Jeffrey Wells

The N.Y. Times is reporting that Vladimir Putin’s most vocally outspoken and high-profile political foe, the imprisoned but until recently very much alive and relatively young Alexei Navalny, 47, is dead…just like that.

The story is that Navalny, whom Putin henchmen irrefutably poisoned and nearly killed in 2020, suddenly lost consciousness and died after taking a walk inside the Arctic prison compound to which he was transferred late last year.

Navalny was somehow iced by Putin henchman, of course, and it’ll take a long time to prove it, of course, if it can ever be proved at all.

Perhaps Tucker Carlson could be persuaded to return to Russia and launch a no-holds-barred investigation?

It’s been understood for years Putin is a murderer, plain and simple. The Navalny hit is just another notch on his belt. Do I have incontrovertible proof that Navalny died at Putin’s behest? No, I do not. But we all “know.”

Navalny had been serving a trumped-up, bullshit 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges. He has been behind bars since he returned from Germany in January 2021, serving time on various charges that he rejected as a politically motivated effort to keep him imprisoned for life.

U.S.-based Putin-fellating righties will sidestep or otherwise ignore this killing, but the same MAGA fanatics who’ve either supported Putin’s Ukraine invasion or have at least lobbied against the U.S. support of the war…this cabal of serpents will not be mourning Navalny’s death with any passion. In my opinion they share a certain degree of responsibility for what has happened to Navalny.

I feel so enraged about this, I almost feel sick. If there’s any kind of anti-Putin, pro-Navalny demonstration in NYC this weekend, I’ll be there with bells on. It won’t accomplish a damn thing, of course, but I can feel molten lead in my veins. I’m on fire.

Posted on 1.29.22:

An evidentiary hearing over the outrageous mess caused by the astonishingly stupid and arrogant affair between D.A. Fani Willis and prosecutor Nathan Wade begins in Atlanta on Thursday, 2.15

People who work together are naturally going to hook up. Fucking a high-level colleague is not a crime, Fani, but how dare you cavort and galavant in a cavalier and provable fashion and thereby give Trump and his co-defendants a huge gift by way of torrid-zone, Harold Robbins-style behavior?

Willis was quoted as saying “I’m only human.” That’s a cop-out!

And so, in the service of filling her cup, she and Nathan Wade, whom she’d hired to work on the Trump RICO case and had paid two-thirds of a million bucks to despite his lack of a serious top tier prosecutorial background, decide that it’s prudent and professional to go on relatively pricey romantic trips together? Willis actually calculated that the Trumpies wouldn’t get wind of this and exploit the optics for all they were worth?

Posted Wednesday morning in The New Yorker:

Imagine the response if some youngish, incorrigibly macho actor (Glenn Powell?) had appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with his fingers caressing his tumescent, underwear-shrouded schlong and another photo of his damp face as he approaches orgasm, and was quoted talking effusively about how much he loves fucking women, etc.

This is a real cover. The interview author is Alex Morris.

I think it’s vitally important that Rolling Stone readers are being given a chance to savor the joys of intense, sweat-glistened lesbian orgasms. Oh, the shuddering bliss!

An HE commenter recently claimed to have attended a 1978 LACMA screening of the original version of Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (‘56) — the version that (a) had no narration track and (b) ended with Kevin McCarthy howling “you’re next!” to the camera.

So I asked the great Joe Dante, who quickly lanced the balloon.

So much for that urban legend.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two pops on 3.1.24. Hollywood Elsewhere has a NYC screening on 2.20. Without any hints or implications, I’m asking the HE community what the interest levels might be. Are you mildly interested, very interested or hot-hot-hot?

All driver’s licenses include a photo of the licensee, right? So where’s the Connecticut DMV snapshot of Marilyn Monroe Miller on her 1958 license? And why doesn’t it list her specific address (232 Tophet Road in Roxbury, an historic home she shared with husband Arthur Miller)? Just listing the road won’t do. And “M. M. Miller”? C’mon.

The 66-year-old document will soon be auctioned in Wilton, and the highest bid so far is $12K.

If I was actively bidding at the forthcoming event I would do so in the spirit of North by Northwest’s Roger Thornhill. “12 dollars!” I would call out. The perplexed auctioneer would ask, “Don’t you mean $12 thousand, sir?” Casual HE reply: “No, no, I meant $12 dollars…that’s more than it’s worth.”

Opening today as legions of Bob Marley fans watch with flagging spirits and drooping eyelids.

Putting aside Travis Kelce’s unfortunate troglodyte behavior, which is a whole problem in and of itself and one that would give pause to any woman of brains and perception, he is now facing a deck of cards that will probably not pan out in his favor.

For when his fame and power inevitably begin to recede with age, Taylor Swift will begin to value him less. Unless, that is, he somehow becomes a troglodyte macho movie star like John Cena, in which case things will probably be fine. (I honestly don’t think he’s smart or clever enough to fill those shoes — he’s too much of a Midwestern oaf.)

We all know Taylor’s deal as she seems to go through boyfriends like potato chips and uses relationship breakups as song-lyric fodder and probably is, in all likelihood (although I’m obviously not claiming familiarity with her deep down stuff), a fair–weather lover.

Hey, the world’s full of them.

I’m not trying to pigeonhole Swift, but she seems like a leggy, musically banal version of Mary Astor, Tallulah Bankhead, Isadora Duncan…it’s all about impulse and dough and the lyrics in her head.

“A woman must have everything” — a mid ‘70s Joni Mitchell lyric that is probably even more true in 2024, especially when it comes to super-famous, glammy, high-earning, high-maintenance women.

They’re obviously exciting wowser types (hoo-hah!) but they’re mainly about their own self-articulated dreams and creations and are always “hungry for those good things, baby” (Paul Revere and the Raiders w/ Mark Lindsay) and are not your true pallies — if you want a friend, get a dog or turn to your mom or your older sister or the bruhs you’ve known since your teen years.

Super-wealthy, power-pop Swiftian girlfriends can only be happy and satisfied with boyfriends and husbands who are just as rich and powerful as they are and preferably more so. (Think Elizabeth Taylor and Mike Todd in the mid to late ‘50s)

At best they’re your social ally and mutual sexual celebration partner for as long as the BMW engine is highly-tuned and rumbling along and the good times are flush, but when the music begins to quiet down and the electric generator dynamic begins to downshift into a mild, mid-range hum, watch out.

For “that’s when your heartaches begin” (a Fred Fisher–William Hill–William Raskin song, sung by Elvis Presley).

Joni Mitchell, Paul Revere, Mark Lindsay, Elvis Presley, Al “hoo-hah” Pacino, Isadora Duncan, Elizabeth Taylor…they’ve all been through it.

In short, the Kelce-Swift romance isn’t long for this world unless they get down, get married and have a baby…this is the only thing will save them…the only profound product of their union. A baby will also mean an end to the great sex, of course, but that’s life.

If I were Swift I would find a guy more like Brock Purdy, but that’s me.

For decades I’ve never even thought about having an occasional cup of Ovaltine. To me Ovaltine is nostalgia product that hasn’t existed since JFK or LBJ. It’s like TWA or Pan Am, S & H green stamps, black and white Philco swivel TVs, Geritol (“Do you have tired blood?”), etc. And yet here it is…strange.

Francis Scott Key’s “The Star Spangled Banner” + James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” So why did that super-tattooed guy sing “America the Beautiful”? Was that meant to represent a non-tribal togetherness song?

For the good of the country and our currently fragile tradition of democracy, President Joe Biden really, really has to do a Lyndon Johnson as soon as possible — “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for another term as your president.”

Because while he may be able to muddle through, Woodrow Wilson– or Ronald Reagan-style, between now and January 20, 2029 if re-elected, Biden is obviously too old and diminished to run against The Beast.

C’mon, man…wake up. Johnson read the writing on the wall 56 years ago and right now there are only two people who can’t read the present moment — Joe and Jill Biden.

It’s possible that Biden might be able to squeak through to a micro-slender victory in November…maybe…but nobody believes this to be a likely scenario. People are finally starting to realize that it’s actually, truth be told, unlikely.

If he comes to his senses and throws in the towel, Biden’s reputation will suddenly become that of a noble statesman.

Spoken two nights ago on Real Time with Bill Maher but for some reason not on YouTube:

Read more