages already, though.

It’s getting late, and I do want to read the comic books that I bought.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

To me, this is the best costume, lightsaber down!

Here is speaker Danny Fingeroth on the events of November 22, 1963.

Fingeroth presented this page from a Superman comic that came out before JFK was assassinated.

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, November 19, 2025. It’s already late here because I’ve just returned from my very first meeting of Forest Hills Indivisible at a nearby church and also having a quick bite outside since I was unable to have dinner at home before the 7 p.m. meeting. This happened because I found myself waiting at my local ophthalmologist’s office for more than an half hour in order to be seen by a physician’s assistant before actually being seen by the eye specialist. My appointment was at 4:30, but I didn’t see (no pun intended) anyone until 5:15 or so. I actually got up at least twice to ask when I was being treated. Both times I was informed that the doctor would be seeing me in a few minutes and it still took awhile before I was called into an office.

But that’s not the reason I’m writing this. I wanted to provide some details about the anti-Dump meeting I attended right here at a church within five minutes of my house. I was very heartened to discover that the meeting was attended by about 40 people; all of the pews were occupied by people of all stripes – young, old, female, and male. When I entered the sanctuary before 7, I meekly asked if this was where the Forest Hills branch of Indivisible would be meeting. I was greeted by a well-dressed, bearded older gentleman who said, “Yes.” I entered the church and found a seat.

Soon more individuals walked in and took seats. I recognized a young man from my own building who lives in the adjacent section of the cooperative. However, he didn’t acknowledge me. I just knew him visually since I’ve seen him enter the Alden part of the building in times past.

A very large part of the meeting was devoted to listening from a representative of some immigrant rights group who talked very movingly about how this regime is illegally taking people off the streets. She stated that she herself is an immigrant – after emigrating to the country at age 6 from Mexico. She provided the group with details about recent ICE raids of various neighborhoods throughout the city and also handed out a small flyer covering what our rights are and what steps activists could take when ICE agents are observed lurking around. Basically, what we could do is just blow a whistle and take videos of their unlawful actions. This young woman also passed around pictures of men caught in an ICE raid on Canal Street. She also took questions from audience members before yielding the stage to one of the organizers who is friendly with our friend “Patricia.” Her name is “Joan.”

Joan then began speaking about strategies the group could adopt in lieu of having massive demonstration after demonstration. One such plan she talked about was having small groups of people ring doorbells of home owners in the neighborhood to give them a lawn sign that is clearly anti-ICE in essence. What Joan is encouraging us to do is engage in conversation with these individuals and see if they wouldn’t come over to our side. She also mentioned the possibility of holding signs aloft on pedestrian overpasses to get our message across to motorists. Joan did say that signs would be provided; we wouldn’t have to design our own.

The last speaker was the man who greeted me at the beginning of the meeting. His name was “Ian.” He mentioned that he would like for us to provide the group with our own ideas as to what next steps to take. Instead of coming up with their own ideas, people just asked Ian more questions.

In conclusion, Joan stated that the group will send out emails to those in attendance. The meeting was adjourned a little after 8:30 and some of us stayed talking about the asshole in charge of the government. One woman named “Dora” said she is involved with another group called Beacon that meets in front of MacDonald Park every Thursday for an hour at 4. I’m not sure what this group does, but I wouldn’t want to get involved with too many groups and spread myself too thin. I’d rather just stay with Forest Hills Indivisible and see if it meets my activist needs.

One funny moment came when the guy from my adjacent building made a case of using social media more frequently. At that point, the room was scanned for the white heads of both males and females sitting there until one older woman chimed in, saying that she could handle the social media aspect of getting our message out to a broader cross section of the population.

After the meeting, I walked to Queens Boulevard with someone from the group. She said her name was “Betty,” and she was from Ridgewood, Queens. She said she was a member of the Ridgewood chapter, but still wanted to attend the meeting here tonight. I informed her that I had to eat dinner out since I had no time to dine home before the meeting. We said our goodbyes near the subway station and I made my way to Shake Shack for a hamburger and fries.

As I type this, Lawrence O’Donnell is conversing with Boston’s Mayor Michelle Wu about the outrage caused by a fucking ICE raid at a Boston car wash. ICE is this president’s equivalent to Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, or SS. The more we grasp this reality, the more we can push back against this.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are meeting with “Rebecca” and “Taylor” at 7. Again, I might not be posting here tomorrow night, depending on how late we stay out with these two young individuals.

Have a good Thursday.

And so it went!

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 Wednesday, October 8, 2025. Yesterday I was attending my gay men’s reading club meeting along with my friend “Harvey.” I did go to Julius’s afterward for some libation and conversation. Even though I’m more of a coffeetotaler, I relented and had a glass of beer.

I took the F train to West 4th Street around 3 and got down before 4. So I walked to the Jefferson Market Library where our meeting is always held and went to the second floor to comb the books on the shelf to purchase. Of course, I definitely didn’t need any more books; I am close to finally finishing Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys an entertaining read and this book is surely that!

Don’t worry, folks, I didn’t buy any more books yesterday. I then started walking back to the IFC Center where I got a text from Harvey saying he would be on time. He had called me earlier to say that the train he would have taken was cancelled and that another train was scheduled for a later time; he expected to be late then, but he wasn’t.

When we met, Harvey indicated he was hungry, so we discussed where we might dine. I heard about a Chinese restaurant called Steam located near the library, but we never got there. Harvey spied an Italian restaurant called Osteria 57 and examined its menu outside and suggested we eat there. I did say that we just dined on take-home Chinese food the other day and said I would be amiable to eating Italian food.

The place was quite empty since it wasn’t even 4:15 yet. But we chose a nice table near the window in the front to sit. We were given two menus: one for lunch which actually ended at 5 and one for dinner. We preferred to choose from the dinner menu, so we selected some nice dishes from that listing. I eschewed an appetizer this time to select spaghetti cacio e pepe, which is basically spaghetti with Pecorino Romano cheese and pepper. Harvey chose some fish entree, fritto misto that included Montauk shrimp, local calamari, and zucchini tempura.

Harvey’s hunger was not slaked until he had dessert which turned out to be gelato. I decided against having my own dessert and helped myself to two spoonfuls of Harvey’s gelato.

Then it was time to stroll toward the Jefferson Market Library, but not until we spent a little time in a bookstore opposite the legendary gay bar called Three Lives & Company. I made the conscious decision before we entered that I would not purchase a book from this lovely little bookstore. But Harvey did! He bought a new hardcover book called 38 Londres Street (which I never heard about) by Philippe Sands that chronicles Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his involvement with a fugitive SS officer. Harvey thought the book would be a nice present for his Chilean wife, “Sofia.”

Now it was time to walk toward the library after Harvey paid for his book. When we got to the room in which we hold our meetings, we already saw an almost full room of sitting avid book readers. When it was time to begin the meeting – at 6:30 – the room must have close to 60 guys.

We started the meeting by discussing one cultural thing we did this month. When it came to my turn, I spoke about seeing The History of Sound. That was last Saturday.

Then it was time we dived into discussing Guapa by Saleem Haddad. All of us dissected the book with erudite analysis; however, Harvey and I had trouble hearing many of the men’s comments. We whispered this to each other during the 90 minutes the meeting ranged over.

Later, I took this up with our organizer, “Jerry,” at Julius’s. He listened to me as I made the suggestion that he announce that members speak up during the next meeting. I do hope he will do this – if not, I’ll remind him of this in November.

I then went home by myself since Harvey did not stay for a drink or to schmooze with the other members.

When I got home, I eagerly went to try out our restored television set which was delivered to us after 5. I took the two remotes and clicked the “On” button. And the set came on and I was able to watch regular TV.

However, when I pressed the button for my apps, the streaming services, I was unable to connect to the services – like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. The screen where the apps appeared looked very different from what I used to have. And when I clicked on an app, I got nothing. Thus I decided we’d have to call “Ernest” today and ask him to return to get these apps working again.

So I spent another night in the bedroom watching the Ed Gein series on Netflix. This time I don’t think our upstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling as she has since I went in there after the Sony died. Boy, what a victory!

In the meantime, in our fascist American moment, the news just gets worse and worse, with today’s arraignment of former FBI director James Comey for charges of lying to Congress – which is definitely a spurious charge since we all know that Comey was on the Orange Turd’s enemies list and he publicly sicced his lapdog of an attorney general, blonde bimbo Pam Bondi, on him. A trial date was set for January 5, 2026, which is an ironic one, since the next day, January 6, would mark the fifth anniversary of that second infamous date in U.S. history. Comey’s lawyers have rightfully claimed the charges are just the result of a sitting president’s vow of vengeance against the former FBI director. The arrest of a public official like Comey should outrage every American who is shocked by this fascistic regime and to what measures it would take to overthrow the rule of law. I should hope this case will be dismissed outright before any evidence is ever presented in such a kangaroo court in this country.

The news gets even worse as the Supreme Leader calls for the jailing of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Democratic Governor JB Pritzker because of their opposition to the Orange Turd calling in his private army, ICE, into Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. This is what the Orange Turd actually wrote: “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice [he couldn’t even capitalize ICE here – the idiot!] Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” He wrote these incendiary remarks on his stupid “Truth” Social.

After these developments, all I can say is, “Are we living in America right now or in a banana republic?” I can’t wait until the protest scheduled for October 18 to express my disgust of what is happening under Dump and his evil regime.

Maybe tomorrow Ernest will fix the television set once and for all. He’s set to come after 5. In the meantime, I’ll sit one more time in the bedroom to watch another episode of Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

And so it went!

Here’s a great sign from one of the protests I participated in that says it all!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, September 25, 2025. I was going to write about the ongoing train wreak known as Donald J. Dump who, just two days ago, delivered the stupidest, most insulting speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly which is still being assessed for its insane, incoherent substance, but something personal in my life has been acutely felt, and that is the death of a friend on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah this past Monday. Today was the funeral service on West 91st Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

I received the terrible news from his husband, “Jeff,” just around 4:40 p.m. while Elliot and I were having a holiday dinner at our friend’s house on Monday. Something told me to answer the call and not let it go to voicemail since “Larry” had been suffering from an aggressive case of leukemia for over two years, I believe, and he was definitely not doing well this past week or so. My suspicions were confirmed when Jeff announced that Larry had just died and that he was going to text me the information concerning the service, which couldn’t be the next day because of the holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thus I went out today at 8 a.m. to get to the West Side to attend the last rites for Larry. The chapel was overflowing with mourners, many of them friends and relatives, and even coworkers of Larry over the years. Larry served with distinction, first, as a teacher in Brooklyn, then ascended the pedagogical ladder at one elementary school by becoming an assistant principal and then ending up as principal of the school. He began his teaching career at almost the same time as Elliot did – in 1967. Elliot began his career of teaching over three decades in 1968.

After retiring in the early 2000s, Larry found his true passion: first volunteering for the CSA – the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, and then becoming a unit chapter head. Those who spoke at the service recounted how dedicated he was to those he came into contact with at the council and how heconsidered everyone an equal. Speaker after speaker recounted how informative he was about union regulatory rules and would share that information unhesitatingly with others.

Larry received accolades from everyone who spoke. He was primarily described as a generous, kind, gentle, soul who had a complimentary word about everyone. This I can attest to in my association with him over the years. I met him through his soon-to-be husband Jeff who Elliot and I first got to know at the gay/bi dads group at the LGBTQ+ center on 13th Street.

Jeff offered the first eulogy which was spoken in a half-whisper about his loving husband and how he was forever altered for the better through knowing Larry. At one point, he mentioned that Larry told him – on his deathbed, literally – to give up petty grudges, which, I hadn’t known at the time, was actually addressed to Elliot and me. You see, our friendship with both Larry and Jeff was frayed after 2021 resulting from a misunderstanding between Elliot and Jeff. Because of the seemingly petty nature of the grievance, I won’t even mention it here. Thus for close to four years, Elliot was persona non grata in Jeff’s mind. I recently decided to renew the connection between Larry and Jeff when I heard from a mutual friend, “Gene,” that Larry was seriously ill.

Therefore, when I would see the pair generally in Midtown near where they lived, Elliot would stay behind. I never felt good about this, but I went along with this arrangement to not ruffle any feathers, even though I instinctively believed it was wrong.

Today the situation was put into stark perspective with Larry’s untimely death – he was 79 and would celebrate his birthday on the same date as I, which is November 8, but he was 10 years older than I – when I stood in a line of bereavers to hug Jeff in the hallway and he started to say through tears, “Did you hear what I said up there – about giving up grudges?” I said I did, and said something so cliched, like “Life is short!” But it’s the damn truth! I hugged him as he tearfully said he would get in touch with both of us when things settle down. That’s all I needed to hear.

How many of us know about situations when family members don’t talk to one another over some conflict or misunderstanding that occurred over decades ago? How many of us know people who never had the chance to repair broken relationships with sisters, brothers, aunts, cousins, or friends? I would say that number is quite large. So all I can say is life is unpredictable and, if you have the chance to repair a strained relationship with someone you once held very dear, now is the time to do it before it’s too damn late. I’m sure Jeff became cognizant of this very life lesson as his husband’s life was ebbing away.

So if any of you see yourself as being described in the above-mentioned paragraph, you know what to do. Go out and mend those fences – if you can. Time is of the essence.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, August 20, 2025. I’m posting this late tonight because I forgot to mention that I was going to attend a meeting of my TCM group this evening at 5. There were eight of us sitting at a long table at the diner called Tick Tock on 8th Avenue and 34th Street. Our host, if you will, was “Derrick.” I thought I had a working knowledge of cinema, but Derrick’s grasp of world cinema really extended beyond my mere lowly grasp. He held court for the entire evening, which amounted to about four hours when we finally took our leave from each other. Derrick narrated story after story about some unknown morsel of film knowledge to everyone’s delight. The most intriguing story was his attending a film screening and coming across the acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola sitting in the audience. Derrick mentioned that Coppola was asked to give a talk to the audience on the cuff, and he humbly agreed to do so. Derrick indicated that Coppola talked about 10 minutes, mostly about the issues he encountered on filming Apocalypse Now which forms the basis of a 1991 documentary on the problems plaguing the cast and crew during the making of Coppola’s Vietnam saga. I just finished watching this documentary last night; I recommend it to anyone interested in the film process.

The most unpopular president in American history is seeing his polling ratings dive precipitously day after day as he pursues stupid issues as caring about the depiction of slavery at the Smithsonian Institute. An online opinion piece addresses this dichotomy between Demented Don’s declining popularity and the pursuit of subjects that Americans mostly don’t care about like tackling museums and other fucking nonsense. The piece is titled “Trump is widely unpopular and losing ground fast. Why is anyone afraid of him? Opinion.” This musing is written by Rex Huppke.

According to Huppke, the burning issues for most Americans are high prices, inflation, and health care. But our increasingly unpopular president is laser-focused on “things nobody cares about him,” except him. One issue is downplaying exhibitions on the history of slavery at the Smithsonian.

“On the same day a new poll by The Economist/YouGov showed Donald Trump’s disapproval rating hitting a new high, the president took time to post this on social media: “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL [there’s his ridiculous capping style], where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”

Why the fuck would Americans in 2025 worry about the depiction of slavery when it was abolished in 1865 when American voters are watching the costs of beef and vegetables skyrocket?

This idiot then instructed his attorneys to go after museums and to get rid of “woke” ideology. Huh? This is such a diversion from releasing the Epstein tapes that no one would be distracted into thinking that the federal government should be interfering with museum policy on such a high level.

Finally, the writer of this piece questions why anyone is still afraid of this bumpkin, especially when his favorable ratings are so fucking low. He actually calls Demented Don a “toxic president.”

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the country, under the “leadership” of the pedophile in chief, is “out of control.”

Huppke wonders why no public figures are coming out to denounce the toddler in chief. Of course, repugnicans will not do it because they’re cowed by him for some strange reason. According to Huppke, “They’ve spent decades ignoring the needs of their voters, focusing instead on tossing them red meat from the culture wars and assuming that bashing liberals is all that matters.”

The writer here criticizes Democrats for going after Chump with kid gloves, except for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and California Governor Gavin Newsom. There aren’t that many Dems out there who have taken off the kid gloves, which is irrational, given Dump’s unpopularity at the moment.

Even corporate types have been silent or outright supportive of a president liked by fewer and fewer Americans.

This is unwise, according to Huppke, especially when dealing with such a fucking bully as this ghastly man who will stop at nothing to use the power of the federal government against his enemies.

Huppke feels that there “is zero political risk to standing up to this president. There is only upside, and how more haven’t realized it yet is beyond me.”

In the meantime, the horrible Texas House did pass that ghastly GOP-drawn redistricting effort, despite full Democratic opposition to it. It is now time, according to Governor Newsom, “to fight fire with fire.”

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, August 1, 2025. Yesterday I was absent from this venue because I decided to see a film at the IFC Center in Manhattan at the last moment, even though weather forecasters were predicting flash flooding for most of the day. I waited until about 5:15 to reserve my ticket to see a 25-year-old parody of beach and slasher flicks called Psycho Beach Party starring the inimitable Charles Busch, Lauren Ambrose, and a very young Amy Adams. Last night marked the second night it was being shown and I couldn’t resist seeing a panel of the actor/screenwriter himself and the director of the production, Robert Lee King, after the movie was screened. I bought a senior membership ticket for the 7 o’clock show online at 5:15, so it was time to leave already.

The theater the film was being screened in was the largest auditorium in the venue, so I found an aisle seat a few rows from the stage. A young, perky woman introduced herself as the publicity director of the theater and said that the Q&A would proceed at film’s end.

The plot involves Florence Forrest (Lauren Ambrose), a sixteen-year-old high school senior looking forward to summer vacation on the beach in Malibu, California, who wants to hang out with the boys, and wants to learn how to surf, even though she’s a girl. Before you can say Gidget, Florence becomes involved with the cool boys on the beach. There’s surfer guru Kanaka (Thomas Gibson), surfers Yo-Yo (Nick Cornish), Provolone (Andrew Levitas), and B-movie actress Bettina Barnes (Kimberley Davies) who’s hiding out in a beach house from her studio that’s supposedly haunted.

Soon Ambrose is dubbed “Chicklet” by her on-again, off-again boyfriend Starcat (Nicholas Brendon), who suggests that she’s not even a real chick since she seems not to be interested in sex. She begins to take surfing lessons from Kanaka, and before long, a series of gruesome murders occurs. Florence becomes a suspect in these murders, as she experiences puzzling blackouts where she adopts another personality, that of Ann Bowman, an angry, lewd bondage enthusiast who makes Kanaka her willing submissive slave.

In this film, there are so many send-ups, primarily of 50s and 60s stock types and psycho killer movies, that the viewer gets lost in the mashup. Busch comes in as police captain Monica Stark who is charged with investigating the murders. It soon becomes known that Stark had an affair with Kanaka years ago before making captain.

The cast is extensive here; there’s Florence’s tightly wound mother Ruth (Beth Broderick) who plays her Donna Reed persona to the hilt. Even Amy Adams is a hanger-on among the beach denizens of this Southern California community. This certainly was one of her first film roles, and I had trouble initially identifying her. There’s also a Swedish exchange student named Lars (Matt Keesler) who is living with the Forrests.

The film works as high camp and it’s not necessary to think too much of its exalted aims; it’s just very funny as it pokes fun at these genres with a very light touch.

The interviews after the film were informative. Ben Brantley, originally from The New York Times, interviewed King and Busch. Busch appeared as himself (not in drag) and was dressed all in white. Busch mentioned that the film was adapted from his 1987 off-off Broadway play and that it was determined that more of a plot had to be inserted into the 2000 film adaptation. Busch also stated that the play was formless; there was no serial murder plot which was now added to the King-directed film. The use of Ambrose was mentioned by either King or Busch as they looked at many actresses for the role of Florence Forrest. I wanted to ask a question concerning Adams being in the film, but I lost my chance. However, her casting was addressed by both King and Busch. The director mentioned how she was a good dancer and that in one scene where there was some sort of dance competition among the beach kids, her better dancing skills had to be toned down a bit to suit her character.

The news out of Washington these days is so awful that I don’t know where to begin commenting on every horrible story. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal just gets weirder and weirder every day, what with the bizarre announcement today that convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, who was serving a 20-year prison sentence in a maximum security facility, was moved to a lower-security federal prison camp in Texas. This move comes a week after Maxwell met in private with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tallahassee. Details of that meeting have suspiciously not been made public. If this latest action by Dump’s private justice department doesn’t seem a bit suspicious, then we are all morons for not thinking there’s a rotting fish here.

Family members of Virginia Guiffre – one of the women who accused Epstein of sex trafficking and who died by suicide earlier this year – and other accusers of Maxwell and Epstein reacted to the news with “horror and outrage,” saying that it “smacks of a cover-up.” Cover-up indeed. They accused this president of sending a message that “pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter.” When will Dump’s enablers finally sit down and realize how awful their Supreme Leader is and start putting up some resistance to him? I wonder if that day will ever come.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

And so it went!

Here is former Times critic Ben Brantley and Charles Busch next to him on the right.

Here is Robert Lee King on the left, Brantley in the middle, and Busch on the right.