The Wizard of Oz TV blurb has been a meme for years, but I posted the below reply last night.

William Wyler and Lillian Hellman‘s Dead End (’37 — based on a 1935 hit play by Sidney Kingsley) and Michael Curtiz‘s Angels With Dirty Faces (’38) were the only decent films costarring the Bowery Boys, but then you knew that. Largely, I would say, because the Bowery Boys weren’t the leads in either film — they were used as social context, attitude flavor, etc.

The blending of Biden and “Bye Don” isn’t bad, but the most effective Biden slogan — DECENCY ’20 — doesn’t need his name. Because it emphasizes a positive value rather than the negative specter of Trump and the removal of a dangerous sociopath from office. It isn’t essential to mention One-Term Joe. We all know he’s the only well-fortified, trust-inspiring person whom we can reasonably expect to fill the Oval Office slot as a temporary stopgap, and that his victory in ’20 will pave the way for Newsom or Cuomo or Gretchen Whitmer in ’24.

I realize there’s a decent chance of Biden picking Kamala Harris for his vp, and if so she’s locked in for the ’24 race. But why didn’t she catch on at least somewhat during the recent Democratic primaries? You have to ask yourself that — she had one moment when she challenged Biden on his decades-old busing policies, and that was it. I always liked and admired Harris as far as it went but…

If Joe Biden fails to beat Donald Trump next November, a significant amount of blame (if not the lion’s share) will be on the shoulders of disgruntled Bernie Bros. The term is “Broxit” — the hardcore Bernie faithful bailing on the Democrat ticket by (a) staying home, (b) voting for Trump outright (as 12% of the flock did in ’16) or (c) promoting a Jill Stein-like third party alternative.

I was not a big Hillary Clinton fan in ’16, but I wasn’t Susan Sarandon either. The only intelligent and constructive thing to do with the lurking threat of Trump was to shake it off and vote for her — which I did. One-Term Joe has issues, granted, but far fewer negatives than Hillary. And his election would signify a return to decency and normalcy. There’s no alternative but to vote for him.

HE to Robert “Kid Notorious” Evans: As the most ardent Sanders supporter on this site, how real is the “Broxit” thing? And when push comes to shove — when it’s a choice between a sensible, fair-minded moderate liberal like Joe and the most dangerous sociopath President in the history of this nation, will you vote for Biden or not?

The Anak Krakatau volcano experienced a pair of relatively minor eruptions yesterday. They weren’t nearly as bad, I mean, as the Anak Krakatau eruption of 12.22.18, which launched a tsunami that took 437 lives. The volcano is located in Lampung, which is located between the islands of Java and Sumatra.

I was reminded that despite a noteworthy mention in Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, I’ve never had the slightest interest in watching Krakatoa, East of Java (’69), directed by Bernard Kowalski and costarring Maximilian Schell (when he was still slender and movie-star handsome, before he turned into Akim Tamiroff), Diane Baker, Brian Keith and Sal Mineo. It’s free on Amazon Prime.

Wiki excerpt: “The story is loosely based on events surrounding the 1883 eruption of the volcano on the island of Krakatoa, which is actually west of Java, but the producers thought that ‘East’ was a more atmospheric word, as it is located in the Far East. The characters are engaged in the recovery of a cargo of pearls from a shipwreck perilously close to the volcano.”

Posted, discussed and more or less settled here in mid-March. Re-discussed this evening (Friday, 4.10) on Real Time with Bill Maher.

“Fair Reference,” posted on 3.17.20: HE agrees that Trump calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” doesn’t help anyone or anything. CDC officials are correct in saying that this kind of terminology “stigmatizes residents” of China, etc. 

But it’s also fair to note that with the exception of H1N1 and maybe one or two others, nearly all viruses over the last few decades have been routinely identified by their geographical origin.

There’s no denying that COVID-19 is widely believed to have originated in a “wet” wildlife market in Wuhan, and specifically from bats or snakes. Trump has earned his racist credentials over and over, but if he’d used the term “Wuhan virus” he wouldn’t have been wrong.

Was it stigmatizing to acknowledge that the Ebola virus partly originated in Yambuku (Democratic Republic of the Congo), “a village near the Ebola River from which the disease takes its name”? Or to acknowledge that the Zika virus came “from the Ziika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947”? Or to say that the West Nile virus “was discovered in Uganda in 1937″?

Was there an anti-white-person motive when Lyme disease “was diagnosed as a separate condition for the first time in 1975 in Old Lyme, Connecticut”? Have CDC officials ever said that the term “stigmatizes” residents of that Connecticut town? Just asking.

15 minutes ago. Pulled over at Melrose and Westmount. Parked, jumped out, snapped this.

Obviously everyone’s streaming movies at home these days. Hand over first. Obviously the demand is greater that at any time before, and obviously the streaming speeds are slowing because of this. I’m paying for the fastest Spectrum service available so I thought I’d be okay. I’m not. I guess no one is. Last night I attempted to watch a press-link streamer of a feature film, and it began stalling around the 12 or 15 minute mark. Slogging through the first hour wasn’t agony, but it was definitely irritating. I presume others are experiencing the same.

Friendo to HE: “This is a very rare sketch from a 1972 NBC special written by Neil Simon. It aired once and never again. Inspired turns from Gene Wilder and Jack Weston. It speaks to the anxieties that quarantines can cause. It’s near impossible to find so your readers may dig it. I love the ending.”

Nothing new here. Widely posted. Nostalgia for responsible leadership. Yeah, even from Dubya.

This isn’t bad. 12 guys, 12 different locations. But why is Sting singing in a lower register? Is he having trouble hitting those high notes or…?

I’ve mentioned this two or three times before, but my transcendent moment with this song happened in a pub in Stockwell (south of the Thames) in December 1980. 9:30 pm or 10 pm. Not many people, maybe three or four at the bar. I was sitting near the jukebox with a pint of bitters, feeling a tiny bit buzzed. And then the song, which I hadn’t paid much attention to since its debut in October, began playing, and the bass tones were magnificent. I fell in love then and there.

The next morning the news was on the BBC about John Lennon‘s murder.

Does LexG even think about wearing an X-factor mask? Or does he just wear bottom-of-the-barrel paper masks, grunting “good enough”? Who among HE regulars is wearing (or has ordered) anything other than generic surgical masks? I for one believe that one should at least attempt a sense of style when visiting the local market or gas station or whatever. (The other night I was seriously impressed by a Predator mask that a guy was wearing at Pavilions.) The problem right now is that when you order this or that the Amazon arrival date is in May or even June.

The results of a Republican-funded poll, published today by the New York Post, claim that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is vastly preferred over Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. Cuomo and Biden are running roughly even among my demo — white, reasonably well-educated, 45-plus, X-factor — but generally speaking 56% of Democrats have said they would prefer the current New York governor over Obama’s vice president as the Democratic presidential nominee. 44% say they would prefer sticking with Biden. The rightwing poll has a margin of error of 4.8%.