jr conlin's ink stained banana

Well, now he's gone and done it.

Ronald Reagan has died, and much to the dismay of a great many, angels were not on hand to carry him away. Actually, strike that. Apparently he's going to be spending a fair amount of time in flight, no angels required, since they're going to pack him in ice and show him off in the Rotunda of the capital, as well as a full state funeral.

i don't want to speak ill of the dead, but as anyone who knows me is well aware, i've never harbored a great deal of love for the now ex ex-president. This, i'd remind you all, was the man who did not defeat communism, but outspent it. Who founded the idea that the best way to help out the poor and middle classes is to give lots and lots of cash to rich people. The man who used astrology to determine world fate, napped through a Lybian attack, and who still stands on record as having ketchup declared a vegetable and that trees generated more polution than automobile.

Sad thing is that he still was a better president than the current one.

The thing is that he is held as a demi-god to far too many people who don't seem to remember him saying that "Facts are stupid things".

Although i suppose it makes sense in some respects that as a country that is taking great lengths to silence the media, control public opinion, and are making people dissappear without legal recourse, that we would go to elaborate lengths to preserve the one who was picked to be the leader.

i wonder if they'll get a used discount if they buy the old Lenin's Tomb stuff?

i am an unabashed student of the classics.

Granted, i still bat around .200 when it comes to late German Baroque composers (or even those that are still alive) but i can go on at great lengths about the true masters of their craft.

i'm talking about folks like W.C. Fields (my personal hero), Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and tons of others. i'm well aware that these are the minds that corrupted influenced mine and taught me all i needed to know about how to deal with people (confuse the hell out of them). i found out about them mostly because of the magic of cheap TV.

Fact is, growing up we had ten channels of TV and absolutely nothing on. Sunday Afternoons was the great video wasteland of movies, and stations, not wanting to blow their budget broadcasting to the few relative shut ins that might actually be watching, would go through their piles of rights free tapes and pop in Babes in Toyland or The Bank Dick, or if i was REALLY well behaved, maybe Duck Soup.

Mind you, i seldom got the many of the better jokes on the first go. It wasn't until i'd watched the movie long enough to pick up the timing and subtleties that i really found much of the humor behind "Mr. LaFong Capital L, small a. Capital F, small o, small n, small g, LaFong." Or the magic behind finding just the right way to make things go even more horribly, horribly wrong.

Fact is though, i know that folks like myself are probably the last of the breed. There are a few "hipsters" who might actually watch some of the true classics out there, but it won't be that long before folks no longer remember that the best way to keep someone from poking you in the eyes is to put your hand up on your nose, or that there's no such thing as a Sanity Clause.

i suppose i should be upset about that. That somehow, generations will think that Jim Carrey and Rob Schneider were the funniest human beings to ever grace the planet, but i'm not. What it does mean is that the time is about right where someone in Hollywood will remember that there was a time when you could crack up an entire theater of folks without once referring to irratable bowel syndrome. That sometimes it's ok to have an idiot, particularly if he wins on occasion. And that the best comedy doesn't let anyone on screen in on the joke.

Will it be rampant plagerism? Oh, you bet. Enough to cause Harpo to scream.
Will it be as funny as the original? Nope, not even close.

But it would still beat the blue hell out of what's passing for comedies now, but then i'm confident that they'll ruin those just as easily as they ruin everything else.

Now, if you'll excuse me, i'm going to see if i can get a copy of The General from the local video hole.