Xanadu: Rock and Roller Skates (with Balloons)

by Pa Rock
Theatre Fan

I'm just back from an evening at Phoenix's Herberger Theatre where I had the pleasure of watching the Arizona Theatre Company's production of the rock musical, Xanadu.  The stage show was originally a movie vehicle for Olivia Newton John, one that has held up well over the intervening three decades since the film's release in 1980.

The stage play is set in Venice, California, in 1980 and involves a luckless young artist who has given up on his painting and is suicidal.  His life changes when he meets the beautiful Kira who inspires him to follow his dreams.  Kira and her eight sisters are, in reality, muses from the court of Zeus, the King of the Gods, and when she falls in love with the artist, a mere mortal, she encounters the wrath of Zeus.   But love eventually conquers all.  

A highlight of the show was a lengthy version of Jeff Lynne's "Evil Woman" which received the strongest audience reaction of any number in the show.

And there was dancing, wonderful dancing that included ballet, tap, and even dancing on roller skates.   The finale was highlighted with a balloon drop that maximized audience participation as we batted balloons to and fro!

It was a beautifully staged production!  Kudos to the young people on stage who put the sparkle in Xanadu!

Postal Service Commemorates Witchcraft

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

America’s religious fundamentalists and morality police have been so focused on increasing gun sales, repealing Obamacare, killing science, stopping gay marriage, and controlling what women do with their  own bodies, that they have apparently missed one of the biggest affronts to civilization in recent memory.   Our postal service has just issued a series of stamps that pay homage to witches and warlocks.   That’s right – a mere 300 years after burning witches in this country was all the rage, we are now sticking them on letters!

The new stamps depict scenes from the Harry Potter movies.  They feature the innocent young witch-and-warlock-wannabees (Daniel Radcliffe and his gang), the teachers (Maggie Smith and her gang) who lead the innocents into the dark arts, and a few assorted animals and creatures from the eight-movie franchise.

The stamps are beautiful, in a satanic sort of way.

I couldn’t help but smile as I looked through the booklet of stamps – remembering all of the fuss that occurred when the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was released in 2001.  Some parents (the usual suspects) were vocal in their condemnation of a movie they hadn’t seen, and were trying to bully their friends and neighbors into not allowing their children to see it.

And, now, a mere thirteen years later, the whole crew is featured on United States postage!

Ben Franklin would be so proud!

(I’m saving mine for next year’s holiday cards!)

The Transmigrating Soul of Richard Nixon

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spent two hours this morning telling the national press corps how sad and outraged he was that at least one of his underlings intentionally caused two days of snarled traffic on one of the nation’s busiest thoroughfares as a political vendetta.   

Real harm was done as a result of the political shenanigans.  One elderly woman died, a search for a missing child was delayed, emergency vehicles were trapped in traffic, and thousands and thousands of angry motorists were unnecessarily stuck in the snarl – for hours.   Real harm was done, and real lawsuits will result.

On one level, I sort of like Christie – even if he is a Republican.  I particularly enjoyed his obvious slights to the Romney campaign in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  (It’s a good thing Romney wasn’t elected, or he might have closed half of the runways at Newark International for a traffic study.  Those Republicans are mean, unforgiving bastards!)

But on another level, Chris Christie represents much that is bad with American politics.    Whether he personally approved the plan to punish the mayor of Ft. Lee by causing that massive traffic jam or not, Chris Christie, by his words and deeds over several years, created a culture within his administration whereby vindictive political payback was an accepted practice.

I understand the governor did not mention his children’s dog or his wife’s cloth coat, but barring those oversights, his performance today – and in the days leading up to today – still bears the strong sulfurous stench of Richard Nixon.     So far Christie has thrown one member of his administration under the bus and appears on the verge of heaving a second – all the while denying his own culpability.  Before the Watergate scandal had run its course, Nixon had thrown most of the West Wing under the bus.

The press stayed on Richard Nixon until he eventually ran out of lies and fall guys.   Chris Christie should expect no mercy from the press or the public.  Watergate was an abstract to much of America, but we all know what traffic jams are and how it feels to be stuck in one.  Traffic jams are personal, and the people of New Jersey are likely to be as unforgiving as . . . well . . .  as unforgiving as the Christie administration

Payback can be a real bitch, Chris!

Pa Rock's 2013 Dead Pool Results

by Pa Rock
Dead Pool Master

This year's Dead Pool produced five winners instead of the anticipated three, as well as two honorable mentions.

The honorable mentions were Leslie K. who correctly chose the 87-year-old former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for a total of 13 points, and Coretta O. who also chose Ms. Thatcher and 95-year-old Nelson Mandela for 18 points.

I won the ten dollar third prize with my prediction of 69-year-old Bonnie Franklin for 31 points.  That represents my first time in the money since 2007.  (I will shift a ten dollar bill from my left pocket to my right pocket!)

Second place was a three-way tie between Tim M. and Erin M. who each had 58-year-old Hugo Chavez on their list for 42 points, and Don H. who had former Prime Minister Thatcher (age 87) and 71-year-old film critic Roger Ebert - also for a total of 42 points.  Each will receive the $25 second place prize.

And the grand prize of fifty dollars goes to David S. for his selections of Nelson Mandela (5 points) and Hugo Chavez (42 points) -  for a total of 47 points.

Great work one and all!   Thank you for entering.

The checks are in the mail!

Electrolux Encounters

by Pa Rock
Happy Homemaker

Taking a walk through COSTCO can be expensive exercise.

While packing to move into a home with two floors of new carpeting, I knew that sooner or later I would have to break loose and buy a vacuum cleaner.  (How I managed to get through the last couple of years without one is another tale entirely.)

I don't know a lot about vacuums and tend to get easily bewildered when there are several of anything to choose from.  There are so many things to be considered in the purchase of a rug-sucker:  push or pull, bag or bag-less, turns on a ball or not, horsepower, warranties, and now they even come in a variety of colors.  I wasn't anxious to engage in the full mental pursuit of trying to determine which was the best product for my needs - sooner or later God would send a sign.

That happened Sunday as I was making a quick pass through COSTCO.  There, impeding my path, was a monster stack of boxed Electrolux vacuum cleaners.

The only vacuum that I remember my mother ever having was a long, grey, cylindrical Electrolux on gliders that was pulled from room-to-room.  She bought it, if I am not mistaken, from a traveling salesman shortly after she and Dad were married.  I'm sure she had the workhorse well over twenty years.

As I was growing up my father had a small appliance store where, among other things, he sold Hoover vacuum cleaners, and while Dad spoke highly of Hoovers to his customers, he always proffered in private that nothing compared to an Electrolux.

My next Electrolux experience came while on a visit to Stockholm, Sweden, in 1999, where I took a boat ride down through the many beautiful islands of the Stockholm Archipelago.  My destination was Birka, an island that had once been a vital Viking community.  Most of the people on the boat were headed to Birka, but a few were using the transport as a shuttle service and got off on some of the many islands along the way.  One of those stops was next to a small Electrolux factory nestled among a grove of trees.  It was perhaps the most idyllic setting for a factory that I have ever happened upon.

Armed with those most excellent Electrolux encounters - and the knowledge that this particular model had a thirty-foot cord, I didn't need to double-check with Consumer Reports in order to make a decision.  I lifted one into my shopping cart and headed on down the aisle.

Mission accomplished!

Monday's Poetry: "Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator


The following short poem by William Shakespeare deftly compares the coldness of weather with the insensitivity of mankind.  It may be cold outside, and in the Midwest today is is dangerously cold, but the awfulness of the weather does not have to be further complicated by our coldness toward one another.

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind is from Shakespeare's play, As You Like It.

To my friends back home:  Stay inside by the fire.  This, too, shall pass.


Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
by William Shakespeare

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Another Political Joke Is About to be Foisted on Arizona

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Hollywood has-been Steven Seagal has informed America that he is considering running for governor of Arizona.  Seagal, who has had a continuing connection to the Scorpion State through some of his reality television projects, apparently feels that he has what it takes to fill Jan Brewer's pumps.  And while he has less on-the-ground political experience than the wily Governor Brewer, he is almost as pretty.

Seagal currently has a new reality program called Steven Seagal - Lawman:  Maricopa County.  The actor is a crony of our windbag sheriff, Joe Arpaio, and also a member of Arpaio's unpaid and overly-hyped citizen's posse.  He has discussed his intention of running for governor with the 81-year-old sheriff.

A few years ago Seagal made news when he took part in an Arpaio raid on a chicken farm in an ill-fated attempt to bust a cockfighting ring.  Seagal was in a military tank that crashed through the farmer's gate.  In the melee that followed multiple chickens as well as a puppy belonging to the farmer's children were killed.  Seagal and Arpaio, who each claim animal cruelty as one of their pet-peeves, were sued over the incident at the chicken farm.

That is law enforcement, Maricopa County style.

If there is one state in America where Steven Seagal would have a snowball's chance of being elected governor, it would be Arizona.  But even this state (which gets bluer by the day) won't be a cakewalk.  Seagal needs to remember he's no Reagan - or even a Jesse Ventura.

The Scorpion State just can't seem to catch a break!

That's Entertainment?

by Pa Rock
Film Fan

Two days ago I stated a fact in this space that turned out to be wrong - though not by much.  Today I would like to set the record straight.

I declared in the posting titled "Patsy and the Wolf" that the new Martin Scorsese film, The Wolf of Wall Street, used the f-word in its various forms and tenses "seven or eight hundred times."  I knew that was just an approximation, and I certainly did not think enough of the tedious movie to sit through it a second time for an accurate count.

Well, it turns out that somebody was counting.

Variety has reported that the correct number of f-bombs was 506, a new non-documentary record for the film industry.  Scorsese surpassed the old record of 435 which sparkled up Spike Lee's film, Summer of Sam.  Scorsese does have two other f-bomb classics:  Casino with 422 uses of the word, and Goodfellas which checks in with 300 f-bombs.

Even though The Wolf of Wall Street drags on for one minute shy of three hours, Director Scorsese still managed to pound it with more than 2.8 f-bombs per minute.

No word yet on whether the Academy will give special recognition to his notable achievement or not.

Hey Marty, bombs away!

Rodman Beware!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A newspaper in Beijing, China, with ties to the official Communist party is reporting that North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, has had his uncle (by marriage) and former second-in-command executed.  That story, in and of itself, isn't too surprising.  Kim Jong Un recently had an old girlfriend put to death.   The little tyrant obviously knows how to end a relationship - permanently.

What makes the death of Kim's uncle hard to fathom is the method of execution.  Uncle Jang Song Thaek and five of his close associates were, according to the Chinese news account, stripped naked and then thrown into a pit with one-hundred-and-twenty ravenous hunting hounds that had been starved for five days. Kim, his brother, and three hundred honored guests watched the feeding frenzy for an hour until the dinner guests were "completely eaten up."

The story sounds too bizarre to be true.  Yes, it happened in a totalitarian setting where human rights never figure into anyone's calculations for anything - but who can believe that there are over a hundred dogs left in North Korea.   Kim might have gotten more bang for his buck if he had used a hundred-and-twenty of his starving citizens instead.

Uncle Jang Song Thaek was found guilty in a North Korean court of trying to overthrow the government   He was also accused of "corruption, womanizing, gambling, and taking drugs" and being "despicable human scum."

Just think how they  might have reacted if Uncle Jang had shown up for work wearing a wedding gown!  Dennis Rodman beware - your little buddy is out of control!

Patsy and the Wolf

by Pa Rock
Film Fan

Yesterday I gave three hours of my ever-decreasing time on Earth to viewing Martin Scorsese’s new film, The Wolf of Wall Street.  It wasn’t completely god-awful, but surely director Scorsese could have cut an hour (any hour) from the epic infomercial and had a better product.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, the two leads in the film, each turned in exceptional performances, and Matthew McConaughey, though having only a small part, also nailed his role – and nailed it hard.  There were some funny lines, but clearly not enough humor (or anything else) to justify two hours and fifty-nine minutes of sitting in a darkened theatre.  Instead of being an enjoyable experience, it was more like being trapped in a room full of rabid and foul-mouthed car salesmen. 

(A person who takes offense at the gratuitous use of the f-word in its many forms and tenses should plan on being offended a minimum of seven or eight hundred times during the course of this movie.  Likewise, those who disapprove of the serial sexual exploitation of women will also have issues with The Wolf of Wall Street.)

The highlight (yes, there was a highlight) of the movie was the appearance of Aunt Emma, wonderfully portrayed by British actress, Joanna Lumley.  When Miss Lumley (Patsy of Absolutely Fabulous) made her entrance, I felt like an old friend had suddenly shown up to rescue me from the onslaught of yelling, profanity, porn, and violence.   Her appearance was a reprieve that helped to make the experience bearable.  The scene where she and the much younger DiCaprio discuss moving his cash illegally to Switzerland – and then he kisses her, right on the mouth – is one of the most captivating of the whole movie.

The Wolf of Wall Street is supposedly a true story - an autobiographical tale of one man’s rise from a modest background to a wildly successful business career as a shady stockbroker and motivator.  (Successful if one uses money as the only gauge of success.)  He burns through money, drugs, property, and women with total abandon and always comes out fighting for more.  The Wolf’s ultimate triumph is to sell the rights to his book and life to Martin Scorsese for a three-hour film.

Hey Marty, there’s one born every minute!

Panic Begging

by Pa Rock
Perpetual Mark

I can tell that there will soon be a new email address in my future.  Junk mail is relentless when there is no charge for the postage.

On most days I receive forty or fifty junk emails begging for money.  A few come from charities,  but most are sent by politicians who want me to know that my small donation is all that's standing between the preservation of our democracy and Republican evangelical anarchy.  The politicial emails are always clever and insistent, often telling me that I have just a few hours to beat some artificial deadline.

Yesterday, being the last day of the year, the beggars went absolutely crazy.  By the time I shut my computer down and headed to bed, I had deleted somewhere north of 170 appeals for a piece of my money.  The legitimate charities wanted me to know that if I desired by to make a tax-deductible donation in 2013, I had to pledge by midnight.  The politicians, while not being able to offer tax deductions, wanted me to know that a handout in 2013 would show strength of their candidates.    Obviously the politicians were piggy-backing on the urgency that the charities were trumpeting.

It's the end of the year - give, give, give!

It's the end of the year - delete, delete, delete!

The Age of Ignorance

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A group of evangelical Christians are at work in Texas trying to browbeat the Texas Board of Education into not approving use of a particular biology textbook in Texas schools.  A voluntary (and unnamed) reviewer has concluded that the text contains errors that need to be corrected by the publisher.  Those errors, not surprisingly, are references to evolution indicating that it is based on legitimate science.    The complainants would rather their children, and everybody else’s children, be taught the creation story from the Bible.

The Pew Research Center released the results of a new survey this week which reflected America’s thinking on evolution, and, not surprisingly, the findings fell along party lines – and it showed that the divide is increasing dramatically. 

In 2009 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats committed to the idea that humans have evolved over millions of years as a species here on earth.  When the same question was recently posed by Pew in 2013, the Democratic percentage had increased to 67% and the Republican percentage of those believing in the theory of evolution had dropped eleven points to just 43 percent.    (Texas Republicans, one must assume, would come in even lower.)

The Pew Center was at a loss to explain the precipitous drop other than to suggest some of the better educated Republicans may have shuffled over to the “independent” category.

Republicans are clearly expressing some discomfort with the notion of science.  Another barometer gauging the GOP’s trust (or lack thereof) in science is climate change and global warming.  That may be a bit more understandable because talks on ways to curb global warming invariably lead to discussions of limiting greenhouse gases – a process that would most certainly place some curbs on transportation and manufacturing.   Republicans are quick to defend their base – big corporations – and the titans of business repay that kindness with cold, hard cash.

Recent data from the Pew Center puts the number of Americans who believe the earth is getting warmer at 67 percent.    In 2009 35% of Republicans, 53 percent of independents, and 75% of Democrats said there is solid evidence that the earth’s temperatures are rising.  The 2013 findings on the same question show increases in all three groups – even Republicans.  Those figures are 50% for Republicans, 62% for independents, and 88% for Democrats. 

But here is the kicker:  The Tea-Bagger Republicans, the ones who turn out in droves for the primaries and choose their party’s candidates for the general elections – 41% of those folks parrot Rush Limbaugh and say that global warming is just not happening, and another 28% say that not enough is known yet.

The Republican Party’s seeming rejection of science as its members who should know better pander to the likes of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and the phony hillbillies of Duck Dynasty, only helps to seal its doom.  The Grand Old Party will surely march into the abyss of insignificance while holding high its banner of ignorance.