Tag: reviews

Who You Gonna Call?

by earlthepearl137

Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re a billionaire.  No, a multi-billionaire.  What would you do?  Would you buy a private jet?  Probably.  Who would you hire to fly the plane?  Tom Hanks played Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in the movie “Sully.”  Would you hire him?  No.  He’s not a real pilot.  You would hire someone with a pilot’s license.  You could hire Tom Cruise who played Lieutenant/Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the movie “Top Gun.”  He actually does have a pilot license, but he is the exception to the rule.  Most actors are actors, not the role they are playing.

If you needed surgery, would you hire Alan Alda, who played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H” from 1972 through 1983?  Or maybe Hugh Laurie who played Dr. Gregory House in “House” from 2004 through 2012, or Richard Chamberlain, who played Dr. Kildare in “Dr. Kildare” from 1961 through 1966, or George Clooney, who played Dr. Doug Ross in “ER” from 2000 through 2009?  No, you would find a real surgeon, one who actually went to medical school and practiced surgery.

If you had legal problems, would you want Raymond Burr defending you.  He played Perry Mason in “Perry Mason” from 1957 through 1966 and never lost a case, at least not until “The Case of the Terrified Typist.”  James Spader was terrific as Attorney Alan Shore in “Boston Legal” from 2004 through 2008, but in real life, he never passed the bar.  If you needed a lawyer, you would hire an experienced lawyer.

Jane Withers played Josephine the Plumber in Comet ads from the 1960s through the early 1970s, but if your gold toilet was overflowing, you would call a real plumber.  If you needed other home improvements you probably wouldn’t call Tim Allen, even though he played Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on “Home Improvements” from 1991-1999.

If you bought a major league baseball team it is unlikely that your starting pitcher would be Charlie Sheen, even though he played Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn in “Major League.”  Kevin Costner played “Crash” Davis in “Bull Durham,” and he pitched a perfect game in “For Love of the Game,” but he probably wouldn’t make your team either.  It’s also unrealistic to think that you would have Robert Redford in the lineup, even though he played Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.”  It’s also quite unlikely that you would have Tom Hanks manage the team, even though he did a swell job as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own.”  If you did hire these guys instead of professional athletes, you might learn the hard way that “there’s no crying in baseball.”

If you chose to buy a football team, Cuba Gooding Jr. would probably not make the team, no matter how much money you showed him, even though he played well as Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire.”  Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds both played star quarterbacks in two different versions of “The Longest Yard,” but neither of them would start on your team, unless you didn’t care about winning.

If you wanted to sign a prize fighter, I’m sure you would want somebody with more real ring experience than Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Will Smith or Hilary Swank, even though they put in many hours as Rocky Balboa, Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali and Maggie Fitzgerald in the movies.

The list of famous people you wouldn’t hire could go on and on.  In just about every case you would hire a professional, instead.  Maybe, you might make an exception and hire Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson as bartenders, but otherwise, you would stick to people who do the job in real life, not actors.  If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, you’re not going to call Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd unless you need a laugh.

My favorite TV President is Martin Sheen who appeared as President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing” from 1999 through 2006, and my favorite movie President is Michael Douglas who played President Andrew Shepherd in “The American President.”  Kevin Klein was also a great substitute President in Dave, but I wouldn’t vote for any one of these three to be the actual President.  They don’t have the real-world experience.

So, I wonder why 75 million Americans elected to the Presidency a failed businessman and con artist who bankrupted 3 casinos and was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud, simply because he played a successful businessman in “The Apprentice” from 2004 through 2017.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

While the Cat’s Away…

by earlthepearl137

Recently, I watched a YouTube showing of Club Random with Bill Mahr and his guest Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame.  Penn doesn’t drink or smoke, but that didn’t stop Bill, who was quite comfortable in his man cave.”  The setting, obviously, was casual, and the conversation went on for an hour and a half.  It was so much more interesting than the short interviews you might see on a talk show, where the only purpose of being on the show was to promote a book or a movie.  Bill and Penn covered a plethora of interesting subjects, and the one that I found most interesting was the one Penn told Bill about the first appearance of Penn & Teller on the Tonight Show.

Today, Penn & Teller are record-breaking performers in Vegas. They’re such Vegas icons that the venue where they perform is the Penn & Teller Theatre.  They also travel around the world doing their unique magic show.  But, one time, a long time ago, they were just starting out and they got asked to audition for the Tonight Show with Johhny Carson.  At the time, an appearance on the Carson Show was THE big break that launched many successful careers.  It was like how a book will shoot to #1 on the Best Seller list if Oprah recommends it.

So, Penn and Teller, packed up the material they would need to do a magical performance on the Tonight Show.  They auditioned their Water Tank trick and Johnny loved it, except for one bit of it where Teller appears to be dead.  That, he thought, was in bad taste.  He wanted them to change the act.  They didn’t want to, because they felt that was the core of the joke.  It took guts on their part to risk losing the opportunity of a Tonight Show gig by not giving in.  Then Johnny compromised.  He liked their routine but didn’t want it performed in full when he was there.  So, he booked Penn & Teller to be on The Tonight Show during a week when he was on vacation and Jay Leno was guest hosting.  Win, Win.  Except when that day came, Penn & Teller had trouble shipping their huge water tank, so they wound up doing a different trick, one that Johnny would have allowed while on a night when he was hosting.

So, tonight I was watching Kathryn Hahn guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live.  Her first guest was Seth Rogen.  They’re old friends and they were really having a good time talking to each other in an interview situation.  Then, they finally got around to plugging his new animated movie, Sausage Fest.  They showed a clip from the movie, and the audience got to see that in the movie, animated food products have sex with other food products.  Then, they brought out a tray of food and Seth started moving the various food stuffs into sexual positions with other food.  It quickly got outrageous and raunchy, while being funny as hell.  Then it dawned on me.  Did Seth Rogen pitch this idea to Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy did the same thing that Johnny Carson did to Penn & Teller so many years ago?  Did Jimmy like the bit, but find it too risqué for a night when he, himself, was hosting, so he scheduled it for a night when there was a guest host.  I’m almost sure that’s what happened, and I’m almost sure that this probably happens quite frequently.  Really good guests who might “push the envelope” further than the regular host can convince the sponsors to accept, are saved for nights when there is a guest host, and there is less likelihood of blowback from a sponsor.

“When the cats away, the mice will play,” is the old expression, except that now, the cat is planning his away time, so that the show can have time to explore the boundaries of both their envelope and that of their audience.

Now, I won’t be skipping my favorite late-night shows, when there is a guest host.  I’ll be hoping to catch another edgy act pushing the envelope while the cat’s away.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl

An X-ceptional Visit

by earlthepearl137

It’s always nice when friends come to visit me here in Lancaster, PA, especially when that friend is my Brother X.  This time it was X-ceptional, as he brought along a new friend of his, Kathleen.  As anyone who reads my stories knows, Brother X doesn’t like his name appearing in any of the “lies” that his two brothers write.  Therefore, I only refer to him as Brother X.  I’m not supposed to use his photograph in this blog, either, but I’ll take my chances and show a picture of him with Kathleen at Clipper Magazine Stadium that was taken the other night.  If he says anything, I’ll just say that they got in the way of a picture I was trying to take of the jolly Santa Claus, who was sitting right behind them.

Readers might remember that Brother X went on vacation to Iceland back in January, because he wanted to see the Northern Lights.

Me, I spent my year in a cold place near the North Pole a long time ago, when I was stationed in Adak, Alaska. So, when I wanted to see spectacular Northern Lights, I didn’t even go outside. I just Googled it and got a great shot enhanced by an AI photo program.

I think I got the more awesome photo, but he had a bit more fun taking his photo the old-fashioned way.  For one thing, Iceland is where he met Kathleen.  There were 25 people from Long Island on the tour, and almost half were single.  Kathleen told me that she flirted with my brother while they were in Iceland, but he didn’t pick up on it.  They texted each other when they got home, though, and their relationship blossomed after they went to a ‘50’s Dance together.

Ooops, another accidentally-used picture of the brother who’s trying to remain anonymous.  Sorry about that, Bro.

So, Kathleen and Brother X came to visit me, and I noticed the change in Brother X immediately.  He was actually smiling.  That’s something he hasn’t been doing a lot of since his wife passed away a couple years ago.  Within minutes of their arrival, the three of us were chatting like old friends.   It didn’t even take a few minutes for us to hit it off. They “had me at hello,” especially with the box of my favorite wine and the bottle of bourbon they brought.  The three of us sat around the kitchen table laughing, joking, and telling stories for hours.  They even let me rattle on about Lancaster’s most-famous U.S. President, James Buchanan.  Most of my friends will stop me before I can even say the word, “Buchanan.”

Brother X had also purchased baseball tickets for that night’s game, so we headed out to the ballfield around 5:30.  Kathleen doesn’t drink, and Brother X had stopped drinking hours before it was time to go to the ballgame, but I never let the presence of rookies slow me down.  I drank all afternoon. So, when I saw Chester Cheetah handing out free samples at the ballpark, I jumped on a short line of little kids who were waiting to get a picture with him.  I think that Chester might have gotten a contact high just from standing next to me, because he busted some moves later on when he won the dancing contest between him and the Barnstormer’s beloved mascot, Cylo.

The game itself was a laugher, with the Barnstormers scoring 13 runs in the first 4 innings, so I concentrated more on devouring hot dogs, pretzels, and beer than balls and strikes.  Amazingly, Kathleen and Brother X didn’t have to get up even once to use the restroom.  It must be a trick they learned in Iceland. Me, I wore out a path to the gent’s room.  It was the best workout I’ve had all week.

Kathleen and X returned to Long Island on Sunday.  I can’t wait until they come back for another visit, especially now that I know that they know my favorite wine.

Peace & Love, and all of the above,

Earl