After the Stranger Things finale: What I believe happens...

As of tonight it has been 120 hours since the series finale of Stranger Things dropped on Netflix.  And in that time the Internets have been going full-blown wacky with theories and speculations.  It's the kind of debate and discussion that I can't remember seeing in a very long time, at least not since the Lost finale almost sixteen years ago.

I have now watched "The Upside Down" twice all the way through and numerous bits and pieces of it since it went live on streaming.  And I thought it was the most beautiful thing that I've seen on the television medium in quite awhile.  But if you've seen it also, you're well aware that it left a few things dangling.  Not "critical" information, but we are certainly teased a bit about what becomes of these characters who we've followed for almost a full decade.  The Duffer Brothers, the creators of Stranger Things, have given us just enough to whet our appetites for more.  Or as one friend put it, they made a satisfying conclusion without putting a solid padlock on it.

So since everyone else it seems is weighing in with their own thoughts and theories, I might as well chime in with my own.  What happens to our heroes after their struggle against the Upside Down and Vecna?

Be warned: Spoilers ahead!!

I believe that El survived.  She did so knowing that never again could she see Mike and the rest of her friends but it had to be done.  El knew that she had to break the cycle and that nobody else could do it.  That there would always be people like Brenner and Kay who would continue the work.  So El took herself out of the equation and I think that in her dying breath Kali saw to it that El would escape as cleanly as she could.

I'm thinking to something that Hopper tells her earlier in the episode.  About El getting to have a normal life, and be a parent herself and have children.  I believe that she goes on to do that.  El goes on to find herself, and in time she will marry and have children.  But she will never forget the love that she had with Mike and I very strongly doubt that Mike is ever going to forget her. As long as they live they will be thinking of each other.

This finale evoked so much thought.  It's been a LONG time since a story has had me ruminating upon its ending.

I can't help but imagine that Will went on to have a better story than he could have imagined.  And I say that as a trauma survivor also.  The full measure of what Will went through because of Vecna was something that could not be portrayed on screen.  Will survived but he's going to forever be scarred.  Maybe Will goes on to make his life a triumph over Vecna.  I think Will becomes something like a behavioral therapist, with a master's degree and everything.  Will knows what it means to be damaged, he's going to use that experience toward helping others who have survived their own Vecnas.  Just a hunch that I have.  I may not have ever had a homosexual temptation but in many ways I still identify with Will (I also identify with Dustin a lot, but I digress).  I know what it's like to be hurt and be discarded by society.  There was a Vecna in my own life, and that's something I write about in my book.  Going through that, coming out on the other side, a person absolutely wants to do what he or she can to keep others from knowing that same pain.  It's what led to my having a career in the mental health field and I think that if Will doesn't end up doing much the same professionally, his heart is definitely inclined toward that direction.

I had wanted Dustin and Suzie to come together and get married.  But it's been established by the Duffer Brothers that their relationship ended.  It was mostly Dustin's fault.  He was so torn up about Eddie's death that he pushed aside almost every other relationship he had with people.  It took the party and especially Steve to pull Dustin back from the brink of self destruction.  In the end we see that Dustin comes back, and has embraced life again.  I like to think that he goes on to have a brilliant time in college and career in science and technology afterward.  That Dustin comes to fall in love again and he and his wife have a son who they name Eddie.

Lucas and Max are going to end up together happily ever after.  I've seen love like theirs a few times.  Sometimes it goes well and others, it doesn't.  But a young man like Lucas doesn't go to the hospital every day for a year and a half to play "Running Up That Hill" for a comatose girl without that meaning something profound.  By the way, the Duffers have said that the movie we see them sitting together watching is Ghost, so by the summer of 1990 their love is still going strong.  I think it's going to keep getting stronger.

I also think that Nancy and Jonathan end up with each other after all.  The two of them are each in a place where they're discovering who they are supposed to be.  They had that taken away from them for the better part of six years.  Now Nancy is pursuing her dream of being a journalist and Jonathan is where he wanted to be, studying photography and film at NYU.  They've seemingly gone separate ways but they're always going to share something remarkable and very unique and that's going to draw them together sooner than later.

Steve is a wandering journeyman of sorts for a few years.  But he comes to discover that his heart really is for helping young people be their best.  It started with being "baby-sitter" for the Party and it's going to continue.  If he doesn't get his full "six nuggets" he's still going to get that family he longs for... and that is very encouraging and inspiring.

Robin?  I'm not sure of her.  I do believe that she completes her college education.  I like to think that she ends up happy.

Holly, Derek, and the other kids that Vecna captured bounce back none the worse for wear.  Derek though has discovered personal responsibility, including for himself.  I think that Derek becomes quite the athletic type, taking part not only in baseball but also swimming (I say that because I was a swimmer in high school and taking part in that was one of the best things that ever happened to me).

Murray Bauman, the Duffers have already said he continues to be weird.  Maybe so but he's also a happy weirdo.  By the end of the series his conspiracy theories have been proven true, he's taken out government forces and he's saved the day for the entire world.  I imagine that ten years or so later Murray has become the master of a website devoted to conspiracy theories, and maybe even hosting a late-night radio show a'la the one Art Bell had for many years.

Mr. Clarke is going to be Hawkins, Indiana's most eligible bachelor.  But his first and foremost love is going to be teaching children.  Playing a part in the final battle against Vecna, seeing his star pupil Dustin come up with the conclusion that the Upside-Down was a wormhole, filled Mr. Clarke with enormous pride.  He truly got to have a dream come true as a science teacher and he's going to do his best to catch lightning in a bottle again.

Erica.  Ahhhh yes, Erica.  Who ties with Dustin as my most favorite character in Stranger Things.  The Duffers have said that she goes on to be valedictorian also when she graduates.  Erica Sinclair is a force of nature and she goes far.  She's either going to get involved in Internet commerce at the start of the industry revolution (like Bezos, she can call her company Ericorps) or, more likely, she enters politics.  For some reason or another I think she's a registered Republican.  Erica eventually runs for U.S. Senate, wins the race, and provokes discussion about her running for higher office.  But that's maybe saying too much.

Hopper and Joyce spend the rest of their lives happy.  Hopper finds fulfillment that he never knew he needed before.  It's a quiet life at Montauk.  The only real trouble that comes about is when a great white shark starts prowling the waters and eating people.  Just kidding 😛 

And Mike?  The storyteller?  He goes on to write what he can about the time that he and the Party and their friends had together.  It becomes a book that goes on to be a bestseller, and it's going to be a story that will forever perpetuate debate and discussion about whether it's true or not.

The title of Mike's book?  It is "Stranger Things".

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Jerry Bledsoe, one of my favorite authors, has passed away

The sad news is coming out of Asheboro, North Carolina this evening that Jerry Bledsoe, the prolific author who among other things hit the bestseller list with his true-crime book Bitter Blood, has passed away at the age of 84.

In my formative years, Bledsoe's columns for the News & Record out of Greensboro were must-reading.  It seemed that there wasn't a subject that he couldn't write about and make it a rollickin' good respite from one's typical daily life.  He was a gifted humorist who brought with him fresh insight into practically everything he wrote about.

But Bledsoe's biggest claim to fame had nothing to do with humor.

In the summer of 1988 came the publication of Bitter Blood.  It remains one of the most disturbing true-crime books ever written.  Bledsoe's book attempted the impossible (something he admitted in its final pages): trying to make sense of the Fritz Klenner/Susie Sharp murders that transpired in Kentucky and then North Carolina between 1984 and 1985.  It was an event that defied all sense and it absolutely rocked the communities they transpired in.  Especially Reidsville, North Carolina, where I'm originally from.  Bitter Blood was what it seemed everyone in my hometown was reading: it was pretty much locally known simply as "the book".  Bledsoe wrote that.  And it was a magnificent performance.

I was able to meet Jerry Bledsoe a number of times.  He was someone who always appreciated his readers and he seemed pretty humble about the success he had enjoyed.  He loved his craft and he was thoroughly dedicated to practicing it and he was always seeking to refine that, as any true artist aspires to do.  Bledsoe was in every way a remarkable man, and I thought he more than deserved noting his life.

Thought and prayers to his family and friends.

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"The Rightside Up", the Stranger Things series finale, finished about 20 minutes ago

 What did I think of it?

This was as perfect an ending to a story as The Lord of the Rings had.  I am soooo not kidding.

The final scenes... wow.  I was almost in tears.  Those nearly came after everything else that preceded it in this very last episode of Stranger Things.

I feel like it's the end of a journey for me.  This show, which I first discovered while staying in a hotel in Albuquerque in September of 2016, has been a part of my life ever since then.  I became a true believer in this story and its wonderful characters.  And now the story is done and... I don't quite know what to do now.  I feared this would happen.  Stranger Things has been the one thing of pop culture that I've held onto for almost a decade and now it's ended.  That is an enormous void that it's leaving in my time on this earth.  It's like a part of my youth peacefully passed away tonight.

Well, like is said at one point in this final episode, there are two paths to take.  I am going to choose the one that leads away from the sadness.  I am going to choose life.  Just as I've always been trying to do.

I think I needed to see this episode.  More to the point, I think that I needed this show.  What a ride it has been!

One of the greatest endings to a story in the history of anything.  I'm going to have to watch it again, after my brain calms down.

Dear Duffer Brothers: Thank you for sharing this story with us.  I for one feel all the better for being along for where you took us.  And I wish you well in your future endeavors.

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Calvin and Hobbes ended thirty years ago today

On Sunday, December 31st 1995, the last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published.  For ten years readers had laughed and thrilled at the antics of Calvin and his wild imagination.  It has gone on to be regarded as among the greatest comic series of all time.

Here is that last cartoon, which ran thirty years ago today.  The very greatest finale of anything, ever...

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Well, I've done it...

Come midnight tonight, for the second year in a row, I will have made it through the entire holiday season without once hearing Mariah Carey singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You".

See?  It is possible after all!

It wasn't easy sometimes.  Like whenever I went inside a grocery store and had to brace myself for hearing that song over the supermarket's music system.  I made very sure that I ducked in and quickly got my stuff and then ran out

Allow me the opportunity to once again state that Christmas music does not belong anywhere before Thanksgiving.  As always around here, there were radio stations that began playing holiday songs on the morning after Halloween.  That is damn too early!!  Just as Christmas decor doesn't belong in stores even before Labor Day.  When the radio stations and retailers do things like that, all it does is make the year seem to go by much faster.  When instead the year should progress on its own accord, with every moment precious, instead of rushing through the last one-third of the year.

I must confess, I've had some help with skipping the Christmas music.  Ever since last month and continuing for the next week or so, I've been listening to WSQK The Squawk.  It's a 24-hours around the clock pop-up Internet radio station that's a promo for this final season of Stranger Things.  WSQK is far from a mere gimmick however.  There are some solid songs from the Eighties and a bit earlier in its playlist, as much as any "real" radio station is ideally going to have.  It's been a fun thing to have playing in the background while I work on stuff.  Check it out!

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MeTV is now running Hawaii Five-O on weekdays

This isn't the more recent series.  MeTV is playing the original Hawaii Five-O at 11 a.m. EST on weekdays.  Yesterday and today the network broadcast the two-part first story and I watched it.  Think I'll be tuning in whenever I find myself not doing anything else in particular on weekday mornings.

Hawaii Five-O is one of the very first television series that I clearly remember watching.  Dad used to love this show so I have memories of seeing it in the mid to late Seventies.  I especially recall the title sequence, particularly its theme music.

If you've never seen this before, prepare to be stunned.  This is from a series that premiered in 1968 (Hawaii Five-O might be the only television show from the 1960s to survive as far as the Eighties) so many people might be expecting something a little more... shall we say, "primitive"?  But this intro is a work of art in and of itself.  This composition of imagery and music is more like something that could be expected of a modern editing software package like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, not from the period around 1970.  A lot of heart, soul, and hardcore precision went into making this sequence, and it definitely shows.

So here is the intro for the original Hawaii Five-O.  Something as magnificent as it is timeless.

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I've been called conservative. I believe homosexuality is wrong. And I'm about to defend Will Byers on Stranger Things (buuuut...)

 On Christmas Night I started watching the newest three episodes, volume 2 it's being called, of the final season of Stranger Things.  I was as eager to see these next three chapters as I have been to watch anything else from the television/movies sphere of things in the past ten years or so.

I'll be honest: I felt like I'd "missed" something.  Volume 2 failed to stick the landing it seemed.  The previous four episodes were a high-balling rollickin' ball of high-grade hashish washed down with a bottle of pure awesomeness.  But these three episodes, well...

It seems that I wasn't alone in that sentiment.  Many people have said that these were the low point of the entire series.

Especially...

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Let's talk about the scene in episode seven, "The Bridge", that got the most attention.

I actually don't have an issue with Will's situation.  Not anymore than I do regarding Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books.  That does NOT mean that I can condone homosexuality at all though!  That is something that I am forever going to believe is wrong.  But I also understand that it is a temptation that some people face, for whatever reason.  God knows that I have my own temptations, some even that I wonder if anyone on earth will ever remotely understand.  Having a mental condition that inflames those temptations at times only makes things worse, but I digress.

Will's confession to the others was something that had been building up since the first season.  He has always been different, off-kilter, something of an outsider to "The Party" and their allies, no matter how much he has been a part of that group of close-knit friends.  His own father cruelly believed that Will wasn't normal.  His ordeals relating to the Upside-Down further severed that connection Will had to the human condition.  If nothing else, what he went through because of Vecna mutilated and disfigured Will in heart and soul.  There is no telling what he would have been like had the events of November 6th, 1983 not happened. That night forever marked Will Byers as being different, for the worst, in every possible way.

In some ways I find myself relating to Will.  I was quite an outsider also, growing up.  Always "looking in".  And as I've shared in my book, I did go quite a long time unable to allow myself to appreciate females.  I had been abducted also, and pulled into an "upside-down" too.  There was a Vecna figure who came into my life.  As I share in my book, I was thought of as being different - sometimes being called "fag" by other people - because of my reluctance to appreciate how girls look.  That stemmed from the abuse I experienced.

So, I can absolutely understand Will in ways that maybe most people can't.  I can empathize with Will.  It's almost like the Duffer Brothers were writing about me, when they wrote for the character.  I of all people am in a position to understand Will Byers more than many if not most other people can, and I'm glad that most people DON'T have to understand what Will has gone through.

For a lot of reasons, I am never going to be able to accept homosexuality as being something good.  But it is a temptation that many people have.  And I can understand Will if that's what he's been driven to.  If that makes sense.

So no, in all honesty, I don't have any problem with the scene in "The Bridge" where Will is "coming out" and saying "I don't like girls."  I can readily understand why he's telling the group that.  It's something he was ashamed of, and harbored deep resentment about.  He had to confront that, and make it into something that Vecna could not turn against him and consequently the group.  It was Will's biggest weakness and he negated it.  That is certainly something that I can appreciate, and even admire.  It could have been practically anything that Will had shame about.  But in the case of Will it was the most private thing that any young person in the years surrounding adolescence can wrestle with.  Vecna has become THE prototype of the child molester, in a fashion that no other fictional monster has ever been.  Will was his first and most tragic victim.  Of course there is going to be a secret shame from that.  But Will confronted that and came through with flying colors.

No, it's not what Will did that bothers me.  It's HOW that was handled is what bugs me.

Much of the entertainment industry has been accused of fronting an agenda.  It's not an unqualified accusation.  Stranger Things has been no different.  I've never found it any more so than most other series or movies though.  Indeed, other than the profanity (ehhhh Duffers, most kids did not talk like that in the Eighties, trust me, I was there) it's been pretty neutral so far as projected ideologies go.  Now, some are saying that Will's "coming out" is going to be a textbook example of leftist propaganda.

THAT is something that is certainly not an unfair accusation.

It was too "in your face".  Too blatant.  It was too much aimed at the audience more than it was a revelation meant for the group to absorb.  It was designed for shock effect, even if all the signs were there from the beginning that Will was headed for this moment.  I've never read Stephen King's It but when Will's time came, I imagined it would be something like Eddie's revelation in the It miniseries from 1990: his confession that he was still a virgin, that the only people he had ever really bonded with were the rest of the Losers.  That could have been the model for Will's confession.  It would have let down the burden of Will's secret shame and beautifully established his acceptance by the group, that no matter what Will was never going to be alone.  As it happened in the episode, it was too blunt, too "brusque".

That's the biggest problem I have with Will's coming to the group as he did.  It could have been written and executed and even acted better.  But the cast did the best they could with what they were given.  Maybe the Duffers will learn from this experience.  It certainly seems like I am not alone in my assessment about this episode.  Perhaps the Duffers will take it to heart.  Hey, we can't hit a home run every time.  And so far the creators and producers of Stranger Things have been doing pretty good.  I can forgive this one faux pas.

That's pretty much it.  That's everything of what's been bugging me since watching volume 2 about 96 hours ago.  But last night I rewatched these three chapters again, and found myself enjoying them much more than I had initially.  So much so that now I don't think they're bad at all.  They did what they were supposed to do at this stage in the same: set the board up for the final moves.  The pierces are now in place and war is coming.  Everything else has been cleared away.  The Duffer Brothers have been pulling rabbits out of their hat for the better part of a decade... and now they'd darn well better pull out an alligator.

Whatever else could be said about those three episodes, I'm expecting the grand finale, "The Rightside-Up", to wildly exceed them.  Maybe in hindsight we'll all these three episodes as being set-up for what is to come.  And then they will be better appreciated.  Perhaps so.

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Why the Star Wars Holiday Special was so bad, in the words of the man who made it

It's become something of a tragic holiday tradition for me.  Every year about this time, I watch The Star Wars Holiday Special - considered by many to be the very worst two hours of television ever produced - and do a running commentary about it for my friends on Facebook.  Why do I torment myself like this?  I have no idea apart from the comedy (?) value.  I'll do most anything within reason (emphasis on "reason"!) to make my friends laugh.  And if it takes subjecting myself to this... thing... then it's a minor sacrifice to make each holiday season.

Pic I took of my TV screen while watching The Star Wars Holiday Special,
here depicting the lowest moment of Harvey Korman's career

For whatever reason, I didn't watch the Star Wars Holiday Special when I usually do between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wound up setting it to play last night, after I came home from helping some friends catalog and inventory a bunch of Cabbage Patch Kids, Pound Puppies, and Care Bears (do kids still go for things like that?).  I think maybe I did it because I was reminded about lunch time yesterday that I still hadn't seen the special this year.  What jogged that thought was this interview that SlashFilm did with Steve Binder, the director of the special.  This interview was originally published in 2015 but it's so authoritative and enlightening that it should be required reading for anyone who during the holidays is curious enough about the Star Wars thingy to want to watch it.

Long story short: Star Wars, the epic space opera that had thus far only had one entry to establish itself and call its own, something that had already won millions of fans across the globe, was treated like a Seventies-era variety show.  It was two successful genres that enough people thought were compatible with each other as a combined product.  Instead it produced one of the biggest FUBARs in the modern history of all pop culture.  And that's how we got the Jefferson Starship, Harvey Korman (in three different roles!), Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Diahann Carroll (what was that she was doing?) mushed together with ten minutes (?!?) of Wookiees growling at each other, an overly made-up Mark Hamill (I call him "Mannequin Skywalker"), Leia looking a little tipsy, and a cartoon short featuring Boba Fett (his first ever appearance).

So the holiday special is a collision of Star Wars and variety show.  I can see that.  I can even appreciate that.  It does make sense, in a perverse sort of way.  And now that we've got artificial intelligence wheedling its way into everything, maybe by next year some enterprising youngster will fix the Star Wars Holiday Special by inserting Jim Nabors or Sonny and Cher into it.

Jim Nabors as an Imperial officer?  Well gaw-aaahhh-lee!!

(I almost forgot to note that I did NOT finish watching the special last night.  I got as far as the animated short before deciding my heart just wasn't into this this time.  Maybe it's something better appreciated between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So I guess there's always next year!)

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The seventieth anniversary of Good Will to Men

It was on December 23rd, 1955 - seventy years ago tomorrow - that Metro-Golden-Mayer released Good Will to Men.  This is one of my all-time most favorite Christmas cartoons.  It's essentially a remake of the considerably darker Peace on Earth from 1939.  Although we may not live under the threat of war as much as those during the era did, the themes of this animated short are perhaps more timely than ever before.

"Love thy neighbor."

Directed by none other than William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (who went on to create The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and many other animated favorites), here is Good Will to Men...

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An Aviation First: Airplane touches down safely after deploying "autoland" system

This is something I wish Dad were still here to tell about it too.  As much as he disdained computers, he would no doubt find this to be very cool...

Two days ago a Beechcraft King Air became the very first aircraft to deploy an "autoland" system after the pilot became incapacitated.  It happened in Colorado.  The Garmin Autoland that had been installed on the plane kicked in and proceeded to automatically guide the aircraft down to a safe touchdown at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.  After it came to a halt, emergency crew arrived and took care of the pilot, who is reportedly doing fine.

We have entered a new age of air flight, folks.  When this kind of thing gets to be more widely installed, a lot of people are going to be having second thoughts about going up in an aircraft.  Especially in smaller planes that may not have a co-pilot in the cockpit if Lord forbid something goes wrong with the primary pilot.

Just when I think that we're getting too technologized, something like this comes along and demonstrates to me that there really are legitimate places for more involvement by computers.  I wouldn't call myself a Luddite, but I have been adopting more of how Dad saw computers.  Well, color me deeply impressed now.

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Fallout presents: The Ghoul Log

The second season of Fallout premiered a few days ago on Amazon Prime.  I haven't seen it yet but I'll probably watch it later this evening.  Have had a few things on my plate lately.  Although at the recommendation of a friend last night I did watch Wake 

Up Dead Man, the latest of Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series starring Daniel Craig.  I really liked it.

Anyhoo, the new season of Fallout is unfolding this holiday season.  And as part of the festivities Amazon has posted on YouTube a special lil' treat.  In the tradition of broadcast Yule logs that goes back many decades across the history of television, here is... the Ghoul Log!

Nothing says Christmas cheer quite like ninety minutes of Wayne Newton music and the fattened arm of some poor sap roasting over an open fire.

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Ten years ago tonight, the Force awakened...

It was on this day ten years ago that Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released in theaters.

I caught the first show of it on opening night, at a theater in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Chad, my best friend since childhood, and his wife and I saw it together.  And it truly was a very special night.  It was the first time in all our history together that Chad and I had seen a new Star Wars movie with each other in the theater.  It was like God was winking at our shared childhood.  Made all the more poignant because a few months later Chad and his wife became parents to a beautiful little girl.

Yes, I'm aware of the reputation that the Star Wars sequel trilogy has come to have.  I would be a fool to not acknowledge that particular gundark in the room.  I have shared those sentiments also.  But alas, those have softened somewhat during the past decade since the first Star Wars movie produced by Disney was released.  I'm increasingly of the mind that the sequel trilogy - The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker - does indeed work as a cycle unto itself and as components of the larger Skywalker family saga.  They may not be the most brilliant films of the series: those will forever be the original trilogy, especially The Empire Strikes Back.  But neither are they the irredeemable mess that many claim them to be.  I've had the opportunity to work with children in the past few months.  Something I've asked them a number of times is what do they think of Star Wars.  The almost unanimous answer is that they love it, so the saga is still producing fans.  Then I ask them what do they think of the newer movies.  And almost every young person I ask that of tells me that they like the sequel trilogy especially.  Rey has her fans, particularly among girls.  And that's not a bad thing at all.  It tells me that Star Wars is still at work doing what it was always meant to be: a multi-generational story to be enjoyed by people of all ages.  As a Generation X kid, I loved the original trilogy.  I came to better appreciate the prequels as I got older.  Now in my fifties, I am seeing people who are as young as I was come to enjoy Star Wars, too.  And that is good.

Well, anyway, it began in earnest ten years ago tonight, with the long-awaited arrival of the seventh episode of the Star Wars saga: something that I dare say most of us had given up on ever getting to see.  Lumps and all, it is a Star Wars movie as much as any movie can be.  And I certainly do appreciate that.

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Nine years ago tonight in San Diego...

Nine years ago tonight I was in a movie theater in San Diego, California.  I was about to do something I'd never done before in my entire life: watch a Star Wars movie in the theater without anyone to share the experience with.

It was still Tammy the Pup and me, a boy and his dog across America, a very long way from where we had started six months before.  I was stuck between wanting to see a new Star Wars film so very much, but also having to face that there would be no friend or family to enjoy it with.  That's how I went in to see Rogue One.

But maybe God provided.  I wound up sitting with some high school kids who were very excited about the movie, and we talked a little bit.  We'd become rather acquainted by the time the lights went down and the movie started.  I think we all enjoyed the movie in each other's company.  Something that was well reflected toward the end of Rogue One, when the movie comes to the scene of those Rebel soldiers trapped in the corridor.  We were ALL screaming, every one of us in that theater, as we watched Darth Vader mercilessly eviscerate every man in his path.  It was Darth Vader in a way we had always wanted to see but somehow never had the chance to before.  We truly shared a moment of collective horror... but in the right company, that can be a very fun thing.

The movie soon ended and as the credits began rolling my new friends and I talked about it and we agreed, that Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies yet made.

Doesn't seem like that was nine whole years ago.  I wonder what those kids are doing now.  They'd be in their mid to late twenties now.  I hope they are well, wherever they are.  They certainly were good company for one fine evening at the movies.

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Regarding Rob Reiner: Not cool, Mister President

By now everyone knows what happened yesterday.  Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele, were found stabbed to death in their mansion in California.  It seems that it was none other than Reiner's son who was the murderer.

It was a horrific thing by any measure.  And today President Donald Trump, who had long been a target of Reiner's ire, released a statement about the deaths of the couple.  I won't post it all here, Lord knows it's all over the place tonight.  But to put it short: Trump blamed Reiner's "Trump Derangement Syndrome" for causing his murder.

Rob Reiner and Donald Trump (photo credit: MSNBC)

The more I think about what President Trump said about Rob Reiner, the more it disgusts me.  I understand that Reiner hated Trump's guts but that's no excuse whatsoever for what the sitting President of the United States said.  Trump should have taken the high ground.  I'm thinking of what happened when Prince passed away.  "Weird Al" Yankovic paid him a very beautiful tribute, even though Prince had long dissed Weird Al at every turn.  Some things are much bigger than what are really very petty disagreements in the grander scheme of things.  Trump had a great opportunity to be a good man, the better man even, in this.  And he pissed it away with his childish immature statement.

Now, in large part I've been a supporter of Trump.  He is doing things that have been needed accomplishing for a very long time, like addressing the issue of America's porous border.  Nobody will ever spot me wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, I usually don't go for fads like that.  But I've liked him.

But this, what Trump posted earlier today?  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  It was crass, classless, and completely without redeeming value.

I didn't care for Reiner's politics either.  But he was a fellow human being, and what happened to him and his wife is an absolute tragedy.  I am willing to look past his beliefs and his weaknesses and appreciate the gifts he shared with the world.

Tonight I am going to watch Misery, probably my favorite Rob Reiner movie, in his memory.  I'll honor him if the President won't.

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"It is time": Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has a trailer!

Since Thanksgiving night I have watched the first volume of the final season of Stranger Things twice.  The shock still hasn't faded.  Dang it I want to talk openly about what's been streamed so far!!!  But there are still so many who haven't watched the latest episodes yet.  I'm going to be considerate of them.

But if you have seen the first four episodes of season five already, here is the new trailer that dropped earlier today:

I'll share an interesting theory I've heard, though.  It's being posited that Vecna, for all his malevolence and power, is not the ultimate villain of Stranger Things.  That there is some one or some thing over him that is the true monster behind everything that has happened.  I've heard it suggested that in keeping with the Dungeons & Dragons motif that's rife through this show, this final entity could be code-named Tiamat.  I kind of like that idea, though I don't know if there's going to be enough time to elaborate on that in the four final episodes.  Still a neat notion.

I'll go ahead and share my personal theory for the big finale.  Stranger Things's very last scene is going to be fifteen or twenty years later.  We get to see our heroes all grown up and happy and long past all the trauma and heartbreak that they went through together.  Among other things, Dustin and Suzie are married and have a son named Eddie.  That would be a happy ending for Dustin, who I've been cheering for since I first saw this show in a hotel room in Phoenix years ago.

Ten days to go.

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Why churches using the Nativity to protest immigration enforcement are wrong.

I'm reading a number of stories regarding churches turning their nativity scenes into political statements about immigration agents enforcing the laws.  Namely, these churches are replacing Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus with signs saying "ICE was here".  At least one church went all the way and has ICE agents surrounding the crèche with zip ties and weapons drawn.

Photo credit: Matthew McDonald

I would not want to visit these churches, because they are demonstrating that they have no grasp of scripture at all.

Here's the truth of the matter: Jesus and his parents were never refugees or immigrants.  Joseph took his wife to Bethlehem because that was their hometown, and they had to take part in a census that had been ordered by Caesar.  They may not have been fully citizens of Rome (few in Roman territory were) but they were certainly 100% legal residents of the empire.  There was nothing wrong about that at all.

So already, to depict Mary, Joseph and Jesus hauled off by immigration enforcement is ridiculous.  More  than that, it's blasphemous.

And so far as the holy family being in Egypt to escape from Herod goes, Egypt had fully been a part of the Roman Empire since the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty a few decades earlier.  Joseph brought his family there to escape from Herod, a puppet king ruling Judea on behalf of Rome.  The family of Joseph were escaping a wicked provincial ruler who Rome pretty much let do whatever he wanted so long as he kept the local Jews in line.  But Herod's jurisdiction went no further than that.  People were still free to travel within the empire, across provincial boundaries.  So it is that to go from Judea to Egypt was no more big a deal than if I were to drive a car from the upstate of South Carolina across the border and into Georgia.  To claim that Joseph and his family were going to a foreign land and that made them refugees is... well... dumb.

This hatred of all things Donald Trump is begetting some truly mad behavior.  It says more about the people hating, than it does about the man they are targeting with their spite and bitterness.  For a church to ignore basic scripture, as these places of worship are doing, absolutely reeks of ignorance.  And they need to be called out about it.

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