Today's song of the day is a hit from the classic 1978 film, "Grease". This is one that gets stuck in your head easily. It was a major hit and reached #3 on the Billboard 100 in September 1978.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Song of the Day #2 - "Hopelessly Devoted to You" by Olivia Newton John
Today's song of the day is a hit from the classic 1978 film, "Grease". This is one that gets stuck in your head easily. It was a major hit and reached #3 on the Billboard 100 in September 1978.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Retro Horror Flick #2 - The Boogeyman (1980)
Today's retro horror flick is the 1980 slasher film, "The Boogeyman". This retro gem ended up collecting dust on VHS racks throughout video stores from 1981 until the demise of video stores themselves.
At the time, every horror movie film was trying to replicate the success and utter terror of "Halloween", the 1978 film that captivated the nation and became an enormous box office success. Indeed, "The Boogeyman" holds many of the same qualities of Halloween. A white painted house in rural America, a little kid holding a butcher knife, and then some.
The plot outline is simple.
In 1960, a young brother and sister become disturbed as their floozy mother decides to remove her stockings and put them on the head of her mean, angry drunken boyfriend. I'm not joking.
Seeing that the boy notices the two of them about to do the horizontal pokey, the angry boyfriend, with the drunken harlot mother's acceptance, ties the poor boy up on his bed. Later that night, the brother ends up grabbing a butcher knife and finishing the boyfriend off. The sister sees the reflection of this in a mirror.
Just 20 years later, it's 1980. The brother and sister live on a farm and while the brother is a mute, the sister is a babe married to some blond-haired cop.
Everything seems fine until a letter from their estranged mother shows up at their home. After that, a series of strange events regarding mirrors and death begin occurring. Basically, the mirror is shattered, freeing the dead drunken boyfriend's evil spirit, which seeks revenge for his death.
Overall, a watchable film to cuddle up with someone and laugh about. An example of how a little money could pull in a couple of million dollars, and make the film a profit. Another example as well of how the slasher genre of the 1980s was beginning to take off.
Again, save this one for a boring night inside.
At the time, every horror movie film was trying to replicate the success and utter terror of "Halloween", the 1978 film that captivated the nation and became an enormous box office success. Indeed, "The Boogeyman" holds many of the same qualities of Halloween. A white painted house in rural America, a little kid holding a butcher knife, and then some.
 |
| Look familiar? Everyone was trying to be "Halloween" |
The plot outline is simple.
In 1960, a young brother and sister become disturbed as their floozy mother decides to remove her stockings and put them on the head of her mean, angry drunken boyfriend. I'm not joking.
 |
| These stockings don't go well with this outfit... |
 |
| ...let me put them on your face so you look like a slasher. |
Seeing that the boy notices the two of them about to do the horizontal pokey, the angry boyfriend, with the drunken harlot mother's acceptance, ties the poor boy up on his bed. Later that night, the brother ends up grabbing a butcher knife and finishing the boyfriend off. The sister sees the reflection of this in a mirror.
 |
| MICHAEL MYERS...oh wait...wrong movie. |
 |
| It's been 20 years and now the mirror has broken |
Just 20 years later, it's 1980. The brother and sister live on a farm and while the brother is a mute, the sister is a babe married to some blond-haired cop.
 |
| Picturesque 1980 middle American family |
Everything seems fine until a letter from their estranged mother shows up at their home. After that, a series of strange events regarding mirrors and death begin occurring. Basically, the mirror is shattered, freeing the dead drunken boyfriend's evil spirit, which seeks revenge for his death.
 | ||||
| Recurring nightmares |
 |
| Local farm girl has the hots for the mute brother |
 |
| SCARY!!! |
Song of the Day #1 - "I Can't Hold Back" by Survivor
Today's song of the day is the Survivor hit "I Can't Hold Back" from their 1984 album Vital Signs. This song reached #13 on the Billboard HOT 100 in December 1984.
Sound familiar? Google "Heaven" by Cat Stevens, "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay, "Hearts" by Marty Balin, "If I Could Fly" by Joe Satriani, and "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight" by Cutting Crew. All songs sound nearly identical. Technically, Cat Stevens was first.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Retro Horror Flick #1 - Prom Night (1980) - If you're not back by midnight, you won't be coming home...
It is so sad that Hollywood went and remade this 1980 classic. The plot is simple. It's a region around Cleveland, Ohio in 1980, where a masked killer stalks and preys on four teenage girls responsible for the accidental death
of a kid six years earlier at their high school's senior prom.
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| 33 year old actress Anne-Marie Martin as a High School student |
Jamie Lee Curtis, following "Halloween", "The Fog" and "Terror Train" was solidified as a "scream queen". I remember watching this film when it was not even 20 years old...now it's pushing 33 years old. That means it's been over 13 years since I first saw it as a young teen who loved watching 80s-style horror movies. That old trailer is awesome!
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| "Teenage" girls with 30 year old busts search for a crazed killer |
FYI, I love the "high school" girls played by 30 year old actresses. Ahh, the 1980s. This is the first of many movie segments I will be sharing from time to time on this website.
Why are younger generations so clueless to history?
I understand young people are voting in higher and higher numbers. That is a truism. However, their votes are often not determined as much by political issues or ideology but rather by sensationalism and trendiness.
I've recently run into grown adults who didn't know what Hiroshima or Nagasaki were. While not much surprises me anymore, I tried thinking back as far as I could (the earliest memories I have are from 1990/1991) and I couldn't remember the moment I heard about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I couldn't remember ever "learning" about The Beatles or Ronald Reagan or anything of popular culture/historical significance before my time.
When these people my age, maybe slightly younger or older told me they had no clue what this was, I told them they are Japanese cities that were destroyed by the United States when we dropped nuclear weapons on them to end World War II. I then wondered, do they even know the significance of nuclear weapons? Is a nuclear bomb to them no different than an old fashioned stick of dynamite? Do they realize that for nearly 50 years there was a looming threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States?
A year or so ago on the Fourth of July, I asked a very sweet and pretty 18 year old girl I was acquaintances with why we celebrate the Fourth of July. She couldn't tell me. She said, "I don't know. Why?" I told her to "celebrate our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776." She responded with an uninterested, "Oh."
I'm willing to bet that all they hear was, "To celebrate our BLAH BLAH BLAH from BLAH BLAH BLAH on July 4, 1776." (which I bet even the date throws them off since anything pre-2006 seems prehistoric to them). She could not only care less, but seemed bored and uninterested of ever having any idea about the circumstances which caused her to have the freedom to be so clueless.
Writer Mark Bauerlein's book, "The Dumbest Generation" made a fantastic point with an excerpt about 1776:
"Think of how many things you must do in order NOT to know the year 1776 or the British prime minister or the Fifth Amendment. At the start, you must forget the lessons of school-history class, social studies, government, geography, English, philosophy, and art history. You must care nothing about current events, elections, foreign policy, and war. No newspapers, no political magazines, no NPR or Rush Limbaugh, no CNN, Fox News, network news or NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. No books on the Cold War or the Found, no biographies, nothing on Bush or Hillary, terrorism or religion, Europe or the Middle East. No political activity and no community activism. And your friends must act the same way, never letting a historical fact or current affair slip into a cell phone exchange.
It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. Or a better way to put it is to say that they are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond-friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook. Each day, the information they receive and the interactions they have must be so local or superficial that the facts of government, foreign and domestic affairs, the historical past, and the fine arts never slip through. How do they do it?"
Am I wrong to find this disturbing? What are your opinions on it?
 |
| Scary but accurate |
I've recently run into grown adults who didn't know what Hiroshima or Nagasaki were. While not much surprises me anymore, I tried thinking back as far as I could (the earliest memories I have are from 1990/1991) and I couldn't remember the moment I heard about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I couldn't remember ever "learning" about The Beatles or Ronald Reagan or anything of popular culture/historical significance before my time.
 |
| Hiroshima, Japan - 1945 |
When these people my age, maybe slightly younger or older told me they had no clue what this was, I told them they are Japanese cities that were destroyed by the United States when we dropped nuclear weapons on them to end World War II. I then wondered, do they even know the significance of nuclear weapons? Is a nuclear bomb to them no different than an old fashioned stick of dynamite? Do they realize that for nearly 50 years there was a looming threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States?
 |
| 1960 Cold War Era Comic Book |
A year or so ago on the Fourth of July, I asked a very sweet and pretty 18 year old girl I was acquaintances with why we celebrate the Fourth of July. She couldn't tell me. She said, "I don't know. Why?" I told her to "celebrate our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776." She responded with an uninterested, "Oh."
I'm willing to bet that all they hear was, "To celebrate our BLAH BLAH BLAH from BLAH BLAH BLAH on July 4, 1776." (which I bet even the date throws them off since anything pre-2006 seems prehistoric to them). She could not only care less, but seemed bored and uninterested of ever having any idea about the circumstances which caused her to have the freedom to be so clueless.
Writer Mark Bauerlein's book, "The Dumbest Generation" made a fantastic point with an excerpt about 1776:
"Think of how many things you must do in order NOT to know the year 1776 or the British prime minister or the Fifth Amendment. At the start, you must forget the lessons of school-history class, social studies, government, geography, English, philosophy, and art history. You must care nothing about current events, elections, foreign policy, and war. No newspapers, no political magazines, no NPR or Rush Limbaugh, no CNN, Fox News, network news or NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. No books on the Cold War or the Found, no biographies, nothing on Bush or Hillary, terrorism or religion, Europe or the Middle East. No political activity and no community activism. And your friends must act the same way, never letting a historical fact or current affair slip into a cell phone exchange.
It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. Or a better way to put it is to say that they are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond-friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook. Each day, the information they receive and the interactions they have must be so local or superficial that the facts of government, foreign and domestic affairs, the historical past, and the fine arts never slip through. How do they do it?"
Am I wrong to find this disturbing? What are your opinions on it?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Surprising lack of One-Term Presidents?
With the back and forth divisions of politics in America the last 10-12
years, you would expect that our presidencies would be back and forth as
well.
After all, Congress has gone from Republicans in charge to Democrats in charge to Republicans in charge again in just four years, but we continue to have Presidents re-elected at an amazing rate.
By all indications, George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States and Former Texas Governor, should have lost re-election. The economy had taken a 1-2-3 hit.
First were the Enron and Corporate scandals that took their toll on moral on Wall Street around the year 2000/2001.
The second punch came with the dot com bubble bursting right around the same time, as the unstoppable force known as the World Wide Web busted like a Dolly Parton blouse.
Third and most significant were the horrendous attacks of September 11, 2001 during which Wall Street was shutdown for days and stocks fell. Cantor Fitzgerald, a global financial services firm lost 658 employees alone on that fateful day.
Of course, Bush received record high popularity between 2001 and 2004, making his re-election nearly inevitable. But for all intents and purposes, given the decline of the economy and a hard war in Iraq by the Summer of 2004, history shows he should have lost re-election.
Assuming that, then John Kerry would have become America's 44th President. President Kerry would have had to deal with the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina In August and September 2005, and then the also-inevitable housing market collapse and economic downturn, leading to the election of a Republican President. Perhaps John McCain, perhaps George Allen (assume he wins in 2006 in a good Republican climate under an unpopular Kerry Presidency), perhaps even Mitt Romney.
Then that President (McCain/Allen/Romney, ect) would have just lost re-election in November 2012 to a Democratic candidate. Maybe something like this:::
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
George Bush (2001-2005)
John Kerry (2005-2009)
McCain/Allen/Romney (2009-2013)
Obama/Hillary/Whoever (2013-)
My question is, why is it easier to sweep an entire congress out twice within four years, but nearly impossible to beat a President once in four years?
One thing of note...if only men voted...the results of the last 30 years of Presidential elections wouldn't be too different, except Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would have lost re-election. Is it possible that women voters and certain voting blocs make it next to impossible?
After all, Congress has gone from Republicans in charge to Democrats in charge to Republicans in charge again in just four years, but we continue to have Presidents re-elected at an amazing rate.
By all indications, George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States and Former Texas Governor, should have lost re-election. The economy had taken a 1-2-3 hit.
First were the Enron and Corporate scandals that took their toll on moral on Wall Street around the year 2000/2001.
 |
| "You're not really
my dad, are you?" "No, I'm not. I work on Wall Street, you know, with the big buildings." - The Family Man, 2000 |
The second punch came with the dot com bubble bursting right around the same time, as the unstoppable force known as the World Wide Web busted like a Dolly Parton blouse.
 |
| WELCOME! YOU'VE GOT MAIL. |
Third and most significant were the horrendous attacks of September 11, 2001 during which Wall Street was shutdown for days and stocks fell. Cantor Fitzgerald, a global financial services firm lost 658 employees alone on that fateful day.
 |
| WTC Tower 1 burns - September 11, 2001 |
Of course, Bush received record high popularity between 2001 and 2004, making his re-election nearly inevitable. But for all intents and purposes, given the decline of the economy and a hard war in Iraq by the Summer of 2004, history shows he should have lost re-election.
Assuming that, then John Kerry would have become America's 44th President. President Kerry would have had to deal with the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina In August and September 2005, and then the also-inevitable housing market collapse and economic downturn, leading to the election of a Republican President. Perhaps John McCain, perhaps George Allen (assume he wins in 2006 in a good Republican climate under an unpopular Kerry Presidency), perhaps even Mitt Romney.
Then that President (McCain/Allen/Romney, ect) would have just lost re-election in November 2012 to a Democratic candidate. Maybe something like this:::
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
George Bush (2001-2005)
John Kerry (2005-2009)
McCain/Allen/Romney (2009-2013)
Obama/Hillary/Whoever (2013-)
My question is, why is it easier to sweep an entire congress out twice within four years, but nearly impossible to beat a President once in four years?
 |
| The last one term President, George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) |
One thing of note...if only men voted...the results of the last 30 years of Presidential elections wouldn't be too different, except Bill Clinton and Barack Obama would have lost re-election. Is it possible that women voters and certain voting blocs make it next to impossible?
Welcome Culture Warriors!
My name is Mike. I consider myself a culture warrior. Maybe not quite a Bill O'Reilly, but definitely a person who sees the world in a good, all-American old fashioned sense of the word.
I am obviously not the only person to see the world this way, not the only person to believe in certain ideals or causes that so many hold dear, but at my age of 24 years old, you would be hard pressed to find many other young males who think the way I do.
I represent Americans who believe in the Constitution, believe that there are good guys and bad guys, and believe that a bar of soap in the mouth or a good smackin' with dad's belt disciplined us better when we were children than "cultural sensitivity" training with "warm fuzzies" and "cold pricklies". When I hear things such as that, or words like "mediation", my blood boils. I am a conservative, but not a tea-party type. I believe I represent the mindset of the older, better, stronger America. The America that stopped the wrongful British Empire, the America that stopped the Third Reich and the America that will face down global threats in the future.
I hate blogging. I hate bloggers. But the time has come to reach out to the world by means of the world wide web and spread the message of old-fashioned opinion. This blog will range from not just political issues, but also cultural issues, movie and music critique and more. Hope you all enjoy the blog and follow.
Thanks!
Mike
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