#it's basically Woman Parody of king of the road and it's so so so so so funny

[magdaclaire]

connie smith didn't get married til 1997 (at which time she was 55 or 56, as she has never clarified her birthday to fans) and i just wanna know what it was about that young thing (marty smith, 38 or 39 in 1997, also has never clarified date of birth) that made her decide it was time

[thessalian]

Thess vs Thatcher

So I finally finished watching The Crown, having got to the point in the whole thing that actually happened within my lifetime. Now, there’s been a lot of noise here about the Charles / Diana thing and misrepresentation of the family and blah, but honestly, I don’t give a fuck. My concern for and interest in the whole of season 4 was one thing and one thing only: Margaret Thatcher.

Quick sidebar: I find it interesting that of the prime ministers that appeared on the show, only two were portrayed by Americans ... and they were the two prime ministers that not a lot of British people would dare play, at least not for something like this. Last person I saw play Churchill was Timothy Spall in The King’s Speech, and he played Peter Pettigrew, so the man’s got no issue with having people be angry at him for what character he played or how he played them. He was apparently born just down the road from where I live now, so that’s interesting.

Anyway, then there’s Margaret ‘Iron Lady’ Thatcher. A lot of Brits have been happy to play a younger Maggie, and yet more more have been happy to satirise her, but the two main ones who’ve played her straight during her time in office were Americans - and one was Meryl Streep, who has played some unsavoury characters before so was probably case-hardened to any shit she might get from this side of the pond.

But then there was Gillian Anderson, largely in sympathetic roles up until now, and she had a particularly difficult job: play the Iron Lady as a side character, focusing on her relationship with the Queen, and still walk the line between “she was horrible” and ��yeah, but she was human”. And she did it. Some people were desperately afraid that there’d be some people deciding they liked Margaret Thatcher because of how Gillian Anderson played her ... or even just because it was Gillian Anderson playing her, full stop.

Anderson took that dream and strangled it in its crib by basically looking at the role and playing exactly what was presented, no embellishment: yes, that she did horrible things to the country in service to some twisted parody of Darwinist ideals, and some incredibly petty things quite probably in the name of getting her own way, and her views on who was ‘deserving’ of help have done damage to this country that may never be repaired, but that she was still a human being. It’s just that she was a person who held the belief that no one who needed help actually deserved it, that people had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to deserve anything, that one should always look out for number one, and only give favour or comfort to the strong, and she was frankly awful. She explained why Margaret Thatcher did what she did, but she never said that the explanations excused what she did.

(That’s a thing: you know how sometimes you tell someone who’s mad at you why you did or didn’t do something and they say “Don’t give me excuses”? I used to get that a lot and I’ve only just figured out how to vocalise the distinction. Explanations are a statement of why a thing happened; excuses are a statement of why it’s okay that the thing happened. They aren’t the same thing: don’t let anyone silence you by delegitimising your explanations.)

No one made excuses for Margaret Thatcher here. I won’t say whether any of what was there about her personal life was true, though there were some aspects that kind of had to be simply because of the historical timeline they had to present. Margaret Thatcher was a horrible woman who turned up, ousted a whole lot of privileged jackasses from the Conservative Party when she took office, set up a devastating domino effect of privatisation across this country that disabled the social safety net and just allowed the rich to get richer. Presumably she did it because she believed in that twisting of ‘survival of the fittest’ to make it mean ‘only the strong survive’; there’s enough evidence to point that way. She was also a boomerang bigot about her own gender; there’s lots of evidence for that. I won’t take a Netflix drama as gospel but I can see the truth between the lines - partly because I lived at least some of it. I spoke to the people most hurt by Margaret Thatcher’s policies (a lot of the counsellors at the sleepaway camp I used to go to were Brits who were sent with BUNAC; one was a lot older, was living in Newcastle during Thatcher’s tenure, and had a lot to say about the woman who helped deepen the North/South divide in this country).

Basically, Gillian Anderson did the seeming impossible: she made Margaret Thatcher entirely human ... and yet still awful. It seems fitting, somehow. Although not quite as fitting as the fact that she’d take one look at this bunch of pompous Etonian Old Boy jackasses using government to line their pockets and start spinning in her grave so fast it’d register on the Richter scale.

That said, it’ll also appease the people who actually agree with Thatcher’s bullshit about “Look out for number one and then, only if you’re properly comfortable and totally secure, help your neighbour”. My mother’s one of them. My mother still believes that Thatcher is the best thing that ever happened to this country, same as she thinks Reagan is the best thing that happened to the US. I think she modelled herself on Thatcher a lot when I was a kid. But then, at that time, a lot of women who were trying to break through the glass ceiling did. They looked at this woman who’d become prime minister of the United Kingdom and thought, “If she can break into her old boys’ club, I can do the same in mine if I follow her lead”.

I wonder how many of us late Gen Xers and Millennials that’s broken, over the years, being raised by mothers with that attitude.

Anyway, point is that Gillian Anderson managed to make Thatcher look like ... well, a person. A person who looks loathesome to those who actually care about the people around them, but perfectly reasonable and unfairly persecuted against to those who agree with the ideals shown on screen ... and the very real policies that showed up both on screen and in reality. Having seen the results of the reality, I tend to go for the former view, and I’m just glad that I could loathe her but still understand her. If she was rotten all the way down to the core, no one was going to talk her out of it, and if she had that kind of iron fist grip on her government until the end, no one could put a checkrein on her. I won’t say it’s true, but I’m going to hate her anyway, just because of her legacy.

Honestly, I think “She still looks loathesome” is a far more scathing indictment of her than having “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” hit the top of the Top 40 chart the week she died. That latter just shows how much this country excels at being delightfully petty.

[danwhobrowses]

Dragon Ball: Why Tien Shinhan deserves respect

Not a Tinfoil Discussion because there’s no theory crafting going on but this is one of those rants that has often sat below the surface. Here I’m going to sing the praises and express the undervalue of the Dragon Ball franchise’s side characters: Tien Shinhan

So I’m gonna start this very easily: Tien Shinhan is perhaps one of the most disrespected characters in Dragon Ball. Sure, Yamcha is now a parody but he was happy to bow out of fighting post-Androids, and I can easily express disappointment in his character arc in a later date, but Tien Shinhan gets mistreated something rotten.

The Mistreatment of Tien Shinhan Imagine if you will the uproar if someone like Piccolo or Vegeta didn’t just lose to some secondary villain, but was quickly swatted off by someone who didn’t even have a name until now, that is the level Tien has to deal with in anime and manga. This guy is a Tenkaichi Budokai Winner in a tournament that involved Goku, Krillin and Master Roshi, fast forward to now and this guy is considered weaker than Krillin - the same Krillin that in Super could be harmed by bullets because he stopped training - and Roshi - the same Roshi who Tien’s power dwarfed in the Saiyans Saga. And it’s not just that, all people seem to remember of him now is the multiform technique and the Kikoho, both very self-harming techniques. Don’t even try to have him learn new attacks since ki sense has rendered the Solar Flare redundant even though he’s constantly shown up to aid Goku. Fight Semi-Perfect Cell and Gotenks-fused Super Majin Freaking Buu by himself and he’s not even considered the strongest non-saiyan earthling of the damn planet, in the manga he gets eliminated from the Tournament of Power OFF-SCREEN just been shrugged off as a ‘weak human’. And you know what the worst part of that is? Toriyama made Tien with so much power potential; his Third Eye is supposed to have untapped godlike power, he trains so much he’s a human equivalent of a Saiyan, his story is one of redemption and true dedication to friendship and the warrior’s way and he derives from a Journey of the West character (Erlang Shen) who is the greatest warrior god of heaven and frequent rival to Son Wukong. All this and his reward is being pictured as ‘that weird stoic guy who’s not Piccolo’ If you are one of those guys who don’t know why they don’t take to Tien Shinhan, maybe this will enlighten you Tien Shinhan is Vegeta before Vegeta Let’s play a game shall we? It’s called Tien or Vegeta. I’ll say some statements canon to the Dragon Ball Series, you tell me if I’m talking about Tien or Vegeta. Simple? Then let’s begin

A rival of Goku who trained in solitude to best him

A humanoid character who started off as a brutish, merciless villain with a weaker companion

A character who has unique powers due to his non-human heritage

A character who stood against an Alien ruler amassing the Dragon Balls for Immortality on a road to redemption, but failed 

A character who was defeated by said Alien ruler’s powerful subordiante until Goku arrived with new power to easily wipe them out

His love interest is a blue haired woman from the OG Dragon Ball series

Their second true canon battle with Goku comes years later in a Tenkaichi Budokai

In an attempt to kill an arc villain, they use the last of their energy into one attack, dying in the process but failing

Not that easy now was it? That’s because the answer is both of them. It is worth remembering that many people nowadays were first introduced to the Dragon Ball Franchise through Z, the ‘first come’ effect may’ve just been a term I made up on the spot, but usually when you see something for the first time you consider it the first instant, so to many the traits of Tien seem like a copy from Vegeta and Piccolo Jr - characters he in reality preceded quite a bit. Sadly the fact is that a lot of Tien was in a way ‘Vegeta in Beta’, so Vegeta’s traits came off a lot more polished - but even now with Super’s latest chapter we have Vegeta embarking on learning Ki Control to multiply, which is basically Tien’s Multiform Technique (Meanwhile Tien was referred to as one of ‘those baldies’ to basically fill numbers), so even now the mistreatment doesn’t end.

Where did it go wrong with Tien? You may’ve watched a video called ‘Japan hates Tien’ and believe straight off that the reason Tien got a short straw, but this is a misconception; people in Japan are fans and non-fans with Tien just like the rest of the world. The problem mainly lies with Toriyama ‘moving on’ from an idea. It was clear that initially there were bigger plans for him, but they were written off as the story took a life of its own. The series more or less moved on from the Z-Fighters from Namek, with Piccolo and Krillin salvaging themselves because of arching storylines in the current arc (Namek being Piccolo’s home planet and Krillin having his romance with 18). There is also the misconception that ‘if you’re not a Saiyan or some super alien you’re weak’, and despite having a third eye, Tien gets associated with the ‘weak human’ category, so despite him being a character constantly training he’s never been treated as good enough or worth being powerful. The third downfall was that Toriyama failed the characters around him, Chiaotzu and Yamcha never amounted to even being viable allies and his love interest (regardless on whether you feel it requited or not) Launch was completely dropped from the series after his death - we can discuss that another time. These three factors left Tien in Limbo, he has no arc that he can legitimately contribute to, he’s not comic relief, he’s not a mentor and he’s not a love interest, but this realisation is not without its silver lining.

Tien can be Saved He won’t, this is an ‘if it ain’t broke’ scenario where Tien is not popular enough to be considered worth salvaging in the eyes of Toyotaro (also Merus is making impressive waves), but even if it’s not this arc there are easy ways to bring Tien back on a high level. Firstly is to bring back Launch, even if it’s not for love interest Dragon Ball is better when you bring back Launch, in seriousness Tien’s strength should be acknowledged (not just his too, Humans get thrown down the gutter but it’s often cited that Gohan’s human half is why he has so much potential, if Jiren boring as his character is can achieve unimaginable strength without Zenkai hax then why not a constantly training human?), a way to make it understandable is by having him, like Vegeta did, branch out of solitude and learn something unique, and the answer is looking you dead in the eye: The Third Eye. Toriyama said that Tien’s eye has the capability of a God, but his dark past had closed it from him, I think decades is enough to bring it back - maybe track down his ancestors to unlock it using the TOP as incentive and Beerus and Whis as people who would know their whereabouts. From there we can have Tien learn newer moves and then find a proper purpose for the series, like one of the Earth’s Protector since Goku is picking fights across Space, Dimensions and Universes, he could even be Trunks and Goten’s sensei and actually fix up their characters. Fact of the matter is that opportunity is there to reintegrate Tien as a valuable ally to Goku and the Earth, maybe not as the Universe’s strongest fighter but the Best Martial Artist

So Why Does Tien Deserve Respect? Tien as a character has been through a lot, but as the first proper Dragon Ball character who went through an effective redemption arc and still sought to train his own way, Tien should deserve respect by default. But it is more than just humble hrm nodding respect, Tien may not be the strongest character in the Franchise but he has been one of Goku’s most consistent allies, almost every threat to the Earth he has come to their aid; King Piccolo, the Saiyans, Mecha Freeza, the Androids, Cell, Buu, Beerus, Golden Freeza and the Tournament of Power, compare that to the likes of Chiaotzu, Yamcha and Roshi and you’ll realise that Tien is on par with Piccolo and Krillin when it comes to backing up his friends. The moves they show him doing do severe harm to himself, reducing his power or his lifeforce, but he also had unique moves he innovated that helped characters out way down the line, also the Four Witches is still awesome and the Dodon Ray is technically still stronger than the Kamehameha (which Tien also knows by the way). The man is fiercely loyal, cares deeply for his friends and even in the face of certain defeat he has stood his ground. This is the man whose triangle made a square hole with Semi-Imperfect Cell - who prior had bested 16, 17 and Piccolo - at the bottom, this is the guy who took on Super Buu with Piccolo and a SSJ3 Fusion Gotenks absorbed within him and had just beaten Mystic Gohan, Tien has bigger balls, courage and warrior spirit than anyone gives him credit for Like him or not, all this should at least be worthy of respect.

[clodiuspulcher]

I’m new to roman history, and I barley know the name Clodius; could you tell me more about him?

Publius Clodius Pulcher is a freak, a demon, a Pretty Boy, a man of Contradictions, a wild tribune of the plebs who sincerely believed the Laws did not Apply To Him, and my favorite Roman Politician bar none who epitomizes Roman Politics to the extent that I’d think he was a parody of a Roman senator, a fake person, the Discworld version, except he was REAL. Born to the Esteemed Patrician Claudius Pulcher Family, in 92-91 BC, Clodius Pulcher was the youngest of 3 sons (and had some older sisters too, most notably the notorious Clodia Metelli who aided and abetted his political career w/ considerable financial/other support) and deviated Wildly from the staunch conservatism of his oldest brother Appius Claudius Pulcher (PS: he’s a freak too and I need to do a whole post on ACP cos. 54 because WOW). They served in the third Mithridatic war under Lucullus together when Clodius was in his early 20s but Clodius didn’t get as high a position as his older brother and started a mutiny. Lucullus naturally removed him, Clodius then commanded a naval fleet and was almost immediately captured by pirates. They tried to ransom him to king Ptolemy because Clodius kept talking up how ~important he was (a Claudius Pulcher! A nobelman! A patrician from one of Rome’s richest and most famous families!) but Ptolemy didn’t care and Clodius had to wait until the threat of Pompey coerced the pirates to let him go. These early military incidents basically set the tone for Clodius’s entire life and political career, and I think they really Tell you what kind of person Clodius was. This is what we’re working with here.Clodius is best known for two things: radical populism and gang wars, and the bona dea scandal.  The latter is what his arch Enemy Cicero tends to harp on because it’s absolutely insane: basically Clodius snuck into a women’s-only religious festival dressed as a woman, and was discovered because his voice was deep, and they kicked him out and had to re-do everything and he was tried for sacrilege etc. Plutarch/Cicero/Etc. claim this is because he wanted to sleep w/ Caesar’s wife but I Doubt that (and so does the author of the Clodius Bio: honestly I think this is ‘no one had ever told him no and he genuinely did not think the Law applied to him because status/wealth/etc). And Actually this is connected to the populism because when he was tried for sacrilege he positioned himself/his friends as ‘fighting against the senate’s overweening power / returning power to the hands of the people’ because the bill the senate promulgated to try him for sacrilege had the senate select the jury and that was the hill Clodius and his followers chose to die on. Then he dragged Cicero into it and Cicero had to defend himself and destroyed his alibi and Clodius only got off by bribing the jury and it was a mess and Clodius hated Cicero from then on even though he started it. wild. My Latin Professor described Clodius as a ‘dyed in the wool populist’ which is Not Untrue, since to be fair he’d had a Populist Streak since his army days (he was called ‘the soldiers’ friend’ because of the Lucullus mutiny debacle). it was PROBABLY a selfishly motivated populism, though, (and again: from the beginning Clodius’s populism was motivated by personal gain , he started the mutiny because he was mad at his own ‘slighted’ status) although I have to wonder if Clodius was Sincere to any degree…. but that’s my Thoughts. Continuing on the Shocking and Radical road, Clodius tried several different arcane laws to become a plebeian but eventually teamed up with the first triumvirate to be adopted by a plebeian family ~59. He didn’t change his name though, aside from the “Claudius->Clodius” thing that some people debate is even a significant difference (Cicero makes a distinction though when speaking of Clodius vs. his brother so). As tribune in 58, Clodius did some legitimate good: he passed laws restoring forbidden collegia and creating those that hadn’t ever existed, allowing the poorest some measure of involvement and status, and of course he passed a grain dole law which distributed free grain to the same class. He also helped the function of the senate actually- he passed a law wherein anyone who was removed from the senatorial lists by the censors had a chance to defend themselves, and formalized the process by which political actions could be hindered by bad omens (no more of Bibulus trying to stop politics from happening because of Auguries). However Clodius also used his political power and stalwart supporters to literally attack personal enemies (namely Cicero) whom he managed to get exiled based, again, on that purely personal vendetta stemming from the Bona Dea scandal. He passed a law that was like “Anyone (named Cicero) who executed Roman citizens without trial (during the Catilinarian conspiracy and is named Cicero) is exiled… bye.” Clodius’s Legitimate gangs of adherents helped with this and he intimidated politicians like Pompey as well when he needed to. This devolved into ah. gang wars between supporters of Clodius and T. Annius Milo’s (a political rival) gladiators/slaves whom he bought/trained to combat them, and in the midst of the chaos Cicero was recalled from exile when popular favor swung his way. Eventually Clodius was murdered in 52 BC by Milo’s slaves along the Appian way, the street his ancestor Appius Claudius built… Yet he remained a Stalwart (though selfish!) Populist to the end- Indeed, during his last campaign (for the praetorship) he vocally promoted supporting/improving the status of freedmen! Clodius! The loyalty his supporters felt for him speaks to the efficacy and importance of his tribuneship and political image to the dispossessed, disenchanted class of urban poor and his ability to recognize and respond to this crisis is impressive considering how many senators absolutely refused to do the former much less the latter. Any good that might have come out of his policies though is of course obscured in the historical record by the absolute wild and Violent shit Clodius got up to, and also by the fact that our main source, and our only contemporary source on Clodius is…. Cicero.This post is already getting Long and I haven’t touched on a lot of things like the Pro Caelio debacle, the importance of Clodia, the exact and detailed drama between Clodius/Caesar/Pompey/Cicero/Cato etc etc etc, the extent to which Clodius Bent Or Ignored laws and customs of adoption / other plebeian transfer methods, the importance of the tribuneship and Clodius’s relationship to the legacy of tribunes like Tiberius Gracchus or Saturninus BUT! I do want to say a few more things. First, Clodius also married ~62, when he came back from the East, Fulvia, whom is my favorite historical figure perhaps ever to live on earth. She was instrumental in rebuilding his image after the bona dea scandal, she was by his side so often than in the trial for his aforementioned violent murder, Cicero claimed that Clodius must have been planning something because Fulvia wasn’t there when he was killed, and she was ALWAYS with him otherwise. Fulvia dragged Clodius’s body through the streets of Rome and likely helped incite the riot of Clodian supporters that ended in the burning down of the senate-house. Thus she established herself as the heir of Clodius’s legacy, the inheritor of Clodian politics and political support, which she provided for her future marriage connections. She made sure Clodius didn’t die in vain by compelling her next two husbands, Gaius Scribonius Curio and one Mark Antony, who were associates of Clodius, to take more populist stances w/ their legislature and was especially heavily involved in Antony’s career. AND she got revenge on Cicero in the End according to Cassius Dio (She was also a much more effective military commander than Clodius ever was and I bet he was proud)To cut this off now, check out my Clodius Tag where I lose my whole mind about Clodius and his politics every week or so. I have a lot of Classics Opinions but my Clodius Opinions are the most well-formed and I’d hope the most informed as well. However please don’t ask me Super specific questions until the 28th because I’ve been in an Etruscan Art void for my archaeology class and I left my Clodius BIography at home and won’t be back til then. Also I Run @clodiussuggestion so you can ask Clodius Him Self. 

[therealkn]

David’s Resolution: Day -3

Day -3 (December 29, 2018)

It Happened One Night (1934)

“Do you love her?” “A normal human being couldn’t live under the same roof with her without going nutty. She’s my idea of nothing!” “I asked you a simple question! Do you love her?” “YES! But don’t hold that against me. I’m a little screwy myself.”

I had decided on this resolution just after Christmas 2018, and I decided “Screw it, let’s get an early start on it.” One of my Christmas gifts was a jigsaw puzzle that showed a bunch of old movie posters, so being in that old movie mindset after finishing the puzzle with my mom (who loves jigsaw puzzles), I decided to watch an old movie. And I picked this one.

This was basically the film that made Frank Capra the name he is today. We remember Capra as one of the big-name filmmakers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with films like this, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (which was later remade as an Adam Sandler film in 2002...), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (one of many awesome movies to come out of the “golden year” of 1939), and It’s a Wonderful Life (one of the all-time classic Christmas movies). And this film, like those, is also classic. And really good.

This movie, however, falls into a category of movies that a lot of people know one scene from and literally nothing else. A lot of people only know this movie as “the one where Claudette Colbert pulls up her skirt and shows some leg to hitch a ride”, and to be fair, it is one of the most memorable scenes in the movie, enough that countless people have done parodies/homages/etc. to it over the decades. There’s plenty of other movies like this: I put the 1959 Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston in that category, as well as From Here to Eternity and Scanners. So what’s the movie actually about, then?

Here’s what it’s about: Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled socialite who’s tired of dealing with her father, Mr. Andrews, and his controlling/overprotective behavior. He’s especially unhappy because Ellie has eloped with airplane pilot King Westley, and he’s so pissed off at this that he’s actually trying to get the marriage annulled. Granted, he wants it annulled because King Westley is more interested in the money than in Ellie, but try explaining that to a woman who wants to spite her father by doing what he hates. And that’s why she decides to literally jump ship, leaving her father’s yacht and swimming to shore so she can go cross-country to be with King Westley.

And then we meet our other star of the show: Peter Warne, played by Clark Gable, a recently-fired newspaper reporter who meets Ellie on a bus travelling from Florida (where Ellie’s father’s yacht was) to be with King Westley. He soon figures out who Ellie is and the two end up cutting a deal: he’ll help her travel to be with her beau, and in return she’ll give him exclusive rights to tell the story in the papers. What follows is one hurdle in their travels after another as they bicker and snipe at each other all the way, and love blossoms between the two, while Ellie’s father is desperately scouring the country in hopes of finding his runaway daughter.

There’s not really a whole lot to spoil, since it’s a mid-1930s romantic comedy, so it’s pretty clear that these two stars are gonna get together in the end. Seeing how it happens is the interesting part, and Gable and Colbert have great chemistry together. They play off each other well, and it feels very natural, none of it’s contrived or forced. It makes me care more about them because you go “Ooh, this will be interesting to see.” instead of “Oh joy, this shit again.” when you see them sticking to formula. Then again, you could say this movie helped establish that formula, so seeing how it was originally before so many imitated it may be part of the reason I feel this way.

It’s interesting to watch old movies from a modern perspective, and I find it fascinating to see where tropes and ideas originate. It Happened One Night basically introduced, or at least popularized, things we’ve seen in many romance and road movies since. For example, there’s the issues that lead to Ellie and Peter taking different modes of transportation (from bus to hitchhiking to walking), which would later be experienced by Steve Martin and John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Or the idea of separating a sleeping area by hanging a blanket on a clothesline to act like a “wall of Jericho”, something that would be repeated in later works like the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s others as well, but I’ve seen a lot of things that did what this film did and it’s hard to filter out more specific examples.

That said, watching old movies with a modern perspective can be a problem because in some way you’re comparing this movie with what came after it and you can end up going “Why is this film a big deal?” It’s what TV Tropes calls “Seinfeld is Unfunny”: the phenomena of something being innovative, groundbreaking, revolutionary, etc. in its time, but as time passes and people take what it did and improve on it, build on it and all that, the original ends up seeming like it’s stale and dated and derivative.

A word of advice for people who watch older movies: to get in the right mindset to appreciate the movie and to avoid the “Seinfeld is Unfunny” effect, just tell yourself “Fuck everything that came after this. Don’t compare it to what came after it. Compare it to what came before it.” At least don’t compare it to what came after it or you’ll just disappoint yourself by thinking it’s not as good as what came afterwards.

Actually, it’s interesting to have something like a road movie in 1934, right in the middle of the Great Depression, since this was a time when not everyone owned a car, so buses were a principal form of transportation. Trains were too, but those were more expensive to ride. The movie also gives a little glimpse of what life was like in the Depression. This was a time when ten dollars could get you through a cross-country trip (I know, crazy, yes?), when motels had community showers and the rooms were all detached like little cabins, and when newspaper editors all sounded the same for some reason.

This actually reminds me of something I really liked about the film, and it regards two characters in the film: Ellie’s father Mr. Andrews, and the newspaper editor who was Peter’s boss. Both characters are introduced as somewhat belligerent and have their reasons to be, but over the course of the film, both are shown to actually be good people. Mr. Andrews is clearly worried sick about his daughter running off and like I said, it’s established that his major problem with Ellie’s marriage to King Westley is that King is basically more interested in her money than in her. He even tries to “buy off” King and compensate him for the annulment.

As for the editor... at first he’s your typical 1930s newspaper editor in the movies: fast-talking, not willing to take lip, and not really a sentimentalist. The first time we see him, he’s arguing with Peter over the phone and ends up firing him over the phone. As the film goes on, Peter talks to the editor about the Ellie Andrews story and that he’s following it, even convincing his editor to pay him right away for the story so he can get married to Ellie because he’s in love with her. His editor is initially dismissive at Peter saying he’s in love, but it’s suggested that after he reads Peter’s story, he realizes that he really does love Ellie and, when Peter feels like he’s lost Ellie and returns to his editor, drunk from his sorrow at losing Ellie and returning the money to the editor, the editor gives him some money and tells him to come back once Peter’s sobered up so they can talk about hiring him again. I just like seeing these tired tropes get twisted and seeing more dimensions to these stock character types, you know?

The third-act misunderstanding, by the way, is also well-done in this film. It plays very naturally, never feeling like it’s sticking strictly to formula and all the character interactions and emotions feel genuine, complete with more bickering and what may be one of the first instances of a runaway bride in film. Mr. Andrews, after meeting with Peter and realizing that Peter really does love his daughter and doesn’t care about the money (he didn’t even know that Mr. Andrews had put out a $10,000 reward for information on her whereabouts), even helps get the two together in the end, which is great to see.

I would recommend this movie. Ignoring the fact that it’s a classic that birthed a lot of things we’ve seen countless times in countless works afterwards, it’s a very solid romantic comedy with great chemistry between its leads, some really funny jokes and memorable moments, and a standout film from one of the Golden Age’s finest directors.

Next time: Robert Mitchum is a scary motherfucker.

[celtfather]

Getting Things Done | Celtfather Monthly: December 2019

Greetings Gunn Runner

It’s hard to believe we’re entering the final month of the year. Where has the time gone? What will next year bring?

I suppose it is time to start planning for 2020. It’s time to settle on the next CDs. Time to review all that I have accomplished this year. And it’s time to decide what changes to make.

I don’t ever remember doing that when I was younger. I focused on creating. I never understood how important it was to truly review my successes and failures. I’ve been doing it for a decade or so. But I still felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants.

I am nearly done with the audiobook, Getting Things Done. I am trying to unlock all of the ideas and thoughts that are in my brain, get them down on paper, and figure out what I will do next.

What about you. What kind of future planning rituals do you do each year?

All right, let’s get on with the monthly news, starting with...

PODCASTS

The Pub Songs Podcast is doing pretty well staying on schedule. The new simplified format works for me. Hopefully, it works for you too.

I announced my new CD in November. I shared a cool way to vote, be it for the Celtic Top 20 or in general. And I encouraged listeners to remember success is best measured by how much you help others.

I have two episodes planned for December. Both have Christmas names. But I haven’t solidified the themes yet.

Stories from the Road is successfully coming out twice a week. I feel eventually I’m gonna get behind. That seems like a LOT of content. But so far, I’m ahead. And I have lots to talk about in the run up to the Selcouth Kickstarter.

Irish & Celtic Music Podcast is doing fantastic as usual. I have so much feedback. I did a two hour special to highlight all the feedback I missed over the past couple years.

I’m ending the Year of the Celtic Woman on that show. However, I decided I will not stop my quarterly Celtic women episodes. I feel that’s important. So it will be a regular part of the content that I release into the future.

The first episode of the Celtic Christmas Podcast is now online. And I put it into the hands of listeners as to whether there will be more than one.

That’s because I started a Patreon page for the podcast. You see, I’ve been losing money with the Celtic Christmas podcast for as long as it’s been running. And I was OK with that. It was sort of like my gift for the holiday.

The trouble is I spend a lot of time and mental effort to create and release episodes, especially in December. That takes me away from things that I should be doing. Ultimately, it was not a smart marketing move to run that podcast, even if it made me happy.

And so in comes patreon once again. I started a new fundraiser for the show to help pay for the production and my time producing the show. Patrons sponsored the first episode of the season. If we hit our next goal, then we will get either one or two more episodes this year. Depends on when or if the next milestone is hit.

There is a new episode of In the ‘Verse with Mikey Mason. We discuss themes from the episode, "Out of Gas". It has one of my new favorite songs to sing. That's a song called "Breathing".

The next one will tackle the episode "Ariel". We are also going to try to get back onto a monthly schedule. So this episode will come out on December 1.

8:04 - VIDEOS

Season 4 of Coffee with the Celtfather comes to close on December 11. The show did does not have a huge number of viewers. But it seems a favorite nevertheless. There's a steady stream of 15-20 people watching each week. So I’m going to run it for at least one more season, restarting in January.

The show will continue at 10:30 AM Eastern on Wednesday. However, It will be exclusively available on Facebook.

I tried a web service that allowed me to broadcast on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I was hoping that would increase my reach, which would also mean more tips or more patrons signing up in the Gunn Runners Club. It didn't make an impact sadly, at least not enough to really justify paying $20 a month.

It was a good test nevertheless. I learned that Facebook is a good busking platform. And YouTube is probably better for video singles. So next season, I might try release one video every week or two and make them line up with the coffee show.

Oh! And Patreon Heroes get the full audio recordings of the coffee show. I also record a couple extra songs for that audio. I will continue to do that next season. But I’m not sure if anyone enjoys that. The feedback has been limited. So if you like it or if you don't bother listening, especially if you don't listen, let me know. That will help decide if I should keep it going.

10:05 - MERCH

Selcouth is the name of my next album. I’m planning a kickstarter for January.  The CD features my uniquely strange yet marvelous mode of music. You will enjoy many of the songs that I have played but not released over the past year.

There will be several Firefly songs, some traditional Irish songs and tunes, some comedic songs, some sci-fi and fantasy and cats, and some uniquely Marc Gunn songs. This is the mixed bag that I promised myself for a long time.

I will have more details coming on future podcasts and definitely in January.

I skipped the Black Friday sales this year. Even though I have a bunch of new products in my store at magerecords.com. I also have some great special offers. Visit my home page for details.

I also have THREE NEW SINGLES that you can look for in the days to come.

The first is the Brobdingnagian Bards' "The Last Jedi Drinking Song". That comes out on December 13. Just in time for the release of the last Star Wars episode.

The second is "Slainte Mhaith Christmas". Basically, I re-recorded my song "Slainte Mhaith" and gave it a Christmas twist when I realized it could easily work for that. I don't have a release date yet. But it'll be ASAP.

The last one was an even more last minute Christmas release. That is "Hero of Christmas". This is one of the songs that Mikey Mason and I wrote last year for our Blue Sun Holiday Tour. It's a parody of "Hero of Canton" all about Santa Claus. Again, I don't have a release date for that. I'm gonna aim for December 15th. But I should've released these two songs sooner. Oh well...

TRAVEL

I still have space for my Celtic Invasion of Venice. You can listen to the Celtic Invasion Vacations itinerary. To find out how amazing this trip will be. Email me if you have questions.

13:00 - SHOWS PLANNED FOR NOVEMBER

Dec 12: Public YouTube Show Dec 14: Tucker Brewing Company, Tucker GA

Jan 10-12: GaFilk, Atlanta, GA (not a guest) Jan 24: Interstellar Ginger Beer & Exploration Co, Alabaster, AL Jan 25: Maggie McGuinness Pub, Huntsville, AL Mar 20-22: Cleveland ConCoction, Cleveland, OH May 14-17: California Autoharp Gathering, Dunlap, CA Sep 30-Oct 4: ALEP 5, Shakerstown, KY

Dec 4 & 11, Weds 10:30 AM EDT: Coffee with The Celtfather, Facebook, YouTube

14:20 - STATS

Mailing list subscribers = 1077 is up from 1015

YouTube Subscribers = 4324 is up 39 from 4285 YouTube Watch Time = 27.1 is up from 26.3 YouTube Views = 11.6K is up from 9.4K

Facebook Likes = 3646 is up from 3642 FB Page Views = 434 is down from 481 FB Reach = 5684 is down from 5808 FB Video Views = 1883 is down from 3386

Spotify Latest Single Stats: "When She Held Me in Her Arms": 661 is up from 647 Spotify followers: 1400 is up from 1375 # Number of listens on Spotify: 4237 is up from 2053 Most-popular songs on Spotify: Christmas in the Shire (1.4K), The Widow and the Devil (1.3K), Frosty the Irish Snowman (1.2K), Jingle Bells (707), Celtic Christmas Elf (451), Scottish King of Christmas (400)

Top Irish & Celtic Music: 416 is up from 398 Fun Christmas Songs for Kids & Families: 1573 is up from 1433 (already more than 1539 in February) Firefly Drinking Songs: 99 Joyful Celtic Christmas Music: 58 Christmas Drinking Songs: 24

Patreon Subscribers: 158 is the same Patreon Monthly Income: $968 is up from $962

Thanks as always for supporting my music. Remember. You can help me create and release more music. Join the Gunn Runners Club to step behind-the-scenes with bonus podcasts, new music, videos, and live concerts. Slainte!

#CFMonthly

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