Tuesday, October 30, 2012

“Homeland” keeps getting better

I have watched “Homeland” on Showtime from minute one.  I just watched the latest episode and I was absolutely amazed at the whole “interrogation of Brody” scene.  That scene was one of the best written and acted pieces of drama that I have ever seen.  Damian Lewis (Brody)  and Claire Danes (Carrie) are just ridiculously off the planet in that scene.  And the writing, especially Carrie’s part, had me breathless.  Wow.

If you saw it, pop me a comment.

~ Tom

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Comment word verification turned back on...

I have been getting all kinds of trash/spam comments on old posts so I have decided to turn the word verification back on.  So, if you comment, you will have to enter the squiggly letters.  Hint:  you can keep cycling through different groups of squiggly letters until you hit upon one that you can actually decipher.  That's what I do these days.

~ Tom

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

“Nashville”–I’m hooked

Just a note to admit to the world that I am totally hooked by the new ABC show “Nashville.”  It is ostensibly about the country music world but it’s much more than that.  Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) is the main lead, and I have always loved her.  As always her acting is superb, but it turns out that she is also doing her own singing, as are all the other main cast members.  Sure, it’s a bit of a soap opera, but that just makes it more delicious for me.  And the great Powers Booth (Deadwood) is in his usual heavy role which is the icing on the cake.  The producers are really smart in that the music has a lot of cross-over content but even the “country” songs are so well written and performed that I dig it all. 

In the last episode there was scene that was so good I ran it back on my DVR and played it two more times.  The scene was in the local club where Connie Britton (now married) sings a duet with her old flame who plays guitar with the house band behind him and Connie.  There are two sub-plots driven by certain characters in the audience watching Connie and her ex  interact and those sub-plots are so subtly yet beautifully advanced that it is impossible for me to explain – you have to see it yourself. But on top of all this is that the song they sing is simply a great song, specially written for the show.  Here is a link to song they sing.  Obviously, it’s about 10 times better if you see it being sung in the actual scene, but I still think it’s a pretty gorgeous song.

There has only been the pilot and second show, so you should be able to catch up pretty easily.  If you’ve got some time and a spirit of adventure, give it a look.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

50th reunion

Hey folks.  Believe it or not, I am going to attend my 50th high school reunion this weekend.  Placer High School in Auburn, CA.  I have never been to any reunion before, be it high school, college, or law school.  I was contacted by some of my old running mates who convinced me to attend.  I can’t believe we’re all still alive.

The other cool thing is that we are having a reunion of The Epsilons,  folk group I was in my last three years at Placer.  I was asked to join in my sophomore year and was playing a baritone uke at that time.  In my junior year, one of the guys had graduated and that left three of us.  My senior year, another guy graduated and Don Wescott and I recruited Greg Lyman, who was a good singer and a better guitarist than I.  (By that time I was playing a Martin tenor guitar.)  Anyway, we are going to do four songs, and we are the “surprise entertainment at the reunion.   We were very popular back then, playing the Elks, Moose, Lions, and Rotary circuit, as well as performing for the student body.  We have picked out our songs and are going to rehearse for four hours on Saturday morning which should be enough.  It  should be a gas.

As many of you know, my house burned to the ground in the Oakland firestorm of 1991 and I lost all my high school year books.  Greg kindly copied the Epsilon picture from the 60, 61, and 62 year books.   Here they are:

Epsilons 1960 

Epsilons 1961

The writing on the case is from Greg’s year book and was not written on the case itself.

Epsilons 1962

Wow, how cool to have a head of hair!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Some debate thoughts

Just a brief observation:  If a Republican candidate gives a poor debate performance the right wingers NEVER admit it.  They walk in lock-step, claiming their candidate was great, and of course won the debate.

As the last debate shows, that is not the case when a Democratic candidate coughs up a hairball.  We’re not afraid to give an honest assessment.  But in some cases we may get a bit hysterical in the telling.  Geeze, I thought Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, et. al. were going to blow a gasket.  Guys, it wasn’t that bad, and as Rachel Maddow pointed out in a terrific segment, going back to Carter, no sitting president has ever won the first debate, except once:  Clinton beating Dole.  Let’s see what happens in the upcoming Veep debate and the town hall Presidential debate.  Barack and Joe have gotten the wake up call.  Now they need to deliver.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Little Jimmy Crow loses his feathers

Just in:  Judge halts enforcement of Pennsylvania’s oppressive voter ID law.  Read about it here.