by John Walters
The Walking Brain-Dead
If you spent any time at all the past decade watching The Walking Dead, especially when it was good in its first four or five seasons, you know that it is an allegory. A parable. Zombies are real. Okay, maybe not flesh-eating zombies who walk as if they have palsy, but the zombie ideal: a soulless mob devoid of intelligent thought whose only real mission is to destroy mankind.
If you spend any time on Twitter (sorry), time and again you will see examples of “libs” owning conservatives or MAGA types by pointing out their idiocy or hypocrisy. Fine. But what troubles me about this is the fleeting satisfaction that libs feel over being intellectually or morally superior misses the point. Zombies are impervious to logic or even to arguments showing them that they’re actually for people who are charlatans. Zombies only have one goal: destroy the enemy (and in so doing, although this is not their purpose, create more zombies).
So this video about gun regulation from comic Steve Hofstetter is outstanding. Sure. Will it cause even one NRA member to reconsider his stance on gun proliferation?
And here’s Michael Flynn, avowed The Former Guy ride-or-die dude, former National Security Advisor, architect of the Jan. 6 insurrection, etc., standing up in a crowd and insisting that folks pay homage by reciting the national anthem. Then not knowing the words. Does this type of hypocrisy compel even one Fox News or NewsMax viewer to reconsider their fealty?
There’s the Matt Gaetz pedophilia thing (while supporting family values). There’s Ted Cruz’s jaunt to Cancun during Texas’ worst crisis in more than a decade (while supporting working-class values). And on and on and QAnon.
So, yes. Over and over and over again libs will dunk on conservatives for being hypocrites or lemmings or just plain ignorant. For pointing out that a Fox News lie (Kamala Harris’ children book was never “issued” to immigrant children) travels halfway to a Dakota and back before the truth can get out of its Upper West Side studio apartment.
Alas, that’s not where the war is going to be won. Because there’s really only one way to deal with zombies. And it isn’t via a coffeehouse roundtable debate.
It divides into two camps: those who seek truth and those who cling to fairy tales. A poll taken over the weekend shows that 70% of Republicans still believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the presidency (as a recount takes place in Arizona, one that Arizona taxpayers are paying for, with the sole purpose not of overturning the election but in keeping the distrust and paranoia alive). Meanwhile, MAGA’s latest cause celebre is canceling the 1619 Project, even though it is the truth. But that’s not what’s important to them.
Hard-core conservatives, the same people who take stories such as The Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve as the truth (it’s a myth, kids; first question you should ask: who is the author?), prefer fairy tales to facts. They’d rather believe what makes them feel good about themselves (and about white patriarchy) than they would accept facts.
Donald Trump won the 2016 election (despite losing the popular vote). Donald Trump lost the 2020 election (and lost the popular vote). Your first clue that The Former Guy was not to be trusted in terms of election integrity was that he said if he won, it would be a fair election and that if he lost, it would not be. The fact that tens of millions of MAGA types go along with this “Heads I win, Tails You Lose” credo speaks to their ability to suspend disbelief if it promotes their cause.
Zombies. Liz Cheney, whose father was a Republican vice president, for chrissake, is now being canceled because she has the temerity to speak the truth. Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee just three elections ago, was booed onstage this past weekend simply because he has stood up to Trump.
Romney’s retort to the crowd is one that we’d like to propose to every MAGA dolt who remains a Former Guy fan: “Aren’t you embarrassed?”
Musk-See TV?
Zeitgeist figure and world’s 2nd-wealthiest man Elon Musk will be the host for the season finale of Saturday Night Live. This has many tweeps angrier than if they’d invited that QAnon shaman dude to host.
Granted, Musk seems a little (a little?) arrogant and he’s not in show business (per se). The choice is bizarre although it has generated plenty of buzz for SNL. But he’s not exactly Jeffrey Epstein. Or Caitlyn Jenner. Still, it’s gotten so toxic inside 30 Rock that the show issued a release stating that repertory players will not have to appear in a sketch with Musk if they do not wish to do so. They say they don’t want to, but what happens when he gifts each of them a new Tesla?
Here’s our short list of the WORST hosts in SNL history:
Donald Trump (NYC narcissist)
Steven Seagal (sexual-harrassment douchebag)
Lance Armstrong (cycling enthusiast)
O.J. Simpson (former Buffalo Bill)
Robert Blake (“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time...”)
Jimmy Fallon
Steve Forbes
Rudy Giuliani (see: Donald Trump)
Jerry Hall (current wife of Rupert Murdoch)
Hugh Hefner
Paris Hilton
George McGovern
Ed Koch (see: Rudy Giuliani)
Al Gore (inspiration for Debbie Downer)
Al Sharpton (see: Ed Koch)
Kevin Spacey (see: Stephen Seagal)
George Steinbrenner (see: Al Sharpton)
Stranglers On A Train
It’s been a good week for the MH staff in terms of catching classic films we’d never before seen. First-ever viewings of Red River (the film that is showing inside the theater near the end of The Last Picture Show, another classic), with John Wayne and a young Montgomery Clift; of Victor/Victoria, which is an absolute delight and you can see where Blake Edwards piled in a bunch of gags that he never got around to including in a Pink Panther film; and of Shadow Of A Doubt, a Hitchcock film from the early 1940s starring Joseph Cotten and the ultimate girl-next-doo, Teresa Wright.
Watching Shadow Of A Doubt made me realize that almost every Hitchcock film (and by now I’ve seen almost every last one) includes the following:
–an ominous stairwell (Shadow Of A Doubt, Vertigo, Psycho, Notorious, The Man Who Knew Too Much)
–a choo-choo that acts as a confined space for all types of nefarious acts (Shadow Of A Doubt, North By Northwest, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes and, of course, Strangers On A Train)
–gravity causing a precipitous fall that is fatal or nearly so (Shadow Of A Doubt, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho, To Catch A Thief)
–Strangulation or nearly so (Shadow Of A Doubt, Dial “M” For Murder, Rope, Rear Window, Strangers On A Train)
–A protagonist coming within an inch of death in the final scene or just about (Shadow Of A Doubt, Psycho, Rear Window, North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dial ‘M’ For Murder, The Birds, Notorious)
You’ll also notice a preponderance of younger sisters who are never romantically involved, though who often swoon over the leading man (Shadow Of A Doubt, Strangers On A Train, Psycho). You’ll also notice that almost never does a character die by gunshot (The Man Who Knew Too Much). Hitchcock considered guns lacking in suspense. He was right.
There May Be A Problem With The Server
Love this story via Andre Agassi.
The Spy Who Indulged Me
If you’re looking for a perfect movie star anecdote, this one involving Roger Moore is difficult to top.