Election Eve and I’m damned excited.
(Pause.)
Excited I’m no longer going to receive any solicitation about this damned election.
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Today on Math and Musings I’m a bit all over the map. I begin with recounting a few animal encounters, segueing into cocktail parties which then morph into Christmas parties. This is what happens when I don’t have a guest there to ground me.
Pretty much everything I do in life I like to log here as some sort of backup diary. Some day as I’m writing my memoirs if I’ve misplaced all of my books, articles, CDs, actual diaries, and episodes of the podcast, well, I’ll have the archives of mikeoconnelljr.com.
I’ll want it noted that I’ve really enjoyed the first few episodes of the Frasier reboot. I’ve been a fan of Dr. Frasier Crane for over 30 years and this newest incarnation has not changed that fact. Sure, there are some haters out there, but Frasier-haters gonna hate.
Me? When it comes to the voice of Frasier Crane…
I’m listening.
Two weeks ago I was alerted to an anniversary. A fiftieth anniversary, as a matter of fact, for one Peter Jenkins and his walk across America.
Yeah, Peter Jenkins, author of A Walk Across America, began said walk on October 15, 1973. Started in upstate New York, actually, though in the book he insists on calling it “upper” New York. (That little detail bothered me the first time I read the story and it still does, but I digress.)
The first time I read A Walk Across America was in the early months of 2006, when I was making a similar journey myself. Well, not exactly, similar, as I wasn’t walking from place to place. But I did put away my college degree and live the tramp life for a few months a la Peter Jenkins. I too started in “upper” New York, made my first stop in Washington, D.C., then worked for a time in North Carolina. A year and a half of walking brought Jenkins to New Orleans, and that had been my ultimate destination as well, though I’m afraid my journey fell a little short.
Last week I started rereading Walk and am enjoying the reminiscing.
However many years it’s been.
Running the risk of playing second banana on my own show, I’ve got Franklin O. on the podcast today discussing all things fall.
Even though it was like 80 degrees yesterday and will be again today.
This was the World Series no fan nor studio executive one wanted.
Shoot.
Diamondbacks-Rangers? Snakes and lawmen? Sounds more like the plot of an old Western.
And speaking of movies and things that are terrible…
Monday I referenced Netflix’s #1 movie this week, Bill Burr’s Old Dads. Let’s just say I’m glad I saw it for free.
In a similar vein is another of Netflix’s Top 10 this week, the Jennifer Lawrence vehicle No Hard Feelings. That would be Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, who is apparently hard up for money these days. Seriously, that can be the only logical explanation for at this point in one’s career making a raunchy sex comedy. This is the movie you make when you’re young, then later do the take-me-seriously-as-an-actor bit. I’m trying to figure out in the cast and crew who’s dating whom and who is somebody’s nephew or who owes who a favor or any plausible explanation for this movie being made.
Funny thing is, if it weren’t Jennifer Lawrence and just some random hot chick I’d think it was hilarious. Coulda saved ’em a lot of money too, though really they didn’t get much of mine.
Most importantly, the world would make sense to me.
The biggest movie on Netflix right now is Old Dads, directed by and starring Bill Burr. Gen X dads butting heads with Millennial dads? That’s got the potential for comic gold, right?
For better or worse old Bill gives us some sappy moments and dare I say “enlightened” wisdom interspersed among his 20th century eye rolls.
(Pause for reflection.)
But the eye rolls are the funniest parts. And I would rather hear 102 minutes of Bill Burr standup than what was basically your average 21st century movie. I didn’t need a morality play; I just wanted to laugh.
I’ve already been to enough sensitivity trainings. I don’t need one run by Bill Burr.
Today’s episode of Math and Musings is simply called “Animal encounters.”
Whoa.
But you’ll have to tune in to find out more.
War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, Don Quixote…
get ready to add one more to the list.
It’s the latest from Jeff Kinney, the greatest social critic of our time.
(Pause for effect.)
Still thinking?
(Pause.)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid?
Yeah, the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” guy.
Book #18 in his series hits the shelves October 24, though somehow my local library snared a few advanced copies and has made them available already. There’s a waitlist about 200 names long, but I don’t really think about the 199 names after mine.
Literally couldn’t put the thing down, and as a favor to the rest of Loudoun County it’s back at the library already.
Oh, did I mention it’s for me, not my nine-year-old?
Yeah, Franklin likes the book too (he was the one who turned me on to the series), but that’s not the reason I left work early Monday to get my hands on a copy.
Damn the book is great, and somehow they keep getting better. (Kinney puts out one a year like clockwork–a scandal-free Woody Allen). The new one is called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer, and without giving too much away it’s pretty on point as far as criticism of our current state of education. I always find myself having sympathy with the adults in these books, but this one I side with the young’uns at the expense of the grownups. Grownups with Pollyannish ideas to raise money or cut expenses in our schools. If you haven’t been in a public school recently, selling naming rights and accepting corporate sponsorships sounds pretty ridiculous… until you find out those bridges were crossed long ago. (Haven’t tried all the ideas in the book yet, but I worry now some school administrator is going to pick up this book and not see it as satire.) Kinney nails the actions of all grownup actors: teachers, parents, school administrators… and demonstrates again and again (with hilarious consequences) the old cynical business maxim that the solution to any problem… becomes the new problem.
Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer. Just don’t take it too seriously.
Sad part is, the really dumb ideas have already been tried.
In December it’s Christmas carols and in March an Irish ditty.
Every Fourth of July there’s the sound of fireworks while in September school bells ring.
And every year, usually about October, champagne glasses ting as the ’72 Dolphins toast that last undefeated team (or two) goodbye.