Wouldacouldashoulda

Hooked on drugs phonics profits

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I have worked out that I am virtually Chinese, because everything I own is from China." -Sean Lock

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I'm so old that I can remember when Chairman Mao's Little Red Book went on sale here in the home of the free and the land of the brave. 

Given the fact China has rapidly gone from an enormous, dirt poor, overpopulated, retro-kingdom run by a ruthless emperor to an enormous, rich, fertility challenged, postmodern kingdom that's embraced capitalism/mercantilism with "Chinese characteristics" run by a different ruthless emperor... 

"...mercantilism, economic theory and practice common in Europe from the 16th to the 18th century that promoted governmental regulation of a nation’s economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers." -britanica.com

...I wonder if Henry the K suffers from Wouldacouldashoulda Syndrome?

{What on Earth are you...}  

Time for a long story short, Dana. 

In 1949 Mao Zedong (a.k.a. Chairman Mao) and his merry band of communists won the Chinese Civil War, set up a socialist paradise, and Mao became the first emperor mentioned above. But you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs and by the time he dropped dead in 1976: 

"The government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions." -Wikipedia

The Little Red Book, a.k.a. Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, was/is a compilation/distillation of the wit and wisdom(?) of the emperor, a collection of quotable quotes to guide the lives of the peasantry. It was eventually distributed globally and literally was/is a little red book. 

Ironically, early editions are now collector's items in certain capitalist circles.

{Was/is?} 

It's still for sale, and there are various versions of Maoism/Maoists loose in the world although China now regards Mao as a lovable but crazy uncle who made some honest mistakes. Nowadays, the Chairman is a tourist attraction. 

 China's current emperor, Xi Jinping, a.k.a. Xi Dada, a.k.a. Winnie the Pooh...

has, so far at least, killed a lot less people. His cutting-edge surveillance state that the FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and the Goog), so far at least, can only dream of makes it possible to enslave his techno-peasants with much less wetwork, with the notable exception of the Uyghurs. 

But they're not actually Chinese, so... and are in process of being swallowed whole like the Tibetans before them.    

Henry the K(issenger), repeatedly declared the H. sapien with the most boring voice on the planet Earth by the Guinness people...

{You made that up!}

Perhaps. In his defense permit me to point out that he's allegedly a ladies man, or at least he was, but that would prove that women are biologically attracted to men of power and accomplishment regardless of...

{Would you stop!}

What? I was just going to point out that this serves to keep those of us who have never been famous for our good looks to strive for power and accomplishment... or at least to try and convince the ladies we're bad boys. Anyway, Mr. Kissinger is, and will forever be, famous for being the diplomat that "opened" China, among many other accomplishments. 

Big BUT...  

Given what's happened since, I wonder if he's ever subject to bouts of Wouldacouldashoulda syndrome given that Cold War II has broken out and our adversary is much more powerful than in the last cold war. Well, at least we don't need a younger version of Mr. K. to declare peace in some Vietnam-like situation and then get out of Dodge. So far at least. 

{What about Afscamistan?}

All that was declared this time was that we fucked up again and we're outta here by both the Donald and Uncle Joe... who preceded to fuck up the fleeing.

{GASP! Didn't you write somewhere this is a family-friendly column?}

I believe I used the phrase "well, mostly".

In case you somehow missed the intensive coverage by the American media, in other news from the Middle Kingdom, a former NBA player, Sonny Weems, who nowadays plays for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association was verbally assaulted after a recent matchup with the Liaoning Flying Leopards.

 According to Vice.com, "Racial slurs against Black people are commonly seen on the internet and often ignored by censors [the emperor's minions] who otherwise diligently remove politically sensitive content."

And people claim there's no such thing as free speech in China. 

I went a-googlin' and curiously, as far as I can tell, neither the NBA nor LeBron James has commented or issued statements about the matter. Go figure... 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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I (didn't) Love Lucy...

But I do now

                                                Zelda Lopez/Pinterest

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." -Lucille Ball

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed a movie produced by Amazon titled Being the Ricardos. It's about a week in the life of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez at the height of their groundbreaking (and massive hit) sitcom that ran from 1951 to 1957, I Love Lucy.    

Fun fact: I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in America for four of those six years.

I didn't premier till '53 and I was only four when the original show went off the air, but it continued/continues on in various and sundry iterations. One of those iterations was the seemingly endless repeats of the original show that I was exposed to in the sixties... and the seventies... and the, well, you get the idea.

The repeats are still running, 70 years later, and there's even a "National I Love Lucy Day" that's celebrated on October 15th, the day the first show aired in 1951. I never cared for the show in the past and I don't care for the show now.

In the show's defense, I'm not a fan of physical comedy, but Lucille Ball is an acknowledged master of the genre, so whaddaiknow? 

Although the movie is filmed in the currently ubiquitous Gloomyvision (which is like watching a movie/TV show while wearing yellow sunglasses) it defies several other current conventions.

There's no softcore porn or stylized violence (the Blood & Bouncing Boobies school of filmmaking). 

There's actual character development.

There's an understandable plot that doesn't require you to take notes to follow.

There's snappy/witty (as opposed to comic book level) dialogue. 

There's normal pacing that falls somewhere between 200 mph (for people with radically diminished attention spans due to social media addictions) and slooow, life sucks, the world's about to end, have you ever tried heroin? pacing. 

There's...

{You're a hypocrite. I know for a fact you're a fan of bouncing boobies, and Deadwood, your favorite/best TV show ever made, is full of violence.}

Not stylized violence, not violence for its own sake, as in let's take the family to the Collosium this weekend, Chlamydia, I hear there's a new production of Christians v. Lions in town.

And as to boobies, I've admitted in the past that I suffer from toxic male gaze syndrome — i.e., I'm a normal straight dude — and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the many awokened, overworked/underpaid actresses willing to get naked when it's "necessary to the story." 

After all, what's more common than watching other people get naked and/or copulating in real life?

{And yet there are comparatively few, um, dangling participles on display in movies and on TV shows. It's almost as if men and women are actually different and everyone knows it... but that can't be right, right?}

Careful, Dana. The next thing you know you'll be saying that women carefully consider dressing however they please just because so many men suffer from testosterone poisoning. Personally, I'm a firm supporter of female empowerment. 

{Absabalutely, but we've wandered completely off the path. You're supposed to be explaining why you've come around to loving Lucy.}  

I do love Lucy, the real Lucy, assuming Amazon's biopic is relatively accurate, and I assume it is since her daughter has gone out of her way to praise and support the movie.

She was a woman unafraid to stand up to the corporate weenies, all of whom were men, in an era when women were supposed to do what they were told, children were delivered by storks and double beds for married couples (with communists hiding under them) was the standard in movies and on TV.

As Wikipedia puts it she went from "...being cast as a chorus girl or in similar roles, with lead roles in B-pictures and supporting roles in A-pictures" to becoming "...the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions, which produced many popular television series, including Mission: Impossible and Star Trek."

In between, she starred in a television show watched by, on average, 11,000,000 families every week when there were only about 15,000,000 TV sets in America. 

In the interest of balance, speaking of daughters, and lest I be accused of being a glass half full fool — if you're into "slooow, life sucks, the world's about to end, yellow, have you ever tried heroin?" sorts of movies (with non-ending endings), The Lost Daughter is also available on Netflix. 

The critics love it. Awards are inevitable.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.

          

Music Lovers Beware

The Bezoid never sleeps

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." -Aldous Huxley

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Music lovers — full-timers, part-timers, and once in a great whilers — are as fragmented as just about anybody trying to survive life on the shores of the ever-rising Information (and choices) Ocean.

Most of you zany young people, that is to say, anyone under the age of 50 or so from my current perspective, and even many of my fellow sexy senior citizens (SSCs) are familiar/comfortable with MP3 music files even though they've only been around for 30 years.  

I suspect that there's no shortage of members of both groups who don't know/don't care that when they're "streaming" or downloading music that they're listening to MP3s, or allegedly slightly better formats that sound roughly the same — awful. 

Audiophiles, on the other hand, who, if they deign to stream at all, will go to a great deal of trouble to download "lossless" (or at least less brutally compressed) music files of one sort or another to get music that's as least as good as listening to a virtual CD — preferably better.    

{Wait-wait-wait. I have an enormous collection of MP3s that I accumulated in the 80s that sound great to me. I love Spotify and...}

To paraphrase/recontextualize a Louis Armstrong quote I bumped into somewhere but can't find, Dana, if you like it it's good music. 

There are SSCs, and younger people, that still listen to, and even purchase, actual CDs (40-year-old technology) in spite of the "jewel cases" they're usually packaged in that are made out of a type of plastic that immediately starts decomposing as soon as one manages (4.3 minutes on average) to claw the shrink wrap off.

There are fringe groups that own and listen to cassette tapes (60-year-old technology) which have made a bit of a comeback of late. I heard about a dude that retired to Elbonia that has a climate-controlled vault bulging with 8-track tapes. 

There's a bunch o' Boomers (and a subgroup of young white males) that only listen to classic rock stations that have been playing the same couple of hundred songs since the late sixties.

{What about vinyl LPs? They've made a big comeback and some people say they sound the best.} 

No, they don't, but far be it from me... 

Anyways, they've made a relatively modest comeback because some people are willing to pay $25 for fresh vinyl, some people enjoy scrounging for old vinyl, and certain people are resistant to change.

{Yeah, most Boomers and...} 

Some members of this group have too much time and/or money on their hands, like this guy.

And finally, we have me, a wild-eyed eccentric and rugged individualist who has turned his back on overpriced Apple products and overly complicated PCs and embraced the inexpensive/uncomplicated Chromebox, the desktop version of the now-famous Chromebook.

{You're my hero.} 

A man who, thanks to appropriate peripheral devices including a decent pair of powered speakers and subwoofer attached to said Chromebox — and subscriptions to certain video streaming services — created a poor man's entertainment center (PMEC)/home office in his chambers that fulfills all his needs with one exception, CD-quality music.   

{Um... You do realize that you can attach a CD player to a Chromebox, book, whatever, right?} 

Yes, but then I'd have to own/maintain CDs, I want to "stream" my music out of the cloud. After all, it's all out there, or at least will be eventually. 

{Um... Amazon Prime members can get CD (and even better) quality audio via something called Amazon music UNLIMITED. $7.95/month gets you access to a library of 75,000,000 (and growing) songs. It's only two bucks more for non-members.}

Indeed, which brings us to the title and subtitle of this column. 

{By the by, who's the Bezoid?}

Jeff (all's fair in love and retail) Bezos. 

For one brief, shining moment I thought l could live out my days without having to complicate my life or my room: the PMEC complete at last. I'm running low on allocated words so permit me to skip to the bottom line. 

CD-level audio via Amazon streaming is not possible for Chromebook/box owners. As to why, well, good luck getting a straight answer on that one.

{Well... buy a cheap PC then and...}

I don't want or need a cheap PC, and here's another fun fact. An inexpensive PC, or an overpriced Apple will get ya CD-level audio (which Amazon calls HD sound). 

But Amazon boasts you can also access Ultra HD sound, better than CD, and you can — if you purchase a hardware add-on or two, which they forget to mention.

{Huh... but I know for a fact it'll give me CD-level sound on my smartphone...}

Sure, but again, the elusive/alleged Ultra is not possible. And, unless you've got expensive headphones and/or the ability to connect your phone to a (not cheap) pair of speakers, you're not gonna notice much of a difference. 

{Oh... well still, there's something to be said for access to all those songs for less than ten bucks a month.}

True dat. Still, it'd be nice if a company that's supposed to be all about customer service always played it straight. 

{Man, you are a crank.} 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share this column/access oldies. If you enjoy my work, and no advertising, please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal/credit-debit card.    

Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.