A brief note to Laszlo, the S.F. Valley guy who sold me the 2009 VW Passat in late February: “Cheers. A friend told me not to bother but I can’t resist bringing you up to speed on the VW Passat, which, you’ll recall, I paid $4K for on or about 2.26.

“I’ve barely driven it since then except for a round trip to Santa Barbara, and since then (over the last six or seven weeks) I have had THREE major crises — the engine was leaking coolant so the whole cooling system had to be replaced ($1600). Then a serious oil leak had to be fixed — $570. Today another engine catastrophe happened, and now the leaking plastic (!) radiator has to be replaced — $1K. That’s $3200 plus the cracked windshield repair ($275) and a new cheap-ass Bluetooth radio ($350).

“In short, I’ve had to spend almost $4K on top of the $4K I paid you.

“My mechanic, Carlos, says I shouldn’t have gotten a Passat — that they just start falling apart after 100K miles. Before buying it I had been all over the city (down to Compton three times, twice to Long Beach) and spending a small fortune in Uber fares to find the right kind of used car (Tatiana has wheels but couldn’t be bothered to assist except for one time), and no sellers were willing to drive their for-sale car up to my WeHo mechanic’s place (corner of Melrose and Fairfax). So Peter, that Valley mechanic, showed up and sniffed around, and gave the Passat a clean bill of health. Alas, Peter wasn’t as perceptive or inquiring as he should have been.

“So I crossed myself, said a little prayer and decided to buy the damn thing, and now I’m down almost $8K. For the Passat is a doom car, a money pit and a total lemon, my mechanic says. Our deal worked out for you, but now I’m stuck with a piece of shit. I had wanted to drive it to Connecticut and then, once there, use it very infrequently as a station car. Now I can’t even do that. This piece of plastic shit will NEVER make it across the country. Some hose will blow, some other engine part will fail. So I’m $8K poorer and I have nothing. I’m stuck with a dog of a car that has been nothing but misery so far, and will be nothing but misery for as long as I own it.

It feels so mortifying to have been stupid enough to buy this car. HE to Carlos: “What should I do, drive it over a cliff like Buzz in Rebel Without A Cause?” Carlos to HE: “You have to decide what to do.”

Maher: “I need to stick up for my tribe. This war on jokes must end. So let’s Zapruder this thing…”

Many relationships and marriages work out, sometimes for decades. They survive as long as the candle burns, fate warrants and patience persists; others wind down after four or five years. Or sooner. And that’s fine.

No, I’m not about to air some dirty Jeff-and-Tatiana laundry. It would be extremely gauche to do that. Neither Tatiana nor I are perfect, but our private stuff is not column fodder. Because I will not be that middle-aged married woman drunkenly hissing at her husband and angrily exposing her breasts during a party scene in John Schlesinger‘s Sunday Bloody Sunday (’71).

Over the past several weeks, however, I’ve been wincing over Tatiana’s respect and allegiance for Vladimir Putin, and especially her views about the ongoing Russian terror and genocide in Ukraine (which Vladimir Zelensky will discuss on 60 Minutes two days hence). I’ve kept my distance for the most part. It’s her deal, her background (born and raised in Edinet), her culture, her convictions.

Given these recent opinions, Tatiana is a serious fan of Oliver Stone. His 2017 Putin interviews rang her bell and then some. Two days ago he achieved the same by posting a Facebook essay that that was highly skeptical of all the Russia-and-Putin bashing in the media.

Stone’s end quote: “All this anti-Russian propaganda, sweeping in its Western unity, smells bad — literally like Orwell’s ‘1984.’”

Tatiana loved Stone’s essay, and so she tapped out a cheering response to that effect. This led to thoughts about luck, love and the ways of surprising discoveries. If only she and Stone had somehow managed to meet a few years ago, and had kept in occasional touch and perhaps had gradually formed a bond that was about something more than just social-media rapport. I’m not saying what I seem to be saying. I’m saying Tatiana and Oliver almost seem, right now, like two peas in a pod — coming from a very similar place in terms of Ukraine-related perceptions and convictions.

Who develops admiration and affection for someone based on their cultural and political views? Well, all relationships start somewhere. And so much in life is about luck, timing and kismet. I do think Tatiana, whose views about the Ukraine War have drawn a lot of flak on this site, would feel more “heard” and respected right now if things had worked out for her in a different way. I for one would be fine with that. I am also cool — accepting — about our five years together, and in many some ways I am thankful. I’m committed to living in the now.

Whoever cut this 26-second clip needs to be canned. Too blunt, for one thing. No warm-up, no lead-in, no integrity, no intrigue…edited with an axe. Yes, that’s Nicole Kidman‘s Queen Gudrun telling the bad guys to kill Alexander Skarsgård‘s Amleth, the “Viking warrior prince”…her son. So seven or eight guys come at him with axes and he slays them all because he’s so much faster and stronger and angrier…because righteous vengeance has tipped the scales? Oh, wait, he only kills one guy and then the clip ends.

A short clip from #TheNorthman featuring Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicole Kidman has been released. pic.twitter.com/FratexwrQ3

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) April 8, 2022

But the Sean Penn discussion, which happened three days ago, is worth a listen.

Jurors in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case today acquitted two militant rightwing Michigan bumblefucks — Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris — and said they were deadlocked on charges against two others, Barry Croft and Adam Fox.

The jurors seemed to be saying that these low-rent assholes were just rattling their online sabres, and that they didn’t actually intend to kidnap Whitmer. Not really.

All four had been accused of plotting to snatch Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, from her vacation home in 2020. You could also presume that the jurors felt a greater cultural kinship with these four louts than with Whitmer.

The bottom line, I suspect, is that the jurors knew these guys were (a) fairly serious about wanting to kidnap Whitmer, however half-assed and goon squad their plans and strategies might have been, and (b) that they’re definitely sociopaths — the same kind of rightwing animals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on 1.6.21.

And so, naturally, the jurors had problems with finding them guilty.

Thoughts?

From Barton Swaim‘s “David Mamet Is a Defiant Scribe in the Age of Conformity,” a 4.8.22 Wall Street Journal interview:

“Do people in the entertainment industry censor themselves? ‘They do not walk around saying things that are dangerous to express, no,’ Mamet says. ‘People whisper out here. They have to. To say, ‘Well maybe Trump did some good things’…you can’t do that. You’d risk your home, your job, your family, your friends.”

“Mr. Mamet is convinced that the ‘woke agenda’ is basically an act, so in some ways it works well in Hollywood. ‘Nobody really believes it,’ he says. ‘Nobody really believes boys turn into girls and girls turn into boys…no one does. But it’s put into a different category, so that it becomes dangerous to question it. If you question it, you’re out.’

“Are the young buying [the woke thing]? My own observation suggests some substantial minority do not. Academics and college students I’ve spoken to since 2017 indicate that social pressure to signal assent to a rotating series of orthodoxies, from public health to race and gender theories, has sparked a quiet revolt. Post a black square on Instagram to show that America is systemically racist, even if you don’t think that’s true; wear a mask even though you know it doesn’t work and you’re 20 and vaccinated; share your pronouns whether you accept or reject gender ideology — a reaction seems almost guaranteed.

“’People of that generation,’ Mr. Mamet agrees, ‘a lot of them just aren’t scared anymore.'”

This polyamorous genderfluid witch is a preschool teacher in Florida. She’s so proud of herself that she discusses her gender and sexuality with 4 year olds pic.twitter.com/XOuuX6by4w

— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) April 7, 2022

HE question: Are those tiny metal studs or moles below the two corners of her bottom lip? The green hair is okay and she seems relatively mold-mannered, but those mole studs….good God.

…in Silver Linings Playbook is perfectly captured by this hand-smothering, squashed-face sculpture. Truth be told, it’s what I feel like half the time. At times I’m the hand; other times I’m the face. I know it sounds fucked up, but what do you want me to do, lie?