#can’t believe nbc canceled the show because the actors were getting to big and nbc was worried they wouldn’t return

[dearreader]

im at the point in the parks and rec rewatch where they got really really big and it kinda loses some of its charm

[itsallyscorner]

“Move the plans”

Pairing: Florence Pugh x actress!reader (platonic)

Summary: Florence tells you to cancel your plans when she ends up in New York.

Warnings: Nothing really bad. Mentions lactose intolerance? Idk if that’s sensitive to people. Probably some spelling errors.

A/n: Hello darlings! I’m back from my unannounced break. I decided to write a platonic Florence fic because she’s a sweetheart and I loved her as Yelena! Also for those who follow me, don’t worry, I will be working on a sequel to my Tom Holland “Sour” fic!! But for now, please enjoy this fic!😚💕

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

(Loml)

✧───── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *. ☽.* :★. ─────✧

You stood backstage in front of a mirror, looking at your appearance and making sure there were no wrinkles on the dress you wore. Your hairstylist was behind you, fluffing your hair and managing the stray baby hairs on your head. You were currently at NBC Studios in New York City, about to do an interview with the infamous, Jimmy Fallon. Tingles buzzed through your skin as you heard the cheers and music from the stage. Jimmy’s voice can be heard faintly backstage, only adding to your growing excitement.

The sound of heels clicking approached you, it took less than a second for you to feel the warm presence of Florence behind you. The both of you were starring in the upcoming Black Widow movie alongside Scarlett Johansson; after months of working together and spending days hanging out, you and Florence had become very close friends. She was, without a doubt, your favorite person in the world. Since the moment you met her, she had always been the most sweetest and caring person you’ve ever met—and you were proud to say you had her in your corner.

You met Flo’s eyes in the mirror and bright smiles were instantly on your faces. Turning around, you open your arms wide, and wrap them around her. Bear hugs were a must in your friendship with Flo, you both just loved receiving hugs from each other.

“Ahhh! I told you that dress would be perfect for tonight, you look stunning!” She squealed, tightening her arms around you. A day before Jimmy Fallon, you and Flo had been at your place with your stylist, picking out which dress you should wear for the interview. The dress was casual, but the color was so ever vibrant that it made the dress pop.

You pulled out the hug and looked at what she was wearing. Her gorgeous blonde hair was curled into loose locks and her dress was just as vibrant as yours. The pink of her dress and the orange (yellowish?) of yours complimented each other. Which coincidentally enough, was a parallel of your lovely friendship with Florence.

“Me? Flo, you look gorgeous! I’m so obsessed with this look!” You help her twirl, hyping her up as she showed off her outfit. After sneaking in a little mirror selfie and posting it onto Instagram, the two of you were given a five minute warning from one of the crew members. You and Flo were moved to stand behind the curtain, waiting for your cues to walk onto the stage.

While the two of you were getting mic’d up, Florence leaned closer to you.

“Can I be completely honest with you?” She mumbled, her stare remaining on the curtain before her. Your brow raises in curiosity as your head slightly turns to look at her.

“Of course, hun. What’s up?” You ask, your attention on her. She sighs and leans even closer so only you can hear her.

“I feel like I’m about to shit my pants.” She admits, swallowing nervously. Your mouth gapes, “Did you have iced coffee too?”

Flo’s face scrunches up in confusion, “N-no! That was me telling you I was nervous! Did you have iced coffee?” She fully turns to look at you and judging by the look of guilt plastered across your face, you did in fact have iced coffee.

“Maybe?” You answer, though it came out more like a question. Florence rolls her eyes at you.

“(Y/n), how many times do you have to be reminded that you’re lactose intolerant?” She scolded you.

You scoff, holding a hand up at her, “Trust me, I’m reminded every time I sit on a toilet.” You shake your head, trying to refocus the conversation.

“This isn’t about my poor digestive system—why are you nervous?”

She sighs, “I don’t know why I’m so nervous, I’m used to doing interviews and stuff. But I haven’t been on Jimmy Fallon, and there’s an audience out there and I don’t want to mess up or accidentally spoil the movie.”

You place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “You may be British, but you’re not Tom Holland. You won’t spoil anything.” You start. She quickly shoots you a look that screams, “you’re not helping”. You make a gesture physically telling her that you’re getting to the point.

“You’re going to be fine! I mean you did Jimmy Kimmel right? This shouldn’t be that different, it’s the same thing—just different studios, in different states, and different Jimmy’s.” You point out. She nods along as you continue, “Plus, I’m gonna be up there with you. You won’t be alone.”

With the help of your reassurance and witty little comments, Florence felt her anxiousness simmer down. They weren’t completely gone but the fact that you were gonna be up there together made her relax more. Being part of Marvel had its pros and cons. Sure, the movies are spectacular and the actors are outstanding. Though when it comes to doing promo for said movies, it can be quite stressful. It’s a known fact that Marvel and it’s executives can be quite strict when it comes to interviews with anyone involved in the making of their films—their strictness made sense, although for first time MCU members, it took some getting used to.

Florence smiles at you, “Thank you.”

You playfully nudge her shoulder with yours, “Don’t worry about it.” You say with a kind smile.

The wholesome moment was interrupted by one of the stagehands telling you and Florence that the two of you were on in 15 seconds.

“Our guests tonight are making their big MCU debut in the new Black Widow film, please welcome (Y/n) (L/n) and Florence Pugh!”

⚘

“So in the movie, there’s three of you guys—where’s the other one?” Jimmy asked, motioning his hand to the small space between you and Flo.

“She’s at home I believe.” Florence answered, glancing at you. “She’s busy doing stuff, you know—adult things.” She added.

You took the opportunity to make a joke and said, “Yet here we are promoting her movie.” You roll your eyes playfully. The crowd bursts out laughing, along with Jimmy, who smacked his desk.

“You know, we deserve a raise for this.” Flo considers, going along with your joke. She slightly snorts and nudges your arm with her elbow. “We could take Scarlett’s check and just split it in half for ourselves.”

“Problem solved.” You shrugged, high fiving her.

Another round of laughs fill the room as Jimmy says, “So you’re both taking Scarlett’s money?”

Jokingly, you nod in approval, “By the end of this interview? Definitely.”

Dropping the bit, you shake your head with a grin on your face. “I’m kidding! I’m only joking, I wouldn’t do that to her, even if I were forced to.”

Jimmy moves on as a picture of you, Florence, and Scarlett pops up on the screen. The picture had been posted on your Instagram and was taken while the three of you were filming in between takes. You were taking the selfie while Scarlett and Florence were poking their heads out from behind you making funny faces.

“I can’t imagine how exciting it is to be on a Marvel set, and to even work with one of the first ever heroes in the MCU—that must be insane!” Jimmy exclaims, motioning to another picture of the three of you.

“It’s unbelievable. To work alongside Scarlett and to follow this kind of path that she’s paved in the MCU is an honor. She really was like our older sister behind the scenes, because she was always guiding us and taking care of everyone. She’s the best.” Florence responded while you nodded in agreement.

“I watched the movie last night and one of the things I enjoyed the most was the dynamic the three of you had. You guys were like actual siblings.” Jimmy mentioned, motioning between you and Flo.

Florence giggled before squeezing you into a tight hug, “Yeah, she’s my big sister.” You smiled beamingly, patting her cheek before she let go.

“No, really! She’s like my actual younger sister.” You tell the audience, who “awed” at the hug you both shared. “We spent months on this movie and we spent every single day with each other. By the middle of production, we were basically roommates.”

“Roommates?” Jimmy questioned, leaning his elbows on his desk.

“Because I was always at her house.” Florence answered in a ‘duh’ tone. “I’ve actually grown an attachment to (Y/n), she’s like my comfort blanket. So I need to have her with me at all times. If she’s not with me, I just won’t leave the house.”

“Speaking of your attachment to (Y/n), there’s this video of you that you apparently sent her?” Jimmy gestured at you, “And you posted it on your Instagram and now the whole internet is obsessed with it.”

“Yup, that’s the one.” You confirmed.

“I know there’s probably some people who haven’t seen it, so here’s the video.” The video of Florence popped up on the screen and began to play.

(This fic was based on this TikTok😭)

Jimmy looked at you and Florence in amusement, “Can we get some context?”

Florence waved her hand at the screen and said, “As you can all see, I’m very persistent.”

“This wasn’t your first time sending her these kinds of videos?” Jimmy asked. You shook your head, a feign look of annoyance on your face.

“No, she does this all the time.”

“In my defense, I was unexpectedly flying out to New York for a project. I knew I was gonna be in the city for a few days, so I decided to call (Y/n) and make the most of my trip.” Flo defended herself, slightly pouting.

You leaned your head on her shoulder, “To be fair, it was also our first time seeing each other since we wrapped Black Widow, and we really missed each other.”

“(Y/n), did you have to move any plans?” Jimmy turns to you. Florence does the same.

“You know what, you never told me if you had plans or not.” She squints her eyes at you. Your arms crossed while your body slowly sunk into the couch.

You pretend to fix your lipstick, quickly muttering, “I might’ve moved some plans around.”

Florence’s mouth gapes in shock, her entire body freezing. She grips onto your shoulder, “Wait, you actually moved plans for me?”

“I might’ve rescheduled a lunch with someone, but that doesn’t really matter.” You replied, trying to move on from the topic. Jimmy pointed at you, a giant grin on his face, “You actually moved plans for Florence!”

Florence’s mouth was still wide in shock, “I can’t believe you actually moved plans for me—(Y/n)!” She whined.

“I missed seeing you, so of course I had to move them.” You bashfully explained, the corners of your lips turning upwards. Florence pulled you into a hug.

“Gosh, you really do love me!” She exclaimed.

“I really do!” You said, your arms wrapping around her as well.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

🏷 Tags:

*if there’s a line through your url, Tumblr won’t let me tag you :(*

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[questionablygourmet]

Hi! I know it's "only" been six (?) years since the show first aired, but do you think HANNIBAL would be different if it premiered today? I mainly refer to the structure of the show (killer of the week) & the success of #SaveHannibal.

Anon, I’m going to preface this with the healthy disclaimer that I’m not actually a big Watcher Of TV in general; the Hannibal fandom is literally the only TV show fandom I’ve ever been a Serious participant in.  (Historically, I’m mostly a video game fandom person, haha.)  I do, however, read a lot of media analysis that discusses trends and production dynamics in TV, so it is at least possible that I have some reasonable thoughts on this, I suppose.  xD

(My assertions regarding production details of the show are drawn from this AV Club interview with Bryan Fuller.)

Structurally speaking, I think it would depend somewhat on what the budget looked like - NBC apparently wanted to lean on the procedural angle but their unwillingness to expand the budget made it pretty easy to say “yeah this element’s going to be pretty light because we can’t afford to do more” and Bryan Fuller was fine with this because he wanted more focus on the characters anyway.  But the actual core of the show was so heavily shaped by Mads and Hugh’s chemistry and David Slade’s directing - Fuller literally re-wrote season 1 while actively in production after seeing the first cut of the pilot because he realized that their original emphasis and story was under-utilizing what these two actors could do together - that I don’t think it would be very different if it was airing today rather than in 2013.  There was an initial idea to make a show that was Thomas Harris fanfic, and then there was two absurdly talented actors transforming the idea, and then there was the show as we know it.  

It’s also worth saying that while a lot of TV shows really reflect the precise cultural and political events of the times in which they were created, I don’t think that’s particularly true for Hannibal, largely because that’s not where the focus is.  The whole tension of the plot is predicated on the relationship between Hannibal and Will, which is rather agnostic toward politics and global events.  (For a very dramatic contrast, consider Netflix’s House of Cards: The last two seasons, which aired after the 2016 election, were DRIPPING with allusions to the absurdity that was and is the Trump administration in the US.  And they fired Kevin Spacey before the last season due to his history of sexual harassment/assault that was brought to light in #MeToo, so he wasn’t even in the final season despite having previously been The lead character.)

Finally, though, regarding #SaveHannibal, I do think that if the show were airing now and the cancellation had just been announced, it’d be more likely that another media outlet would pick it up quickly in response to the fan uproar.  The recent successes of fan campaigns to keep shows running (e.g. Brooklyn 99) is something I think we’ll see increasingly more of, and right now the fact that there are just so many moving parts/careers that have been going in different directions for four years is, I believe, itself a major obstacle to getting Hannibal going again, not just the necessity of getting someone to fund/host it.  I also believe media outlets are starting to update their understanding of what makes a show a Success (namely, that it sure as fuck isn’t Nielsen ratings).

[jbuffyangel]

Timeless 2x11 Reaction: “The Miracle of Christmas Part 1 and 2″

And thus Timeless is officially over. How did the writers fair with the series finale aka The Timeless movie? Pretty freakin’ fantastic.

Let’s dig in...

It’s been several months between Timeless’ Season 2 finale and their series finale tonight, so the writers wisely include a “Previously on Timeless.” We flashback to all their adventures while Unhappy Future Lucy (who looks a little scary if I’m being honest) narrates. It helps because I seriously forgot her mother is dead. (They kill Susanna Thompson on every damn show!)

The beginning is a little jarring because storylines I expected to happen in a season or two are all happening RIGHT NOW. My brain needs time to downshift, but I eventually adjust.

First things first - dealing with the third point in the love triangle, Garcia Flynn. Timeless isn’t interested in drawing out the shipper war because Wyatt and Lucy are kind of a mess. They require some screen time so they are fixed in a realistic manner. 

Scary Future Lucy gives Present Day Lucy and Wyatt her diary. Spoiler alert: Lucy hooks up with Flynn. Spoiler alert: They break up sometime down the road because she is really in love with Wyatt. They play out Lucy and Flynn’s entire relationship in under 3 minutes. I’m not joking when I say they breeze through three to four seasons worth of triangle.

I love Goran Visnjic, and while I adore Lucy and Wyatt, I was never opposed to Lucy and Flynn. I mean yeah he’s a murderer. That’s a real negative, but it’s friggin Goran Visnic. Have you seen this guy? He’s so hot. Where Dr. Luca goes so goes my nation.

Kidding aside, the writers convey the depth of Lucy and Flynn’s relationship with just a few lines, which is an impressive writing achievement. I love how Flynn is all “I can’t believe you date me because I tried to kill you a bunch of times.” HAHAHA. Classic. And true! Ah the joy of television romance. But it ain’t gonna be you Flynn, so mosey along big fella. 

Jessica is not pregnant. UGH. I HATED THIS STORYLINE SO MUCH. 

I appreciate the writers giving it a fast and hard death, but this is one of the ways I think Season 2 went wrong. Timeless is a show that defied the typical television tropes and that’s what made it so interesting in Season 1.  However, I think their Season 2 renewal, and desire to snare more viewers, created a “throw everything, but the kitchen sink” mentality. 

They used every romance trope they could think of in Season 2 to see what would stick. It was just... not good. I don’t blame Timeless anymore than I do any other show that does this (and it’s pretty much all of them). It was just disappointing to see the show move in this direction, when previously they’d been so good at avoiding those kinds of storylines.

Flynn sacrifices himself by going back to 2012 to kill Jessica, so Rufus never dies. REDEMPTION ARC BITCHES!!! YESSSS!! 

Seriously, he is so bad ass. Flynn puts a couple bullets in Jessica (plus one extra to be sure) after a ninja knockdown fight. He knows the effects of traveling to his own timeline will kill him... or something. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Then he watches 2012 Flynn with his beautiful and living family through a window before he dies. 

Flynn leaves a goodbye letter for Lucy that pretty much says he loves her, but he knows she loves Wyatt and he wants her to be happy. So yes, GARCIA FLYNN sacrifices himself for Rufus, ensures Lucy and Wyatt find the happy ending they deserve even though he is in love with Lucy, helps stop Rittenhouse and save the world. I AM SO EMO ABOUT MY BOY RIGHT NOW!

As for Lucy and Wyatt, they tiptoe around each other for most of the two hours. Wyatt thinks she ends up with Flynn and Lucy doesn’t want to be second choice. They are the only two who remember the Jessica history. Dear God, can we all forget too? Everyone is pretty much, “Why aren’t y’all together because y’all were together before and it was perfection?” So meta.

Wyatt almost dies in an explosion while delivering a baby during the fall of North Korea. Yes, you read that correctly. WYATT LOGAN IS HERE TO SAVE NATIONS AND DELIVER BABIES!

Lucy realizes she almost lost Wyatt and they are wasting time worrying about the past. 

This part of the finale feels really predictable to me. There’s no way they are killing off Wyatt, especially after Flynn dies. Lyatt is endgame, so the two characters dancing around it for so long feels like prolonging the inevitable.

“After that explosion I thought you were dead. And for a moment I saw my whole life without you and my world ended Wyatt.”

But damn though, what a speech Lucy gives him. 

Honestly, it is slightly annoying she did most of the talking because Wyatt is the one who screwed up. At least he offers up a “I wanted to pick you Lucy, but I felt I owed Jessica because she was my baby mama” explanation. Of course, we all knew this. 

Lucy accepts Wyatt’s “I am a big pine tree” explanation because facts. Things really get cooking with some Lyatt mistletoe kissing. 

Source:  sisterzelda

Ah, a time honored holiday trope I will never grow tired of. Then they have sex

BUT CUT AWAY TOO SOON! Boo NBC!

Rufus is alive, but doesn’t remember being dead. Jiya remembers Rufus being dead, but he doesn’t remember Jiya living in Chinatown for three years in the 1800s. I think. 

Jiya is concerned she’s no longer the woman Rufus fell in love with (re: see three years of trauma). I argue Rufus fell in love with a bad ass and Jiya is still most certainly one. It is frustrating how quickly they had to go through her physical and emotional trauma from Chinatown. Ugh, this is some seriously important drama that could have been a multiple season deep dive. Stupid cancellation.

Rufus and Jiya realize they are still perfect for each other, because they are perfect for each other. They start a company together and become billionaires saving the world. Jiya’s hair color is extremely pretty in the final scenes too. I feel this is very important detail to include. I heart them. 

Source:  katie-mcgraths

Lucy and Wyatt discuss how they don’t want to become scary Lucy and Wyatt from the future and THEY DON’T BECAUSE OF FLYNN. They get married, Wyatt works for Agent Christopher on special projects, and Lucy is a tenured history professor who focuses on important historical women. BECAUSE THERE AIN’T NO TIME FOR THE MEN! That’s right fellas. Drink your tea and wait your turn.

Unfortunately, Lucy is not able to get her sister Amy back. She gives an poignant speech about grief and loss, which could be the show’s mission statement. This is how you write a series finale:

"Everybody loses someone they love. And no matter how badly they want to they can't get them back. In spite of that they find a way to go on. That's everyone's history." 

What connects all of time is our humanity. We are born. We live. We love. We suffer grief, pain and loss. We find joy. We endure. This is the thread century after century. In the end, we aren’t so different after all. 

THEN LUCY AND WYATT GET MARRIED 

Source: @splitscreen

AND HAVE TWIN GIRLS NAMED FLYNN AND AMY. 

Source: @splitscreen​

ALERT!!!!!!!!!! MULTIPLES CONCEIVED! IT IS THE DREAM! EVERYTHING IS AMAZING!!!! 

The final scene is 2023 Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus traveling to 2014 to tell Garcia Flynn about the time machine. Lucy tells Flynn he doesn’t lose his humanity even though he never gets his family back. He is the hero the team and the world needs in the end. It connects the beginning and end of Timeless so seamlessly. This was probably always going to be the bookend. I just wish we had a few more seasons in between it.

They hint at a future time machine being invented by a young girl Rufus took an interest in at the science fair. The morality of the time machine is debated between Agent Christopher and Connor. She wants to destroy it, but Connor argues they need to keep it so they can stop others from abusing its power. You can’t un-invent something. Someone sooner or later will create the same technology Connor and Rufus did. They have a responsibility to make sure time travel is not abused and another Rittenhouse does not rise. So, the time machine is kept, covered, guarded and waiting.

Do I think we’ll see a resurrected Timeless about this girl and her time machine? No. I don’t. This is the last stop on the Timeless train and, while it was a wonderful ride, it is over. Actors are released from contracts. Writers, producers, crew, etc have all moved on to other gigs. It’s a freaking miracle they even made the movie. (Apropos episode title).

Timeless approached the series finale the correct way, which is what’s important to me. They didn’t leave a bunch of loose ends. The world was saved and I saw all our beloved characters living their happy lives in peace. I need to know these characters are going to be okay, so I can say goodbye. 

Thank you Timeless for the insightful way you approached history, your cast of wonderful characters, humor and unflinching honesty. I look forward to the streaming deal so I can rewatch again and again.

Source:  yasmin-khan

Stray Thoughts

The finale is one EPIC Lucy speech after another. My girl runs this show.

Nobody was dressed appropriately for a North Korea winter. 

It looked like the mother threw her newborn into Wyatt’s arms as her son came running to her. LOL Nice catch, soldier.

"I've loved you since the Alamo." Girl is that ever right. 

Don't mock. Saint Christopher is for REAL. He has helped me out of many jams.

Hahaha. Wyatt said m'am. That's how you know it's the end.

[newagesispage]

                                                          FEBRUARY           2019

 PAGE  RIB

***** I am over the moon at the suggestion of a biopic of Dave Letterman starring Michael Shannon. Will somebody think about really putting this into production??? Please??

***** Criminal Minds will wrap it up after this next and 15th season. The season 14 finale on Feb.6 will have Rossi’s wedding. They will spend the last season chasing after ‘a worthy adversary’ rumored to be played by Harold Perrineau as they jump ahead in time.

***** I am so touched by shows like Grace and Frankie and Schitt’s Creek that look right past the usually discussed issues for interracial and same sex couples .  Gee, just think, it’s like we are all the same.

***** If you haven’t seen Michael Bennet and his senate floor speech about Ted Cruz, government shutdowns and Trump, run to C-span and catch it. These things make me proud to be in a DEMOCRACY!

***** Can this be true?? The constitution of Texas states that one can’t hold public office unless they believe in a supreme being??

***** Julian Castro is running for President.

***** Kamala Harris is running for President.

***** Cory Booker is running for President.

***** HGTV is apparently working on a huge publicity stunt and ratings grabber. They have purchased the home whose exterior was used in the Brady Bunch. A show will reunite the cast, bring in some famous fane and remodel the inside to look like the Brady set. At the end they may give the house away.

***** Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald will team up to revive Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune on Broadway.

***** Rashida Jones and Bill Murray will star in Sofia Coppola’s’ On the Rocks.’

***** Why isn’t extreme ironing a bigger sport by now??** And can we make Petanque a bigger thing while we’re at it?

***** Craig Ferguson is selling his LA compound.

***** China has landed on the far side of the moon!!!

***** NASA’s New Horizons has went further than anyone has gone before for our first image of Ultima Thule.

***** Kentucky has introduced a bill to ban abortion in the state.

***** Told to a reporter: “It’s your job to speak truthfully and precisely, not mine.” –Kellyanne Conway** The new book, Team of Vipers, suggests that The Conways are working in concert.  It is thought that she is valuable to Trump because she has no qualms about saying anything.

***** Super bowl LIII will host Maroon 5, Travis Scott and Big Boi. They will have no pre- concert interview. It is said that many artists turned down the gig because of the controversy. Maroon 5 has gotten some shit for performing but they caution us to just watch.** Roger Waters has asked Maroon 5 to take a knee during the show.

***** Natasha Lyonne is getting raves for her new show, Russian Doll.

***** Tom Sizemore was arrested for drug possession.

***** 6 NFL coaches were fired in one week!!!

***** Pentagon chief of staff, rear admiral Kevin Sweeney is out.

***** Rod Rosenstein is on the way out.

***** Jaymo’s, a Peoria company is suing Wendy’s over the use of their S’Awesome sauce.

***** We should enact the stop the stupidity act.

***** Why does it seem every other show on the air is sort of an entire season of a Twilight Zone episode?

***** There are more people in the Kremlin than in Washington who know what Trump said to Putin. – Tom Nichols

***** Members of congress can retire at full pay after 1 term. Children of congress members don’t have to pay back student loans. Is that true?? Can this be right??

***** Dupont is laying off workers.

***** Check out love your brain.com.

***** The Golden Globes were held and were hosted by Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh.  My best dressed was Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Moss. Danai Gurira, Julia Roberts, Carol Burnett, Emily Blunt, Lupita Nyong’o, Patricia Clarkson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jameela Jamil, Rosamund Pike, Jim Carrey, Alison Brie, Gemma Chan and Bradley Cooper. Worst dressed goes to Rachel Weisz, Julianne Moore, Layra Dern, Anne Hathaway, Maya Rudolph, Rami Mlek, Molly Sims and Heidi Klum. I was so happy for winners like The Americans (highlight of the evening!!!), Regina King, Lady Gaga, Mahershala Ali, Patricia Clarkson, Darren Criss, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek, Olivia Colman and Green Book.  The Cecil B. DeMille award went to Jeff Bridges. The new Carol Burnett award started off with Carol herself. I was saddened that Bill Hader, Henry Winkler, Kieran Culkin, Keri Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen went home empty handed. The Fiji water girl got most of the press and gave much free advertising to her product.  Some of the stars did not like her getting in their shots to push a product without their knowledge, both a clever and sad state of affairs.

***** The Kominsky Method will be back for season 2.

***** The Sag awards had their big night and gave the lifetime achievement to Alan Alda. Winners included Emily Blunt, Darren Criss, Black Panther, Rami Malek and Glenn Close. I was especially thrilled with some love goingto Jason Bateman and Patricia Arquette. Best dressed were Amy Adams, Yara Shahidi, Brian Tyree Henry, Sydelle Noel, Eddie Griffin, Holly Taylor, Sofia Hubitz, Emma Stone, Emily Blunt, Darren Criss, Laverne Cox, Timothee Chalamet, Robin Wright, Lily Tomlin, Chadwick Boseman, Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, and Catherine Zeta Jones. The WTF award goes to Alison Brie.

***** The Oscar race is on. Best picture could go to Blank Panther, Blackkklansman, Roma, The Favourite, Green Book, Vice, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is born. Black Panther also got some love for music and costume design.  Fingers crossed for Isle of Dogs in the animated category. Actor nods had a few surprises. Willem Dafoe and Rami Malek , Lady Gaga and Melissa McCarthy are up for leads and supporting mentions are for Mahershala Ali, Regina King, Adam Driver and Sam Elliott. I am so hopeful for Spike Lee and I want to hear that speech.

***** If you haven’t seen Trigger Warning with Killer Mike, you gotta check it out. He and Sarah Silverman should go on a tour of teaching acceptance for their fellow man.

***** So.. Fox news said that Ruth Bader Ginsberg was dead??

***** In sexual harassment news: Harvey Weinstein is hiring new lawyers.** Les Moonves is seeking arbitration with CBS.

***** Cher has sold her Beverly Hills cottage.

***** Cindy Crawford and Randy Gerber’s daughter, Presley was arrested for DUI.

***** CBS news has named its first female President, Susan Zirinsky.

***** What is happening to the butterflies?

***** Illinois has refused a concert permit to R Kelly and Sony has dropped him. The pressure is finally starting to pay off??

***** Get ready for biopics about Harriet Tubman, Elton John and Ted Bundy.

*****  NY mayor Bill De Blasio has given healthcare to every resident of NY city.

***** 25% of Russians do not have indoor toilets. Putin and his buddies have about $1trillion tucked away from London to Miami.

***** Days alert: I wonder if Leo’s real name ‘Matthew Cooper’ is a nod to out actor Chad Allen from Dr. Quinn??!! It is also fun to see Judith Chapman take on the role of Leo’s Mama, Diana. The pair played Mother and son previously on The Young and the Restless. Is she really Diana Colville from John’s past??** So Stefan has been played by Tyler Christopher who asked for some time off and a sub was put in place who will take over in March. Since Christopher left, he has since decided that he will leave permanently so things are up in the air. Will Stefan and Gabi hook up? Days has been renewed for season 55. HOORAY!!!! Ratings are up 4%. **Loved the line when Chloe told Rex he should wear a cup. **Leo and Xander’s playful “lust” was so sassy!!

***** Happy Valentine’s Day!

***** Steve Buscemi will play God on tv’s Miracle Workers.

***** So, the new Conan format has ups and downs. I miss the band and the desk but I am Loving the fade in and fade out at commercials. I have always hated the, “We’ll be right back “ nonsense. I was sad to lose a half hour at first but Conan and Andy do seem refreshed.

***** Still waiting for the release of Apple Seed which is written, directed and starring Michael Worth. It is one of the final films of Rance Howard who stars with his son, Clint, Adrienne Barbeau and the other Father and son team of Robby and Zephyr Benson.

***** The January Bob Segar concert in Illinois at the Peoria Civic Center is the top selling concert ever at this venue. Old rock acts take note.

***** Bob Costas is out at NBC after 40 years.

***** Trial and Error has been cancelled. BOO!!!

***** Steve Carell will star in Space Force which he is co-creating with The Office showrunner Greg Daniels.

***** Despite some people I admire that are giving Alexandria Ocasio Cortez a talking to like she’s a child, I say ‘Give ‘em Hell!’  She could well be President so fight girl!!

***** Word is that Karen Pence is now teaching at the Immanuel School in Virginia. The school refuses admission to students who participate in or condone homosexual activity. The application for the school states that misconduct includes heterosexual activity outside of marriage, homosexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity and use of pornographic websites. The application goes on to state that ‘a wife must submit to her husband’ and a pledge must be signed to that effect.

***** There is controversy over the bill to give people a day off for Election Day. Many people will still have to work, the country never completely shuts down. How many fucking times do I have to say it: VOTE BY MAIL!!!!!!!!!!!

***** So, Scary clown told us Mexico would pay for ‘the wall’. During the campaign he gave actual ideas for that like Mexico giving us a one time payout or else he would not allow Mexican immigrants to western union money back to Mexico. Another idea was that there would be a great ta on that Western union money. It does not seem like they tried any of that and just decided we would pay for the stupid ‘wall.’ How about the money he makes off Trump merch which his website and hotels still sell to pay for it?? How about the $35 million that Trump sold in real estate in 2018? The ‘Wall’ go fund me did not reach its $1billion goal so the $20 million they did collect is being offered for refunds. Some of those people still want that money to go for its purpose so Trump is creating a non- profit. Can’t we use that money to help the border patrol agents and get the backlog in immigration court moving?? That we are still talking about this ridiculous wall and that it had a go fund me page is enough to boggle the normal brain.** I think Kimmel said it best when he suggested that Trump just tell the red hats that the wall has been built.  They believe everything he says so why wouldn’t they believe that??  It would save the country a lot of headaches. ** What the Hell is with his new “wheels and walls” mantra??** Russia caused Brexit too? Putin is a menace.** Another sink hole appeared the White House. WTF?

***** The congressional budget office says the shut down cost the U.S. 11 billion

***** Trump is talking to Herman Cain about a job on the Federal Reserve Board.

***** The GOP is selling fake bricks that cost about 50 cents for $20 each to send to Senate Dems. Some have said that the Dems should sign them and sell them and give the money to government workers. ** Why are Russian jets fucking around on the North American coastline??

***** Roger Stone has been indicted on 5 counts of false statements, 1 count of obstruction and 1 count of witness tampering. The FBI officers who arrested him were part of the shut down and they still did their job!!  He publically and privately claimed to have communicated with Russia. Predictions are that many more indictments are coming down the pike that involve many familiar faces.** Roger Stone has a Nixon tattoo on his back. I feel sorry for his cell mate.-Bill Maher

***** Bill Maher got some flak for comments after Stan Lee died. He wasn’t slamming Lee, but wondered about comic book fans putting away childish things. I suppose that could include weed but point taken.

***** Jared Kushner along with 30 other White House staff was denied top secret clearance but Trump advisor Carl Kline overruled that decision and gave it to them anyway. This has never been done before, this is a job for intelligent agencies.

***** Empire star Jussie Smollett was attacked in Chicago in what cops are saying was a possible hate crime. The attackers were yelling that this was MAGA country, poured bleach on him and put a rope around his neck.  The actor was previously sent a letter full of homophobic and racist slurs which he FBI had been looking into.

***** Ellen page gave us some memorable, powerful words to chew on with her appearance on Stephen Colbert. I am sure she gave courage to many who suffer because of our hate filled administration.

***** Gwyneth Paltrow is being sued from a 2016 ski incident for 3 mil.

***** I gain more and more respect for Seth Meyers. I did not really understand the choice of him as host in the beginning. His notice of local stations, choice of guests and revolving drummers makes for a great show.

***** A Dutch company may have invented a small device that converts heat into cold and Forbes is saying, ‘it could save the planet.’

***** So looking forward to Ryan Murphy’s The Politician which will star Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow and January Jones.

***** I know that is has happened little by little and we go thru times in our history when things get worse and then things get better but… When did this country get so fucking corrupt?? I mean seriously.. Why is Brendan Dassey still in prison and why is there no real justice for Teresa Halbach? ** Why is Trump still in the White House?**Why are government workers being told to work for nothing?? Why is R Kelly still living it up?? Why are some states going backward in time when it comes to women’s health?? Why do many corporations care more about their own pockets than the children of their employees or the environment around them??** Why does our justice system so often punish big for small infractions and allow the powerful to do anything they want?? **Why is a wall a better idea than infrastructure or warm beds for the homeless or food for our children and why are so many children in cages??

***** How can it be that we are still in a world where people are not allowed to reach their full potential?? Why do so many selfish humans actually fight to live in a world where they actively hold others back? Shouldn’t we all be concerned about the greater good?  We should all be allowed to see a Doctor when we are ill. We should all be able to excel in education if we choose .We should all be able to get a job to fit our skills and work ethic.  Opportunities and the pursuit of happiness should be available to all. Why is this so fucking hard for so many to grasp in this world? Imagine!

***** Sundance premiered the new flick, Big time adolescence with Griffin Gluck and Pete Davidson. Pete has since made no bones about filming in Syracuse. He hated it.

***** Jeff Flake will join CBS news as a contributor.

***** Tom Brokaw is in a bit of trouble for saying Hispanics should work harder at assimilation.

***** The Tom Hanks/ Matthew Rhys film, A beautiful day in the neighborhood has pushed back its release date to Nov. 22.

***** People are illogical and self- centered. Love them anyway. -Hedy Lemarr

*****R.I.P. Bob Einstein, Millie Wiesehan, victims of the Torrance. Ca. bowling alley shooting, Captain Darryl Dragon, Jo Andres, Lamin Sanneh, Carol Channing, Sandra Harmon, Bradley Bolke, the victims of Mediterranean shipwreck, Lorna Doom, victims of the Florida bank shooting, Kaye Ballard, Willie York , Barbara Claman , victims of the mining dam collapse in Brazil and James Frawley.

[ramajmedia]

The Office: 10 Jokes That Have Already Aged Poorly | ScreenRant

The Office is one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time. The series ran for nine seasons on NBC and helped launch the career of beloved actors like Steve Carrell and John Krasinski. It had a pretty basic premise, simply based around the lives of a paper company and the day-to-day activities at the office.

Related: 10 Super Relatable Quotes From The Office

What made it unique was its mockumentary style of filming, it's sharp writing and the heavy satire. Michael Scott was the worst boss you could have and Carrell played him to perfection, often becoming the butt of every joke. However, there were some jokes that have aged pretty poorly.

10 The name tag game

Many people remember "Diversity Day" as it was one of the early standout episodes of the show. There are some great jokes in the episode and cunning commentary, but there are also some moments that have aged terribly. The concept of the episode is for everyone to learn how to be more "open to diversity." In order to do so, they get labels of different races and religions placed on their forehead.

The characters then have to try and figure out who they are based on clues given by others. Some of the more offensive moments in the episode involve heavy racist stereotyping.

9 Hot Girl

Did you know that Amy Adams once guest-starred in an episode of The Office? You could be forgiven for forgetting since the episode she was in was one of the worst in the entire series. Season one of The Office was poorly received, to begin with.

The entire concept of the episode is simple: Amy Adams's character is perceived as hot and so Michael and Dwight spend the episode acting extremely inappropriate towards her. In a time where workplace harassment is a hot topic, this episode would certainly not have been taken lightly if it aired today.

8 Michael's treatment of Toby

Speaking of workplace harassment, it's hard to think of Michael's treatment of Toby as funny nowadays. The joke already got somewhat old on the original series after a while. It got particularly bad when Michael wished Toby dead and also said he would rather shoot Toby twice than Hitler or Osama Bin Laden.

Related: 10 Quotes From The Office That Are Still Hilarious Today

Of course, the point of many of these jokes is to make Michael seem like the butt of the joke. The series is aware it's crossing a line twice. That said, the way Toby was treated doesn't quite sit well when rewatching the show back.

7 The outdated technology

Some jokes from The Office didn't age poorly because they were offensive but simply because they refer to things no longer in existence. In one Christmas episode, Michael buys Ryan a "video iPod." Try explaining that to someone from Generation Z. There are several jokes about iPods on the series actually because when The Office first came out, it was one of the hot items on the market.

iPods aren't even made anymore, especially not the Shuffle or the other versions. It's funny to look at some of the other equipment they used then too like the bulky televisions instead of projectors or the old cell phones.

6 Ping

The point of many jokes surrounding Michael Scott's character was to highlight his stupidity. You were supposed to laugh at him and not with him. However, when Michael created the "Ping" character, it went a step too far and has certainly aged extremely poorly. Ping was a racist caricature of an Asian delivery man.

Related: The Office: 5 Romantic Relationships Fans Approved (& 5 They Rejected)

It involved all the terrible things you often see associated with racist jokes and stereotyping. Such a depiction would probably not even make it to the air if it had been written the same way today. To make matters even worse, Michael also wore a pair of glasses that made him "appear more Asian." This can definitely be seen as racist.

5 Michael's Chris Rock impression

This was another cringe-inducing moment from the second episode, "Diversity Day." In it, Michael decides it would be a good idea to do an impression of comedian, Chris Rock. To make matters even worse, he actually repeats, verbatim, the original Chris Rock sketch from the 1990s in which he uses several racial slurs.

The words are bleeped out in the episode but it's clear what Michael is saying and everyone is shown to be adequately shocked by his behavior. It was unnecessary at the time and has certainly only gone on to age poorly since it was originally aired.

4 Kelly's false accusation

In one episode, Kelly makes a comment that she was raped as an excuse to get out of something. Michael claims that she can't just say that to make all her problems go away. Given how big the #MeToo movement is and how we live in a time where believing women is more important than ever, making such a crass joke about false accusations doesn't sit right watching it now.

Related: 10 Best Episodes Of Schitt’s Creek According To IMDb

It has certainly aged poorly, as have many different aspects of Kelly's character given her tendencies to be overtly creepy towards Ryan. The same can be said for Michael's treatment of Ryan.

3 Dwight opens a gym

Dwight opening a gym wasn't a bad storyline but he does make a joke about how he will get it to become profitable that has certainly aged poorly. He says that the way to make a successful business is to get "all the black people to do it first" and then the white people will follow and then you get the black people to stop doing it.

Related: The Office: 5 Perfect Jim & Pam Moments (& 5 That Might Make Us Question Their Romance)

You can see how a joke of that nature would likely not sit well with people who watched the show in today's climate, nor was it appropriate then.

2 Nate dresses as a minstrel

This joke is very small and doesn't actually get played out in full as Dwight decides to cancel it but it's surprising the show thought it was a good idea at all. In Dwight's Christmas he comes in dressed as a Krampus-style figure and his assistant, Nate is dressed as a minstrel in full blackface.

Blackface is never a smart move, it's always offensive. Luckily, Dwight decides to cancel the event but we still see Nate dressed up as he answers his cell phone and then turns back to discard the outfit.

1 Michael outs Oscar

Michael outing Oscar was a pretty big deal on the show and Michael was rightfully portrayed as the bad guy. The joke of the entire thing feels far more cringeworthy when watching it back now. We know that many gay people are still beaten and killed for simply existing.

Outing someone against their will and without their consent is a pretty terrible thing to do. Even though Michael is meant to seem awful when he does it, it's still clearly a joke that hasn't aged well with time.

Next: The Mindy Project: 10 Cameos From The Office Cast

source https://screenrant.com/office-jokes-aged-poorly-tv-show/

[obsessedwiththebatman]

Adam West, who donned a cape, cowl and tights to became an overnight sensation in 1966 as the star of the campy “Batman” TV series, has died, according to a family statement. He was 88.

West, who later lamented being typecast as the iconic Caped Crusader but eventually embraced having been part of American pop culture, died Friday in Los Angeles after a short battle with leukemia, according to multiple reports.

A former Warner Bros. contract player, West was appearing in TV commercials in the mid-1960s to help pay the rent. But several commercials he did for Nestle’s Quik chocolate powder — parodies of the popular James Bond movies in which West played a dry-witted character called Captain Q — had an unexpected outcome.

They caught the attention of 20th Century Fox TV producer William Dozier, who was looking for someone to star as Gotham City millionaire Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego, Batman, in a farcical new series for ABC.

Based on the DC character created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger in 1939, “Batman” debuted in January 1966 as a twice-weekly half-hour program — 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, with the Wednesday episode ending on a cliffhanger.

West knew his life would never be the same the night the heavily promoted first episode aired.

“I stopped at the market on the way home,” he told Esquire magazine in 2004. “I thought, ‘Tonight, I just want to be alone. I’ll stop, get a steak and a six pack, whatever, then go home and watch the debut of the show.’

“As I walked through the checkout line, I heard people saying, ‘C’mon, c’mon, hurry up. “Batman” is coming on!’ And I said to myself, ‘Goodbye, anonymity.’ ”

The tongue-in-cheek series roared into public consciousness like the Batmobile out of the Batcave.

With West as the strait-laced crime fighter who spoke with what has been described as ironic earnestness and Burt Ward as his youthfully exuberant sidekick, Robin, “Batman” was a pop culture phenomenon in a decade that was full of them.

“This whole thing is an insane, mad fantasy world,” West said of the show in a Chicago Daily News interview shortly before its debut. “And my goal is to become American’s biggest put-on.”

It was high camp indeed, with fight scenes punctuated by comic book-style “POW!” “BOP!” and “WHAP!” exclamations flashing on the screen and an array of guest-star villains that included Frank Gorshin as the Riddler, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romero as the Joker and Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt as Catwoman.

West quickly learned the key to slipping into the Batman persona.“You pull on the mask and the utility belt and the gloves, and you must believe the moment that’s done that you really are Batman,” West said in a late 1980s interview on TV’s “Entertainment Tonight.

“What I loved about Batman was his total lack of awareness when it came to his interaction with the outside world,” West told London’s Independent newspaper in 2005. “He actually believed nobody could recognize him on the phone, when he was being Bruce Wayne, even though he made no attempt to disguise his voice.”

In the first episode of the series, he recalled, “Batman goes into a nightclub in the cowl, cape and bat gloves. When the maitre d’ says: ‘Ringside table, Batman?’ he replies, ‘No thank you. I’ll stand at the bar. I would not wish to be conspicuous.’ ”

In June 1966, The Times reported that “Batman” had been a “life-transforming” success for West: Fan mail was arriving “by the wagonsful” — as were requests for everything from personal appearances to locks of his hair.

But West, The Times said, had “no panic about becoming solely and totally identified with the caped role.”

“I love doing the show, and frankly it’s given me more identification than any three movies could have,” West told The Times. “What I’ve got to feel is that if I can make a success of this characterization, I can make a success of other characterizations.”

The “Batman” series spawned a 1966 movie version and an array of merchandise, including lunchboxes, dolls and toy Batmobiles.

Both nights of “Batman” were rated in the top-10 list of shows for the 1965-66 season. But as with any fad, the show’s popularity eventually began to fade.

By the fall of 1967, the series was cut back to once a week, and it was canceled in March 1968.

Before his overnight stardom as Batman, West had made guest appearances on TV series such as “Cheyenne,” “Maverick” and “77 Sunset Strip” and had been a regular for a season on Robert Taylor’s series “The Detectives.”

He also had roles in movies such as “Tammy and the Doctor” (1963), “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (1964) and “The Outlaws Is Coming!” (1965, opposite the Three Stooges).

But after “Batman” ended, West told Scripps Howard News Service in 2001, “It was a bleak time in my career because of typecasting in ‘Batman.’ I couldn’t get away from it.”

As he told the Orange County Register in 1989: “I was almost to the finish line for a lot of big, leading-man type roles that I really wanted, but I’d always come in second or third. Somebody in charge would always say, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing? You can’t put Batman in bed with Faye Dunaway.”

West went on to do guest shots on “Fantasy Island” and “Laverne & Shirley” and other TV shows. He also appeared in movies such as “The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker” (1971), “Hooper” (1978) and “The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood” (1980).

In 1986, he starred as the police captain in the 1986 NBC sitcom “The Last Precinct,” but the series was quickly canceled. He also voiced a few TV cartoon versions of “Batman” over the years and more recently provided the voice for Mayor Adam West in the animated comedy TV series “Family Guy.”

In time, West came to appreciate having played Batman.

“The reaction has been so positive and good for me that I love it now,” he told The Times in 2009. “How could I not? I would hate to be a bitter, aging actor. I’ve been so fortunate to have this opportunity to bring Batman alive on the screen.”

As for the newer, darker depictions of Gotham City on the big screen, West said they “are grim, Gothic, full of explosions, mayhem. It’s the way of things, I suppose; the whole world seems darker.”

But, he said, “I look at [it] this way: They’ve got ‘The Dark Knight,’ and I was the bright knight. Or maybe I was even … the neon knight.”

West is survived by his wife, Marcelle, six children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

The Business of Being Nick Offerman in a Post-Ron Swanson World (Exclusive)

There is a BYOB restaurant in Chicago, indistinguishable from the myriad other brunch joints on the block, until you walk through the orange front door and are greeted by Ron Swanson's face. Everywhere. The walls are lined with Ron Swanson artwork -- pop art and oil paintings, carvings and cross stitchings, even an embroidered tissue box with his face on it -- underneath one of his most iconic quotes: "There has never been a sadness that can't be cured by breakfast food."

"Whisk, yes," Nick Offerman offers when I can't recall the name of the eatery. "They're very generous to me at that establishment." While he imagines he could get a free meal, the actor hasn't actually visited yet. "I'm kind of scared," he giggles. "I don't feel like I can be a normal patron in a weird bacon and eggs museum to my character."

It has been three years since Parks and Recreation -- the NBC sitcom in which Offerman played the surly, mustached, libertarian saxophonist -- left the air, but despite the "proliferation of Ron Swanson," as he puts it, the role didn't lead to the career boon you might imagine. "Across the seven years that we made Parks and Rec," he says, "my cache certainly went up considerably."

But the critical love, the memes and the freakin' breakfast restaurant in his honor leads people to assume certain things that just aren't the case. "They think Parks and Recreation was a huge hit, which it wasn't at all. We were always in danger of being cancelled," Offerman tells ET, seated in a suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons with one bright red New Balance sneaker resting on the other knee.

"We might have more viewers right now, on streaming services, than we did when we were actually airing," he adds, noting early seasons didn't factor in online viewership. "That leads people to believe that somehow I'm Jon Hamm or something, and I'm like, 'No. That's not how it was.' I'm very grateful that this character is so successful, but I haven't been offered Batman. Yet."

Not that Offerman has been lacking for work, following Parks and Rec with a run on the second season of FX's Fargo and voice work in animated fare such as Hotel Transylvania and The LEGO Movie. He's just aware of how many projects are in production at any given time and what percentage of that comes to him. "I'm not beleaguered by tons of choices, you know?" he says.

"The business is not beating my door down to try and get me in their projects, so, of the things that come my way, I recognize I'm incredibly fortunate that I can even pick between a couple," Offerman continues. "'Cause my rent is pretty much covered."

When discussing how he picks the projects he does sign on for, the actor frequently defers to his gut instinct. He won't say yes to anything that's not his "bag" -- which excludes anything too trendy "like zombie stuff." "Sometimes there will be a really funny script but there will just be like, a couple homophobic jokes and I'll say, nah, I don't want to be in bed with these guys. Literally," he lists off. And then there's the matter of making sure his schedule lines up with that of his wife of 15 years, Megan Mullally. "We have a two-week rule," Offerman explains, "where we never take a job that will keep us apart for more than two weeks. Which sometimes involves some pretty impressive aeronautical gymnastics."

But in the end, it comes down to following his gut. "And it's really worked out wonderfully," he grins through his overgrown beard, the dark scruff graying at his chin. Credit Offerman's gut for leading him to Ron Swanson, but also to many an indie gem -- his "bread and butter." His latest movie, the musical dramedy Hearts Beat Loud, ticks off all his boxes and then some.

Photo Courtesy of Gunpowder & Sky

Hearts Beat Loud, which opens in select theaters on June 8, sees Offerman play Frank, a record store owner, widower and single dad living in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood and dreading the imminent departure of his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), for college. When one of their father-daughter "jam seshs" produces a bona fide Spotify hit, the pair grapple with starting their band, called We're Not a Band, growing up and letting go.

"He was the only person we wanted," director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the script with Marc Basch, tells me, having written the role of Frank with Offerman in mind after working together on 2017's The Hero. "He's just the best. He's such a great human being and such an amazing actor and he has so much to give that I don't think audiences have seen. I could just feel that. He's hilarious but can be so sweet and open and I think he's going to surprise people."

"I've literally never had a role half this big," Offerman agrees. "It's funny, there are scenes with Kiersey and scenes with Toni Collette in this film that, when we were shooting them, I felt like a kid at my first dance. I would say, 'You guys!'" His eyes light up as he clasps his hands together. "'I've never had a scene where I'm just a vulnerable guy, like, trying to get a woman to love me! I'm 47 and I've never gotten to do this!'"

The paternal side of Frank came naturally to the actor. When Clemons arrived on set, "I started trying to be cool with her, which of course is super geeky and annoying to her," he laughs. "Our dynamic was established immediately where she's rolling her eyes but also laughing at me, and I was like, Oh! We're Frank and Sam!" The other muscles he was tasked with flexing -- revealing new colors of himself, performing music in front of an audience -- required more effort. But the experience coalesced into something magical. "I've seen the movie several times now and when Kiersey starts singing," he says, "I get goose bumps!"

"I secretly hope I'll stop getting acting jobs, at least for a while, so that I can go build another boat."

Next up, Offerman has a Parks and Rec reteaming, of sorts, as he and Amy Poehler host NBC's crafting competition series, Making It. The show has less of a connection to Ron Swanson than to Offerman himself, who has been pals with Poehler since their early improv and theater days in Chicago (hence, Whisk) and who has been crafty even longer, having learned to woodwork as a boy. Then there is more work on TV (Amazon's Neil Gaiman adaptation, Good Omens) and in movies (another LEGO Movie, the genre flick Bad Times at the El Royale). And then? Well, he'll follow his gut. But he isn't concerned.

"I don't worry about my career, as it were. I don't have ambitions. And I recognize that I'm very lucky that I don't have that actor stress of, Will I keep getting jobs?" he admits. "Because I have this woodshop" -- the aptly named Offerman Woodshop in East Los Angeles -- "and all I want to do is get to my woodshop. I secretly hope I'll stop getting acting jobs, at least for a while so that I can go build another boat."

What's stopping you from saying no, I ask, from taking a self-imposed break from acting?

"I love delivering some sort of medicine to an audience," Offerman replies without hesitating. "Whether it's through laughter or emotion or what have you, that's my favorite thing to do." He shrugs. "But if I couldn't do it anymore, I'm comforted to know I'd be very happy making chairs."

RELATED CONTENT:

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Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman Are Open to 'Parks and Recreation' Revival -- With Beyonce

[bestmovies0]

15 Biggest Pop Culture Disasters of 2017: Kendall Jenner, Megyn Kelly, the Oscars, & More

If there’s any sort of running theme among the year’s biggest pop culture fails, it’s a mind-boggling deficiency of self-awareness. The biggest recreation calamities were born out of a clusterfuck of hallucination, hubris, apathy, and, in most cases, an almost unforgivable deafness to the conversations defining this moment in our culture.

So while we’ve invested much of this last month cheering the outputthat challenged, invigorated, and, of course, entertained us this year, let us also grand marshal this parade of shame–in the hopes that maybe, simply perhaps, there will be lessons learned heading into next year. Here are 15 duds from the past time, be it commercial bomb or tone-deaf culture grenades, from the worlds of music, TV, movies, and celebrity culture.

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial

The solution to institutionalized racism, millennial apathy, police brutality, and Trump-era anger? A nice cold Pepsi, and a tangential Kardashian to deliver it. The message of the resistance-themed Pepsi commercial was so laughably obtuse and reductive, and the reaction so brutally eviscerating, that the company immediately removed it from the internet and actually apologized to Jenner for its misguided creative direction. Severely, though: Think of the sheer number of people who had to OK this ad before it was released. It’s mind-boggling.

Sean Spicer at the Emmys

Notoriously crouching former White House press secretary Sean Spicer ultimately espoused the spotlight at the 2017 Emmy Awards, making a cameo appearing during host Stephen Colbert’s monologue ruthlessly attacking President Trump. Spicer giggled and soaked up the attention and applause, an ovation for a public figure who lived out his short tenure in relentless disgrace and abhorrence, applauding him for “gamely” participating in the roasting of his former boss. But for many spectators, the booking of Spicer was a shameless absolution of a humankind who was toothlessly complicit in spreading lies by the Trump administration to the American people; the worst example of the entertainment industry’s instinct to bend any moral for a cheap laugh.

” As a parent of daughters …” strong>

This entire summary of the year’s disasters could be inhabited with the frightening misconduct of the litany of Bad Men exposed this year–from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey and beyond–and the ways in which various institutions mishandled the behaviour and fallout. No reactions to these revelations were more infuriating than the famous male figures, ranging from Matt Damon to Ben Affleck to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who clarified that they were horrified why i am father-gods who have daughters. It’s a sign of how clueless men are and have been in processing these scandals and the specific characteristics of this predatory and misogynistic culture. As Hunter Harris perfectly wrote in Vulture,” Merely a sociopath needs a daughter–or a sister, a girlfriend, a spouse, or even just a lady standing in front of him at Starbucks–to attain him queasy enough at the believed to be a sexual predator in his industry to do anything about it .”

Mariah Carey at New Year’s Eve

Maybe it was a simple mistake attained in a very public meeting. Perhaps it was an ominous warned against the year that was to come. Nonetheless, Mariah Carey’s interminable avalanche of live catastrophes during the New Year’s Rockin’ Eve telecast was excruciating to watch. One of the greatest singers of all-time standing on stage pissed off, first saying she couldn’t hear a patronage track to sing along to, then not bothering to lip sync the next carol before storming off. It was an inauspicious lane to begin the new time, specially when you consider the optics of it: a woman helpless as “the worlds”, albeit in this case only the Times Square stage, burned around her, then vilified for refusing to smile through the carnage. The fallout was scarcely managed elegantly with Carey’s team and the production corporation engaging in a public she-said-they-said over who was to blame.

The launch of Megyn Kelly Today

At Fox News, Megyn Kelly was a marketable if polarizing star presence, known for her prosecutorial behaviour in lines of tough questioning–always admirable, even if you didn’t necessarily agree with the direction. NBC received it admirable enough to expend $15 million to wooed her away from the cable news network, rearranging its entire morning news lineup to launching a full hour of Kelly-led programming. Confusingly, however, it shunned the attributes that attained Kelly so popular at Fox. Instead, a manufactured, awkwardly fitting personality emerged that was crucified by critics at each tonal whiplash segment transition, especially during painful interviews with liberal celebrities who couldn’t bother to conceal their dislike for the host.

La La Land em> Oscars gaffe

The phrase” Oscars mistake” is typically employed to groan about a movie voters crown Best Picture that critics or fans don’t necessarily reckon “ve earned it” , not for a situation in which the literal incorrect win is announced. That a gaffe both so monumental and so careless happened at the 2017 Academy Awards–Warren Beatty was handed the wrong envelope and, confused, announced La La Land em> as Best Picture instead of Moonlight — is already excruciating and embarrassing. But, again, the optics of everything there is construct everything worse. The La La Land squad had to concede the stage after the gaffe was clarified, about as awkward a moment as an award demonstrate can produce. But the filmmakers behind Moonlight , a film about the marginalized black and gay experience, were denied the emotion that comes from a watershed cultural instant like winning Best Picture, and the chaos overshadowed the power of the moment, let alone their speeches. While it was deserves to additional measures, the amount of attention given to the La La Land em> team’s graciousness after the mistake only further magnified how problematic the accident was.

Marvel’s Inhumans

It’s bad enough when the phrase” worst thing Marvel has done” is used to describe your new Tv present, as it was for ABC’s fall foray into the Marvelverse. But the launch of Inhumans became more dire in light of the investment attained in the series and its hubris in presuming audiences would consume it anyway, despite its middling quality, just because it’s Marvel. The big-budget gamble included a liberate in IMAX theaters of its first two episodes ahead of its ABC launch, a theatrical operate that garnered a pitiful $2.9 million.

Matt Damon

It’s been quite the year for Matt Damon, who needs to fire any publicist whose advice isn’t simply,” Stop talking .” His response to the Weinstein scandal has been disastrous bordering on offensive, with the actor running out of feet to put in his mouth as he attempted to add subtlety to the conversation but instead came off as defending bad men’s behavior. But even if you reluctantly set all that aside, the films he was promoting during those calamitous interviews , Suburbicon and Downsizing , have underperformed at the box office and subdivided critics. All that on top of the route he kicked the year off: in a riotously silly man-bun white savior-ing Chinese history in the epic box office bomb The Great Wall . em>

Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy

In September, Louis C.K. premiered I Adoration You, Daddy at the Toronto Film Festival. It’s a film in which C.K.’s protagonist, Glen, in a very Woody Allen-ish plot, has a 17 -year-old daughter who enters a relationship with a 60 -something man who is a legendary filmmaker. In one scene, a character played by Charlie Day vigorously mimes masturbation , not bothering to stop when a female producer, are applied to such things, enters the chamber. What was purposefully provoking in the movie now borders on lunacy after The New York Times supported an industry open secret: that Louis C.K. had masturbated in front of upcoming female comedians. Suffice it to say that I Love You, Daddy ‘ s theatrical freeing was canceled.

Kathy Griffin’s Trump mask fiasco

When Kathy Griffin was made aware of how ghastly and in poor taste the photo of her holding a bloodied, beheaded Trump head was–which happened instantly–she apologized for the offense. But few celebrity contentions have spiraled this out of control this quickly. Griffin was immediately let go from nearly every amusement undertaking she comprised, and, in response, she staged a misguided press conference in which she alleged that the Trump family was targeting her. It’s a classic occurrence in disastrous injury control, but it shouldn’t have damned Griffin the way it has. It certainly says a lot about the latent misogyny in the industry that, as recent months have brought to sun, famous humankinds are guilty of truly horrific behaviour that for so long was excused–yet an atoning Griffin still can’t get representation or a footing back into the industry she made her name in. The one good to come of this: Griffin’s fed up with all of it, too, and she’s naming names.

Fyre Festival

The best thing to happen to Coachella’s reputation is the worst thing to have happened to the hoodwinked revelers who shelled out upwards of $250,000 for a luxurious VIP concert experience on a private island in the Bahamas. Rich kids arrived only for it to instead resemble, as one fooled attendee testified, a refugee camp. The entire thing was organized by rapper Ja Rule and out-of-his-element entrepreneur bro Billy McFarland under false pretense, with no infrastructure in place to assistance, house, or feed the thousands of concertgoers who paid premium prices only to be met with an unfinished tent village, packs of feral bird-dogs, mountains of litter , no-show artists, and not enough food to go around. A breaking point for the rise in lunacy surrounding the culture of music festivals, or simply a cautionary tale for how not to ruin the next one?

Tulip Fever

Maybe it’s schadenfreude that Harvey Weinstein’s swan song as a Hollywood mogul included this long-gestating , notorious tragedy of a interval movie, riddled with false starts and re-castings and shuffled liberate dates and, most notably, Harvey Weinstein’s constant tinkering. Perhaps the lowest moment in the botched freeing of the cinema, which starred Dane DeHaan and Alicia Vikander and earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of merely 9 percentage, was when Weinstein himself penned an essay defending it, quoting the fact that Vikander’s mother’s friend called her to say she enjoyed the movie as evidence.

Kid Rock’s” Senate operate”

The music industry’s resident American Jackass dialed up his reign of terror this year with the threat of a Senate run, to be launched on his tried-and-true values of cheap brew and racism. In the end, it was nothing more than a scarcely veiled advertising stunt. Nonetheless, breathless headlines blared the ludicrous mind, and, considering the trajectory to public agency mapped out by Donald Trump, seriously considered it. Of course, we can hardly fault anyone for, against their better judgement, giving credence to the nonsense that Kid Rock says. We still can’t get over his bigoted apply of “gay” as a pejorative–let alone his espouse of the Confederate flag.

Baywatch vs. Rotten Tomatoes

A bad movie is a bad movie. That’s fine and inevitable, and Baywatch was a bad movie. But glistening a spotlight on this turd including with regard to came reports of industry insiders pissed that critical reviews decimated the movie’s box office carry, as well as that of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It’s not the fact that these movies were shit you are able fragrance from miles back that made audiences not want to buy tickets. It’s Rotten Tomatoes! If “youve been” want to know how little Hollywood studios think of you, the audience, simply read this quote:” The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies. Pirates 5 and Baywatch aren’t to construct critics but instead general audiences, and once upon a time these types of films–a family escapade and a raunchy R-rated comedy–were critic-proof .”

The Mummy and the Dark Universe

Tom Cruise’s The Mummy wasn’t just supposed to be a dealership reboot cash-grab use a familiar property and a big Hollywood star. It was supposed to launch an entire shared cinematic cosmo, dubbed the “Dark Universe,” for Universal, fitted with monsters including Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, Javier Bardem as Frankenstein, and Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man, as well as Sofia Boutella’s Ahmanet from The Mummy . It was a whole big plan. They all posed for a photo together and everything! But following disastrous box office returns for The Mummy , not to mention abysmal evaluations, plans for the interconnected Dark Universe, at the least as far as they were in motion, were scrapped and its designers, producer-writers Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan, jump-start ship for other projects.

Read more: https :// www.thedailybeast.com/ 15 -biggest-pop-culture-disasters-of-2 017 -kendall-jenner-megyn-kelly-the-oscars-and-more

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The Office Revival: Where Is the Cast Now and Who Might Return?

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The Office Revival: Where Is the Cast Now and Who Might Return?

Is it time to return to Scranton, Pennsylvania? NBC reportedly thinks so and could be bringing The Office back to life.

While some people might be feeling like Stanley on pretzel day, for many fans, this news might feel more like Toby has returned—for good. How could any version of The Office possibly be the same without the majority of the main cast?

TVLine’s report already noted Steve Carell will not be returning, and that the new show, should it come together, will be a “mix of new and old cast members.” Viewers already know from the last few seasons of the show’s original run that Dunder Mifflin without Michael Scott is like a Jim without a Pam, that’s not to say there weren’t a few bright spots, but Michael Scott-less seasons eight and nine were definitely not as strong.

While it is a bit of a problem for the revival that The Office turned most of its main cast into big stars, a surprisingly large number of those stars have said they’d be up for returning if a reunion or revival were to happen. So all NBC really has to do is hold them to their word, and this revival could turn out to be exactly the trip to Scranton we’ve all been dreaming of. 

Scroll down to see what the cast has been up to lately and what they’ve said about an Office reunion. 

Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

Zach Woods (Gabe)

What’s he up to? Woods appears in The Post and has been popping up everywhere from Ghostbusters to Playing House and his HBO comedy Silicon Valley.

Would he return? Woods has been mum about returning to The Office, probably because he’s so busy. Time will tell…

Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Environmental Media Awards

Paul Lieberstein (Toby)

What’s he up to? Lieberstein has been brought in as showrunner to change things up on Fox’s Ghosted. He also wrote and directed Song of Back and Neck.

Would he return? Hmm…in 2014 he told TMZ “there’s no chance” for an Office reunion or movie, but a lot can change in a handful of years…

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Oscar Nunez (Oscar)

What’s he up to? Nunez recently appeared in Baywatch, Shameless, People of Earth and The 5th Quarter.

Would he do it? Probably, he’s reunited with the cast off camera a few times.

Gabe Ginsberg/FilmMagic

Brian Baumgartner (Kevin)

What’s he up to? The actor has kept busy with roles on Hand of God, Good Behavior and Life in Pieces.

Would he return? He reunited the cast at his  wedding in 2014, so chances are pretty good if they wanted Kevin, Kevin would be back.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Kate Flannery (Meredith)

What’s she up to? Flannery has multiple projects in the pipeline according to IMDb, and you can often see her performing in her musical comedy duo The Lampshades (which we highly recommend if you ever get a chance). 

Would she return? She doesn’t seem to have publicly said anything about it, but we’d be shocked if Meredith didn’t at least make an appearance. In fact, we’d be worried if she didn’t. 

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Angela Kinsey (Angela)

What’s she up to? Kinsey appeared in the recently canceled Netflix series Haters Back Off and has roles in several upcoming projects, including Andover, Extracurricular Activities and The 5th Quarter.

Would she return? Kinsey regularly reunites with her costars off camera (and posts about it) and when the revival news hit, she took to Twitter. “Ummm @nbc call me…. have a quick question for you. Also call @creedbratton because he is blowing up my phone. K. Thx. Byeeeeeee,” she tweeted. She recently said she’d love a reunion. “Everybody is doing so many things, but sign me up, I would do it,” she said.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Leslie David Baker (Stanley)

What’s he up to? Leslie David Baker has been acting consistently since The Office wrapped, most recently popping up on Raven’s Home and Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television. He is set to appear in 2018’s The Happytime Murders.

Would he return? Probably? Only saying that because it doesn’t appear he’s commented in the press and what would The Office be without Stanley?

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

B.J. Novak (Ryan)

What’s he up to? Not a whole lot this year in terms of acting, but he has written several books. He appeared in 2016’s The Founder and recurred on The Mindy Project.

Would he return? Novak was quick to shoot down the excitement Carell sparked with a tweet about The Office‘s reunion. “No,” he told Andy Cohen when asked if there was actually talk of a revival. “That was a very Michael Scott move of him, I think.”

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Ellie Kemper (Erin)

What’s she up to? Oh nothing, just starring in her very own critically acclaimed Netflix show called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She also does some cartoon voices and has a young son. 

Would she return? The Office was Kemper’s big break, but strangely it appears she hasn’t been asked about returning for a reunion recently. She has reunited with cast members on various occasions, both in front of and off camera.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Craig Robinson (Darryl)

What’s he up to? Several movies and a starring role on Fox’s Ghosted. 

Would he return? Maybe, though maybe not if it’s a full-blown TV show. “Under the right situation, absolutely, yes,” he told Hello Giggles earlier this year about attending a reunion. “I think it’d have to be a movie or something. That’d be dope.” 

Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

Creed Bratton (Creed Bratton)

What’s he up to? More than you might realize. He’s been working steadily as an actor since The Office ended, and he currently has a couple movies coming out in which he plays “Quarrelsome Saloon Guy Town 2” and “Cowboy Guy.” He’s definitely also busy with his website, www.creedthoughts.gov.wwwcreedthoughts. 

Would he return? Probably. We hope so. There don’t seem to be any quotes from him about his thoughts on the concept of an Office reunion, but we kind of prefer that even the real Creed remains as mysterious as possible. 

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Ed Helms (Andy)

What’s he up to? Helms has a couple of movies coming up and recently returned to Comedy Central for a Fake News special.

Would he return? He just recently told Larry King he would “be open to doing anything with those folks,” and back in May, he told E! News to sign him up. “I’d be there in a second,” he said. “I miss those people so much.” However, he also very recently admitted he didn’t really believe a reboot would ever happen, so his comments were probably rather theoretical. 

Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images for Fashion Media

Mindy Kaling (Kelly)

What’s she up to? So, so many things. She has a new show coming to NBC called Champions, and she’s also about to have a baby any day now. 

Would she return? “I loved working on the show and I was there for eight years,” Kaling said on The Talk back in September. “I think that if Greg Daniels, who did the American version of the show, he’s such a genius, and if he were to be in charge of it, I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t want to help out in some way, or write, and I feel like probably the rest of the cast feels the same.”

Randy Shropshire/Getty Images

Phyllis Smith (Phyllis)

What’s she up to? The second season of The OA begins filming in January, and since she was in every episode of season one, we can only assume she’ll be in every episode of season two.

Would she return? “I think it would be a really great idea. I haven’t heard anything. It was such a joy to work with those people, so any time they want to pull us back together, I’d be on board immediately,” she said.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Rainn Wilson (Dwight)

What’s he up to? He was in a couple of episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, and he’s got a couple movies coming out. He has also spent a bit of time this year ranting about how he is not Dwight Schrute (as part of a podcast). 

Would he return? He says he would. Earlier this year, he told Cinema Blend, “Yeah, I’d be up for that. A reunion episode or kind of like…continue on with a couple little movies here or a little limited series there.”

REX/ Shutterstock

Jenna Fischer (Pam)

How busy is she? She has an upcoming ABC show called Splitting Up Together that’s set to come out next year. 

Would she return? She claims she’s up for it, though she thinks it would be “logistically difficult” to get everyone back together, especially with many actors under contracts with different networks, she told Metro in September. “I mean, listen, big wigs make things happen all the time, so I’m not going to stand in the way of anything, but I’m not sure…But, like I said, people have ways of making things happen if they want to make them happen. Studios talk and make deals and negotiate things, so I don’t know, but I would love to work with that group of people again in any capacity. We could all get together and do something not called The Office, or I’d do an Office movie, or I’d do an Office miniseries! Whatever it is, I’m always up for it, so if somebody can figure out how to get everybody back in the same room, then let’s do it.” 

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

John Krasinski (Jim)

How busy is he? Fairly. He’s currently in post-production on the movie A Quiet Place, which he made with his wife, Emily Blunt, and he’s about to star in the Jack Ryan series for Amazon. 

Would he return? He’d probably do a cameo at the very least. He told Harpers Bazaar in 2016 that he was “absolutely” open to a reunion. “I have no problem doing something like a reunion movie or a reunion show. I thought that our experience was so perfect, so just let me know what the story is that’s good enough that would bring us all together and I’m there.” 

NBC declined to comment on the original revival reports, but Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, previously told Deadline there has been talk about more The Office. The network has already brought back Will & Grace to great success.

“We often talk about The Office, I’ve talked to [Greg Daniels] four times over the past few years. It’s always, ‘maybe some day but not now’,” Greenblatt told Deadline. “There is certainly an open invitation but we don’t have anything happening right now. If he wants to do it, I would do it.”

That was back in August.

Do you want to see an Office revival? Who do you hope appears in it?

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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                                                                          February 2017

 PAGE RIB

*****Dale Jr. married Amy Reimann on New Year’s Eve and Delta lost his luggage. Jr. does not seem too happy about the Muslim ban. He tweeted that his family immigrated from Germany in the 1700’s to escape religious prosecution. America is created by immigrants.

*****I know of a local church who is trying to get some of their mission workers back to their families because they are stranded in other countries.

*****Did Lance Armstrong or other racers use motors on their bikes?

*****The Michigan department of natural resources is offering a million bucks if you can keep the Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes.

*****Oprah is joining 60 minutes.

*****Caterpillar is moving senior executives and about 300 employees to Chicago. Their earnings have dropped more each year since 2012.

***** Megyn Kelly is out at Fox and in at NBC. Greta Van Sustern is now on MSNBC. George Will has been let go. Is Fox falling apart?

*****A New York man started a fight in an eatery with Jamie Foxx and his friends.

*****Janet Jackson had a baby with Wissam Alman that they named Eissa.

*****Four days after the inauguration, Israel approved the construction of 2,500 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West bank.

*****Hooray for the NHL and its 100 years!!

*****Ray Davies received a knighthood.

*****TNT’s Major Crime is back on Feb.22.

*****An updated ‘Archie’ called Riverdale is back and his parents are played by Molly Ringwald and Luke Perry.

*****There are reports that Trump will cancel funding for the National endowment for the arts and privatize the corporation for Public Broadcasting.

*****Dylan Roof was sentenced to death for the Charleston massacre.

*****The North Dakota legislature has introduced house bill 1203 aimed at protesters. It states that if a driver runs over someone on the highway and it wasn’t “on purpose” that they won’t be held accountable. The language does not specify protesters, it could apply to a child running across the street. It gives a pass to careless drivers and hot heads. The DAPL protesters are outraged.

*****Glad to see Norm back on The Middle. Also.. his book, Based on a true story, is one of the best I have read. Thanks Norm!!

*****The Baseball hall of fame announced the 2017 inductees: Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines Sr.. Ivan Rodriguez, Bud Selig and John Schuerholz.

*****Thought it would be Green Bay and Pittsburgh but it looks like the Super bowl will be Atlanta vs. New England.

*****Saw an interview with La. senator Bill Cassidy.  He did not make a lot of sense, I wonder if he is ok? I mean, I wonder if he is mentally stable? Of course I say the same thing about our new President. Anybody else and their family would be checking him in for a mental evaluation.

*****Days alert: We have a new actress for the role of Jade.  Glad Eric and Anna are back. Carrie and Austin still seem like the perfect couple. More Abe!! I miss Phillip!!

*****Thanks for the giggle by turning Hollywood into Hollyweed.

*****A new BBC documentary brings us evidence that a coal fire on the Titanic may have helped the ship go down even faster. A 30 year researcher tells us a fire in the boiler room damaged the hull long before it hit the iceberg.  So the real culprits could be Fire and ice and criminal negligence. This had been reported at the time but has resurfaced because a collection of photographs. They were found in an attic by a descendent of a director of the Belfast based company, Harland and Wolff. There was a 30 foot long diagonal black mark on the hulls front starboard side near where the ice hit in a photo taken before the Titanic ever left the shipyard. Some seem to think this isn’t important but others think the mark was caused by fire and is a revelation.

*****The Coywolf is gaining ground in your cities. I think I saw one the other day too.

*****SNL suspended writer Katie Rich for tweeting a tasteless joke about Barron Trump.

*****Look for Ted Levine as the preacher in the thriller, Bottom of the world with Jena Malone.

*****Check out learn the address.org. Listen to some great speakers or leave your mark.

*****Tim Kaine told Capitol Hill about what it was like to be part of the fake news. He commented that a 4th grader would have trouble believing the stories so how can a possible National Security advisor?

*****Usain Bolt was stripped of a gold medal.

*****The Wall Street Journal tells us more than 150 financial institutions hold IOU’s from Donald Trump.

*****Gospel singer and radio show host of Bridging the gap, Kim Burrell , has been taken off the air in Houston. She was to perform on Ellen but due to anti -gay comments she made, her performance was cancelled. She was to perform with Pharrell who still appeared but distanced himself saying, ”I love her but there is no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017.”

*****C’mon while they still can.. could we have a Walton’s or Dr. Quinn movie? This country needs some good old fashioned family love. Dolly can’t do it alone.

*****Assange = Putin puppet

*****Who the fuck is Bo Bice?

*****Charles Manson was rushed to the hospital at the beginning of January. Some reports said that the 82 year old was to undergo surgery for serious gastrointestinal bleeding but officials would not comment.

*****There are only 7000 cheetahs left.

*****Illinois still has no budget.

*****Wow! So scientists now say that we have an organ, the mesentery, that they previously thought ‘a group of structures connecting the intestine to the abdomen.’

*****The Golden Globes started off with a teleprompter malfunction for Jimmy Fallon.  We did not see much of him after that. The highlight of the evening had to be Meryl Streep and her fabulous speech about the election. People often poo poo the liberal Hollywood agenda when receiving awards but this was the first time all night that the crowd was silent and really listened. The ladies in the room looked so proud as she made her way to the stage for her Cecil B. DeMille award. She made such a perfect point about Trump and about supporting good journalism. We are gonna need that! Go Meryl! ***Other highlights were Donald Glover who got best actor and best show, Atlanta awards. He so deserves them. I was jumping up and down! Glover has also signed a new deal with FX to develop new projects. Atlanta won’t be back until 2018! I was so hopeful for Bob Odenkirk or Matthew Rhees to win but Billy Bob Thornton nabbed it. At least he mentioned Mr. O and Thornton pretended a funny feud.  It was a win for Sarah Paulson and Casey Affleck!  It seems that Julia Louis and her winning days may finally be over. Viola Davis won!! Gosling (who gave a great speech too) and Stone and La La Land won big, breaking records. *** There seemed to be some controversy about Fences and Hidden Figures with Jenna Bush.***While presenting for animated film, Kristen Wiig and Steve Carell  took their banter all the way until the room was silence. Beautiful! Best dressed were Kerry Washington, Mandy Moore, Sofia Vergara, Janelle Monae, Questlove, Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Kristen Bell , Ruth Nega and Laura Dern. Worst dresses for me were Felicity Jones and Zoe Saldano, Riley keiou, Nicole Kidman and Carrie Underwood. It seemed a surprise to see Brad Pitt and Leo Dicaprio.  Why was this Chrisley dude on the after show?? Did he dis Nancy Grace?***The stranger things kids seemed to be the belles of the ball. They seemed to have fun meeting everyone they came to see when the commercials were on.

*****The Jeff Macdonald case is back in the spotlight. The Green Beret officer is still trying to get out.

*****It looks again, like the left has been pussies to the republican bullies. During the election, Obama and his team wondered if lashing out about the Russian cyber problem would be adding to the chaos. We always worry about how it looks and we try to bend over backwards to do the right thing. While we are doing that, they just bulldoze over everything and everyone and people applaud it. We were looking for Putin to interfere in the actual votes but he was more interested in psychological warfare.  Voters seemed to be looking for any reason to not vote for Hillary while Russia and the Trump lies kept coming. It is not surprising that Comey was so against not releasing this Russian interference. He turns right around and keeps bringing up the’ damn e mails.’ Funny he said nothing about the file that Russia had on Trump. Why does this guy have a job? He is always in the middle of some dirty business. We now know that Trump and his team were already talking to Russia during the election.  BTW.. Is it worrisome that Trump was given a brief about this file but did not seem to know of it for days because he did not read it??

*****Is the new President doing some advertising for L.L. Bean?

*****Trump waited longer than any other president elect to hold an official press conference. It happened right when all his nominees were getting questioned. It took the spotlight off the bizarro world picks he made. Didn’t he always moan about Obama not holding press conferences? The crowd was filled with his own people to applaud his words.  Trump and his family looked a bit queasy on Jan. 11, 2017. His announcer is spouting about lies before the racist even takes the podium. They had piles of files to make a point. If we read them what would they really say? There was a lot of venom (like the first 20 minutes) spewed at reporters. They built a whole campaign on fake news but now they seem to be against it. He calls CNN “fake news” and then the BBC, ”that’s another beauty.” Hmm. Jake Tapper hit back that CNN did not report any uncorroborated news. And Trump is still talking smack about Hil and now about how wonderful and elegant inauguration day will be, anything to keep from the real issues. We now know the inauguration was not all he built it up to be. He tells us that reporters are the only ones that want to see his tax returns. WRONG!!  The bulk of this press conference was his lawyer telling us about his business affairs. He is going to give money made from foreign dignitaries at his hotels to the U. S. treasury. Ok. What about all the rest of it? You still have your name on buildings and you own the shit. There is still no resolution to various conflicts and his business ethics. Since then lawsuits have been brought by ethics lawyers against Trump. The press conference ended with the lovely thought that if his sons do a bad job running his biz, he will say “you’re fired.” What??

*****Ivanka is going to be a “modern day first daughter” who will be an integral part of the administration.

*****Seeing Laurence Fishburne on The Daily show call Trump ‘45’ gave me great inspiration. I have noticed that Joy Behar, Triumph the insult comic dog, myself and most everyone I know has so much trouble even saying ‘President Trump’. So I think in my next columns I will start to call him scary clown 45. To me it sums him up pretty good. I want to laugh, to cry and I’m downright scared for our country.

*****Shulkin , the current under secretary, has been picked to run the Veteran’s affairs department.

*****It was wonderful to see Joe Biden get the Presidental Medal of Freedom with distinction.

*****The bees have been added to the endangered species list.

*****The White house remembered Holocaust day without mentioning the Jewish people. Standard holocaust deniers in the White House, I guess. Reince Priebus who made the rounds at the Sunday morning shows this weekend made no apologies. He did agree that many Jews suffered . I think it is their mantra to never apologize.

*****Diane Sawyer takes on the ‘new reality’ on 20/20. She follows Americans who work 2 or 3 jobs with no safety nets or savings accountants. There is a boom in third shift child care. I am a little shocked that so many people are just waking up to this. It is business as usual for a big chunk of society, Most of the people I have known in my life have always lived this way. This really shows just how little people look to their fellow man to help or inquire of their plight. Oh, people are out there that have always had big hearts. But it seems like these ‘forgotten ‘ Americans ‘ don’t realize that a lot of us were always ‘forgotten’. It will never get better as long as people keep worrying about their own wallets. We need to work together. I do not understand what they mean when they want to make America great again. With some simple research we can see that unemployment is down, homelessness is down, wages are up, emergency room visits are down and crime is down. There is bad, always will be but America is pretty great. Until the top of the food chains spread it around, we are doomed to repeat things that forget some of us. Unfortunately, those very souls are in charge for now.

*****In the confirmation hearings of the rich, old Trump picks, it was great to see Diane Feinstein hit them hard right out f the box. She immediately asks about human trafficking and abortion. Jeff sessions tells us that Roe v. wade “one of the worst, most erroneous decisions made by the supreme court ever.” Al Franken seemed to really get under his skin. Do they not see that abortion rates are the lowest they have been since ’73? With better health care and access to better reproductive education we have gotten better and more widespread use of birth control. The Pope is trying to do his part by letting Catholic charities give out condoms despite many upset that it goes against religious teachings. Sessions was confirmed.  **Rex Tillerson says the climate change studies are inconclusive. Elizabeth Warren was grilling Tom Price since he just kept going round and round and never really answering the questions.**Scott Pruitt is nominated for the EPA. He always sides with the corporate polluters, always working against the EPA.

*****They say the Wall will be a minimum of 15 to 25 billion to construct. The border is 3000 Km. long. This does not even take into account future maintenance and employees. The border towns do not seem too happy. Making it harder for people to legally cross the border is not the answer. They rely on customers that cross the border to buy their goods. Mexico is the 3rd largest trade partner of the U.S. and according to NAFTA and the WHO, Mexico can retaliate. After 9-11, the auto industry supply flow through North America from Canada to Mexico was disrupted. Do we remember the chaos that ensued?  Sanctuary cities (except Miami) are not happy but should not be threatened with funding yanked. Former Mexican President Vincente Fox says he agrees that they should withdraw from NAFTA if this happens. 20% tariffs will cause prices to go up. Current President Nieto, though not terribly popular says they will not pay for this fucking wall. Lindsey Graham is pushing back to make sure we have Corona and tequila at a decent price.

*****The SAG awards went out just before January was over. There were many shout outs to Trump and speeches about acceptance. Julia Louis was the first to win and talked of her Father, an immigrant. Sarah Paulson asked for donations to the ACLU. The most emotional speech came from Mahershala Ali who talked about being at odds with his Mother about faith but that they worked it out. Other winners included Orange is the new black, William H. Macy, Viola Davis, Bryan Cranston, John Lithgow, Denzel Washington, Emma Stone, Hidden Figures and the cast of Stranger things which seemed to be the favorite. Dolly Parton was there to give Lily Tomlin the lifetime achievement award. Jane Fonda was supposed to be there but had taken ill. The Lily montage really showed an array of so many characters that is rare even for an actor’s montage. I thought the worst dressed were Nicole Kidman, Julie Bowen, Salma Hayek and Michelle Dockery. Best dressed were Michelle Williams, Emma Stone, Sofia Vergara, Gina Rodriguez, Taraji P. Henson, Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monet.

*****Meet the Press is 70 years old. Tom Brokaw has been with NBC for 50 years.

*****We have a newly discovered primate species called the Skywalker hoolock gibbon.

*****Sky arts cancelled the urban myths show about the Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando drive.

*****Criminal Minds won a People’s choice award and Jane Lynch is back this month!!

*****Marshawn Lynch made a great cameo on Brooklyn 99.

*****Scientists now believe the appendix does have a purpose. It may protect beneficial bacteria living in the gut.

*****Thank you EW for your awesome cover story on Sarandon and Lange as Davis and Crawford. The first television ad left much to be desired but Ryan Murphy has to shock I suppose. I could not believe that set designers even recovered the bedroom furniture and the piano from the original  ‘Baby Jane’ production Anyway, so excited about FEUD! Can’t wait!

*****The Tick is back.

*****Go Portland!! They have America’s first non- profit pub. You order a drink, a meal and which charity you want to support. I want to go to there. We need more of this. Those involved in the highlighted charities each month come a few times to work and tell the customers about their charity. One of those was the wayfinding Academy, a new Portland college. Exnovo Brewery is another non profit on the same wavelength.  We must have more of this in Trump’s America.

*****A new book out by Brad Meltzer called I am Jim Henson looks great.

*****Hey Rev. Pat Conroy: Isn’t the notion of opening a house session with a prayer outdated?

*****I am loving The Young Pope on HBO with Jude Law, James Cromwell and Diane Keaton. I like the contrast between the large, empty Vatican rooms and the long dialogue .

*****HBO is bringing us Big Little Lies with Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon.

*****People are alive because of the affordable care act. If the republicans wouldn’t have eliminated the risk corridor, insurance companies would not have dropped out.

*****Weird Al is coming out with a boxed set of his best.

*****Excited about the film ‘Newness’ with Danny Huston and Matthew Gray Gubler.

*****Richard Carpenter has sued Universal music for 2 million because he feels that he and his sister Karen’s estate are owed royalties.

*****Ok.. so I never really see Dateline but do appreciate Keith Morrison’s voice and the sly little things he says.  I caught a good one. They told us that the victim was pretty and there were always men around. Keith’s response: “But now she’s dead!” He was also quite wide eyed with the discussion about autoerotic asphyxiation.

*****Tom Hanks was hosting on NPR for Pete Sagal on Wait Wait don’t tell me!

*****Charmed is coming back with a prequel.

*****Biloxi, Mississippi does not celebrate MLK day.

*****Steve Harvey is a HUD consultant?

*****Georgia’s John Lewis does not recognize Trump as a legitimate President. He and many other Dem’s avoided the inauguration. The only real downside is that Russia is getting what they want. They love us squabbling amongst ourselves. It is a lot of ‘look over here while we are busy fucking you over here’. Trump is using the same play book. He is freaking about the size of the crowds at the inauguration. He puts the White House press secretary Sean Spicer out there on his first day to lie about the crowd size. CNN did not put this out live. They wanted to see what he said first , very shrewd. This might be the new normal. The press keeps asking Ms. Conway about it while we should be talking more about the women marching for their rights. I mean, talk about crowds, the women’s march had unprecedented crowds. My favorite shirt was the monster face of Trump with the American horror story logo on it. I think we need some of those knock down –blow up clowns that we played with as children only with Trumps face on them. They hit back with ‘oh they thought it would rain’ or ‘the Nielsen ratings were good.’ It is a tricky biz: Do we call him out on his ridiculous lies and blathering ? To ignore him could be dangerous but we will never get straight, coherent answers from these people. We have to put them at the bottom of the news but keep a close eye on what they are doing. Will the press be kicked out of the White House? Should they opt out on their own if they are only going to be told lies? Perhaps the Trump team just wants us to change the channel when Ms. Conway is being ridiculous so nobody is watching real news. It isn’t even spin or political speak any more, it is psychotic, blatant lies. Integrity matters.

*****Trump won’t have a lot of D.C. friends.. The map around Washington gets bluer and bluer every election cycle. The oval office is a bit frightening when you see Andrew Jackson looking on.

*****The right wants us to move on from this election. Everybody did give him a chance and every time he lets us down again. Did they let go of the birther movement? Should we forget the hateful things Trump says and continues to say? Should we thank him when we can no longer go to the doctor? He is trying to get the EPA to shut up, to keep them away from the press or social media.

*****It’s always sunny in Philadelphia and wolf cola are back! But are they trying to get taken off the air. They have always been so clever but they have been relying a bit too much on gross this season.

*****The constitution states that it is illegal for a President to not give up ownership of his business.

*****The Ringling Brothers circus is over after 146 years.

*****Liz Cheney is on board with Trump in supporting ‘enhanced interrogation.’

*****Independent lens on PBS did another riveting episode. They did a wonderful job of following Bill Genovese as he re discovers his sister, Kitty’ murder. I remember the case often in the news as I was growing up. It seemed that every other detective show did their interpretation. The murder of Kitty Genovese became a national talking point after a NY times article proclaimed that 38 onlookers did nothing. The truth had never really been known and we discover that much of what we thought we knew was wrong. After 50 years we will probably never know the whole story but the case still fascinates.

*****Seth Meyers and Mike O’Brien are working on a pilot for NBC called Deadline Reports about a high school biology teacher.

*****Stephen Colbert will host the 2017 Emmy’s. Do they even look anywhere but late night tv for hosts anymore?

*****Michael Moore is proposing a Taxes March on April 15. Yes.. Let’s see those fucking taxes.

*****The Oscar noms came out for the broadcast on Feb. 26. Wow.. nothing for Annette Benning!? But hooray for Viggo Mortenson and Michael Shannon. Hail, Caesar got a production design nod. Hmmm.

*****This Cobi fella seems pretty talented.

*****1984 from George Orwell is the top seller on Amazon.

*****So good to see Brendan Fraser making the rounds again. He is in the Affair. I think he will age like Chris Walken: a little nerdy, a little quirky, a great actor.

*****Aaron Rodgers Father is talking. He says “fame can change things.’ It seems the family does not attend Packer games.

*****Is Elizabeth Warren already looking into impeachment?

*****The inauguration: There was a lot of flap beforehand about performers. Ambassadorships were being offered to agents to get big names. Jennifer Holiday had not even agreed to be there. She had performed for 4 other Presidents. When it was announced that she would play for Trump’s inauguration, she did not quite seem to get it but that is no excuse for bullying.** All the Trump wives were there. **Ron Reagan Jr. reported that the 16 minute American carnage speech was a ‘Steve Bannon production’. It was full of darkness and bullying. **The crowd was still yelling “lock her up.” Climate change and healthcare is off the White House website. ** A couple hundred people were arrested. ** An executive order was signed to ease the burden as they repeal Obamacare? ** They filed a motion in Texas to postpone the voter ID case that has been shameful in its discrimination. They released no announcement about it, of course. It is only the beginning.**John Gore was named to head the civil rights division. He is the lawyer who defended the anti trans bathroom law and he is big on redistricting. ** Hillary Clinton was there, talk about the bigger man.**There was controversy about the inaugural cake because someone from the Trump staff ordered a replica of Obama’s cake that had been made by Duff. The cake shop used this time was asked to make a Styrofoam cake with 1 real piece for cutting. The owner said they do not refuse service to anyone because of their sexual orientation or political leanings so they did it. She and her employees decided to donate the money to charity. They gave it to the Human rights campaign who believe that Trump is unfit for the presidency.

*****Lisa Madigan is fighting against the shady practices of student loans.

*****Why are there missile launchers at the DAPL?

*****IT is the Year of the Rooster!!

*****Howard Dean is calling out the democratic leaders to do more.

*****Trump reorganized the National Security council. He stuck Steve Bannon in there and put the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on sort of a need to know basis. These are person who should be indispensable.

*****Trump may be letting go of the torture bone with some convincing by Gen. Mattis. Perhaps this will be one that he finally lets go of.

*****Rutland Vermont has hundreds of jobs available and are welcoming refugees. Well, they were until our fearless leader decided to ban people from 7 Muslim countries from coming into this country. And why would Iraq even be in this lineup? As of this writing, I am looking at CNN and watching the protests that are happening at JFK and all over the country. There was a stay put in place by a judge but Priebus later said they apologize for nothing and that there was no chaos. How do they say things with a straight face? Why are they so fucking scared of people that don’t look like them? They should be scared of themselves, most serial killers are white men! Should we ship them out?? Justin Trudeau says Canada will welcome those fleeing prosecution. CEO’s are weighing in from ETSY to Box on how despicable this all is. Even Dick Cheney stated that this is “against everything we stand for.” With all the protests and anger that is flaring, I would think that police and employees at airports etc. are going to be sick of all the extra stress and angst that Trump is causing them. All I can figure is that the President, his cohorts and supporters are terribly miserable folks. They seem to want to make the rest us unhappy as well. This administration seems to want to pull big government into everything. I was under the impression that they were against that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the law seems to be on Trumps side. Precedent gives the President sweeping power as to whom he lets in this country because of national security. Giuliani told a reporter that Trump asked him how he could do a legal Muslim ban and I guess this is what they came up with. Congressman Seth Moulton said in a statement that the ban made him “ashamed Trump is our President. His policies literally put our troops’ lives at risk. There is nothing in his executive order that improves the vetting process.”

*****San Francisco is suing Trump over his executive order about sanctuary cities.

*****ISIS is already using this ban against us.

*****The New Orleans Jazz fest welcomes Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, Alabama Shakes, Snoop Dogg and The Roots to name a few.

*****Bounce tv hosted the Trumpet awards.

*****Aimee Mann has a new LP, ‘Mental Illness”. She will be touring America to promote her very acoustic new music inspired by folk rock of the 60’s and 70’s.

****Trump has nominated Judge Neal M. Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. His mother, Anne was part of the Reagan administration.

*****Al Franken in 2020!

*****RIP William Peter Blatty, the Ft. Lauderdale victims, Kevin Holt, Yanni “John” Alexis Mardas, Tommy Allsup, Miguel Ferrer , Geoff Nicholls,  Barbara Hale, John Hurt, Mary Tyler Moore and Margaret Jean Lipinski