Richard LeParmentier - Admiral Motti in the first Star Wars movie - has passed away

Star Wars fans worldwide are saddened today to learn that Richard LeParmentier has passed away at the age of 66.

LeParmentier was an American residing in Great Britain, and making quite a career for himself as a television and film actor.  And then the fickle finger of the Force (along with a casting director and George Lucas) chose him to portray Admiral Motti in what became Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: the film that started it all.

It is Motti, you will remember, who is the first person we ever see getting on the business end of Darth Vader's "Force choke".  Motti had been boasting of the Death Star's destructive power while mocking Vader's "sorcerous ways" and his "sad devotion to that ancient religion" when the Dark Lord of the Sith chose to give Motti a first-hand demonstration.  Fortunately for Motti, Grand Moff Tarkin told Vader to cool it and let go of the arrogant admiral's throat.  LeParmentier was in only two scenes of the movie, but he made an immortal impression upon all who have enjoyed the Star Wars saga through the decades.

I got to meet Richard LeParmentier twice: at Dragon-Con in 2001 and then at Star Wars Celebration II.  He was a very nice guy, and exceptionally happy to make time to meet and greet his many fans.

Thoughts and prayers going up for his family.

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Les Misérables: Man arrested trading McDonald's meal for sex

From KOB.com comes this weird story of how the hard economy has hit even the prostitution trade...

Police: New Mexico man traded McDonalds for sex

This happy meal didn’t end with a treat.

A New Mexico man was arrested for allegedly trading a sex with a woman for a meal at McDonalds.

Albuquerque police found Donald Jones, 58, at Bullhead Park with a woman he picked up near Central and Virginia.

According to the criminal complaint, Jones picked up the woman in an area known for prostitution. Police watched Jones order food at a McDonald’s drive thru window and head to a nearby park.

On their way to the park Jones told police he purchased the woman food and asked how she would reimburse him, the criminal complaint states.

Police confronted the pair at the park and saw the woman pulling up her pants in the car.

I bet he could have scored an entire brothel if they had brought back the McRib!

Wendy's should pounce on this and bring back a classic ad campaign...

"Where's the Beef?"

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Bastards

'Nuff said.

Thoughts and prayers going out to the victims of yesterday's bombing at the Boston Marathon.

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"Cold War" was too lukewarm than a DOCTOR WHO episode should be

Last week's "The Rings of Akhetan" split the Doctor Who fan base like no other episode than I can remember in a great many years.  Many loved, many hated it and there was no middle ground. Personally, I loved it!  It was high-concept storytelling for the romantic soul.  A jaw-dropping gorgeous episode, the highlight of which was The Doctor staring down a worlds-sized dark god with a speech that shattered the mold of epic soliloquies.

But I thought that "Cold War" - this week's episode - was a stew of awesome elements which never coalesced into a story that lived up to its full potential.

It's 1983: the height of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Somewhere below the Arctic Ocean surface a Russian nuclear submarine glides beneath the frozen sea, carrying to Moscow an unidentified specimen - locked in a block of ice and vaguely humanoid - found by scientists.  One of the sailors gets more curious about the icy cargo than would be healthy for anyone.  That he decides to examine it with a cutting torch only amplifies his stupidity.  And then all hell breaks loose hundreds of meters down in the crushing depths...

Naturally, The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) arrive smack in the center of it all.  En route to Las Vegas the TARDIS steers them instead onto the sub's bridge.  As the boat settles precariously on the edge of an undersea abyss, The Doctor discovers that the Soviets have been transporting an Ice Warrior: one of a Martian race which The Doctor has not encountered in a very long time.

And this particular Ice Warrior is not happy.

When I first heard about "Cold War" my expectations were high.  I mean: the return of the Ice Warriors from the classic series?  An entire story set aboard a Soviet ballistic missile submarine?  David Warner in a guest starring role?!  Everything was in place for a kick-ass episode... but it only felt so-so.  Better than "The Bells of Saint John"?  Yes, certainly.  Not by much though.  I was particularly let down by how little David Warner's character - a Russian scientist - figured into the story.  David Warner is one of those actors with unbelievable talent and one of the craziest good resumes ever (The  Omen, TRON, hey I'll even mention Time Bandits) and in "Cold War" he gets frustratingly under-utilized.

I will say however that the upgraded appearance of the Ice Warriors is very very good.  And it was nice to see an alien race which is as nuanced about war and peace as humanity is.  They don't all have to be entire species of xenocidal psychos out to exterminate or assimilate every living thing in the cosmos, right?  The revived series has done this well with the Sontarans and I hope it will similarly explore the Ice Warriors again in seasons to come.

I'll give "Cold War" Two and One-Half Sonic Screwdrivers.  Not great, but not entirely bad either. But with three episodes so far into this half-season - one great and the other two hovering around average - let's hope that Steven Moffat and his crew can raise their game as Doctor Who builds toward the milestone fiftieth anniversary in November.

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My favorite scene with Jonathan Winters ever!

Jonathan Winters passed away earlier today. He was truly one of the greatest entertainers of the Twentieth Century and beyond. He was not only a comedy legend, but he possessed some serious drama skill as well. I'm thinking especially of the episode "A Game of Pool" - one of my favorite episodes incidentally - from The Twilight Zone. I guess he's up there now with Jack Klugman in a pool hall in Heaven.

But it was laughter which was Winters' true forte. And of all the work that he did, this is the one bit that always, always most comes to mind when I hear the words "Jonathan Winters"...

Here is Jonathan Winters destroying a brand-new gas station with his bare hands in the 1963 comedy classic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!

Rest in peace, Mr. Winters. Say hello to Mrs. Fickert for us...

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"Weird Al" Yankovic concert in Raleigh was FRENETIC!

I'm writing this on Friday afternoon.  It was on Wednesday night that Kristen, Chad, Marissa and I saw "Weird Al" Yankovic and his band in concert as part of his Alpocalypse 2013 tour!  I'm still coming down from the high and I think everyone else is too (especially Marissa who was bouncing off the walls so hard during class at school yesterday that she reportedly had to be sedated with Valium).  And after seeing Al live for the seventh time I have to say: this was easily the best show I've seen him perform yet!  Weird Al and his band were positivalutely ablaze with energy and sheer fun.  They were electrified and enthused as I've never seen any performers in a live concert!  This is a man who obviously loves his work and that comes across very well.  I've also never seen an audience so "into it" as they were at this show :-)

So... wanna hear about it?  Of course ya do!!

Al stormed the stage at 8 on the dot with the "Polkaface" medley from the Alpocalypse album.  They did another number and then the stage went dark while Al and the band (John "Bermuda" Schwartz, Jim West, Ruben Valtierra, and Steven Jay) did the first of their many costume changes.  The intermittent periods are filled with various Al videos, such as his "interviews" with celebrities like Eminem and Umma Thurman, his recent "5-Second Films" series and the "Weird" trailer that FunnyOrDie.com released a few years ago.  There was even the "Dirt" documentary!

"A garage band from Seattle.
Well it sure beats raising cattle."

When the lights came up it was Al in his Kurt Cobain outfit as he and the band did "Smells Like Nirvana" from the Off the Deep End album.  Al gargled water from a red Solo cup during that part of the song then spat it upward and threw the cup into the audience.  The crowd sang along after the "...how do the words to it go" while Al feigned forgetfulness.  This song's video is one of the better ones that Al has produced and the live performance does a fabulous job conveying that same crazy spirit.

From there it was a series of many of Al's more recent works, such as "Skipper Dan", "Party at the CIA" (a parody of Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA") and "Canadian Idiot" (Al's parody of "American Idiot" by Green Day).  Al and the band were dressed in their finest secret agent finery for "Party at the CIA" and Al was perfectly resplendent in a red-and-white maple-leaf motifed jacket for "Canadian Idiot" (the climax of which saw red and white streamers violently fired into the air above the audience).  My favorite of this set was when Al did "CNR": his White Stripes style parody about Charles Nelson Reilly.  I had a picture of Reilly loaded up on my iPad and was holding it aloft and waving it as Al sang!  Alas he didn't see me but later it turned out to be a good thing that I did that (find out why later).

"You're absolutely perfect. Don't speak now you might spoil it.
Your eyes are even blue-er than the water in my toilet."

Then Al hurried back for another costume change while we were treated to more video clips and when he came out it was with a song that truly has become one of the most anticipated of his live shows: "Wanna B Ur Lover".  It's a style parody of the kind of music that Prince/The Artist Formerly Known As Prince/whatever is known for.  This song is from 2003's Poodle Hat album and when he does it live Al comes out in a Prince-esque outfit while carousing among the crowd and serenading ladies in the audience (unfortunately we were close to the front but he didn't come down our side of the auditorium... and Marissa was seated right on the aisle!  Lord only knows what that girl would have done if Al had chosen to sing that to her :-P)

I'm just gonna post a couple more pictures of Al doing "Wanna B Ur Lover" even though they can't do the live performance any true justice :-)

Is Al channeling Gene Simmons??

"Anyone ever tell you you've got Yugoslavian hands?"

"Grab yourself an egg and beat it!"

Following another costume change/video intermission (one of these was "Wheel of Fish" from Weird Al's movie UHF and of course the whole audience had to scream "STOOPID!!  YOU SO STOOPID!!" along with Kuni), Al and his band did "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" then a medley of some of his other songs, like "Whatever You Like", "Ode to a Superhero" (Al's parody of Billy Joel's "Piano Man") and of course no "Weird Al" Yankovic concert would be complete without Al putting on the red Michael Jackson jacket and going into "Eat It"!  Hey, that's the song which not only fired his career into the outer stratosphere, it's what for many of us was the very first Weird Al song we ever heard... and we're still tuned into him almost thirty years later (but more about that in just a bit :-)

"As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain..."

 "Eat It" wrapped up the medley then it was another costume change... and when the lights came up there was Al "looking plain" in Old Order Mennonite garb.  Of course it was time for "Amish Paradise"!  Some consider this to have been Weird Al's best music video ever (from what many already believe is his best album, Bad Hair Day from 1996) and the first several seconds of it synced up perfectly with Al's on-stage persona.  This is one of his songs that the audience really "gets into": everything from waving the hands to some people even whipping out black hats.  Who'da thought that a song about Amish would be such a hit crowd pleaser?

HE is the Lizard King!

(Who would have also thought that a live concert would feature the word "uvula" not once but twice?!  Only at a Weird Al show... :-)

Another costume change and then it was Al looking like Jim Morrison and all the rest of the band as members of The Doors for "Craigslist".  This was originally part of Al's "Internet Leaks" series from the summer of 2009 and then appeared on Alpocalypse.  It has become one of my favorite songs of his for some reason or another.  Instead of "the Coffee Bean" Al changed the lyrics so that they were about a Raleigh-area cafe.  He did that at the Charlotte concert we attended in October 2011 as well.  Gotta love when an artist goes for the local flavor like that :-)

(As an aside, I finally understand what the Indians and car wreck scenes in the "Craigslist" video are about.  Chad told me about Morrison having seen a car crash on an Indian reservation when he was very young and how it affected him.  It's not a big thing but that level of detail is something that makes Al not only entertaining but educational as well!)

Donny Osmond and Minesweeper. Only at a Weird Al concert!

Another costume change: Al in a peacock getup while various members of the band wore likewise outrageous outfits (Ruben Valtierra with a beehive on his head, Jim West wearing cheese etc.) for "Perform This Way": Al's parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga.  It woulda been kinda cool if Al had wrapped his intestines around himself while being set on fire but I guess there's only so much that can be done without the CGI effects of a music video, huh?  Maybe someday he can wear raw meat and throw chunks of it at the audience!  Hey I'd fight for some of that :-)

After "Perform This Way" it was another brief intermission and several seconds later it was "White and Nerdy" time!  Al's rendition of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" is another of Al's recent songs that became an instant classic  Al arrived on stage riding a Segway while a crazy montage of clips played on the screen behind him.  We'd forgotten about how much Donny Osmond was in the music video... and there's even MORE of him in the concert edition!!  Another song that the audience can't help but get themselves involved in :-)

Al and the band had performed a hefty number of their tunes for our pleasure, but of course they weren't going to let the evening end without "Fat": Al's parody of Michael Jackson's "Bad".  I've heard that it took Al four hours to get into makeup and costume for the music video in 1988.  The live concert version takes him something like forty seconds!  Is this guy a show-business beast or what?

Considering that it's "Fat", here's Al in an extra-wide photo...

"You know I'm FAT, I'm FAT, you know it!"

Then Al introduced the band members and thanked the audience and said "Good night Raleigh!"

But as any veteran of a Weird Al concert knows: this is NOT the end of the show...

A few minutes later Ruben came on dressed as Darth Sidious from the Star Wars movies.  He played a spooky organ interlude as a Tusken Raider, several Stormtroopers, Boba Fett, Chewbacca and Darth Vader himself (all courtesy of the 501st Legion) paraded onto the stage.  They were followed by Al and the remaining band members dressed as Jedi Knights.  And so it was that Al did "The Saga Begins": a parody of "American Pie" so spot-on that Don McLean complained that for awhile he was singing Al's song instead of his own!

There was one final song to perform.  Not just a "song", but a transcendental experience unlike any other.  You see, "Yoda" is far more than a Star Wars-inspired parody of "Lola" by the Kinks.  It is several minutes' worth of communion with the inner geek we all share.  The culmination of which is the very, very strange, wildly surreal and unbelievably coordinated "Yoda Chat" that Al and his band go into.  How it began and how the guys practice it will likely always be a total mystery but the Alpocalypse 2013 version is certainly the longest Yoda Chant they have done in all my years of attending Weird Al concerts!

 Then Al and the band said their final goodbyes to the audience and we all got up from our seats happy and content and totally, totally exhilirated from an evening of pure undiluted WEIRDNESS.  And a few seconds later we got a surprise: our friend Eric and his two sons were in the audience behind us!  They had come all the way from Charlotte for the show and he'd wondered if he would see us there.  Turns out that my waving around Charles Nelson Reilly's pic on my iPad during "CNR" was spotted by Eric and he knew where to find us after that.  Gotta love how things turn out like that :-)

But of course, we were NOT going to go home without attempting to meet Weird Al.  Fortunately there was a small line waiting at his tour bus and he graciously spent several minutes greeting his fans and signing autographs!  He signed my copies of When I Grow Up and Weird Al: The Book (Kristen got that for me for Christmas).  Then he let us get photos with him.  Here is life-long best friend Chad and I with Al.  This really meant a lot to me, since Chad is the one who first introduced me to Weird Al's music all the way back in March of 1984!  This was his first Al concert.  Somehow, it seems like there's a sense of completion at long last...

Me, Weird Al, Chad

Is Weird Al putting the moves on MY girlfriend?!?

And there is Weird Al, Kristen and me.  We even got to tell Al about how his music was one of the things that we had in common with each other when we first met and how it has become one of the bigger parts of our relationship!  He seemed rather fond and appreciative of that :-)  Before the show we met a couple and the lady was extremely pregnant.  I told her that my girlfriend thought she looked so beautiful the way she was cradling her unborn child and how wonderful they were to be introducing the kid to Weird Al music already!  Lord willing, that will be Kristen someday and if they coincide we will CERTAINLY take him/her to an Al concert before the decanting takes place!

So the four of us and Eric and his two boys all got to meet Al and tell him and the band that it was a terrific show.  One that if you can, you really should try to see sometime during this tour!  It really was the best and craziest and funniest that I've ever seen Weird Al do in live performance.  It was also the best audience that I'd ever witnessed for an Al show.  Like Kristen and I were discussing yesterday afternoon: this world would have been far less interesting and much poorer if it weren't for "Weird Al" Yankovic running loose in it :-)

Mash here for the official WeirdAl.com website and see if he's coming to a town near you!  Buy tickets and then use them!  You won't regret it :-)

(Thanks to Kristen for taking so many awesome photos of the show!)

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Ed Stetzer on Christians, churches and mental illness

This past weekend Matthew Warren - the son of Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life - took his own life after struggling for years with mental illness.  In the wake of this tragedy there has already been considerable reflection by many among the body of Christ about mental illness and what our reaction should be to it.

Ed Stetzer, the president of LifeWay Research, has a very good guest essay on CNN.com.  Titled "My Take: How churches can respond to mental illness", Stetzer relates his own experiences with Christians plagued with such conditions and how churches should and should not approach it.  From his article...

The first time I dealt with mental illness in church was with a man named Jim. I was young and idealistic - a new pastor serving in upstate New York. Jim was a godsend to us. He wanted to help, and his energy was immeasurable. He'd visit with me, sing spontaneously, pray regularly and was always ready to help.

Until he was gone.

For days and sometimes weeks at a time, he would struggle with darkness and depression. During this time, he would withdraw from societal interaction and do practically nothing but read Psalms and pray for hours on end. I later learned that this behavior is symptomatic of what is often called bipolar disorder or, in years before, manic depression.

I prayed with Jim. We talked often about the need for him to take his medicine, but he kept asking God to fix him. Eventually, at his lowest point and filled with despair, he took his own life.

As a young pastor unacquainted with how to deal with these events, I found myself searching for answers. I realized two things:

First, people with mental illness are often attracted to religion and the church, either to receive help in a safe environment or to live out the worst impulses of their mental illness.

Second, most congregations, sadly, have few resources for help.

Stetzer has much more to say about Christians and mental illness, but you'll have to click on over to read it all :-)

As a Christian with bipolar disorder, I can readily identify with Jim and his story.  In fact, everything he went through is something I have also had to endure except for taking my own life... and believe you me, I have felt like wanting to do that more times than I can count.  I've even been hospitalized more than once because of that. It does not mean that I or anyone else is weak or bad or beyond the forgiveness of God.  What it does mean is that we know a pain that is more excruciating and self-destructive than can be known by anyone without bipolar or other mental illness and we just want the pain to stop.  It IS that horrible a thing to live the rest of your life with.  Sometimes I honestly don't know how I've made it this far but if it's at all within my power, I want to use this blog to encourage others and help them find the strength to keep going.  Followers of Christ have it no easier to endure this than anyone else and sometimes I wonder if the spiritual expectations of ourselves might even make the pain worse.  Stetzer's article is a brief but brilliant resource from which to begin meditating upon being Christian and being affected by mental illness.

(Speaking of bipolar, I currently have four installments of Being Bipolar on the front burners... but I can't figure out which one to run with first!  Maybe the write-up I've been doing about what it's like to have one-on-one counseling.  Or the one about bipolar disorder and loved ones who are affected by your having it.  Or about drugs... yeah maybe the drugs one.  Drugs are cool.  No not like that...)

A very big tip o' the hat to Mark McGinnis for finding this article!  Be sure to visit the blog that Mark and his spousal overunit Dalerie maintain :-)

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And the band played on: Obama's House party at taxpayer expense

One of the classic signs of imminent collapse of a culture is the brazen decadence that its leaders and elites start to exhibit.  Nero and Commodus magnified lavishness to scales unprecedented even as the Roman Empire was rotting from the inside and slowly collapsing.  The nigh-invincible Babylonians were in a drunken stupor of self-edification until Cyrus invaded and Alexander after him.  Louis XVI wasn't a "bad" man per se but he was too busy partying and having fun while being horribly negligent about the affairs of the French people... and then he lost his head as bad as anyone could.

There are too many other examples that could be cited from the tale of years.  And you would think that we might have learned something from six millenia's worth of them...

But here was the scene last night at the White House.  In spite of the "sequester" that is halting performances by the Blue Angels and nearly derailed the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn and is now threatening to shut down air traffic control towers, Barack and Michelle Obama held a glitzy, vainglorious command performance in their own honor.

It was called the "Memphis Soul" concert.  Queen Latifah, Justin Timberlake, Booker T. Jones, Al Green, Cyndi Lauper and others performed for the President and First Lady and their closest friends and supporters.

But none of the peons got to attend.  We did get to foot the bill for this however.  The money for this and the nine other concerts the Obamas have "hosted" all came from the publick treasuries.  But if you feel bad about that, at least PBS let everyone watch it live last night...

If a group of musicians want to celebrate soul music, fine.  I don't see a problem with that.  But they should do it on their own dime, not mine or anybody else's.  I don't even have a problem with them using the White House for their celebration of an art form... but they should pay rent for the privilege.  Pay it to us.  Because that's our house, not Barack Obama's.  The President - whoever he or she might be - is only a temporary tenant.  We The People own it... or we're supposed to own it anyway.  It's funny: celebrities like Timberlake, Queen Latifah and others can get the red carpet treatment at the White House, but school children are completely shut out.

There's not enough money for you and I to visit the people's House but there's plenty of money for the Obamas to get down and boogie.  It's like grand theft squattery.

Let's drop the pretenses.  This was all about Barack and Michelle Obama feting themselves.  Unfortunately it is not a new occurrence.  I've watched shameful waste of our money at the White House for years now, irrespective of whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the Oval Office.  And this should be something to outrage everyone regardless of their political affiliations.  But it has to be said: Obama has taken it to a whole new level.  Between he and Vice President Biden, they've had eight vacations so far this year.  Also paid for by us (Biden's one-night stay at a hotel in Paris cost $585,000: that better have been the best mint on a pillow in the history of anything).

Eight vacations in just over three months?  In that same time I've been doing everything from writing to computer support to farm work to make ends meet.  I'm looking hard for employment... and I'd dare say that I've done more real work than Obama and Biden put together.  Where the hell is my vacation, huh?!

A lot of people are looking for good, honest work.  They want to support themselves, their families, make a better future for their children.  What little money they can scrape together, they want and deserve to use it for their own benefit.

It wasn't meant for Barack Obama or anyone else to squander on parties for themselves.

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CALVIN AND HOBBES: THE MOVIE trailer

Unfortunately it's something fan-made and... eeeeeaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE THIS MOVIE MAKE IT REAL SERIOUSLY MAKE IT REAL REAL REAL!!!

Bill Watterson should let us chip into a Kickstarter and get this produced! Make $50 million the goal and it will reach it in less than a day...


Props to GrittyReboots for the great work!  And thanks goes to Billy Cripe for finding this :-)

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BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS swoops in on October 25th

There goes whatever plans I might have had for that day...



GameInformer.com has news and details about Batman: Arkham Origins: the follow-up to Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.  However this is a prequel to those games, taking place "years before both of the previous Arkham titles when a young, unrefined Batman encounters many supervillains for the first time".

Rocksteady won't be developing this new game however.  They've handed the baton to  Warner Bros. Games Montreal, but have made all their tools and resources available so that the series' look and feel remains consistent.  Given how Arkham Asylum garnered universal acclaim as one of the best video games of all time - and that Arkham City received even greater praise - WB Games Montreal has a high mark to hit, much less surpass.  But after seeing that trailer I've confidence they can pull it off.

Now if we can get a proper sequel to Arkham City.  There were way too many dangling threads in that game screaming to be addressed...

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Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey: Now in a new bottle!

Whenever I post anything new about the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, traffic to this blog flies off the chain.  It has been a pleasure to write about him and chronicle his life and times during the past several years and Lord willing, I'll get to continue to do so for a long, long time to come.  It'll always be one of my bigger regrets that I never got to meet him personally but it has been a tremendous honor to have come to know those he was closest to, including Popcorn's widow Mrs. Pam Sutton.

Photo Credit: Jamey Grosser via Facebook

Before his passing four years ago Popcorn was well into plans to legalize his famed likker.  Last year Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey - made with Popcorn's original recipe - went on sale in Tennessee.  And demand for it exploded!  At one point the moonshine - originally packaged and sold in mason jars - was going for $150 and up on eBay.

But Popcorn had a grander vision for his likker.  He wanted to "upgrade" the container as soon as it was feasible.  Some will argue that the mason jars have greater character and are more "authentic", but apparently Popcorn had problems with some people brewing 'shine on their own and selling it as his!  I can understand why he wanted his whiskey to have a more distinctive and unique look.

Yesterday it was announced that Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey is now coming out in a brand-new bottle!  You can see it in the photo.

Here's what Jamey Grosser - master distiller and the man Popcorn Sutton entrusted his mythic recipe for likker to - has said about the bottle:

It’s finally here, Popcorn's new Bottle! Popcorn always told me and others that his whiskey was “too damn good to be put in a jar,” but mason jars were all he could afford. He’d get pissed when other bootleggers would try and sell crap whiskey and pass it off as his. Popcorn said that if he had his own bottle, they would always know who's the best was.

When Popcorn and I started the company, our plan was always to start in a mason jar - as it’s all we could afford - then move to the bottle his whiskey deserved. Well we did it Popcorn! Here's your bottle for the world's finest white whiskey! I hope you all love it as much as I know Popcorn does.

It doesn't matter what it comes in, just as long as it's Popcorn Sutton's tried and true likker. The new packaging? It's but one more step toward Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey busting its way out of Tennessee and into ABC stores and grocery marts all across the fruited plain. He may no longer be with us on this Earth, but Popcorn's likker is well on its way to taking the world by storm!

(No I don't drink... but I do plan to take a healthy swig or two of his likker, just to have that much more appreciation for the man and his legend :-)

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Tammy Tuesday: A boy and his dog...

(Awright, who will get that reference without having to Google for it? :-)

A few nights ago I was trying to snap a photo of Tammy and myself together.  Of the ten or so that I took none of them had Tammy looking at the camera!  She refused to cooperate any way at all.  I think it's because she figures she has to be the star of everything and she doesn't share her stage with anybody...

Anyway, here's Tammy and her always-loving/more than occasionally exasperated owner:

Here's a hint: next week's Tammy Tuesday features these same two characters in altogether different circumstances :-)

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NBC's HANNIBAL: Bold, brilliant, bloody... and frustrating

Hannibal - NBC's new series based on Hannibal Lecter and other characters from the novels of Thomas Harris - has a daring premise: exploring the motives and methods of "Hannibal the Cannibal" in his time leading up to the events of Red Dragon.  There is an execution to this show that rivals that of cable series such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.  It is grisly and gruesome and graphically disturbing as anything about Hannibal Lecter should be.

But having just finished watching the pilot episode ("Apéritif") I find myself wondering how much ... or how at all... I would commit to continue following this series.

The acting quality in Hannibal is premium.  Hugh Dancy is compelling to watch as FBI Special Investigator Will Graham: a forensic profiler with a talent for getting into the minds of serial killers.  Laurence Fishburne - always a welcome measure of gravitas - is performing admirably as Special Agent Jack Crawford.

And then there is Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  And he's definitely bringing all the right elements of Lecter to the table: his sophistication.  His cold demeanor.  His skill as a gourmet.  The subtlety of his evil.

The problem for me is, Hannibal seems like a melding of too much other television that we've seen before.

The BBC's Sherlock comes most to mind.  Imagine Martin Freeman's Watson from that show with Sherlock's overwhelming deductive abilities and driven nature.  But instead of "consulting detective" Sherlock his flatmate is "consulting criminal" Moriarty.  That is what Hannibal felt to me soon after Graham begins working with Lecter.

I also thought that Hannibal borrows too much from Dexter.  Except that in Dexter's case there is justifiable motive for his actions (okay, kinda...).  Has broadcast television ever before attempted a series focusing on a villain?  Nothing comes to mind but Dexter has proven such a thing is possible.  Hannibal's Lecter however is a persona dependent upon those around him more than the character's own deviousness and depth of history.  Mikkelsen is an arresting delight to behold as Dr. Lecter.  But for how long can viewers be expected to buy into that on its own merit, absent Lecter being a dark force of nature for his own twisted sake?

(It's going to bug me if I don's also get it out of my system that there are some things about Hannibal which remind me of Fox's series Millennium from a decade and a half ago.  I don't know why I should feel so led to note that but, there it is...)

Personally, I have to question the decision to set Hannibal in the present day, rather than what should have been the Nineteen-Seventies (the period of the novels in which Hannibal Lecter is active and eventually stopped by Will Graham and Jack Crawford).  It's the same concern I've had with A&E's Bates Motel, but considerably greater.  In retrospect it was a bad idea for Thomas Harris to explore and reveal Lecter's childhood and early adult years with such vivid detail in his 2006 novel Hannibal Rising.  Yet I've always been fascinated by what should have been fleeting glimpses of the experiences which molded such a promising young man into a legendary monster: the butchering and devouring of his sister by fugitive Nazi soldiers, his coming-of-age in postwar Europe, his multi-disciplinary medical training, etc.  No person comes from a vacuum and there is a load of back story for Dr. Lecter that could have... should have... been allowed to  be touched upon.  Was NBC trying to make Hannibal more consumable (no pun intended) for a modern audience by bringing the character ahead forty years?  I don't know... but it would have been worth a gamble and in my mind, there was a tremendous payoff to have been had.

Hannibal is, technically and dramatically, gripping television.  Unfortunately in my estimation it misses the mark on being true Hannibal Lecter.  Series developer Bryan Fuller could have just as well crafted this drama with a new set of characters absent any referencing of Thomas Harris' books and it would still be "Must See TV".  Simply slapping the "Hannibal" label on it however does not make it Grade-A meat.

(That was a pun intended.)

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Man's $150 "toy poodles" really ferrets on steroids

A retiree in Argentina bought two toy poodles for about $150 (American) each.  When he brought them home it was discovered that the "dogs" were in reality two ferrets pumped-up with steroids and then had their fur styled to make them look like poodles!

From Mail Online's article about this very bizarre con...

"Beware of rodent"

Gullible bargain hunters at Argentina's largest bazaar are forking out hundreds of dollars for what they think are gorgeous toy poodles, only to discover that their cute pooch is in fact a ferret pumped up on steroids.

One retired man from Catamarca, duped by the knock-down price for a pedigree dog, became suspicious he had bought what Argentinians call a 'Brazilian rat' and when he returned home took the 'dogs' to a vet for their vaccinations.

Imagine his surprise when his suspicious were confirmed - he had in fact purchased two ferrets that had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle.

Previously considered an urban legend of the giant La Salada market, local television news in the capital, Buenos Aires, discovered that the unidentified man was not alone - another woman had been told that she was buying a Chiuhuahua, but ended up with a ferret.

It's still not as weird as that surgery which turned a goat into a unicorn for the circus, but pretty crazy all the same.

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The Iron Lady has left us...

Margaret Thatcher

October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013

___________________

Prime Minister of Great Britain

1979 - 1990

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"The Rings of Akhaten": Chris gets moved to tears by the profound beauty and wonder of this season's best DOCTOR WHO yet!

"Come on then... Take mine.  Take my memories.  But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I've lived a long life and I've seen a few things.  I walked away from the Last Great Time War.  I marked the passing of the Time Lords.  I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained.  No time.  No space.  Just me!  I've walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a MAD... MAN.  I've watched universes freeze and creations burn.  I have seen things you wouldn’t believe.  I have lost things you'll never understand!  And I know things.  Secrets that must never be told.  Knowledge that must never be spoken.  Knowledge that will make parasite gods BLAZE!  SO COME OOOOON THEN!  TAKE IT!  TAKE IT ALL, BABY!!  HAVE IT!!  YOU HAVE IT ALL!!!"

And if you weren't moved to tears also by Murray Gold's majestic orchestral score and Matt Smith's epic stand of daring in the final moments of "The Rings of Akhaten", then... well, you're a pathetically jaded person who needs a hug in the worst way.

The reviews of "The Rings of Akhaten" seem to be all over the place, with most saying that they felt "underwhelmed" by this newest episode of Doctor Who.

Me?  I thought it ranks as the best of this season by far... and so help me, I had to choke back from full-blown crying during the final few scenes! 

(Only twice has that ever happened to me from a Doctor Who story.  David Tennant's final bow has always choked me up: a LOT of people consider it to have been the finest and most moving regeneration scene ever.  That, and pretty much the entire episode of "The Girl in the Fireplace": an episode which never fails to break me down...)

 For the first half or so of "The Rings of Akhaten" we aren't getting to see much that we haven't already, although the marketplace scenes are among the most visually thriving we've beheld since the show was revived in 2005 (if there's a British equivalent to 5-Hour Energy then this show's costume department must have pushed themselves to exhaustion coming up with all those aliens' designs).  I think some strong comparisons could be made to "The Beast Below" during Matt Smith's first season (which was also Amy Pond's second episode as a companion, just as "The Rings of Akhaten" is for Clara).  And yeah there are some things which could have been better in terms of pacing and plotting...

...but that first half is rife with more legendary Doctor Who mythos than any episode we've seen lately.  C'mon: I couldn't have been the only one who noticed Matt Smith's Doctor take that defensive stance with the Venusian Aikido that the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) was known for.

The car which almost hits Clara's father is the same one that we saw crashing into Rose's dad in "Father's Day".  Coincidence?  Where Steven Moffat is concerned, there are no coincidences...

And then, there was The Doctor making an almost-glib reference to "my granddaughter".

There is setup going on here, people!  What is being set up, only Steven Moffat and a few others in the BBC's Doctor Who production offices know.  But in the name of all that's good and holy The Doctor just mentioned Susan!!  Not by name but that HAD to be Susan!!  When was the last time Susan got mentioned in anything Doctor Who-ish?!?

That very, very fleeting snippet of dialogue alone is going to make "The Rings of Akhaten" memorable.  And I think it's going to become even more memorable as this season continues to unfold on the way to the fiftieth anniversary in November.

In terms of performance, Matt Smith has perhaps never looked so dark, so dangerous, so defiant as The Doctor as he is now.  It's a trend that began with "The Snowmen" and I was hoping to see that grow in "The Bells of Saint John".  Last week's episode in retrospect missed the mark more than it hit... but having seen "The Rings of Akhaten" I'm feeling that groove again and it's getting deeper.  I'm also really digging his revamped costume: it's definitely more brooding and dashing (sorta like he's got a Sherlock motif going lately).  His "in-your-face" to what can only be described as a star god should go down as one of the most powerful scenes in Doctor Who history.  Nothing else comes to mind that has so conveyed the triumph and the tragedy that is the life of The Doctor.

Jenna-Louise Coleman is increasingly growing on me as new companion Clara, and I appreciated how her back-story was presented at the start of the episode.  And for a role that came to have such import, I thought that Emilia Jones handled Merry quite well: a frightened child, without being especially "childlike" about it.  And does that young lady have a lovely singing voice, or what??

But I thought the two biggest things that "The Rings of Akhaten" had going for it were its sense of scale and the episode's music.  C'mon: when was the last time The Doctor had to take on an opponent like that??  We're talking cosmic scope the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko here, folks!  I have to tip my hat to freshman Doctor Who scribe Neil Cross (creator of Luther) for cutting his teeth on such high-concept storytelling.  This was his first time out the gate... and I think he's going to only get better.

And so far as the music goes, Murray Gold was firing on all cylinders with "The Rings of Akhaten".  The score went from setting the atmosphere to an integral part of the story... and I think he handled it magnificently.  I want this season's soundtrack album right now, just to have the pieces he composed for this episode (along with Emilia Jones' choral accompaniment!).

It also must be said that "The Rings of Akhaten" is an absolute feast for the eyes.  One well-respected friend with cinematography experience remarked that he had "never seen a more beautifully filmed episode".  The camera work, the composition, the music... all orchestrated together in one epic harmony.

A very, very solid episode that gracefully overlooks whatever faults it may have.  "The Rings of Akhaten" gets Four and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers from this Whovian blogger!

Next week: The Doctor and Clara aboard a nuclear submarine amid tensions between the American Navy and the Soviet Union.  Six days from now brings us "Cold War"!

EDIT 11:20 p.m. EST: So what did it look like when The Doctor fought a god?

Somebody has kindly posted "the speech" scene.

Since writing this review I've watched "The Rings of Akhaten" once more. But I've watched this scene at least ten times now. This is what brought the tears. EVERYTHING about it is darn nearly too beautiful for words...

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Hell hath no fury! Turkish TV station neglects special effects mid-show

Television station STV in Turkey - an outfit apparently specializing in religious programming - recently produced a movie or series episode or something about a father and son and the father dies and goes to Hell and the son gets to watch him burn in tortured agony.

Yeah, I'd probably be screaming too if I were locked in a deep blue chromakey room being chained-up by guys covered head to toe in Hulk-green nude suits!

To STV's credit, the first part of the clip does do a decent job of portraying Hell... or at least the Hell that we saw in Michael Jai White's Spawn movie back in 1997. Looks like the graphics were drawn with a Sega Saturn. Anyhoo after the clergy dude shows up, the After Effects guy apparently fell asleep at the switch...


That's either really bass-ackwards, or STV was counting on everyone to ignore the scene and focus instead on the soccer score at the upper-right.

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