I’ve never been one of those “Walker died in Alcatraz and so Point Blank is just a last dying fever dream of revenge” type of guys. I insist that Walker, despite two or three gunshot wounds, was strong enough to swim from Alcatraz Island to the Embarcadero, and that he somehow found his way to a good hospital without the cops getting wind. And then three or four months later and fully healed, he bought himself a spiffy new wardrobe to go with his new silver hair color (which was definitely darker before he was plugged), and then arranged to meet Keenan Wynn on that Alcatraz tourist boat. And then he flew to Los Angeles. Walker lives!

In mid January ’42, go-getter reporter Gene Sherman, 26, covered the Carole Lombard plane-crash tragedy for the Los Angeles Times.

Sherman reported that formidable MGM fixer Eddie (i.e., “Edgar J.”) Mannix had identified Lombard’s “charred and burned” body, relying on his familiarity with her blonde hair “as well as the general contours of her face.” Mannix was memorably portrayed by Josh Brolin in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Hail Ceasar!.

Like any driven big-city reporter, Sherman knew most of the angles and could write a mean paragraph. In 1960 the 45 year-old Sherman won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. In a bid to strengthen the L.A. Times‘ influence on the world stage, Sherman opened the paper’s London bureau in ’64. The “hard-working, fast-living” Sherman died in 1969, at age 54.

L.A. Times reporter Gene Sherman

There’s no connective tissue between the presidencies of Donald J. Trump and Abraham Lincoln, save for the odd fact that both [have] resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And yet somehow this short, succinct video, created by the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, brings the point home.

The point is this: Abraham Lincoln may have been the finest U.S. President ever, and Donald Trump is without question the absolute worst — a sociopath, liar and incontinent con man whose Covid negligence resulted in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans over the last three months.

Lincoln Project to Trump supporters: Have you no shame?

During the filming of Chris Nolan‘s Tenet, neither John David Washington nor Rob “RBatz” Pattinson could make heads or tails of the plot.

And if they couldn’t figure it out over a shooting period of several weeks, what chance will Joe and Jane Popcorn have in the space of…how long is it supposed to be?

“Every day I had questions for [Nolan],” Washington says in a 5.25 Digital Spy piece. “But [Nolan] was very gracious, and he answered them very calmly and patiently. It was important that the actors could track the story correctly, so we could tell it the best way we could, and he was very patient with us. I say that very politely.”

Possible translation: “I didn’t know what the fuck this film was about, and if you ask me neither did Nolan. Not really. But he’s a good bullshitter and always polite.”

Pattinson recently told GQ‘s Zack Baron that months after shooting he still doesn’t understand Tenet.

Nolan’s response: “We’re looking at first and foremost giving the audience an incredible ride in the spy movie genre, but using the audience’s facility with following the conventions of that genre to push it into some interesting and unexpected territory.”

Then again there was the Cary Grant situation when it came to deciphering the plot of North by Northwest (’59). Grant was reportedly distressed with the way the plot seemed to be faking itself out. At one point he told Hitchcock that “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

If I had composed this fanciful front page of the N.Y. Times, I would have reported that Trump was forcibly removed from the White House after refusing to vacate. I would have also reported about armed bumblefuck demonstrations amid charges of “fraudulent” pro-Biden balloting by mail.

The below video accompanies a Wall Street Journal piece by Van Gordon Sauter, titled “The ‘Liberal Leaning’ Media Has Passed Its Tipping Point” and subtitled “A return to balance would be commercially unviable. The best solution may be an honest embrace of bias.”

#MeToo has definitely taken a hit in the wake of Tara Reade‘s sexual-assault accusation against Joe Biden having been pretty much discredited. The only substantive result of this whole unfortunate affair has been a clarification that #BelieveAllWomen had to be abandoned in favor of #TakeWomenSeriously.

Dylan Farrow‘s accusation against Woody Allen has also been discredited in the eyes of all reasonable-minded observers, so that makes two mea culpa demerits.

And just to be clear, the N.Y. Times‘ 4.12 investigation of Reade’s sexual assault claim, reported by Lisa Lerer and Sydney Ember, decided two things: (1) “No firm opinion of the veracity of Reade’s claim” and (2) “Reade’s story is at the very least questionable.”

Staten Islanders with masks drive out non-mask wearing person in grocery store. #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/iPQwk7lD9y

— McAuley (@McauleyHolmes) May 25, 2020

Imagine the sense of sanity and stability if this country could manage to elect its own version of Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern, the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the Labour Party since 2017.

“We’re just having a bit of an earthquake here”: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern barely skipped a beat when a quake struck during a live TV interview. https://t.co/tKLFX9Kn5a pic.twitter.com/n97xbTGaRu

— ABC News (@ABC) May 25, 2020

Somewhere in the middle of Die Hard (’88) John McLane (Bruce Willis) says he’s “kinda partial” to Roy Rogers as a walkie-talkie handle. That’s because McLane was a boomer who’d watched The Roy Rogers Show (’51 to ’57) as a toddler. No GenXer, Millennial or Zoomer would have a clue who Rogers was if it wasn’t for that one line in Die Hard. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

This morning I found a Rogers-related sentiment on Facebook, probably written by some crusty codger: “We [boomers] were born at the right time. We were able to grow up with these great people even if we never met them. In their own way they taught us about patriotism and honor. We learned that lying and cheating were bad, and that sex wasn’t as important as love. We learned how to suffer through disappointment and failure and work through it. Our lives were drug-free. So it’s good-bye to Roy and Dale, Gene and Hoppy (Hopalong Cassidy), the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

“Farewell to Sky King (and Penny) and Superman and Sgt. Joe Friday. Thanks to Capt. Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers and Capt. Noah and all those people whose lives touched ours, and made them better. Happy Trails. It was a great ride through childhood.”

The words “drug-free” brought me up short. What kind of boomer who lived any kind of life went through his or her teens and 20s without at least a touch of pot or hashish or, if they were truly adventurous of spirit, without dabbling in psychedelia?

HE reply: Boomer kids who marinated in the lore of the above-named TV heroes were also raised under the suffocating influence…I’m sure you guys remember this…of a tidy, suburban, rule-dominated culture that Robert Redford, an unhappy teenager in the mid ‘50s, once described as “the bland leading the bland.” (Not an original quote but we’ll let that go.)

This is why “the ‘60s” happened…right? The steam pressure had gathered and gathered, and it finally just blew the doors open, starting sometime in ‘64 (or perhaps more precisely on 11.22.63) and certainly by ‘65 and especially with the release of “Rubber Soul.”

In ‘71 a Don McLean song tried to spell it all out. Billy Joel took a more mundane stab at the same dynamic in “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

Captain Kangaroo, the Lone Ranger, Ward Cleaver, Sgt. Joe Friday and other totemic figures of that era were about decency and kindliness and a certain kind of conservative, modestly measured approach to life — I get that. And what about the influence of Elvis, James Dean, Little Richard, Marlon Brando and Jerry Lee Lewis?

The plain hard truth (sorry to be the bearer) is that Sky King, Superman, Ozzie Nelson and others in that hallowed realm (and I’m trying to put this gently) were basically kind-hearted prison guards. And here you are saying “ohh, those kindly and morally upstanding prison guards…they raised us with the right kind of values!”

And I guess they did to some extent, but boomers (who became the “We generation” only to turn into the “Me generation” and then Reagan-era yuppies and then the most destructively selfish generation ever in terms of totally ruining the economy for Millennials and Zoomers) were never about “sex isn’t as important as love.” If I recall correctly, the anthem of the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s was “sex is just as important as love, and above all women need to learn to own their own orgasms.”

I’m sorry but as soon as I read the above I felt I needed to open the French windows and air the place out…no offense and have a happy Memorial Day.

Seven or eight years ago I watched the 2012 Jaws Bluray, which of course represented an HD upgrade. It was entirely pleasing — robust color, ultra-detailed, excellent sound.

How much better can the 4K be? If you’re watching it on a 65-inch 4K HDR screen, which is what I own, the difference between the 1080p Bluray and 4K HDR is not really that huge. The colors will probably be stronger, but that’s all.

For the first time in 17 or 18 years, I got rip-roaring stoned last night. By way of a single cannabis gummy bear, manufactured by CAMINO. It was a steady. bump-free high, but my God, the strength of it! It was like I was suddenly atop a galloping racehorse, but the horse knew the realm and was fairly cool about it. And it was like I’d been shot…shot with a diamond bullet, right through my forehead. (Kidding.) On the other hand I was scared that it might be too much for my psyche to handle (I’m basically a candy-ass in this realm), and this was why I decided to drop a Tapentadol to mellow things down.

All I know is that my senses and my free-associating mind and especially my imagination became more and more alive and attuned, and yet I was concurrently sensing how frail and delicate everyone is, myself included. I was doing everything I could to speak as softly and gently as possible. Music, colors, aromas, our Siamese cat…everything suddenly had an extra quality. If you’ve ever galloped on a horse, you know that it’s all about becoming one with the charging steed and not fretting about falling off…you have to be fearless and go with it. Last night I was half-fearless and half “uh-oh”, at least until the Tapentadol kicked in.

I’m basically saying that the THC in my system felt, from my vantage point at least, very, VERY strong for a while. I was half amazed that I’d allowed myself to get this ripped (which was actually Tatyana’s fault — she popped one of the candies into my mouth and I meekly went along with it), and half intrigued that this kind of cannabis high was a lot smoother and stronger than the pot I used to suck down in the ‘70s. It was quite the ride — lemme tell ya.

From “Don’t Monkey Around,” posted on 11.29.15: I stopped getting high as a rule in the mid ’70s, partly because I’d begun to hate the sense of weird isolation I was feeling when fully ripped. Pot is not a social drug — it’s about having giggly fits about tickly notions that are mostly in your head alone. And then it’s about spiralling down through the looking glass and becoming a flying monkey. And then about succumbing to the munchies.

I stopped getting high decades ago because pot opened the door to “the fear” — that mounting panic anxiety state that led to wild inconsolate hell and nerve-jangled insanity from which there could be no return. During a visit to Cinevegas in ’02 or ’03 I stupidly ate a super-potent pot brownie and got so ripped I had to down an entire fifth of Jack Daniels to keep the anxiety at bay.

But I really loved my early experiences of getting seriously baked, and particularly that odd time-loss thing that would happen every so often. I would be riding in the backseat of a friend’s car and just leave the planet for places unknown, and then I would suddenly awake and be somewhere new…how did I get here? I could have been space-tripping for five minutes or five seconds — I couldn’t tell but I had left the realm. I’ll never forget that “whoa, what just happened?” feeling.