It's Still Early in 2024, But We Already Have A Strong Contender For Worst Song Of The Year

Taylor Swift made history at the 2024 Grammies, winning Album Of The Year for an unprecedented fourth time, making her the only person ever to do this. Of course this raised the ire of the MAGA right, who have spent the last couple of months inventing ridiculous conspiracy theories (The Chiefs are in the Superbowl because of government psyops- nothing to do with the fact that they are a very good team with excellent players who have been in 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls; Taylor and Kelse are only together so they can back Biden and ensure his reelection; never mind that they are both independent autonomous humans capable of making their own choices)

If you're angry at Tay-Tay because she is a selfmade millionaire who isn't particularly interested in bending her craft to adapt to the wishes of ancient decrepit politicians, have I got a song for you, buddy!

Tom McDonald, so-called MAGA rapper, has a current hit called "Facts" (these are the people that invented "alternative facts", remember) which is an angry rant with the depth of a Trump Truth Social post, trotting out the old list of right-wing grievances (BLM, "wokeness", LBGTQ, gender fluidity, and guns (more specifically the danger of not loving guns enough.) to a boring generic trap beat that sounds like the demo setting on an 80's Casio. Drop some "truth" on us, Tom:

They call me offensive, controversial
There's only two genders, boys and girls
They can't cancel my message 'cause I'm the biggest independent rapper in the whole freaking world
Claim that I'm racist, yeah, alright
I'm not ashamed because I'm white
If every Caucasian's a bigot, I guess every Muslim's a terrorist, every liberal is right
I don't wanna talk to folks who don't get it (Tss)
Go woke, go broke, no hope, it's pathetic

Are you still awake? For a song called "Facts" there aren't any I could find here. Facts are more than opinions you learned by watching Fox News. Facts require reasoning and logic behind them to be valid facts, and putting the kind of tired grievance-ridden garbage Bill O'Reilly mumbles in his sleep to a wack ass trap beat doesn't make them facts.

After a minute or so of this just when you think it couldn't get worse, f-ing BEN SHAPIRO shows up to drop some of the lamest, whitest verses to ever appear on a "rap" song. The irony of wealthy white dudes using a black method of expression to ridicule black people (they really don't like BLM and make fun of blacks that like rap because they spend their money on strippers, apparently) obviously completely escapes them.

Shapiro, who is most notable for having a giant thread on Reddit devoted to "Stupid/Immoral Things I Have Said/Done", cannot rap. He mumble/speaks his way through his tired ass tirade and then it's back to the awfulness of the main track. You will be praying to go deaf by this point. 

I'm not providing a link to this car crash as I refuse to promote it, but you can find it easily on You Tube or online if you absolutely insist on watching it. It really embodies the perfect opposite of Taylor Swift: untalented, uncreative, calculated to outrage/offend just because, and created with an active disgust of everyone that does not share in its blindingly narrow moral stance. Taylor sez, you need to calm down.

How To Keep Your Sanity When You Are Trapped in Your House By A Blizzard

 

A massive blizzard has taken over much of the Central Plains, and with over a foot of snow, winds up to 45-50 mph and wind chills ranging up to -40 degrees, most people are stuck in their houses or apartments until the thawout comes. What do you do with all this time? Here are some ideas on how to pass the time.

1. Become intimately familiar with every creak and weird noise your pipes make. Hum along with the more melodic ones.

2. Organize the spices in your kitchen first alphabetically, then by country of origin. Stop in shame when you realize what you are doing.

3. Do so much laundry you find yourself washing clean things, just to have something to do.

4. Visit the strange world at the back of your refrigerator and freezer. Wonder why you have a two-pound bag of flour from before COVID and a five-year old orange at the back. 

5. Morning nap, afternoon nap and after dinner nap. Followed by further naps as needed.

6. Read all the books you have until you have nothing left to read but credit-card agreement terms written in the smallest font on Earth. Then read those.

7. Light a small fire on your living room couch and make a blood sacrifice to the Norse Gods of snow.

8. Put on your favorite records and dance like a lunatic all around your house. BYOB.

9. Wistfully stare out the window and think of when you were young and things were better. Sob gently.(only recommended for those who can handle unbearable levels of ennui, like French existential writers) 

10. Make yourself a double Nyquil cocktail and hibernate until March. 

Doctor Who Christmas Special "The Church On Ruby Road"

 

After much waiting and speculation, we finally have the first outing for the new Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa and his new companion Ruby Sunday. And what a doozy! 

We open with Ruby being left on the doorstep of a church by a mysterious, unnamed woman (who will undoubtedly be revealed before the end of this series) and adopted into a foster family. Twenty some years later, she meets the Doctor who is dancing at a club and seems to know more about her than he lets on- he does have a tendency to snoop into his companion's history. 

Soon, the episodes of bad luck Ruby has been having are revealed to be the work of evil, child-eating goblins (don't ask) who pilot a large wooden airship. The Doctor and Ruby think they have defeated them, but the Doctor soon realizes the goblins have sent them into an alternate timeline when Ruby's foster mother no longer remembers her. With some timey wimey business (and the new sonic screwdriver, which now resembles a large cell phone or small shoe) Ruby is saved and leaves with the Doctor in his TARDIS, watched by a strange neighbor Mrs. Flood who seems to know of the existence of time travelers....somehow.

The new Doctor positively shines in this romp, radiating a joy and unencumbered sense of fun that has been sorely missing from the series for a long time. This is a flirty, active, saucy Doctor who has finally come to terms with his past (it is hard to imagine any of the previous Doctors being as emotionally direct and honest with Ruby as he is in this episode) and his trauma, due to the Fourteenth Doctor's retirement. 

Ruby seems to be a perfect match for Fifteen, a young, fun-loving girl who is looking for excitement and adventure. Paring the companions to one down from three in the Jodie era streamlines the show and quickens the pace.

After the soft reboot given in the David Tennant specials answered many of the questions left unresolved, a whole new set of questions have arisen, like: Who is Ruby's Mother? Who is Mrs. Flood, really? Who is The Boss mentioned in the specials, but who to this point remains unseen? And who are the minions that the Toymaker said were coming? 

The answers are so far unknown, but come spring we'll all have fun finding out, as the trailer for the first full season for Fifteen shows (the episode where they meet the Beatles at Abbey Road looks incredible). This was clearly a transitional episode with some goofy elements (I could have done without the whole musical number) but the energy brought by the new Doctor makes it a very strong episode. Out of 10: 9.3

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special #3 "The Giggle"

SPOILERS AHEAD

At last, here we are at the story everyone has been waiting for, the one that reveals why the 14th Doctor regenerated with the face of the 10th, what the fate of Donna Noble is, and what the Toymakers plan is. And surprisingly, answers to all these questions are provided.

After a prologue in 1925, we see the Toymaker's plan begin at the dawn of television, as he ensures that the first image ever seen on TV (and hidden in every TV and screen since) is of one of his toys, building an army of screens until activated, sending a signal (the wavelength of which is the Toymaker's creepy giggle) that turns humanity mad, or rather, it convinces everyone in the world that they are absolutely right and they all refuse to be challenged. Sounds kind of like Twitter, doesn't it?

We see the return of Kate and the full UNIT forces in this episode, and their huge Avengers like glass office building with huge death ray mounted on top (we'll get back to that ray later.) We find out former companion Mel is now working for UNIT. It was nice to see a companion that initially was 100% screaming and cardboard motivation actually be presented as a fully rounded human being. Donna seemed to like her too.

The Toymaker presents The Doctor and Donna with a puppet show version of everything the Doctor has done in the last fifteen years, a litany of companions who ended up dead, to which the Doctor protests some extenuating circumstances (Amy Pond died of old age, not from the Weeping Angels! Clara wasn't killed, she got to live the last seconds of her life over again in a loop! Bill wasn't killed by the Cybermen, she got saved by an alien force!) to which the Toymaker sarcastically responds each time, "Oh, well, that's OK then!" The Toymaker can clearly see the immense amount of guilt and pain the Doctor is carrying and uses it against him.

Neil Patrick Harris' performance of the Toymaker is stunning. Once you realize the cod German accent is an affectation that drops when he's being threatening, the undertow of his presence is disturbing, a creature that exists beyond concepts of good or evil and is only bound by the rules of gameplay and chance. 

After some games, the Toymaker gets bored and simply shoots the Doctor with the huge death ray gun, forcing his regeneration. But it's not a typical regeneration, it's a bigeneration, with the Doctor splitting in two halves, one the 14th Doctor and the other, a completely new 15th Doctor with no ties to the past. 

This scene was a fairly clear example of Disney staking out its claim to the Doctor and how the series will be viewed in the future: Everything up to the 13th Doctor is now on various other platforms (1 through 8 on Tubi and Pluto, 9-13 on HBO, and everything from Doctor 14 onward on Disney.)

Ncuti Gatwa, in the few minutes we see him on screen, is wonderful. He seems filled with a sense of adventure and joy that had been missing from the show lately, and I can't wait to see his run actually begin with the upcoming Christmas Special.

The Toymaker is defeated by the power of the two Doctors combined, and we come to the tear-inducing part of the show. Doctor 14 admits he's exhausted of continually running for the entire series. When Donna asks him does he realize why he has this face again and he answers he doesn't know, she replies "So you could come home," it's devastating. 

The Fourteenth Doctor decides to enter semi-retirement, putting aside all the guilt and regret of his various dead companions, the trauma of the Time War, the Master, and all the battles fought in the last sixty years. He stays with Donna and her family (and Mel!) and says that he's the happiest he's ever been. (He still has his version of the Tardis though, so future adventures are not impossible.)

Meanwhile, in the Fifteenth Doctor's updated TARDIS (I love, love, LOVE the bubble jukebox in the control room), he sets the controls for an unknown destination and takes off, headed for further adventures.

The finest of the three episodes by far, I loved pretty much everything about this: the surprise appearance of Mel, the bigeneration, The Toymaker himself, the resolution of the Fourteenth Doctor to stay with Donna (after we had been led to believe that Donna was going to die in this episode, her actual purpose was to tell the Doctor he could stop running), and everything Ncuti Gatwa did as Doctor Fifteen. Serving as a soft reboot for the entire series, this is everything we love about Doctor Who in an hour-long package. Out of 10: 9.8 

 

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special # 2 "Wild Blue Yonder"

 Features some spoilers.

The second installment of the specials celebrating Doctor Who's 60th anniversary has been released, and in contrast to the stuffed-full and frenetic "The Star Beast", this is a quieter, far weirder episode. And as you should know, Doctor Who is at it's best when it's flat out weird.

Following the console explosion at the end of the previous episode, The Doctor and Donna find themselves on a massive, empty spaceship. It looks quite impressive in the long shots, too bad in the tighter shots they are clearly walking on a treadmill with CGI background behind them. 

They wander and banter for a bit (evidently the Fourteenth Doctor fancies Isaac Newton) and find a decrepit, slowly moving robot but no other evidence of life. Then mysterious forces notice them, and try to replicate their bodies into physical reality. (Lots of references here to various things, such as the movie The Thing and the previous Who episode Midnight, which was also about mysterious forces invading a ship on the edge of the Universe.) 

It is wonderful to see Tennant and Tate playing evil versions of their characters, whose worst instincts and fears are brought to the fore by the aliens. Then of course there's lots of running up and down a hallway shots (a Russel Davies tradition) and timey wimey dialogue, until the Doctor pieces together what the aliens want and why the previous captain of the ship is floating outside. 

Following that, we get a brief scene back on Earth where Bernard Cribbins puts in his final appearance as Wilf, a heartbreaking bit all the way around. Things don't stay nostalgic for long as things start exploding and people go mad around them, manipulated by the as-yet unseen Toymaker, making his first appearance in the series since 1966.

A solid episode that played on the actors strengths with a straightforward SF plot (once you understand what's actually happening on the ship. I give it a 9 out of 10. Next week we see Neil Patrick Harris as the big bad of the season, the Toymaker, the final fate of Donna Noble, and the regeneration of Doctor Fourteen into Fifteen...maybe? See you then! 

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special #1: "The Star Beast"

 

After more than a year of waiting, we finally have a new Doctor Who episode, under a new (well, semi-new) showrunner, Russell Davies, who wastes no time in this remarkably fun romp in correcting all the loose ends left at the end of his run. Other questions though (such as why the regenerated Doctor looks like David Tennant, previously Doctor Ten) will have to be answered later.

Years after the Doctor wiped her memory of the time they spent together, Donna has moved on and is raising her daughter Rose (hmmm) with her mother. Granpa Wilf is offscreen, in an old age home guarded by UNIT. A massive spaceship lands in their town and of course, Donna misses the whole thing. Rose is more observant and finds the driver of the ship hiding in a garden shed (nice reference to E.T) and decides to protect the cute, fuzzy alien from the bug-eyed green monsters hunting him down.

The Doctor appears on this scene, still presumably confused from his recent regeneration, and although I won't detail it here, the whole Donna/Doctor metacrisis plot is waved away through Rose and Donna simply giving up their powers through a bunch of timey wimey stuff. The Meep, the cute fuzzy alien, is revealed to be evil and swears revenge on the Doctor after his inevitable defeat, ominously referring to his "boss", probably the Toymaker who we already know will feature in the third special. 

There's a lot to love here. Every minute Tennant and Tate are together is pure joy. I loved how Tennant plays the Fourteenth Doctor as a more mature version of the Tenth, less battle-scarred by the events of the Time War and more eager to listen to people rather than taking them for granted. The new Tardis interior is wonderful, all flash and little round things. There's even a coffee/tea dispenser in the console! 

The upcoming second special looks to be much darker, a kind of bottle episode with the Doctor and Donna trapped in a "corrupted Tardis". There are rumored appearances by the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors as well, which if true would make my inner fanboy very, very happy. 

I'll give this episode an 8 out of 10, there's some clumsy exposition and the episode could have been longer, to give Rose's character a little fleshing out, but those are minor points. The series looks like it will thrive under the return of Davies after the fan backlash with Chris Chibnall, the previous showrunner. 

Five Songs that are Smiths rip-offs (but still good)

 The Smiths are, no surprise, one of my all time favorite bands. Existing for a mere five years (1982-1987) in the center of the eighties, they managed to create a whole new sound with Morrissey's witty, trenchant lyrics and Johnny Marr's breathtaking guitar lines. This unique blend of intelligent words and glittering pop was imitated by many but few came close to their power.  These are the ones who did.

5. Radiohead "Knives Out" from the Amnesiac album (2001) 

According to Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien's online diary, the cascading guitar riffs in this track were directly inspired by the Smiths. The glum pace and Thom Yorke's forlorn lyrics ("Look into my eyes/I'm not coming back") cement this classic single as a not-so distant cousin of the Smiths prototype. 

(1) Radiohead - Knives Out - YouTube

4. James "Laid" from the Laid album (1994) 

The Smiths actually liked the band James enough to cover one of their tracks ("What's The World?") as a live B-side. James in return created this stunning pastiche of their sound, featuring strummy guitar and lyrics that sounded like Moz could have written ("This bed is on fire/with passionate love/the neighbors complain about the noises above" is a great encapsulation of Morrissey's diseased romanticism). This was their only chart hit in America and actually received a fair amount of airplay on college radio. 

(1) James - Laid [3-22-94] - YouTube

3. Suede "Stay Together" single, 1994

Despite borrowing heavily from the camp/fey ouvre of Roxy Music and Bowie for their stunning debut record, this single bleeds the same kind of doomed romantic sensibility the Smiths had in spades. The guitars yawn and stretch in a very Johnny Marr style, while Brett Anderson's vocals approach the histrionic heights as Moz's most out-there yelpings. 

(1) Suede - Stay Together (Official Video) - YouTube

2. Gene "Sleep Well Tonight" from Olympian LP (1995)

Gene never made any pretensions to be anything but a Smiths knock-off, but this delightful single was their apex of their output. The track, about young lovers trying to escape a hostile small town, is thematically squarely in Moz's wheelhouse, and if the guitars don't quite ascend to the level of Marr, the anthemic quality places it above other imitators.

(1) Gene - Sleep Well Tonight - YouTube

1. Rick Astley "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" (live track, 2022) 

No, you're not being rick-rolled, Astley is a lifelong Smiths fan and covered this track along with some others on a recent tour....and it's really quite lovely. The cover is respectful to the original while being just different enough to be interesting. Who knew?

(1) Rick Astley with Blossoms - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (Glastonbury 2023) - YouTube