I have been working on some projects that have required me to sit in front of the laptop most evenings. My habit when I have to work in the evening has been to watch some television while working. Without a cable subscription, this means watching something off the Kodi or whatever movies are free on Amazon. I saw they had The Sopranos and The Wire on prime, so I decided to binge watch those two series. I watched them when they were on, but it has been ten years, so I figured I had forgotten most of it.
I enjoy watching old movies just to see the culture change. Watching a movie from the 1940’s is like watching a foreign film. There are hints at subversion, as the commies were in deep with Hollywood back then, but they had to be careful, so it is extremely subtle. A degenerate like Gore Vidal could slip some subtle homosexual stuff into the script, but even in the 1960’s, the degenerates had to be careful. They had to fear old, weird America, as whites were still in charge and were willing to fight back.
Anyway, I was a little surprised at having the same sort of reaction watching shows that are just ten years old now. I watched The Wire first, as I get asked about it and I forgot most of the story. There were scenes in the show that would be cut out today, for fear the anti-racist lunatics would burn down the studio. A realistic portrayal of black America is no longer permitted, so I wonder if the show would even get made today. Then there would be the demands from the actors to make it even more black or make the whites eviler.
The fact is the writers highly glamorized the hell out of black crime in Baltimore. There are no savvy and clever black drug dealers. All you have to do is look at the crime reports, and it is obvious. Most of the murders in the city are between knuckleheads over petty disputes. The crime is disorganized and random, because the street gangs are just as disorganized and chaotic as everything else in the black community. The truth is the smart drug distributors stay far away from the street level drug dealing in Baltimore.
Similarly, there are no smart, but corrupt black politicians. There is plenty of corruption, in fact the entire city government is riddled with hacks. It’s just that they are ham-handed about it. The Feds could lock up every elected official tomorrow, but that would be both pointless and politically impossible. Imagine the reaction to seeing black politicians frog marched out of their offices. Watching these parts of the series, I had the same reaction as I do when watching a 1970’s portrayal of black America. It is all sadly alien.
The Sopranos is a show that certainly would not be made today. There is a part of the story when the main character’s daughter dates a mixed-race boy at college. For starters, the kid is half-Jewish and half black, with his mother being black. No way the today’s writers touch a topic like that unless the mulatto is somehow made into a Wakandian superhero. Then there are the comments from the mafiosi about blacks that no actor would agree to utter on screen. There is simply no way it could get made today.
That said, I forgot how good the program was for a TV show. I recall that pretentious phonies preferred The Wire at the time, but the truth is, The Sopranos is a vastly better show. The humor is first rate. That is the thing that struck me. Our current age is dominated by vinegar drinking scolds, so nothing is funny anymore. Humor is dead because everything Hollywood makes is saturated in multicultural proselytizing. Much of what makes The Sopranos work is that it still has plenty of old-fashioned jokes about life.
Keep in mind that these shows were made just a decade ago. In the 1980’s, watching shows from the 1970’s meant adjusting to the lower technical standards and clunky soundtracks. Frankly, I find it easier to adjust to black and white movies than the campy soundtracks of the 1970’s, but maybe that is just me. The point here is that the damn broke in the culture war last decade. The lunatics no longer feel any restraint, so it is endless poz in everything. Someone from the recent past would not recognize us today.
Something I have mentioned before, but really came to mind while speed watching these shows is just how much is padding. I now fast forward through all sex scenes, as they add nothing to the show. Thirty years ago, I could understand spicing the show with some smut, but in the world of unlimited porn, there is no need for it in a regular adult drama. Maybe they put it in there out of habit, like the car chase in every action film or maybe the actors demand it. They are all vulgar degenerates, after all.
Another thing I find myself doing is skipping past the pointless character development stuff that usually makes no sense. Maybe women like learning about the emotional issues of the fifth guy on the crew, but it adds nothing to the story, so I do not care. In the Sopranos, I skipped most of the scenes featuring the kids. I get that they are a part of how this mob boss is struggling with life, but that can be assumed. I do not need to spend twenty minutes watching the daughter interact with the mulatto in her college dorm.
Yep, the Poz never sleeps…
I have this memory of lying on the beach at the Hale Koa in Waikiki in the mid-eighties, an FM Walkman feeding earbuds with Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing.” “That little faggot with the earring and makeup” and “banging on bongos like a chimpanzee” are notable outtakes that, while somewhat controversial then, would not only be banned today – the entire group would be forced to disband in ignominy. Any stations that played it (they did constantly, by the way, it was MTV Song of the Year in 1986) would be placarded, feces-bombed, and forced to abdicate their FCC charters in the public commons at high noon wearing sackcloth and ashes.
Ah, the 80’s! Someone over at CounterCurrents (of all places) referred to the 80’s as “The last golden Indian Summer of America” and he was absolutely right. Even given all the stuff that was obviously going wrong even then, it was the last time America really felt like America. Looking back on it, it was also the last chance we had to really turn things around. A decade of victories, good times, and missed opportunities.
Agree with you on Sopranos. I also find myself amazed when re watching Seinfeld. Gays are considered weird and messed up, sexual deviancy is only for orgy people, staying single too long is abnormal, minorities are stereotyped, everyone believes in God still… and that’s a show that’s meant to be a little subversive/nihilistic.
Just finished binge-watching “Frasier” from S:1,E:1 to the last show. When it was on the air, I didn’t like it because it’s about old people. Now that I’m older than the cast was when it first aired, I watch it through a new lens. You don’t see TV shows where the dysfunctional family becomes a caring, loving, coherent, family over time. It’s always the other way around.
X-Files is another fun one to binge watch.
I love Frasier. One good thing about Frasier is the blue collar Marty is actually depicted positively as a foil to his sons snobbery, and not as some lost cause they must minister to.
This is completely OT. Forgot my gab password and for the life of me can’t figure out to retrieve it from the gab website using my browser. Anyone have any suggestions? Tim
Did you get your Gab acct figured out, Tim? I’ve never had an issue with a forgotten password there. If you have Chrome or IE, both ask if you want to save the list of passwords you use for each site, did you by any chance click yes to this? If so, you still have it.
I don’t know why if you still have access to the email acct u used that you can’t just reset thr password by having them send you a link in email…
“I don’t need to spend twenty minutes watching the daughter interact with the mulatto in her college dorm.”
Hell, that’s the whole point of it. Forcing you to watch something you find distasteful is a victory for them.
Or ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ sung by Ann Margeret
Check out Betty Hutton singing ‘Bluebirds in My Belfry” (from the 1945 film ‘And the Angels Sing’). My guess is that you’ll watch it more than once.
you do realize that “Bluebirds in my Belly” is negro sex code?
I rewatched a Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt, that was filmed in San Francisco in the mid 1960’s. It’s amazing to see the city and the people in the movie and compare it to today. The scenes shot in the airport with all of the men in uniform are like something out of another age. We have lost much with all of the diversity.
You are right, my friend. And go back further – to ‘Vertigo’ in 1958 or ‘Impact’ in 1949 – and there it is, on film, the San Francisco as it was, a quirky yet entirely American town, where returning Sailors, Soldiers and Marines hugged girls young and old under ticker-tape victory parades in 1945.
It’s all gone, and it’s not coming back.
My father was among those sailors. I drove him around San Francisco when he was in his sixties. He knew it all. But it had all changed for him and he knew it.
I was there in the early 1970’s, attending crypto schools at Mare Island. The west coast Navy was different from the east coast Navy. Really enjoyed being in the Bay Area.
I can no longer count how many times I’ve watched the old ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ and ‘Smiley’s People’ miniseries, produced respectively in 1979 and 1982.
The tai-tai and I have been re-watching Columbo lately and I’ve been wondering whether we could ever watch it with and explain it to any potential grandkids. The guest murderers are always basing their alibis around trickery involving rotary phones connected to landlines, reel to reel tape decks, cameras that use film, record players and enormous $500 VCRs. These hypothetical grandkids are surely going to be sitting there thinking “Why doesn’t he just take a picture and record that with his phone?”
The tai-tai is also a big fan of Monk which is antiquated for different reasons. It’s only about 15 years old but it’s supposed to be set in San Francisco even though Monk never once trips over a garbage bag full of turds.
Hah, I also fast forward though shows when the heavy “muh feelings” dialog happens, which for Walking Dead is more than 50%. Same for the overrated Breaking Bad.
I have a question for ‘Walking Dead’ watchers.
Why is it entertaining to ponder, year after year, a ridiculous and unreal premise. It was frightening and disturbing when Romero gave us this wonderful ‘genre’ in 1968. But it’s vapid and stupid, beyond a certain “horror” threshold that normal people face and deal with, as they get on with everyday life.
Pimpkin, I have a movie for you–Zombieland.
Its an OK zombie film but a great study in what society would be like if almost everyone left alive was a Leftist and there were very few of them
All the characters in it are “R” selected disloyal scavengers who live for stimulation . There are a few of these guys out there in the real world. We typically call them war bunnies but the core of who they are is the same as an SJW. They just aren’t afraid of real violence.
Great if you want to send to kulaks off to starve I guess.
A zombie movie about our kind of people would resemble a Western where the goal would be to set up a farm somewhere safe and start humanity over.
If you enjoy good dark, criminal drama, try to get your hands of copies of any number of Norwegian crime dramas. The Brits make some really good ones, “The Missing” was very well done, but the Scandinavians are the best at dark crime stories. Of course the challenge for you is either you have to know German or find the ones with English dialog or subtitles.
“Fortitude” comes to mind, the dialog is English. Though I will admit, the graphic violence was very disturbing.
You might check Netfilx for Scandinavian crime stories/series and see what come up, e.g – https://www.spin.com/2018/03/nordic-noir-guide-best-scandinavian-crime-shows/
We are currently watching this one…
https://www.fernsehserien.de/lifjord-der-freispruch
I hate to admit it, but the Germans are terrible at most of our criminal series, and acting in general. The German idea of dramatic acting tend to be just yelling louder and louder at each other.:-)
“Do you ever feel, as I do, watching some old movie, or listening to the pop lyrics of the 1930s and 1940s, like a kid who’s wandered into a room where grown-ups are talking?” – John Derbyshire, New English Review – January 2007
I refuse to pay for pay-tv, so I watch Me-TV, Antenna-TV, Buzzr (old game shows), Laff-TV, and Grit-TV, because today’s network and cable programming is utter rubbish. If I want to watch something of today’s programming I borrow it on disc for free from the public library whose DVD holdings are constantly increasing, and that allowed me to cancel my subscription to Netflix.
get some credentials from a friend, and watch pay tv for free.
With so many of the old TV shows and movies filmed in Southern California, it’s jarring and depressing to see scenes on the streets and highways with just a fraction of the number of cars as there are today.
And all the White people. California was 80% White well into the 80’s till the great flood of Mexicans and the Regan Amnesty
That said TV and movies as we know them are dying and rather than fix them, as always SJW’s double down on Poz.
I would never have considered a movie about Han Solo could be so clumsily handled its global take would be in the mid sized domestic only range,
Its not a shame though, any time not watching TV is time spent doing something more productive and that even includes funny cat videos which are generally clean and life affirming
I will say excluding, reality , non fiction and sort of non fiction (Ancient Aliens I’m looking at you) shows there are a few oasis’s of decency. The Hallmark Channels while treacly at times are decent stuff with very low Poz count . Its implicitly White
I am a native Calian. My 6th grade class picture (circa 67) is 100% white. My kid’s class photo, circa couple of years ago, is maybe 10% white. Thanks to all the fukk heads who have turned Cali into the open air asylum it is today 🙁
Karl, why did you torture your kid like that?? Were you still blue pilled at the time?
Hopefully, you’d never do that now. IMO, sending white kids to schools where they are not the overwhelming majority in the high 80-90+% range, is straight up child abuse. I think it’s just now that some ppl are starting to realize this.
I noticed it when I moved back to GA from Alabama in 2000. My kids went into 6th and 7th grade, and the very good school in a predominately white area, somehow had crept into the 50% white, 25% Hisp, 15% black, 5% Asian range in regards to students.
I ended up pulling my daughter out after two yrs and my son after 3. They finished at a private boarding school. Even there, as expensive as that was, there were 25% Asians and 5% other.
The biggest difference was just in quality of education, IQs of students and their the class change upward.
I LOATHE public schools with a white hot passion.
Yes to your points, but please learn to use punctuation correctly.
Check out the “Rockford Files”, it was all filmed in Los Angeles back in the mid 70’s to 1980.
LA was really nice back then and goes for all the other areas.
Yes, that’s one of the best reasons for watching old shows set in LA, like “Colombo” and “Rockford Files”. Crime was actually higher when those shows were made, but it was mostly confined to the “bad parts of town” (occupied by you know who) and quality of life was way, way, higher.
I’ve always fast forwarded thru kissing or sex scenes. When I do this with a girl they think I have a strange hang-up. (I wouldn’t do it on dates of course, that would be a serious mistake. But with girlfriends.) Anyway, a few months ago I heard Bill Burr say he does the same thing. And now I find out Z does it. So you gotta figure other dudes do it too. I don’t feel so strange now. It’s really not so strange, when you think how people have an aversion to seeing people make-out in public. It’s not so different seeing it on TV. However, if the scene really calls for it, or I actually care about the characters, I can be ok with it.
Recently a writer on a family road trip stopped in St. Louis for the day to take in the sights (gateway arch, riverboat excursion, etc.), but that afternoon they found themselves smack in the middle of some nude bicycling group showing their naughty bits for some cause or another.
Despite MO laws against it, police did nothing, were actively obtructionist when the writer tried to report it. Some commenters on the website were all “Non-sexual nudity is perfectly natural.”
So something as prudish as not wanting people to make out in public will certainly not be tolerated by our betters anymore. You will be forced to accept it.
I just read my comment and I sound kinda odd.
Not odd at all, Frip. If I want to see two people bumping uglies, I’ll watch real porno. But watching the soft porno on TV is like kissing your sister. What’s the point? You’re not going to get any satisfaction.
McHungus would understand.
I do it on the rare occasion I watch a Pedowood production & I’m a woman & def no prude. It’s gross and adds nothing.
I love the clunky 70s stuff, myself. Makes me feel like a kid, again.
Speaking of clunky, did you have those hippie chick clogs?
The ones that look like Earth shoes or Birkenstocks? Ewww, no. Plus, I was a little too young for that. My decade & 1/2 older sisters did though.
The first truly “70s” shoes I ever had was in 1978-79, when I got the high heeled slip on Candies sandal that had the leather flap across the foot that featured a decorative silver buckle and the body and heel of the shoe was made to look wooden.
Horribly uncomfortable things, kinda slutty,too, looking back, and definitely not what a 14-15 yr old should be wearing to dances and whatnot.
The year I turned 16, I got a pair of bright grape colored canvas lace up boots that went all the way to the knee and had huge clear stacked soles and heels, and the heels had tiny plastic goldfish in them. I used to wear them with my mini skirts and mini dresses, pink Mohawk, eyeliner that stretched into my hair line and the the safety pin chains hanging from my ears.
It truly was a glorious time to be alive. 😀
Zman, have you seen MeTV? It’s a cable channel that broadcasts sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The America depicted therein might as well be Jane Austen for its lack of resemblance to Poz World.
MeTv is a regular over the air broadcast also. I don’t have cable but will occasionally watch something there. Also Decades Tv.
(By the way, enjoy your input on Luke’s show).
No cable here either. Old sanford and son shows are great!
Kevin, glad to hear your commentary at Luke’s channel.
When are the movie reviews coming back ?
If I may offer my 2 cents…I was binge-watching The Twilight Zone (original) on Netflix over the weekend. I had never before noticed how different the writing was for these older shows, much crisper, more descriptive. I heard words used in the character’s dialogue I haven’t heard in decades. Then, the family and I watched The Kingsman on one of the pay channels. Had to banish the grandkids from the living room. F-bombs every other sentence. Do they focus group this?
The pacing and rhythms of speaking and action are very different as well. Slower, more measured, and more integral to the storytelling. Not the “boom-boom-boom” sensual overload of today.
BTW, Twilight Zone was essentially all done by Rod Serling, and was considered reather preachy in its tone, and stuffy in its presentation, even for its day, as a reflection of stuffy and preachy Mr. Sterling. Loved his use of cigarettes in his little entrances and exits to the stories!
My grandpa is nearly 100 now and very little ticks him off more than the nonstop “‘Eff off you ‘effing ‘effer” stuff that’s in every movie nowadays. I must admit that I feel exactly the same. It’s not the profanity per se that’s so annoying. My grandpa invaded Italy in WW2 so he’s surely no stranger to foul language. What’s really offensive about the language is the fact that no one talks like that in real life. Hollywood writers and actors are just such degenerates that they think saying f**k 30 times a minute means they’re “authentic”.
The most offensive movie on this score has to be “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” believe it or not. It’s almost entirely humor you can share with the kids and should be a PG movie at most. Family friendly entertainment is not on the menu in Hollywood however so they had to include a rant by Steve Martin about the ‘effing bus to the ‘effing car that wasn’t ‘effing there. “You’re ‘effed!” Ha-ha.
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” was the inauguration of foul language in to popular film, from what I understand. Can someone describe the trajectory whereby the language in popular films became so profane? I’m guessing late 1960s was the time of major infection. What were some of the films that pushed the bounds of filthy language?
The first time I recall hearing the “F-word” onscreen was in The French Connection (1971). I considered myself countercultural then so I thought it was deliciously naughty.
If I had had any idea of the endless stream of “gritty,” “edgy” entertainment it would open the door to over the next 40 years I wouldn’t have been so pleased.
“Patton”
After that film, the floodgates opened. Since conservative, patriotic Americans liked the movie, liberals let the dogs of profanity loose.
Not sure. But it’s pretty cringy how Hollywood picks up on certain shocking phrases and keeps repeating them for 20 years past their shock date. “…and then I’m gonna skull f**k you.” Is one example. Anything including anal penetration is another.
Also the Left (well, we all kind of do it) signals authentic speech & thought through cursing. The SJW hero uses vulgarity lest we see him as the eager moralist he actually is.
Even regular people know the trick. Few people say, “I don’t like her music.” That’s not gonna cut it. You’ve got to put yourself above decorous adherence to subjectivity and declare “Her music is shit.” Instant authority.
“Crap” works just as well. “Trash”, “garbage” are other favorites.
The constant casual use of extreme profanity is maybe the clearest example of the triumph of Ghetto Culture in the US. When I first encountered it (funnily enough, at an elite college in the 70’s) what really struck me was the use of “sh*t” as a sort of generic noun, the way I would use “thing” or “stuff”….
It’s interesting to see older movies cut for TV and what language gets cut. You suddenly realize how bad it has gotten. The 90’s is where it really took off.
The thing about the constant string of F-bombs is simply how stupidly repetitive it is. Saw a TV cut of John Wick and cutting it out and replacing some of the swear words improved the dialog immensely.
But, let’s face it, Hollywood is a sick place. One of my favorite comedies is Galaxy Quest. It’s a straight PG film, although you can tell they dubbed one of Sigourney Weaver’s lines. Read something by the writers and director about how it would have been so much funnier with more crudity and sexual material.
Serling later did “The Night Gallery” series which is worth a watch. Had some nice horror stories that were done tastefully.
The beauty of it is, the <40 audience for all this crap is shrinking fast. I guess everyone is texting, and watching funny cat videos and porn on their iPhones these days. Another 20 years and there may not be any movies or broadcast/cable TV as we know them.
Well, we can hope…
misplaced
I do the same thing with fast forwarding. One of the things I like about the FireStick is the ability to go forward in smooth 10 second increments, rather than stopping everything like you have to do with NetFlix.
I binge watched a series called the “Secret City” or the “Hidden City” on NetFlix while I was working yesterday. It was about an Australian plot to establish a full surveillance state with secret courts, FISA, etc. The heroes of the story were about 50% transvestites or at least gay or lesbian. The lead female was married to a man who became a woman, but of course they all agreed that she actually was a woman. When they brought in a new Secretary of Defense, you could not tell if it was a man or a woman, although it dressed like a woman.
Of course almost all of the men were villains, although there was one female villain,
Although it was a very interesting plot and it moved pretty well, you were pounded with the idea that transgenderism is perfectly normal and that at least 50% of the population is gay, all marriages are screwed up, men are terrible fathers, etc. etc.
I had watched another Australian movie prior to that (Romer – I think). It was another degenerate freak show with children being sold for sex, 90% of the men were gay, etc.
You just get pounded with it everywhere you look.
Ah, 1970s teevee shows and movies. In addition to all the above, what truly dates some bit of video from the 1970s for me is when the actors are sporting the “1970s Sweaty” look and/or the 1970s hairstyles straight off the street–even when playing Civil War soldiers or Roman senators or sci-fi fighter pilots from the year 2525.
i was wondering if Buck would come up.
I always laughed at people smoking in the future. Americans in the 50’s and 60’s really liked smoking. The Martian Chronicles has everyone smoking on Mars. What’s funny is they could imagine technology replacing cars, planes, food and even sex, but not cigarettes.
Yeah, when I was a kid, almost every adult male I knew smoked, even though, contrary to what you hear now, everybody knew that they were bad for you. They didn’t call them “coffin nails” for nothing. But I would imagine that living through the Depression, World War II, and the coldest part of the Cold War gave you a somewhat different take on health and risk.
Because smoking was sexy and social. Once the social aspect of smoking was eliminated, and smokers were sent outside to “smoking areas”, it was all over. The sexy “bad boy” and “bad girl” thing with smoking still exists, but people get more “sexy” mileage out of vulgar tattoos now.
I haven’t smoked in years (after sex;-), but I REALLY believe that smoking was the reason most people, especially women, were not obese. Substituting potato chips and ice cream for cigarettes has caused a HUGE nationwide health problem. Remember a cup of coffee and a cigarette at the diner — or in the Teacher’s Lounge?
There’s probably something to this, actually. Nicotine also stimulates creativity, and helps treat the symptoms of both schizophrenia and ADHD. Aside from the undoubted (if somewhat exaggerated) dangers of smoking, there were indeed some social benefits.
It’s a characteristic of sci-fi in general that it dates itself more than any other type of writing. In foundation, people writing on paper 1000 years from now. Even in William Gibson, these gigantic city block video game arcades, which are entirely obsolete. Also, the notion that the Japanese were going to own all of America comes up in him which was a characteristic of 80s that proved entirely xenophobic and wrong.
watch a movie from the 30’s or 40’s where a couple of doctors are talking in the hallway. all will be lighting up and taking drags, while talking. it’s a little jarring. The Thin Man movie has a character talk about getting a drink every two minutes!
You’re always going to see some of that. I was always amused by 1960s shows set in previous centuries, with the actors showing obvious 20th century dental work (metal fillings were still a thing).
The number of gladiators wearing Rolex’s is always good for a hoot.
Now we get black women sending Neil Armstrong to the moon.
That movie with the black mammy’s doing calculus/trig on the blackboard to save the so-dense and desperate white men at NASA was the worst waste of two hours in my life. And so PC to the point of nausea. And did you notice the re-writing of historical culture? In the numerous scenes of the control room not a single cigarette was in evidence. In actual footage of the space center control room from the 60’s and 70’s, the ashtrays were overflowing on every console and desk, and the men [and ONLY men] were furiously smoking up a storm. Chesterfield’s and Lucky Strikes put our men on the moon.
Lord how I despise Hollywood.
Didn’t you know Newton was a cross-dressing Jig?
And as for Tycho Brahe…….
What is really shocking is how much technology has changed in these shows, even from what seems to be a relatively recent day and age. Even something as simple as people using a flip-phone instead of a smartphone seems just so jarring, whereas watching a decade old movie in the 80s didn’t seem all that strange other than hair and clothing styles.
Re. The Sopranos subplot with the Jewish mulatto. I think the reason it was allowed to be part of the show was because, on the surface level it showed whites (Tony) to be racists. But in the way it was actually written and by the choice of actor playing the mulatto (unlikable), the audience was meant to side with Tony. Which as Z said, it’s surprising that this was just 10 years ago. If written today, the mulatto would be handsome, cool, and tragi-heroic. And there’d be a scene where Tony watched as his goons beat him while shouting n__ger k_ke
I remember reading how the series creator hated a particular PC fake Italian show on NBC. He had a thing about keeping it real. So he’s like, “OK America, let me show you how a Jewish-mulatto trying to gain a foothold in an Italian family would REALLY play out.”
I think Italians must have long memories from the Turks and Arabs and Moors conquests and romps in the Mediterranean during the dark ages and medieval times.
Not only did the old school mafiosi not like blacks, but they looked at some of their fellow Meds with scorn.
There was an old Boston mobster named Vinnie Teresa who turned state’s witness back in the ‘70s. In his autobiography he recalled that his wife angrily called his Portuguese-American mistress a ni—er when she found out about her.
Vinnie “Big Vinnie'” Teresa. Wasn’t his book titled, “My Life in the Mafia?”
Also, in his book, he laid bare for the world to see that the FBI had deliberately railroaded Joe Salvati, Louie Greco, Peter Limone, and Henry Tameleo in the 1965 murder of Teddy Deegan.
Salvati and Limone spent thirty years in federal prison before being exonerated whereas the other two died in jail.
Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, an FBI snitch, lied to Massachusetts’ prosecutors and to the jury.
Who regards the unripe plum.”
Much programming has degenerated to soft porn. I don’t watch tv, except what they have on silent at the gymn when I’m on the treadmill. There was some crime drama on with these handsome Nordic agents. There was this whole scene at the end where this incredibly built guy gets out of the shower and the camera lingers on his backside. Just totally pornographic, not supporting the plot.
I was noting to my daughter the other day that if I hear the phrase, “That’s not who I/we/you/they are!” one more time I’m gonna scream.
The writing is just crap. Pretentious social justice virtue signaling and drama created not by smart plotting, but by characters stupidly refusing to share important information with each other for no particular reason. Adults acting like emo teenagers (“You lied to me!”). Hollywood writes people from all walks of life as if they are hyper-emotional Hollywood actors. I guess since that’s how people in that industry act, they think that’s how everyone acts.
I watched the Australian political intrigue Secret City the other day. One of the main characters was trans for no particularly good reason except to have a trans character — but of course, that wasn’t enough for the hardcore leftists. They were upset the character got killed off too early, and upset that one of the other main characters said something that was “insensitive” to trans. Character played by Anna Torv has sex with a guy (apparently bisexual) who had been in a relationship with the trans (her ex-husband). She says. “So you do like women.” Guy: “Kim was a woman.” Torv: “Yes. But not everywhere.”
That struck me as a particularly realistic comment, because the ex-husband trans was a horror show that no normal heterosexual guy would have been attracted to.
One SJW in an IMDB review said that he could no longer watch Anna Torv in anything because the character — the character, not the actor — had made such an “insensitive comment.”
And don’t get me started about the DC superhero franchise (Lesbians of Tomorrow, Flash, Arrow, Supergirl), non-stop heavy-handed proselytizing. I actually sort of liked the first season of Arrow — the guy just killed bad guys left and right. But after that he got super-pozzed and conflicted it’s just unwatchable. Now they’re bringing out a Jewish, lesbian, social-justice warrior Batwoman. Nobody wants to watch that.
” Nobody wants to watch that”. Hell, it even hurts just hearing it!
We’ve talked before about the now-standard placement of Negroes in every print ad or TV commercial featuring more than one person. (I wouldn’t object if there was a Negro or a Negro family in 13 percent of advertising. But when it is all but universal and mandatory, we are in deep propaganda territory.)
What’s the next step? I predict the cult-Marx (((Establishment))) will begin inserting obviously gay characters of both (or indeterminate) sexes not only in TV shows themselves (maybe that’s already happening), but in the commercials. Similar for print. The latest issue of Money magazine has a cover story featuring the cast of Queer Eye, which I gather is a poofter-themed TV program.
And then marketing communication will include figures that it will somehow hint are transsexuals …
To understand the absolute dementia of the (((mavens))) of pop culture and advertising, you have but to realize that their propagandizing is completely counter-productive in attracting mass audiences or selling products. It simply drives ordinary people away. Doesn’t matter to the inversion pushers! Delivering the social message is far more important to them than mere rational goals.
I’ve long ago reached peak negro fatigue with all the deification and worship of negroes that has occurred & which seems to get more ludicrous by the day.
What does “poz” mean in this context? Nothing in the Urban Dictionary seems to serve.
It’s mostly just short hand for the general cultural degeneracy.
I believe we are or shortly will be at peak decadence.
David, every generation thinks they are at peak decadence. Sooner or later, someone will be right, but the way to bet is that peak decadence is still a long way off.
You’ll only recognize the peak in hindsight, as the sky opens up in fire and Jesus Christ comes back to cleanse the earth of the evil and wicked.
Go back and study Weimar Germany. We still have a good ways to go yet. Sadly.
it started with hiv infections (positive status), and now means — culturally — that a show or company etc has been infected with progressiveness, and is now in terminal decline.
1.”Woke” culture- “intersectionalism”;
Homosexual overtones and a lightly-colored racial finish, with hints of lesbian socialism and a rather vinegary aftertaste
Or, you could say an assumed future in which white families will be replaced by the deep social consciousness of bling
It is a neologism for our degenerate sewer culture lifted by the alt-right using borrowed language from the freakazoids of the left. Poz —> HIV Positive. There are a group of mutants who actively seek out HIV infection and celebrate when they receive it and get ‘pozzed’.
Here to help.
Thanks all. That makes sense.
HIV POSITIVE. Something that has been found to be just full of full-blown AIDS & degeneracy, so it’s POZ’d or pozzed.
Mel Brooks is on the record telling that “Blazing Saddles” would never be given a green light in today’s Hollywood. And Wayans brothers would be chased out of the town for “In Living Color”. What was a joke in early 90s, is a capital crime in 2018.
Let alone the movie I’m Gonna Get You Sucka. the Ghetto Olympics…..
(((Mel Brooks))) lol. Oyyyy veyyyy.
I’mso sad he can’t make any more non-PC, anti-white content, anymore.
Each day this pozzed nation offers up more reports of how totally perverted our tv and media people are.
Michael Ian Black with his pedo tweets or the Disney firing of some perv director. Now this from Black Pilled on Dan Harmon creator of Community tv series. Where does it end?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDTq69rFRY8
There is SFA to watch anymore. I’m serious – these guys can’t write a script anymore. Nowadays the pointless spicy smut is two butt blasters sucking each other off – and when I see that it just throws me out of the story. Or you get the Wakandan superheroes or the powerful women… I can’t watch this chit. Or read it.
I liked all the old HBO stuff. I dunno about you, but this fat old white guy is ready to fight back. Been ready for a long time now too.
>”The point here is that the damn broke in the culture war last decade.”
That was a long time in the making though, going back to the days when the likes of Bonanza and Petticoat Junction got replaced by the likes of Maude and All In The Family. And yes, that was absolutely a conscious decision based on politics – some of the canceled shows were still in the Top 10 when certain executives decided they should be chucked in favor of more “socially conscious” programming. And it’s not even a secret. Read all about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
Yes, things are moving very fast now. We might see the United States split up as soon as 2020. And yes, shows from the 70’s just seem unbelievably odd now, even the ones I kind of like (Colombo, Rockford Files). The 1970’s were an odd time, the oddest time culturally up until the present day, although I believe that today has it beat in terms of cultural Marxism. Yeah, there was lots of overt leftism in the 70’s but there was also a lot of pushback – anyone besides me remember the Hard Hat Riots? All those guys would have lost their jobs today.
One thing that’s really interesting is to compare shows that started in the 1970’s, as opposed to those that started in the 1960’s and lasted into the 1970’s in terms of political outlook and atmosphere. For example, compare “Mannix” with “Rockford Files”. The dress, the atmosphere, the theme music, is just totally different, even though the shows were about basically the same thing (private detectives) and overlapped in terms of when they were on the air. By the time it went off the air in 1975, “Mannix” looked like something that had come from an alternative reality, with its jazzy soundtrack, well dressed, hyper violent protagonist, and quiet patriotism. It’s no wonder that it was my favorite show as a kid. The difference, in 1967, when “Mannix” went on the air, victory in the culture was still in doubt; by 1975, the Left had won.
Another one of my favorite shows that straddled these eras was “Hawaii Five-O” (the original, not the PC abomination wearing its skin today). The super -villain on that show was Wo Fat, and evil Chinese commie mastermind, kind of an Oriental George Soros. No wonder I ended up on the Right.
I have written numerous comments here about the Hard Hat riots. I’m an advocate of meeting left wing violence with an overwhelming show of force of right wing violence. The Proud Boys punching back is a good start.
Yes, the only thing wrong with the Hard Hat Riots is that they didn’t follow through… Slugging Hippies was no doubt fun, and useful at some level, but like so many Right-Wing populist reactions, they had no organization or staying power. Let’s hope that this time is different.
Right wing guys tend to have jobs and families. They simply don’t have the time to show up at all these protests and crack heads all the time. Plus, they have more to lose if they do get thrown in jail.
Very true. It’s one of the reasons that stuff like protests and street theatre and crap like that has only limited success for the Right. I’m certainly not saying that such things have no place on the right, because they certainly do, but we can’t use them with impunity like the Left can. The Left is operating in a cultural environment created and shaped by the Left, so naturally it favors them. When the Right sees successful protest tactics used by the Left, they have to remember that the Left spent fifty years shaping the battlespace. Trump seems to somewhat understand this, which is a hopeful sign.
Frequently, working in in east coast cities, I’ve seen leftist protest groups and thought how clever the left has been to use the idiots we support with our taxes against us. As you say, I have a job and a family and responsibilities, and a lot more to lose than a welfare recipient does. I’m reminded of hyenas harassing lions, until the lions decide to have a couple of hyenas for dinner as well.
Best way to date a movie or TV show is to observe how the family is depicted. Happily married couples w/ respectable kids ended in the 50s. Every decade forward showed ever-more-dysfunctional families, to the point where “family” in the traditional sense is AWOL. One of my primary life goals is to have a functional family … that’s why we got rid of TV in the 90s. My kids get by without smartphones or i-Gadgets, particularly now that Hollywood uses “persuasive technology” to screw with children’s minds.
Great observations from Z-man … just hope it’s persuasive enough to make us all realize that we need to unplug from the tripe that we too-often pipe into our homes.
there were sitcoms with happily married couples etc into the 1980’s (at least).
Even Al and Peg Bundy made it work.
Not to mention Dan and Roseanne Conner! Actually we might not even be allowed to mention them anymore….
I admire your resistance to the insidious influence of American popular culture, CAPT S! But, how do you deal with the near universal desire of American kids for smartphones and related social media all their friends participate in. Do you also home-school your children?
Yep – you got it. We homeschool. Now have 2 adult children, college grads, both started their own businesses, stable marriages, children, and smartphones. Nothing wrong with a smartphone per se – it’s a tool, but it requires responsibility and accountability to use. Same reason I don’t let my 12 yo have free reign of my table saw.
Contra Mundum my friend.
I love Deadwood….Keepin it Real…. Painful that they never buttoned it up….da boyz in ZZ Top (huge fans) reportedly stood for MANY hours in the final crowd scene to be immortalized in the show….
I dunno… I liked their cameo in Back To The Future III better.
If the show had not been canceled, I and a few of my friends were going to be cast as recurring background characters in the next season. One of the casting staff had worked on a Civil War documentary on Gettysburg with us over the summer hiatus for “Deadwood”, and since we could ride and shoot and looked badass, he was going to cast us as US cavalrymen. But then the show was abruptly canceled, so my chance to be a Hollywood star was missed…
Deadwood was the best ever. It was mercifully free of negro characters, feminist virtue signals, and polemics about social justice. Every time Ian McShane appears, it’s a thing of wonder.
Then you compare it to Boardwalk Empire, where the storyline is increasingly given over to Chalky White and the negroes.
Boardwalk Empire was great for the first two seasons, then dived off a cliff when Michael Pitt left.
That was a fun show, but then ran out of steam and got stupid. That’s a pattern. One theory I have is that, at most, the creators and writers have three seasons worth of material. They use up that initial stock and get renewed for another couple of years, but really have nothing left in the tank. An alternative theory is the initial writers, producers and directors get the show off the ground and develop the characters and story lines. They have success, so they move onto other projects. They get replaced with girls, blacks and so forth, who do what these people always do and ruin the show.
Well, to be fair any premise and set of characters will ultimately exhaust its possibilities. The show still has a following, their is an audience, money to be made, so they go off the rails trying to be original by bringing in the buffy’s Illegitimate grandchild or whatever. It’s a well recognized phenom. Surely you guys have heard of “jumping the shark” from the show in happy days when Fonzi jumps over a shark water skiing. That was the point where the show started to go downhill, and it has become a perfect symbol for when a show resorts to absurd premises to rejuvenate itself.
You will hear tv junkies say things like “that show jumped the shark in season 3,” or impassioned debates about whether a given show has jumped the shark yet.
Very good writers of fiction novels have four to six books in them before the well runs dry. There are notable exceptions but only a few. TV series are written by committees. It’s very unclear to me how that ever escapes mediocrity. Perhaps the good ones are written by one man and a gaggle of deputies. But his well will run dry also.
I watched an extra feature from Star Trek: The Next Generation where they had the writers discussing working for the show. It was interesting in how they would create an episode and what all was involved. Plus they seemed fairly honest in discussing what went on and some of the mistakes they made. The show lasted 7 seasons and they pointed out that into season 6 they were running dry.
Anyways, if you have a head producer who can walk the fine line of keeping the writers from going off the reservation and at the same time allowing them some creativity, it works. Writer’s rooms are usually about guys tossing ideas at each other and then one being assigned to write the story.
This might not be a popular example, but the Simpson’s stays alive by (as i recall) hiring writers for 2-3 years at the most. After that, no matter how good they are or who they might be sleeping with, they’re out.
Another example of how term limits work! Well that and using ageless cartoon characters instead of actors. I wonder if that’s another concept we could somehow use to improve governance….
I think it was Steven J. Cannell (he created, wrote, and produced countless TV series for decades) who said that a successful series peaked at four years due to the initial concept and character ideas playing out in the restrictive format of television. I agree that after the early growth peaks the truly creative people move on and are replaced by hacks, hangers-on, and cronies. You can see some successful shows listing 8 or 10 co-executive producers all getting paid for their names in the credits. It’s like some recent high-growth ventures where the initiators see the peak, cash out and move on. Then the remaining second stringers start the virtue signaling hires. Netflix hired Obama administration crony Susan Rice and the Obamas themselves. Uber hired Ariana Huffington for her expertise in transportation. Likewise Lyft has Obama crony Valery Jarrett. Yahoo hired whats-her-name who promptly ran the company into the ground before she got shitcanned.
Don’t watch a lot of TV, but one of the kids suggested “True Detective”. Liked the 8 episodes and out format. Though season one set a new standard in “dark”. There were moments that were so well drawn they stayed almost as stuck in my head as some of the shit from my other career.
Being too stingy to pay for HBO I’ve never seen The Wire or The Sopranos.
“Then there are the comments from the mafiosi about blacks that no actor would agree to utter on screen”
Anyone else remember that scene in The Godfather where Don Corleone sits down with the other mob bosses, and one of them shares his views on selling narcotics and blacks?
It’s often considered one of the greatest movies ever, but it will probably be considered “problematic “ when Francis Ford Coppola kicks the bucket.
“In my city, we would keep the traffic in the dark people, the coloreds. They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”