Krampus

Yes, it is only mid-October, but I figure that’s giving you approximately 2.5 months to get your shit together or come the evening of December 24th, you’ll be forced  deal with……

KRAMPUS!!!!!!!!!

To be more specific, this menacing looking dude:

Krampus was new to me until a campy movie of the same name was released two years ago.    I watched it for the first time this morning in a fit of boredom.   It’s a somewhat Interesting flick, in that it’s very dark,  with dark humor that had me entertained just enough to keep the remote out of my hand for an hour and 38 minutes.     When I first learned of the movie, I thought the title by virtue of the spelling , is Latin in nature, but it isn’t.

It’s comes to us from legends that swirl around  Europe….from as far west as Germany and Northern Italy, and eastward to Croatia.    Krampus IS the ultimate cautionary tale for kids…..adults, too.   As the story goes, he’ll incur his evil wrath on December 24th  to anyone who loses their Christmas spirit, especially the months right before the holiday.   The Christmas spirit is easily defined:  it’s giving more than taking, it’s believing in the inherent good in people and a belief in the prospect of miracles, even under the gloomiest and most dire circumstances.

Folklore tells us that Krampus is a tall, horned  figure that perpetually keeps his mouth open to show his scary, gnarly fangs.    He’s an imposing looking thing that’s half-goat, half-demon with cloven hooves and wrapped in chains, thought to symbolize the perpetual connection to the Devil.

Sometimes Krampus appears with a black sack or a basket or cage strapped to his back.  Legend says he uses this to snatch bad children from their homes in order to drown them, eat them or deliver them non-stop to the closet portal to Hell.

Lovely.

Krampus, as you might have deduced by now, is at the opposite end of the spectrum where the kindly, jolly, old St. Nicholas dwells.    St. Nick gave birth to the story of Santa Claus and all the variations there in.   For example, he’s called Father Christmas in the U.K.,  Père Noël in France and kids in Athens call him Άγιος Βασίλης, but that’s completely Greek to me.

The origin of the figure is unclear; some folklorists and anthropologists postulate its pre-Christian origin.    So, obviously, Krampus” roots have nothing to do with Christmas. Instead, they date back to pre-Germanic paganism in the region. His name originates with the German word  krampen, which means “claw,”.   Donecsay its traditions can be traced back to Norse mythology.     He’s the son of the Norse god of the underworld, Hel.    However, Wikipedia failed to tell me how it locked horns with Christmas and spread throughout Europe.     I would imagine the diaspora of the tale was spread through desperate parents who needed  an affective con job that could turn unruly children into little saints.

Well, there you go.    You now have a B.A. In all things Krampus.

So, come Thanksgiving when radio stations, Sirius satellite and the Hallmark channel go full on with Christmas programming 24/7, keep the movie Krampus in mind.     After the cartoons tell your kids that Rudolph Saves Christmas, that Santa Claus Is Coming To Town or when Bing Crosby croons that he’s dreaming of a White Christmas, go to Netflix and rent Krampus and make the kiddos watch it;   especially the unruly ones who defy the classic Santa Claus song by pouting, crying  and refusing to watch out despite telling them why.     And add to the experience, by making  them watch it late at night….in the dark, preferably during a storm.

Make them watch it twice if you have to.    And maybe, just maybe, the next day, you just might find that little Bethany and Ferguson have become the reincarnations of Mother Theresa or Albert Schweitzer.

At least until December 26th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrorism

Of course,  what happened in Las Vegas a week ago was terrorism.

A mass shooting is just that and it doesn’t matter if the trigger man or woman is/was an atheist, an ISIS Jihadi or a devout Episcopalian with a Jewish mom really into college jai alai.      In these instances, religion doesn’t matter.    Neither does race.  Hatred knows no religious or ethnic barriers.

And as for crazy?   I would have deemed the shooter or bomber or truck driver or hijacker absolutely insane regardless of affiliation.    To get sucked in by ANY illogical movement because of psychopathy, or sucked into a religious fervor to the point you’d kill for it based on a promise of entry into some “celestial kingdom rife with grape laden virgins” or to get sucked into your own skewed cult of personality to gain infamous notoriety with a body count, is way beyond my sphere of comprehension.

Isn’t for you, too?

I’m no different than anyone else who watched the weeklong barrage of news reports coming out of Las Vegas with a lump in the throat, a sickening feeling….tears, too.    But I forced myself to watch as many uncensored videos as possible.  I read as many articles from legitimate news sights as I could stomach .  I know more about this “bump stock” contraption than any arms dealer.   I dived in, not to be morbid, but to be in the know, to empathize  and even learn what to do should I (God forbid) ever find myself in a similar situation.

The shooter?     Complete enigma.

Or not.

There hasn’t been a significantly revealing press conference in several days.   So, this means one of two things,  obviously:   either investigators  have nothing to report or evidence is literally pouring in free fall.    There’s always a strategy involved in what cops are willing to release to the public.   Sometimes, info is telegraphed to suspects or people of interest not yet in custody.      If you have any doubts, go watch the way Chief Moose from the Montgomery County Police Department “spoke” to the dad/stepson duo known as the D.C. Snipers in 2002.   Chief Moose is an educated man, yet when he was speaking directly to the snipers via press conferences,  he seemed to use their vernacular.

Maybe we’ll never know the Las Vegas shooter’s motive or if he had help.  Maybe the tens of questions we all have will never get answered.   Despite the false flag nonsense from basement dwellers who just KNOW it’s the work of fascists, the globalists, ISIS, Hillary and Bill,  Trump, Antifa, Daddy Bush, Obama and Soros, the  New World Order, the Bilderbergs, The Reptilians, HAARP, the Illuminati, FEMA or  the United League of Lettuce Pickers, Local #48735.

2017 has already been a difficult year, even before the tragedy in Las Vegas.   Loss, illness, natural, disasters, terrorist attacks, political strife punctuated with violence,  problems of all kinds touched almost everyone I know in one way or another.

I know I’m not alone when I say September 11th changed the way I look at airplanes in flight, especially in descent mode over a major city.    It’s been 16 years since that fateful day.  I’ve probably seen all the TV series, movies, documentaries, videos probably 100 times.    I wasn’t in New York that day, but I can still hear the  high pitch roar as the engines revved before impact.  Then there was the horrible sound of the impact into the Twin Towers.     We witnessed murder in real-time that day.

The same with the massacre in  Las Vegas.    I’ll never be able to hear fire works or gunfire,  not to mention the horrible staccato sound made by semi or fully automatic weapons, in the same way ever again.    In fact, I never, ever never want to hear that sound again and  while I support the Second Amendment, my question with regard to those specific weapons is, why should I?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AHS: Cult/Season 7 “Holes”

In the fifth episode this season, we’re introduced to……TA DA!!!……fake news.     Or rather fake news that becomes real simply, because it wasn’t scary enough.

We open with Bob, the town’s  news director at the town’s  only TV station, accuses Beverly, the now the town s on,y reporter, of exaggerated stats regarding a crime story and basically fires her.

For promoting……wait for it……FAKE NEWS!!!

Well, now that she’s officially in Kai’s Klown Kar of misery inducers, this termination  simply won’t do.     Kai can’t get his message of fear (his manipulative cult of personality) and his emergence to power across (even as a city councilman) without a mouthpiece and who’s better for that than a pissed off, murderous reporter with a camera crew and satellite truck at her disposal.

So, they plan to kill Bob in a very witchy way and they’ll film it in full clown costume with a Satanic twist.     Kai insists  they do  this by stabbing him while chanting a Latin phrase which to me which sounded like “Oy vey, Satin!”    Why Latin?   According to Kai, it’s inherently more scary and fear is the name of the game, right?

All of  this happens, in an apparent nod to Quentin Tarantino s Pulp Fiction, with a  dead gimp in the background.   He was once hooded and suspended to the attic ceiling by large hooks pierced through his stomach, chest, legs and elsewhere I’m sure.    Bob was into some pretty kinky things apparently.  The clowns arrived just after some attic fun, as Bob descends the attic stairs,  licking blood off of his plastic gloves, the kind included in a box of L’Oréal Light Ash Blond/Shade #9A.    Don’t ask me how I know.

Anyway,  Bob dies alright, with a hatchet whack that basically splits his head in half, courtesy of Beverly who removed her mask, making her face….the very one he fired hours earlier….the last face he sees.

His murder makes the news and so does the video.

Unedited.   But even that says, Kai doesn’t make the unwashed masses scary enough.

We also learn how the first couple died in the first episode, the ones who were placed in sealed coffins, beneath a big smiley face.    The wife, was afraid of being enclosed in small places after a childhood that included a punishment of being locked in 1970’s era stereo cabinets.     Well, as we discussed a few episodes/blogposts ago, the town’s only psychiatrist has to be involved somehow because we all agreed he knows his patient’s fears.    He just  happens to be Kai and Winter’s older brother!        More on that in a bit.

Ally has a dream that her neck is full of holes in her neck.    She has trypophobia, a very real fear of small clusters of holes.    She tells her shrink all about it  and he tries to read some heavy- duty psycho babble into it.    Turns out, Ally is hurt Ivy left and took their son, little Izod (or whatever his name his) and she’s now living all alone in a house marked with a clown face the night whacko neighbor Meadow was killed.

All Ally wants is to feel safe and able to keep her son, little Oswald, or whatever his name is.

Flashback to September of last year:   we learn that Ivy ad Ally are having money issues.   The restaurant is not doing so well.  This, plus Ally’s decision to vote for Green candidate, Jill Stein instead of Hillary, is adding to relationship woes.    This makes it easier for her to leave Ally when the video of her semi-sexy bathtub romp with a little diddle from Winter was sent to their son Osgood  or whatever his name is.    It’s all very, very convenient.    And Ally is just starting to figure that out.

We then flash forward and Ally is alone in the house, and looks across the street and watches neighbor Harrison,  the gay bee keeper acting weird.   She looks through the window and sees him kissing with his lover, which looked a helluva lot like Anderson Cooper, so naturally, this fear filled idiot grabs a baseball bat and runs across the street to snoop around.   She finds Harrison’s wife of convenience, Meadow at the foot of a grave.     She asks Ally to help her which prompts Ally to run home.    She calls 911 which conveniently puts her on hold.    She calls Ivy and begs her to come home and of course,  Ivy thinks it’s just more of Ally’s delusion.    Then Meadow somehow escapes her grave and pounds on the Ally’s doors and windows begging to be let in.  She tells Ivy the murderous clown cult is trying to kill her and everyone is involved— her husband, Winter,and Ally’s wife.

Ivy is still on the line.     Did she hear this?

At that moment, Meadow, still pounding on the window is quickly covered with a white 1200 thread count Egyptian cotton pillow case.   Harrison might be murderous clown, but he’s also a gay man with good taste.

Ivy is screaming into the phone,and Ally just hangs up on her, looking even more lost and bewildered than usual.

The power bond between Beverly and Kai is becoming more obvious.

They decide to cull the clown herd..  The weakest link must be eliminated.    It’s some clown named RJ who only wants to be a clown…not a murdering clown.    So, he’s chosen to be killed with a nail gun.    Each member gets a turn to shoot a nail into RJ, who I don’t remember.    Guess his contract only allowed for a few episodes…..or he didn’t pat his SAG card dues.

Now, the power bond between Kai and Beverly is becoming more interesting.

In a pinky swear moment, he asks her about her fears, but she turns the table on him calling bullshit on all the stories he’s told people about who he really is.    So, he spills.  Turns out they died three years ago.   His father was a successful, silver-tongued lawyer who loved riding his Harley on the weekends, but an accident left him a paraplegic.  And he is angry about and a real asshole because of it.

His mother tries, but he’s verbally abusive to her and as physically abusive to her, well as much as a paraplegic can be.

One night during a fight, the mother shoots his father blows her head off.    Kai, who was a normal kid then, witnessed the whole thing, which hardened him.     What to do?   What to to?     He calls his brother, Vic or Vince…I wasn’t listening and yes, that’s the town shrink.    He suggests they just keep this quiet, put the couple  in their bed, cover them with lye to help in the decomposition process, and padlock  the door.     They agree they still need their father’s accident lawsuit money and their mother’s pension, plus Vic or Vince’s has just started his practice and Winter is a Freshman at Vassar.   To report  the murder/suicide would mean cutting off their money supply and besides, Vic/Vince doesn’t want to tell patients his parents were involved in a crime.     Info like that could screw with his credibility as a shrink.

So, mom and dad  are still in their master suite, upstairs rotting and this admission prompts Kai to collapse into crying jag.     Head on table with full on sobs.   We don’t see tears, but WHAT Beverly sees is his vulnerability.     Perceived, perhaps but she’s buying it.

Beverly gets up, stands behind Kai as if to comfort him, but it’s almost like a transfer of power, of sorts.     Maybe not literally, but Beverly now knows Kai’s real backstory.

And knowledge IS power…..maybe.     This is Kai, after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Las Vegas: Bright Lights/Harsh Realities

See this face?

It’s that of  64-year-old Stephen Paddock.     Twenty-four hours ago, one could look at his photo and think him to be a typical,  middle-aged American male.    Enough receding  gray hair, enough wrinkles to prove he’s lived a life,  but what kind of life?     Because one day later, his has become the latest face of murder, mayhem and domestic terror.

As as it stands, with the mass shooting in the streets of Las Vegas still so fresh in the global psyche,  Stephen Paddock is a complete enigma.    He supposedly had no political or religious affiliation, was a private pilot, a hunter, he was a former accountant at Lockheed Martin and owned commercial real estate in several states. His look-alike brother, who lives in Florida, claims to be as surprised as anyone  that his brother-turned-sniper, shot hundreds of people from the 32nd floor of a corner room in the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

News accounts say Paddock affable, but could be a bit  stand-offish.   He loved to gamble.      So, what was his beef?     His axe to  grind?   Was Paddock just another sick psychopath?   Obviously, yes, but we don’t yet know the motivations that prompted his illness , whether diagnosed or not, to force him to act. He had a criminal for a father, but friends and family say he was just a regular guy.

Outwardly, anyway.

As I type, 59 people have died, 527 wounded.     But in situations like this, sadly, those numbers are always fluid.    They’ll change and we’ll wince collectively when we hear the number of dead has climbed higher.

ISIS is being opportunistic.  This group of religious miscreants made two  claims that Paddock had been radicalized months ago and conducted  this massacre for this hate group.  Maybe, but I don’t think so.   If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, but I think this is the handiwork of a crazed man, perhaps angry and full of rage at something that is ephemeral,  maybe he has a motive , a particular gripe, and was hell-bent on killing himself and taking as many people out with him.    But what made Paddock pack  ten modified automatic rifles and endless rounds of ammo into bags and check into the hotel this past Thursday?

These aren’t the actions of someone who merely snapped and if he snapped,  he planned his response to it meticulously .    There was a method  to his madness.   The hotel was strategic as was the suite he checked into.  It over looked the outside venue. not directly underneath, but within the range of a powerful rifle.       He probably looked out his hotel room windows countless times after checking in Thursday …calculating his moves, practicing the positions he’d take.  His stance.   Builfing platforms and tripods for better shooting angles.   He was probably well aware how it would end.    He had time.  He took his time.   This makes him  the scariest kind of killer—-one with patience.   He knew what he was doing.

Last night would have culminated the three-day country music festival.   It would have been the biggest night with 22-thousand people, listening, dancing, singing to music, 32 floors beneath his vantage  point.    I hate to be hackneyed, but it was like “shooting fish in a barrel”.

Man is an interesting animal.    In a forest fire, all the creatures living in that ecosphere, run out of it, away from it when there’s danger;  humans run towards it. .    And not just the blessed and brave first responders,  such as fire, police, EMT’s…not even  former or current military.    Last night, there were regular people who ripped off their own clothing to create  tourniquets, to stop plug bullet wounds,,or to cover your xxthe faces of the dead.    Countless people, shirtless people with portions of jeans of jeans and shorts ripped, were covered in blood…..none of it their own, walked into camera views, glassy-eyed, in a state of mild shock.   They spoke to reporters, but you could practically see the horrific nature of what they’d seen, by simply looking into their faces.   Their evening began as happy, innocent  concert goers and ended with them as heroes to people they didn’t know.

Some perhaps will be permanently changed,  not only for what they witnessed, but because of  the surprise realization they were ordinary people who’d suddenly performed extraordinary deeds.  And yes, so many were so very extraordinary.

They dragged people out on by hands and feet, on make-shift gurneys, on sheets, blankets …..anything would do:   A freezer that a vendor had been using minutes earlier to keep his wares fresh, they used parts of fence, signage….and then, once they got victims to safety, many went back in to try to get more people out of the line of  fire, some becoming victims in the process.

Rapacious  political types with hateful  agendas have already begun the NRA/gun control  blame game.  This, even while shooting victims are still waiting their turn to enter the Operating Room.

When will they learn?   When will we learn?.    We need to deal with mental illness for God’s sake.  We need to deal with all the reasons why this guy and the Eric Harrises, and the Charles Whitmans in the world  act on their illnesses.    The question must be asked:   what  keeps one person from being livid and dealing with it WITHOUT a body count?     What makes someone deal with their rage  WITH a body count?

What can be done about this?    Sadly, the reality is nothing.    Too bad we’re not issued a Shrink or Life Coach at birth.

Were there red flags?   Any hints as to what he was thinking?   No, says the investigators.  That makes quiet, unassuming lunacy the worst kind.

Look, no one can make sense of this. No one can offer grieving parents or a spouse an explanation of any kind.    There’s no condolence  big enough; no salve strong enough to heal the physical or psychic wounds.    And the fact that mental illness gets politicized, as does access  to guns minutes after tragic events like this happens, doesn’t help.      And in the midst of all this ridiculous partisan  ‘go nowhere’  policy debate, other sick  people and disenfranchised types–the kind ISIS lures into its murderous lair, more people will die because a man or woman or a pair of enraged people with no impulse control,  will run over innocents,  stab them, shoot them, bomb them.   The how or why isn’t as important as the end result—death and fear.

Yet, we still rise.    We watch videos of the attack and see the heroism, and ask how can such humanity exist in the presence of such inhumanity?   Well, if in the gloom grief produces, we can strain our eyes enough to see something good come  from all this,  that means progress, even in a situation prompted by evil.    Hopefully, we see that in real times of horror and chaos like that which unfolded in Vegas last night, skin color, politics, gender, sexual persuasion, different religious backgrounds mean nothing.     Because  when it comes to  a situation where thousands are forced into survival mode in a heartbeat, nothing is black or white.    It’s not even gray,

It’s all red……the universal color of bloodshed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unique (& Mostly) Homemade Halloween Costumes/2017

I haven’t done this in a while, but I felt it was time for a new version.   Besides, it’s now early October and I love the fall and Halloween kind of kicks off the official Fall party season.

But I’m now 58.     Lord knows a lot  has changed since I last posted anything about funny costume.  .     It was maybe six or seven years ago.

But my knowledge of pop culture pretty much stops around 1995, plus I don’t watch   that much major  network TV.    So, as I perused this here Internet nonsense looking for funny, weird, different, unique, mostly homemade Halloween costumes,  and honestly, there were some costumes I simply didn’t get.

For example—-Saturday Night Live?     I’ve been a devoted fan since the show’s inception in 1976, but the past couple of years, it’s been like trying to understand someone speaking Farsi to me backwards with a thick Serbian  accent.    I get all the show’s anti-Trump jokes and some of the bits are repetitive and formulaic, they simply riff on game shows, but when I still up until a few yesrs ago, I had no idea who the hosts or musical guests were.   I haven’t watched SNL in years.   So, some of the costumes I looked at went right over my head—the breeze this created,  gently moved my recently shorn bangs.

These costumes  might have been cool, hilarious as hell, but since I’m oblivious to their hipness,  I can only give you what I’m familiar with.

Deal with it.

My first offering:     a chick magnet.    Look closely.     Those little yellow things on the black magnet ends are ( I think) yellow Peeps.    Chicks.

I might be 58, but I certainly relate to this next costume.   .  I too have traumatic memories of wanting to get out of my nine  month lease to THEE single most cramped apartment in which I’ve ever lived.

Crown and Coke

Forrest Gump and Lt. Dan

Head in a freezer with a child’s drawing head in place with magnetic letters and numbers and an old school ice tray.    Biceps required.   Remember these??     Freezer burn city.

She is a bowl of Fruit Loops .

I’ve stared at the couple’s costume for.about 30 minutes.    All I can think of is he’s in black sweats with a bunch of Dollar Store Barbie knock- offs attached to him with an hatchet stuck in his head and she’s either wearing red horns and dropped a large pancake on her stomach or she’s pregnant with translucent skin and her her unborn child which is jaundiced.         I don’t  get this one….AT ALL!

He’s a one man aircraft carrier.   Is it just me or does the plane look like it’s made of  waffles???

A one night stand.   Nothing sexual….just a single night stand.

I’ve always wanted to know  what God’s gift to women looked like.    I just never thought he would resemble a younger Vanilla Ice.

Here’s a costume…..’bout a family named Brady.     My, my…Alice in the middle has obviously had a out of work done.    (RIP Ann B. Davis, Florence Henderson, Robert Reed  and each of the Brady kids acting careers).

Your spice rack or major McCormick stockholders.

Two ladies all amped up about going as Portuguese men o’ war for Halloween.

When a guy survives a plane crash at sea, washes on a deserted island and his only friend is volleyball named Wilson with spiked hair and a horrendous case of rosacea.    Ta da!!!    Costume!!

Interesting,    A kid dressed up like Hannibal Lecter.    Really?     Mom and Dad might not get much candy, but there’s definitely a lecture from Child Protective Services in their future.

Paula Deen ya’ll and BUTTER!!

Sherwin Williams’ displays his 50 Shades of Gray.

Walk in’ in the wind  with littered knees, appropriate wind blown hair and an umbrella blown backwards.

The Gordon’s Fisherman as a dwarf???      I don’t get it.

Thought this was a costume, then peered closer……

And sans my glasses, it looked like just another photo of  LaToya Jackson.

And with that, I bid each and everyone of you a very…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AHS: Cult-Season 7, Episode 4 “11/9”

11/9 is a date.     Last year, three days after Trump won the presidency.

Tonight’s AHS  starts out on election night 2016.    All the the characters we’re familiar with are standing in line waiting to vote.   The beekeeping couple ad their condemning everyone around them.    Wynter the nanny is standing in line with her  loners chanting Trump’s decades old  comment about grabbing a certain part of a woman.s anatomy and Jill and Ivy are  as well, all excited about what promises to be a historical night.      They’re both Clintonians…..that is until Ally enters the voting booth and has an internal debate with her  conscience.   She  pauses and votes for Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Oh, so SHE’S the one?????

Kai enters the polling place with Gary (Chazz Bono)  leaning against him bleeding profusely.   The polling officials insist he needs a doctor but Kai insists its his constitutional right to and one he most assuredly wants to exercise   Gary enters a booth as does Kai and both vote for Trump and Kai has a damned  near orgasmic reaction to it, but you get the sense he has an ulterior motive.    Wynter votes for Hillary, her friend writes in Oprah’s name.

Gary  exits the booth, triumphantly shouting something about this bring  the Trump era while removing his coat and shows a shocked gaggle of voters, his severed left arm.     Hand gone.

Interesting…..his LEFT hand.

Then, it’s the day after the election and Harrison, our gay beekeeping neighbor is a trainer at the gym and Kai  comes to him wanting to hire him as a personal trainer.      He says he sees a certain ‘strength’ in Harrison and goes into a pro-Globalistic schpiel, just as the gym manager tells him there’s a “cleanup in aisle 4” which is gym code for sanitizing the shower floors where men have pleasured themselves amid the scent Old Spice and Clorox.     Harrison is assigned the job by his A-hole boss  because he’s gay.  Kai finds great offense to this and finds Harrison  in the shower area where we see yet another happy face drawn in the steam in a window.  He convinces Harrison to kill his boss and he does.    Death by bar bell.

Kai covers up the whole thing.  He also  teaches Harrison how to properly cut up the body in the cheap motel bathroom where he and his frigid weird wife Meadow are now living because the bank foreclosed on their home.

In fact, she walks in on the bloody butchering and nonchalantly says she didn’t think her week could get any worse.

Tonight,  we delved  more into the female reporter who called Ally the lesbian George Zimmerman after  she accidentally killed Pedro during the blackout.       Her name Beverly Hope  and she’s the only African American  reporter in this town’s only TV station.     She’s getting tired of not getting her share of the good stories and this really pisses her off, especially when her competition, the snotty, arrogant, highly ambitious (as in “will do ANYTHING to get ahead”) white female reporter (haughtily portrayed in a cameo by AHS alum, Emma  Roberts) is the one who gets the great stories.

But, Beverly has her issues.   Prior to the election , she has a few live stand ups  are hijacked by young men who come up and scream Trump’s sexist catch phrase, ” Grab her by the pussy!” on live TV.    This happens several times and you can see the anger rage and frustration grow in her  face after each asssukf.   She’s only trying to do her job.   Well, some young guys learned their lesson during one of Beverly’s live shots at a skate park.    One came into the camera shot and screamed the Trump phrase and Beverly goes off on him, beating him with her microphone, all on live TV.

Beverly checks into a sanitarium for a month.

Ok, tonight’s episodes is all over the place with flashbacks and a flash foward within a flash back, so please, bear with me.

Kai watches a viral video someone made of all her stand up interruptions and the skate park fight and he realizes he likes Beverley’s fire.   He feels her anger and rage and he loves it.   This, after he eats several Adderall like a handful of M&Ms.

They meet, talk about her anger.  He tells her he can fix all her problems but she has to believe in him.    He hands her his business card with his campaign HQ address on it—remember he’s running for the City Council.  But Beverly is annin the know reporter, she says there are no positions open on the City Council.        Keep this mind.

The next day, Little Miss White Girl Reporter is doing a stand up for a pet adoption event when we see the same old trio of creepy clowns walking up behind her.    She and her cameraman are stabbed to death…or rather skewered is more like it and the whole thing is recorded.    The camera keeps rolling.

Beverky confronts Kai at his ” office”  which is really his parents’ basement where she asks if he did it and he says he did, but not very convincingly.    She tells him she finally believes him and that they have equal power.    Kai hugs her and r peats it, again not very convincingly.

Then, Ivy decides to go to a pro Hillary rally, Ally declines saying, she feels Hillary is too entitled.    So, Ivy goes alone and gets into it  with counter protesters.  She starts arguing  with one of the pro- Trumpers who happens to be Gary,     He gets upset about being a disenfranchised white male…the forgotten voter and there’s something mentioned about Deplorables and the vile pussy grabbing phrase, to which Gary tells Ivy that  might be exactly what she needs.   He grabs hers  with his still intact left hand.  Wynter sees the assault and defends Ivy., who oddly freezes.    She does nothing.  A friendship is created, not only that, a pair of avengers against  mysogony is born.    But wait….this happens before the election, so  Wynter  and Ivy knew each other before Winter became the nanny to Oz, Ivy and Ally’s son.    That’s a smidge suspect, dontcha think?

Anyway, they track down Gary  at the grocery store where he works (Wynter saw the store’s  name  on his truck)  then dressed up like Antifa  members, they tie him up in the basement.  His left hand is handcuffed to a pole.

Kai finds out about it and goes to the store’s  basement where he asks a very angry Gary what would he give to place a vote in an election that could change everything for him….the forgotten  man.    Gary ends up saying he’d give anything to vote…..even his left handcuffed hand.    Kai conveniently happens to have a sharp surgical saw on him.

And well, you know the rest of the gory story.

Interesting show tonight.   I’m beginning to think that Kai is something of a fixer, of sorts.  He thrives on anger and fear and gets off by empowering people to let it flow by any means necessary.    He befriends Harrison on Election Day, the very day he learns he and Meadow are being evicted.    Kind of convenient that Councilman Chan would die in a clown related murder/suicide  later that night and the murder house, still blood stained, would go on the market so soon and for a song.   Harrison and Meadow buy it and move move in practically before the crime scene tape is removed.

As for Beverly, Kai senses her rage and the little white  girl reporter is murdered the next day.   Beverly becomes the principle  female reporter at the station.     They form an alliance of equal power.    She is a member of the media.  He’s a power mad politician wanna be.     They’re made for each other.

Or how about this….Is Kai even real or is he a manifestation of our fears?      Is he the little voice in our heads that makes some act on this anger, frustration and fear?     Is he our rage on  two legs with blue hair???

The producers say nothing paranormal will happen this season.  This year , it’s all  about the psyche.   Anger.   Symbolism.  Identities.  Inequity.  Impotency of all kinds.   Phobias.  Division, derision.    One side pitted against the other, each believing emphatically that what and how they think is right, fair and just.

In other words politics—-the ultimate war of words and everything I’ve written in the above paragraph.     These are people Kai is ” helping”.   Beverly, Ally, Harrison are all regular folks  who’ve had bad breaks, who’d normally sit at the status quo table , very angry, but doing nothing about it. .     They’re not like the politicians they’ve empowered.   Politicians  are different.   They’re agenda driven, power hungry.   Narcissists.   These are people who’ll  say and do anything and promise the  moon  to get elected.

Kai has a knack for finding people  who feel mediocre and marginalized – whether they were gay man, a minority, or a straight white man who felt like his “privilege” was being threatened , or a lesbian with a heady list of phobias.

All Kai does, it seems, is give these ordinary people a chance to be like their political idols.   In doing so, he allows them to “drain their own swamps”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t They Know It’s The End of The World??

I write this with apologies to the late Skeeter Davis, and because a one Mr. Kenneth Meade predicted that today,  September 23, 2017 would be the end of the world…..as we know it (add REM to the apology list).

Apparently,  a big mysterious, planet named Nibiru, which sounds more like the name of a Japanese boy band, is supposed to be heading to Earth at mach speed hell-bent on destroying it, us, everything.   Today.   Right now.   Well, so far, the skies here in the hills of Central Texas show no indications of a planet bigger than Jupiter looming over the horizon,  but it’s mostly cloudy here, just after 2:00 p, (CST) in Central Texas.    The day is young.    Barely in cosmic Jr. High.

Niburu is nothing new, at least not to the tinfoil hat types who first learned about the planet back in 1976 when it was first mentioned by author,  Zecharia Sitchin in his book, The 12th Planet.      For any of S&P Groove Dogs who might be reading,  the late, great Chuck Shramek was an avid follower of Sitchen’s.    Shram quoted him on and off the air all the time.      Anyway, Sitchen believed the planet is inhabited by ancient aliens called the Annunaki who he claimed created the human race.

His theory was given a boost this year when NASA discovered a new planet in the solar system, which they named Planet Nine.

Christian conspiracy theorist, David Meade expects Nibiru, also known as Planet X, will pass the Earth – bringing with it volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes.   Well, one out of three ain’t bad.    But last month we did have a full solar eclipse, followed by a butt load of powerful hurricanes.

Meade is also basing today as being the ultimate KYA Goodbye day  because of  a  prophecy in the book of Revelations more than two millennia old.   It’s something about a combination of Christian numerology, a story about a five-headed dragon and a pregnant lady dressed sunlight and Niburu appearing out of nowhere before smashing the Earth to bits.

In Meade’s book, Planet X – The 2017 Arrival, he originally said Niburu  would crash into Earth in October, but then moved it up a few weeks…..not sure why.    His theory was ballyhooed this year when NASA discovered a new planet in the solar system, which they named Planet Nine.

But NASA insists  Planet Nine isn’t Niburu and it will argue this point tomorrow, next week, next year and  on September  23, 2035.   These astronomical experts say nope, nah, nuh-uh.      There are no more hidden planets  “out there” and if we find one, it won’t appear in a heart beat in our rear view mirrors chafing to our deaths on a balmy Saturday in September.

Wanna hear a doozie?    In my research on this Niburu date, I hspoened upon some  conspiracy theorists that believe Niburu sneaked in to our solar system under the cover of darkness during the solar eclipse.     Really?    I actually laugh out loud  when I first read that.    Here’s why:    I’m a fairly devout Texas Longhorn fan so when I read that sentence,  it reminded of an old Aggie joke (Texas A&M was our biggest,  longest standing rival before the Ags entered the SEC) the joke is that scientists at A&M had built a rocket that would travel to the sun, but they could only land at  the craft at night.

Get it?

I consider myself an educated woman who possesses enough rationale to look at both sides of most arguments.   That said, I can wrap my head around why some might be peaking by skyward through their plantation shutters.    Things do seem a bit apocalyptic right now—-Harvey, Irma,Maria.    There are/were wildfires in the Great Northwest, there are Kim Junk Mail’s nuclear threats from North Korea, the The President Trump’s   response to them,  earthquakes in Mexico—–Chuck Shumer.    But if you take a second…..and breathe…… and think about  the history of Earth, believing  today’s THEE day  doesn’t make sense,    We’ve been to the moon (though some might debate that) and we visited Mars via a robotic rover.   We’re advanced for humans.    I have no  doubt there’s other life elsewhere, in other galaxies that are older, more advanced, can travel a million miles in an hour and make a splendid bagel anywhere in the without NYC water in two seconds, but I think the end when it happens, if it happens, would take time.   A lot of time.

But I’ll be gone by then, as will everyone near and dear to me.   And yeah, I do think all things will end.    It’s a given if you look at the Cosmos rationally.     Eventually, the sun…which is oirmsoirce for everything  will do one of two things;  it’ll either grow to become this enormous real life super star that’ll burn us up like human kindling  or it’ll burn itself out.   Both are apocalyptic events for humankind.    But either of those things will also take time to happen.   .  Lots of time.

I don’t get all hyped up about prophecy.     I’ve met a  few psychics that were incredibly accurate,    and my own intuition has at times been eerily spot on,  but end of world prophesies?    Not so much.      There are times I’m inclined to think the end of the world is unique to each individual;  meaning the end of your life is the end of your world.     But that conflicts with my other mode of thinking…..in that I question—is this one measly shot at life is all we get?     Surely not.

But despite what I  think,  keep the talk of the end coming.     I really can’t completely mock or laugh off prophecies.    It’s serious business for some.     But in other veins, they’ve  been known  to begin illuminated ways of thinking about life…..even faith and science and the ways they have things  in common….and nothing at all in common.

And on that note, I’ll end this post as I began.    It’s a balmy Saturday afternoon and the calendar on my iPad indicates it’s September 23rd, 2017.      I gave upward ans see it’s still mostly cloudy.  There’s also a Homeland  marathon on one of Showtime’s many channels (could Niburu actually mean ‘Carrie Matthison is so annoying’  in Annunaki?)    Other than that, it’s just another Saturday in the life of billions of Earthlings.

But it’s just 2:56 pm.     Like I said, the day is still young, but with the rapidity of time since the start of this blogpost, it’s just starting it’s Sophomore year.

 

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