In The Neighborhood

We Americans like our neighborhoods. 

That doesn’t mean we’re best friends with all of our neighbors.  In fact, there’s some we might not even like at all. 

But there’s an unspoken bond when you live m close by, especially in a city.  And that goes beyond keeping the street nice, ceding the right of way when you leave for work in the morning or holding a door open at the local store, or even in your own apartment building.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Ok well maybe not this nice, but we’re civil

Speaking for most Americans, I’m not sure we were even aware of it en masse until recently. 

But recently there have been a lot of threats, particularly in cities, and particularly from outside the neighborhood.

And speaking for most Americans who live in these densely populated areas, as I have my entire life, I can safely state that a threat to ONE of us, is a threat to ALL of us.

Wise words from a wise man

And that we defend each other.

With everything we’ve got.

So when masked government men speed into our neighborhoods in unmarked cars looking to randomly cherry pick our neighbors off the street for no other reason than the color of their skin, an unpaid parking ticket or their presumed attitude, the very least you can expect any one of us to do is to blow a f-king whistle.

Whistlestop GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY
Now considered a crime apparently

More likely, what you get is a relentless barrage of unprintable expletives and a united front, nee protective shield, from you f-king with anyone, even the neighbor we don’t like at all.

You might think you have the power right now but believe me, you don’t.

Not in the long run.

City people protect their own and DO NOT back down from a fight. 

EVER.

Mommy Dearest Gif
Expletives needed here

We might lose rounds one, two, three and ten but eventually – EVENTUALLY – we WILL win. 

You will not come into our town under the guise of some Gestapo protection and get us to give up the people we see at the market or the car wash or on the road or down the street no matter how determined you are to WHITEN your load.

For starters, we LIKE color.  That’s one of the reasons we live in the city to begin with.

The Weekly Wrap: As ICE Operations Turn Deadly, Local Officials Push Back
Salt the streets, get ICE out!

So when you three times shoot someone like Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, a Christian, a singer and a poet, and the spouse of a woman who was co-parenting her six-year-old son since his biological father passed away several years ago, for her whistle and her “attitude” as she drove away in her Honda Pilot filled with kiddie toys and old plastic sippy cups, don’t pretend she was a “domestic terrorist.”

Especially when we have the whole thing recorded on video from five different angles via a dozen different cell phones.

Wife of woman killed by ICE agent: 'We had whistles. They had guns.'
Justice… for GOOD

But do expect A LOT more than whistles, curse words and compliance the next time you come to town.

In any city and in any state.

Anywhere in the country.

You think you’re having a hard time in Minneapolis amidst all that Minnesota “nice?” 

Hunt for some bigger “game” and see what happens.  And know this is not a call to or a threat of violence.  We city dwellers are too smart to play your game. 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey sharply criticized ICE following the death of  the woman, saying federal agents should “get the f*** out” of the  city.Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey sharply criticized ICE following the
I’m with him

We play the long game and we’ve learned from the best.

And often in streets of the very cities you are trying to invade.  We know the terrain and the people and it’s not as easy as you believe to make all of US who disagree with YOU to disappear.  

I grew up in the boroughs of New York City, went to grad school and lived for several years in the city of Chicago in my early twenties, and for decades have made my home in Los Angeles.

a group of people are dancing on a stage and one of them says in the greatest city in the world .
Take your pick

If you believe a lot of what you hear from the federal government – and I don’t know anyone who does these days – I should be statistically dead in a ditch, the victim of some violent crime or surrounded by a cesspool or garbage left in the streets by illegal immigrant families whose culture threatens my very way of existence, not to mention my job.

I can assure you none of these are the case and that I’ve been alive a lot longer than many of the people that tell you it is.

I’m Stephen Miller’s worst nightmare.  A “stupid white hippie protestor” from his home state who knows exactly who he is and what his tactics are. 

The Simpsons Slingshot GIF - The Simpsons Slingshot Hippies - Discover &  Share GIFs
Take that!

A guy who grew up 15 minutes from his boss and understands his ignorance and avarice.

And a person who graduated from an Ivy League adjacent school with an advanced degree when JD Vance was seven-years-old and went by a different name, though I couldn’t truly tell you which name it was because he’s changed it so frequently. (Note: Always a warning sign).

What I do know is that there are a sh-t ton more of my type than their type, ready to stand strong, in every single CITY across the country.

In the name of RENEE NICOLE GOOD.

Forever and ever

And so many others.

For as long as it takes.

Now listen to words of Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal as she espouses our all-too-familiar “say her name” mantra and be inspired to action.

Don’t Mess with TCM

This week a tone deaf, corporate media power broker in charge of Warner Bros/Discovery decided to fire the entire upper management of Turner Classic Movies and fold the hugely popular network into its media empire.

Boo! Hiss!

To translate power broker actions into plain English that meant the plan was to squeeze the life out of a division with one of the most loyal audience bases around until it either disappears entirely or learns to coexist side by side with offerings like Dirty Jobs, Moonshiners and Naked and Afraid.

In other words, a platform where one can watch pristine classic films, learn film history from people who have spent their lives living and generally inspiring generations of younger artists worldwide through their work has as much value as a TV series where two naked people are dropped in the “wilderness” with a machete each week and we watch them survive in what is passed off as “real time.”

Hollywood doesn’t have loyalty to much but there is a very strong dedication by the people who actually make movies to preserve classic films and pass on their legacy to future generations.

That’s why even before the downsizing of TCM went viral, three A List directors – Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson – had emergency meetings, separately and together, with said power broker, lobbying on behalf of the network.

I’ll just imagine it like this scene

Undoubtedly, there was also an implicit warning.  Squeeze out the life of TCM in any substantial way, a brand that hasn’t ever made a fortune but has almost always made a bit of money, and risk alienating the bulk of the prestige film community.

This may not sound like much but after losing the one prestige level filmmaker in the WB stable – Christopher Nolan – to Universal for his latest picture, Oppenheimer, the powers that be have been reportedly anxious, nee desperate, to lure the likes of his talent back into the studio fold.

A little something like this

This is especially true since its latest hopes for a tent pole superhero film, The Flash, opened at disappointing box-office levels.  Not to mention the fact that right after the big WB/Discovery merger it decided to not even release another big budget superhero venture, Batgirl.   (Note: The bigwig determined it just wasn’t worth the trouble and marketing costs and that the $100+ million dollar tax write-off was far more appealing).

But back to TCM.   Meaning, what is the result of all this?

This is going to upset me

Well, a few days ago a lot of carefully-worded press releases assured fans and industryites that there were conversations and separate and group phone calls all around where the filmmakers were assured that TCM would continue and the media exec denied there was EVER any plan to get rid of it to begin with.

Right.

Suuuuuuure

The latter is at best sort of laughable when a classic film network has no one running it other than another corporate exec that oversees, um, WB/D’s Cartoon Network, as well as some other divisions.

Perhaps that’s why the PR solution to all of this was to several days later now give TCM to the two executives who run the film division at Warner Bros. Film Group – Michael DeLuca and Pamela Abdy. 

I mean, what else do they have to do, right?  Also, the guy who runs the Cartoon Network, as well as Discovery Family and Adult Swim and so many more, will still be in charge of TCM’s financial side.  So, sure, nothing can go wrong and nothing at all will change.

Right???? 

Gimme a break!

Vote yes if you agree.

Of course, change is inevitable, especially in the entertainment industry.  That would be a place where film studios, which include corporate streaming entities, are refusing to budge from their no change in negotiation status after a two-month plus writers strike.

The streamer plan is to keep their profit margins and revenues from the work generated by writers as secret as possible and to hold onto the right to do what they will with future artificial intelligence.  If that means merely hiring writers for a few weeks to punch up some A.I. generated stories, so be it.  Clearly, A.I. can do as well as Naked and Afraid, probably better.

Say that again, I dare ya!

Other producers/studios/corporate owners seem to be onboard with that plan, along with the idea of negotiating separately with each large union that makes their product in hopes of marginalizing writers, or any union for that matter, that stands in the way of what they consider progress.

Progress being the largest bottom line profits available for the smallest risks and largest rewards.

Bette Davis, David O. Selznick and Orson Welles must be turning over in their graves.  Not that any one who holds the purse strings cares.  Or thinks much about what and who came before them.  Or, in some cases, even knows who they are.

You tell em Bette

If this sounds like The Chair is pissed off, yeah, you got that right.  There is nothing wrong with reality TV or superhero movies except when they overrun the world and relegate everything and everyone else to sit in a corner.

Because when the latter two hog all of the daylight and attention – and funds – everything in that corner dies from malnourishment and lack of sunlight.

TCM Remembers 2022