cinema history class (extracurricular edition): withfinder general

After we watched The Magnificent Obsession of Michael Reeves in our cinema history class (my review of that class is here), I found I had a renewed interest in Reeves' last film, Witchfinder General. Keith had already shown us  WG (twice, in fact), but I had never really appreciated its significance in the history of British cinema. I don't recall what rating I gave it when we saw it (and that was before this blog, so I can't go and look it up), but I doubt that it was very high. Magnificent Obsession, which was a documentary about Michael Reeves did a good job of putting WG in its historical context, and made me wish I had appreciated it more.

When discussing the documentary Keith mentioned that WG had been rereleased, all cleaned up, on Blu-Ray. And I offhandedly mentioned that it would be interesting to see it. And so, during this long break between classes, Keith invited Ethan and me for a watch. Seeing the movie in its cleaned up form with vivid color and crisp sound gave me a whole new appreciation for the film. On blu it's a pleasure to watch in a way that the 16M print isn't.

I'm not a huge Vincent Price fan, but this is possibly the best performance of his career. Instead of the ham I'm used to seeing, this was a serious Price. And I loved every hateful moment he was onscreen.

Which is noteworthy since Reeves didn't even want Price for the film; he had Donald Pleasance in mind. But he wanted AIP funding, and a casting compromise was the price he had to pay. And the working relationship between Reeves and Price was unpleasant, but Reeves managed to get a great performance out of his star -- a fact which he would eventually acknowledge in a letter he wrote to the director.

Despite the violence and gore of the movie, there are some good solid interpersonal dynamics built in that help elevate it. Of particular note is the ambivalent relationship between Hopkins and Stearne (as portrayed by Price and Robert Russell). They need each other and benefit from their working relationship, but there is little respect and no affection. Watching them snipe at each other reminded me of two curs competing to be alpha. It's hard to figure who's worse. I don't quite know how I missed that dynamic the first two times I saw the movie, but I did.

In addition, the ending is disturbing. After spending so much time on his quest, motivated by his love for Sarah, we see Marshal finally lose sight of that love and get overtaken by his thirst for revenge. And hate conquers all.

happy zmedsday!! (xcix)

 

happy tunesday! this year's gonna be our year

I was literally sitting down to compose a Tunesday post. I had given it some thought, and had decided on a song. And I had the gist of the post written in my head. Then I got a Facebook notice that Eytan Mirsky had posted in his FB page, "The Mirsky Mouse Club." It seems that another blogger has named Eytan's "This Year's Gonna Be Our Year" as the best record ever. Or at least nominated it as one of the best records ever -- I'm not quite sure, as I read the post quickly since I have to finish typing this before I head out. I really shouldn't admit all that. Pretend you didn't read any of that uncertainty.

You can read his blogpost here and decide for yourself what he said.

At the risk of disappointing people, I disagree. "This Year" is a great upbeat song. But, as great as it is, it's not even Eytan Mirsky's best. But with the new year coming, we can all hope that 2021 is better than 2020. So I'll go with it.

"Baby's Liquored Up" will have to wait until next week.

south park: a kosher contradiction

 I've been streaming a bunch of South Park because reasons.

And there's something that has me confused. In "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" (the show's first Christmas episode), Kyle laments his fate as a lonely Jew on Christmas. At one point, he sings, "instead of eating ham I have to eat kosher latkes.

But one episode earlier, in "Starvin' Marvin" (the show's first Thanksgiving episode), we see Kyle at a buffet with his parents and some other cast members. He is clearly cutting himself a big piece of ham.

This has me so confused...

cinema history class: yellow fever: the rise and fall of the giallo

Session: Documentaries, Week 3
Movie: Yellow Fever: The Rise and Fall of the Giallo (2016)
Directed by Calum Waddell 

As I did last year for documentary month, I am temporarily abandoning my usual format.

Giallo is a genre of lurid Italian crime movie, often seen as a an ancestor of the American slasher movie. The term, derived from the Italian word for yellow, came about because of the yellow wrappers of similar Italian slasher novels. Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento are among the most notable directors of gialli.

Yellow Fever is full of interesting material and clips, and good meaty interviews. But, rather than tell a coherent story, it kind of jumps all over the place. It also devotes an outsized amount of attention on Dario Argento.* Of course, that makes sense in the context that this documentary was made for release as an extra on a Blu-ray reissue of Tenebrae, which is one of Argento's best-known films. Incidentally, we saw that one in class three and a half years ago -- I wrote about that session here. I think I would have better-appreciated this if it had either done a better job of focusing on Argento (and been billed as a documentary about him) or if it had done a better job of covering the entire genre. The halfway approach threw me off.

Bottom line? This was a documentary that was good enough to make me wish it were better.

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*Not for nothing, but he kind of looks like a half-melted wax figure.

how to secure customer loyalty in three days

 A month ago, I blogged about my frustrating experience dealing with AT&T's customer service. I'm still trying to figure out if I want to stay with AT&T or if I'm going to find a different carrier. We'll see. But another customer service experience I had, this one with Costco, put my AT&T experience in sharp relief.

In the second half of November we ordered a computer for Asher. A week or so afterwards, when the computer hadn't arrived, I started wondering. I looked up the order and found that Costco had created a UPS shipping label for it, but it never made it to the UPS shipping facility. Blair said to give it time -- The combination of COVID and the Christmas season was probably causing delays. So I waited. But I checked every day. Another week, and there was still no further sign of the computer.

Finally, we (OK, Blair -- I didn't have the stomach for what I assumed would be a long drawn out runaround) contacted Costco customer service. The representative took a few minutes to check before agreeing that the computer does appear lost. She noted that they really want people to wait fifteen business days before calling, but she can get us started on a replacement. A couple days later we got notice that the replacement computer was on its way. And within a week it arrived.

Now that's customer service.

it's zmedsday!! (xcviii)

 

happy tunesday! never kill a man twice

This week, for Tunesday, one of my own. "Never Kill a Man Twice."

Care for a bit of a shaggy dog story?

Years ago, I was trying to write a Western song. Not a modern Nashville-flavored song with C&W twang. That's not to say I don;t appreciate such things. I do. But I wanted to write something else. I never did succeed. I came kind of close with "Five Missing One." Anyway, while this was on my mind, I thought of a title -- "Bleed Me a River." I don't remember when I thought of the title, but I do remember that I was at the Tucson Botanical Garden -- a place my family and I visited at least once a year. I started writing "Bleed Me a River." I never did finish. The lyrics were quite negative. Premeditated murder for revenge. That kind of thing. Maybe I'll finish it some day.

At some point, though, I decided that the phrase could have worked well as the title of a Spaghetti Western. Remember, we're talking about a movie genre that includes titles such as Find a Place to Die, Death Rides a Horse and My Horse, My Gun, Your Widow. It didn't take long to come up with a general idea of the plotline. It actually used the half-written song as a jumping off point. So I started working on a screenplay. I described it as "a film in the tradition of Spaghetti Westerns," and got help from my friend, Keith Crocker, a film historian who has made a couple features himself.*

I never did finish the script. I'll have to get back to that. At any rate, I ran into a problem with the plot. One character had tried to kill another. He actually had left him for dead. But now, later in the film, when the man he had tried to kill is coming after him, he avoids a showdown and eschews chances to kill him. How to explain it? Perhaps there are better ways than what I came up with. I had his lover ask him about it. And he cryptically responded, "Mama always said, 'Never kill a man twice.'"

So, the script still needs revisiting, but at some point I realized that "Never Kill a Man Twice" would make a catchy song title. And the rest is history.

Come to think of it, "Never Kill a Man Twice" would have been a great title for a Spaghetti Western too.
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*And who has cast me in his next feature, but that's neither here nor there.

the end of the f***ing world as we know it...and i feel fine

I'm not sure why I started watching The End of the F***ing World on Netflix. Certainly the provocative title was part of the decision-making process. Also, I vaguely recalled seeing trailers for it a few years ago and thinking it looked like it had promise -- though I didn't actually remember what was in the trailer. And, I was kind of bored looking for something to watch.

TEotFW is not like the other serial dramas I recently bingewatched. The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire were all "adult" shows about grownups in grownup situations. TEotFW is about teenagers being teenagers. They are extremely issue-laden -- even for teenagers, and their decision-making lacks the thoughtfulness that comes with adulthood. As with the protagonists in all my favorite shows, they're flawed. Very flawed. I wasn't sure I'd like it. Actually, I was guessing I wouldn't like it. But I was curious. And bored. And it was billed as a comedy. A good laugh is always a good thing.

In the event, the show was dark and depressing. And utterly compelling. As the first episode ended, I was wondering if it was over already? I had to find out what happened next. I'm still not sure where the comedy comes in. Though there are occasional tension-breaking comedic moments, it's not what I would call a comedy. Those comedic moments are of the type where you kind of chuckle and then say "Oh, was that one of the funny bits?" Much more British in its approach than American -- which, I guess, makes sense since it's a British show.

Few productions have such brilliantly-curated soundtracks. I kept noting how perfectly the songs complemented the story.

And, while we're at it, Alex Lawther and Jessica Barden are very well cast as James and Alyssa. Both are quite effective at portraying the teenage awkwardness that's so vital to the roles. And Lawther especially has the difficult task of portraying a dead-to-the-world blank slate at the beginning, and then slowly blooming and coming into his own. I remember seeing him in "Shut Up and Dance" which is one of the better (and more disturbing) episodes of Black Mirror. And I remember noting that he nailed that role as well.

Interestingly, the show only had two seasons of eight episodes each. The episodes are generally being between 20 and 25 minutes long, so each season is about the length of a long movie. So these are perfect for bingeing.

When I watched the trailer I learned that the show was based on a graphic novel. Since I can appreciate a good graphic novel -- my favorites are RASL, The Sculptor and Watchmen -- I was looking into buying this one. But the reviews made me think twice. If you are reading this and have read the graphic novel, please let me know what you thought of it.

negro leagues as mlb -- my task ahead

I can't say that I was surprised to learn that Major League Baseball has decided to recognize the old Negro Leagues as "major" and integrate those leagues' records into its "official" history. Anyone with any sense of how the wind blows could see it coming. My purpose here is not to opine on the merits of such a move. I don't think I can really add any extra light to the discussion. 

But, from the perspective of my StoopidStats I am looking forward to this with a mix of excitement and trepidation. As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, I like to track offbeat baseball statistics. Decades ago I got it in my head that I wanted to see a graph showing all major league franchises and their year-by-year cumulative games over .500. At the time that I first envisioned it, the limitations of data avilability and computing power meant that putting such a chart together was beyond what I could easily do. Now, it's much easier -- a big file that's conceptually pretty simple and easily updated every year. My last post about that project was here. Since then, I came up with other ideas -- the records for most home runs in N consecutive seasons (for positive integers N) is prominent among them.

When Negro League statistics are merged into MLB history, I will have the task of updating my statistical research. That'll be the fun part, but it can't commence until and unless my sources -- baseball-reference and various downloadable databases are updated. Hopefully the updates will be controlled in such a way that my various sources stay in sync.

But there will be challenges -- some that may force an end to some of what I track. I've been working with the construct that all teams have what I will call a full name -- location nickname. For example, we have the New York Yankees, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Texas Rangers. Some of the statistics that I track depend on that name structure. But the Negro Leagues included teams such as the "Cuban Giants" which doesn't indicate its location, and teams such as the Homestead Grays who split some seasons between Homestead Pennsylvania and Washington, DC. These will present new challenges for me. I'll not worry about that now. Afterall, I assume part of the work that the various Lords of the baseball world will undertake will involve determining which Negro Leagues and which teams will be accepted as "officially" major league. Instead of trying to pre-solve every issue that can arise, I'll see what issues do arise and worry about those.

happy zmedsday!! (xcvii)

 

happy tunesday! (the blues brothers)

The Blues Brothers (the movie) was added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry yesterday. Congratulations to Jake and Elwood, and the whole Good Ol' Blues Brothers Boys Band from Chicago. The Library of Congress twote about it here. Let's celebrate with my favorite musical bit from the movie.

happy zmedsday!! (xcvi)

 

tunesday (david lander, rip)

 

David Lander, RIP.

David Lander, best known as Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley, passed away last week at the age of 73 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. This song, which he performed as Squiggy (with Lenny, portrayed by Michael McKean), is among my favorites of his bits.

cinema history class: the magnificent obsession of michael reeves

Session: Documentaries, Week 2
Movie: The Magnificent Obsession of Michael Reeves (2019)
Directed byDima Ballin 

As I did last year for documentary month, I am temporarily abandoning my usual format.

Michael Reeves grew up obsessed with movies and dreamed of directing American-style epics.  He directed three movies, two of which are considered highly-influential in British cinema). Less than a year after the third, Reeves died of an accidental overdose at age 25.

We've actually seen two -- the influential two -- of the movies in class,* but I hadn't put them into context. I hadn't realized that they were from the same director, and I certainly didn't realize how influential Witchfinder General was. That, despite remembering the famous stories of how Reeves butted heads with Vincent Price. This documentary did a good job of driving the point home.

Whereas The Search for Weng Weng, which we saw in week 1, never really got us beyond viewing Weng Weng as a 2'9" object, Magnificent Obsession did a really good job of giving us a full picture of Reeves as a real person -- with talents and foibles, passions and weaknesses. It did that by featuring extensive interviews of people who knew the man -- people who worked with him and who considered him a friend.

I was particularly surprised to learn that Reeves wasn't actually into horror or violence. He was making horror movies because he felt that it was the best way to establish himself as a reliable director who's movies would make money. His goal was to make Hollywood movies. This makes it all the more poignant that he died at 25 before he could realize that dream. And a couple of the people interviewed for the movie talked about the high promise that his career had.

All that having been said, I am actually skeptical about whether he would have achieved the wider-recognized greatness that others expected of him. To Baker, who had worked with him, described their last meeting, two months before Reeves' death. Reeves had clearly had some kind of mental break. Between that and his need for medications, I think it's perfectly plausible that his best work was behind him. Of course, that is something we'll never know for sure.

Because this documentary didn't skimp on clips, and because of its emphasis on people who knew tyhe subject personally, this was much better than the prior week's documentary.

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*I wrote about The Sorcerers here. We saw Witchfinder General before I started this blog, so I didn't write about it.

one...two...three...guts!

"Quarter guts!"

That was probably my favorite call -- or maybe my favorite was "baseball, follow the queen, down." But this post is about guts. Only because I twote to a friend that I'd write a post about it. I didn't tell her that I'd write about baseball follow the queen down. This was, by the way, occasioned by my daughter's newfound interest in poker.

We're pretty much talking about the mid 1980's through the 1990's when my friends and I would get together at least once a week to play poker. Our card games were the kind of thing that would make serious players cringe. We played all sorts of crazy variants, with wild cards, cards that could become wild, or become tame in the middle of a hand. And we were loud and rambunctious. Usually it was in good fun, though I do recall one time when a Super Big Gulp went flying across the room.

We played for low stakes. Generally, a nickel ante. Five cents would buy more then than it does now, but even then it was a low ante. With a small ante like that, I could generally play for hours and end the evening up or down only a few dollars. I figured that, if I lost that was the price for an evening of entertainment. Cheaper than a movie. And if I won, all the better. Guts was the one game that would regularly have a higher ante. In the case of "quarter guts," it was twenty-five cents.

Guts was a simple game. Everyone was dealt three cards. There were no flushes or straights, so three aces was the high hand. We also never had wild cards, though I don't know why. Anyway, we would each look at our own hand, decide whether to stay in and then hold our cards in the air. The dealer would count, "One. Two. Three. Guts!" Those who were staying in would hold onto our cards. Those who were dropping would...drop. Of those who stayed, the high hand won the pot.* Everyone who stayed in and didn't win had to match the pot for the next round. We played round after round until only one person stayed in. That person won the pot and the game ended.

Now, if only one person stayed in in the first round,  the game ended pretty quickly. But if three or more people stayed in, the pot could grow -- a lot. When three people stayed in, the pot would double. When four stayed in, it would triple. Sometimes it would actually top $10, which was huge for our game. And I do recall one time when it actually topped $100. And during the earlier years, when we were still college students, that was big money.**

By the way, Vin, if you're reading this: I apologize for that stretch where, every game, I would use the bathroom, and turn that shelving unit around backwards. And I apologize for denying it was me when you called me out for it.

_________________________

*This leaves the question of what to do if the game was tied and the pot was not evenly divisible by the number of winners. I remember the first time I asked what would happen. The dealer picked one of the guys and said "Jon gets the extra nickel." That didn't sit well with me, since it was no longer a fair game, but one that gave Jon an unfair advantage. Yeah, I guess that was kind of petty of me. Anyway, I don't remember how we resolved it that first time -- or the next. I may have sat out a game. Eventually we fell into a standard rule that the extra nickel stays and gets added to the next pot.

**There was one particular guy who had less money than the rest of us. Or so it seemed. Let's call him "Goldman," after Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man. Outside of our game, when someone had a nervous decision to make, it would be likened to "Goldman holding a pair of kings in guts with a $25 pot."

happy zmedsday!! (xcv)

 

happy tunesday: "girl of my dreams"

 

"Girl of My Dreams" was a hit for Bram Tchaikovsky's only Top 40 hit in the US. I happen to be a big Bram Tchaikovsky fan, so I'm probably much more familiar with the song than my reader is. On the surface, it sounds like just another of the many simple love songs that have made the charts over the years. But it was actually about something a little less wholesome. I blogged about that here.

It is my Tunesday song today because of a news item that's been making the rounds. It seems that Kazakhstani bodybuilder, Yuri Tolochko, has gotten married. You can read about it here.

In case you want to see, Mr. Tolochko shared a snippet of wedding video on Instagram.

cinema history class: the search for weng weng

Session: Documentaries, Week 1
Movie: The Search for Weng Weng (2013)
Directed by Andrew Leavold 

As I did last year for documentary month, I am temporarily abandoning my usual format.

For those who don't know of him, Weng Weng (real name Ernesto de la Cruz) was diminutive (2'9") Filipino action movie star. We actually watched one of his better movies in class early this year -- I blogged about it here. Andrew Leavold, a video store owner in Australia, was a big fan of Weng Weng's. In 2000 he decided to travel to the Phillipines to make a documentary about the actor. What Leavold didn't know at the time was that Weng Weng had died in 1992.

I'm not a Weng Weng fan, but his backstory is odd enough that there's enough fodder for an interesting story. And the fact that Leavold went in so woefully underpreprepared gave this search a kind of Magical Mystery Tour quality. This quality is strengthened by the coincidental way things happen to fall into place. For example, he went to a bar where film people are known to hang out, hoping to find people who cound help him with Wengformation. But he struck out. Then, in the parking lot he happened to run into the man who edited all of Weng Weng's films. Along the way, Leavold and his crew found themselves invited to Imelda Marcos' 83rd birthday party.

Putting that aside, there are some interesting interviews with industry insiders and Weng Weng's brother and sister-in-law. Some of the conversations touch upon the way Weng Weng was exploited and never really saw the money that he made for others. Also addressed -- albeit briefly -- is the uncomfortable fact that a big part of the appeal of Weng Weng's movies relies on laughing at the disabled man for his disabilities. But there's a big drawback -- and I wouldn't have noticed this if Christina hadn't pointed it out -- ii that we don't really get a good sense of who Weng Weng really was.

This was an interesting documentary, but it left something to be desired.

how to kill customer loyalty in three and a half months

It only took three and a half months, but I finally got a full refund from AT&T*.

My family and I have been loyal to AT&T wireless for...well, I don't actually know how long. But It's definitely over 15 years. At one point we were with Cingular, but came over when they merged with AT&T. And, for the most part, we've been happy.

My trouble started this past summer -- August 8 to be exact -- when I went to their store in Floral Park** to buy a new phone. Sadly, they didn't have the phone I wanted in stock. But, they told me, they could order it. I could upgrade right then and there. They could set up an installment plan on my account*** and  I just had to pay the sales tax right then and there. And when I come in to get the phone they'd help me move all my content from the old to the new.

In retrospect, I was stupid to agree to this. I should have either gone elsewhere or simply come back at a later date when they expected to have the phone in stock. But I was eager, and I agreed. Live and learn.

The sales representative called when they got the phone in, but she was going on vacation the next day. I preferred to have her set up the new phone, so she told me I could wait to pick it up until after her vacation. I came in on her first day back. And the store didn't have the phone. In the intervening week and a half, they were being audited. The manager didn't want to have extra equipment sitting around,*** so he sent it back. The store was now well-stocked with that model, but they couldn't give us one of those. It had to be the specific phone that was ordered for me. And they couldn't just unravel the purchase until AT&T's warehouse acknowledged receipt of the phone. But not to worry -- that'll happen soon enough and we can start again. But it didn't happen. To this day AT&T's warehouse has not received the phone.

So, I had paid $120.75 in sales tax during that first visit. My August bill included a one-time $30 upgrade fee (plus tax). And, starting with that bill, AT&T would be adding installments of $46.67 for the phone as well as $5 (+ tax!) "Next Up"**** charges.

And so began my fight. Initially, I was content to wait it out until the warehouse scanned the phone in. But as time went by without that happening, I got antsy. At this point I don't recall the exact sequence of conversations, and I won't try to give a blow-by-blow account.

But I made repeated calls to customer service. I would dutifully explain what had happened. And each time, I had to go through the same story and answer the same questions. The rep would promise to get it settled, only to be stuck by the fact that AT&T didn't have the phone. Because of that I'd have to take it up with the store. But when I went to the store, they insisted they couldn't help me until the warehouse acknowledged receipt of the phone. Once that happened, the whole upgrade would be unraveled, and they could then refund the sales tax.***** Until that happened, I would have to stick to calling customer service. And so it went -- customer service said I had to deal with the store, and the store said I had to deal with customer service. I was stuck in the middle. A couple times I tried having customer service talk to the store. That briefly gave me some hope, but it amounted to nothing.

I should acknowledge that, early on, AT&T refunded the $30 upgrade fee. That gave me unjustified hope, though in retrospect I am guessing that they did that because they could see that I wasn't using the new phone. At any rate, that was a small victory.

I was dealing with a seemingly unending series of broken promises. customer service reps would open cases and swear that there would be a resolution. But the cases would be closed because the warehouse hadn't received the phone so they didn't have satisfactory evidence that I never received the phone. Even though the store manager told them repeatedly that that was the case.

Eventually, in early October there was a breakthrough. One of the phone reps was able to break through and, with her manager, get the process started to actually remove the monthly installments from my phone and reimburse me for the installments I had already been charged. I'm not really sure why that call -- or that rep -- was different from the others. I suspect it was simply a matter of her being more dedicated to her job than the others, and my getting her on that call was just a matter of the luck of the draw. She was able and willing to take an extra step that the others weren't. And the transactions that she initiated (which inexplicably took more than a week to complete) did represent the bulk of the charges. And the case notes that she made did help with the resolution of the remaining items. 

The remaining items were the "Next Up" charges and the sales tax. Even though my October bill reflected a refund of the installments I had paid, it still included a $5 "Next Up" charge. I still had to make a couple  more phone calls, and explain the whole story a couple more times******. But eventually I got a rep to refund the "Next Up" charges and remove them from future bills.

But he couldn't help me with the sales tax. For that, he needed me to provide the number of the credit card that I used when I paid the tax*******. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have been a problem. But in the intervening months there had a been a fraudulent charge on that card, so I had closed it and shredded the card. I had nothing with the full account number on it. I called the issuer of the card, but they wouldn't give me the card number over the phone. Or by email. I'd have to wait for them to snailmail me a letter with the full account number. That took another couple of weeks.

I finally got the letter yesterday morning, November 27. Armed with the credit card number, I called customer service. I explained the story. I asked her to read the case notes. And she apologized, but she can't do anything about the tax I had paid because the warehouse still hasn't logged the phone back in. And have I tried going back to the store?

At this point, I was addressing the rep in an odd mix of rage and pleading. "Don't send me back to the store; that won't help. The last person I spoke to promised that if I provide the credit card number he could process a refund." She had me on hold for a long time. She came back and apologized. She was, she explained, trying to figure out what she could do. "You can pay me the money you guys took from me! Either credit my account or send me a check. I don't care which! But it's been more than three and a half months!" At this point I didn't think that I was helping my cause. But I was just so frustrated. It was like I was watching some other person in my body screaming/pleading into the phone.

And, to my surprise, it worked. She added credits to my account -- one credit for $60, and five credits for $12 each. If I'm not mistaken, that means that, technically, she wasn't applying a refund of the tax, but using some limited discretionary ability to apply credits to customer accounts. Which means that she still couldn't refund the tax, but she took mercy on my and did what she could.

The fact is, she gave me a total of $120 in credits. So technically, I'm still out 75 cents********. And, yeah, I have to let go of that, even though it rankles way more than it should. If I were, through sheer clumsiness, to lose a $20 bill to the wind, that would not bother me as much as this 75 cents.

Lessons learned? Any time I want to upgrade to a new phone in the future, I'll buy elsewhere -- probably from the Samsung Store. And if I have to go to an AT&T store, it won't be the one in Floral Park. I also found a few things that I particularly frustrating. The following is a (probably incomplete) list:

• Several times, after I spent hours on the phone only to get nowhere, the phone rep would close the call by asking me if I was satisfied with the service provided. Invariably, these reps would act surprised and offended when I said no. Excuse me, but your company is ripping me off to the tune of more than $1500, and you are unable to help me. Why should I be satisfied?
• Several times, reps would raise the question of why I took so long to pick up the phone. At least once, someone told me that their policy is to return equipment that's not picked up in 72 hours -- though the sales rep had told me it could wait until after her vacation. A couple times, people noted that equipment has to be picked up within two weeks or it gets returned -- though I had come to pick it up within that two-week time frame. This whole line of discussion was frustrating because it was tempting to debate it with them But that debate obfuscated the central issue. My frustration wasn't about the fact that they had returned the phone to the warehouse; it was about the fact that, having returned it to the warehouse, they seemed to still expect me to pay for it.
• I hated the repeated insincere apologies. Apologies are meaningless if you're not fixing the problem.
• I hated it when the store manager, responding to my complaint about how much time and energy I had to put into getting them to fix their fuck-up, noted that she had just spent an hour on the phone trying to help. Helping customers is part of her job -- especially when the problem was caused by a breakdown in AT&T's procedures. And she was being paid to deal with it. I wasn't. Now, if they were actually planning to pay me for the time I spent trying to track this down, I might have felt different about this aspect.

The big question is whether I will stay with AT&T. I understand that, sometimes, issues arise. But this whole episode takes customer service failure to a whole new level.
___________________________

*Actually, not full. There's still another 75 cents. But I'll eat that and call it a day. More details in the post.

**I don't know how it works with other carriers, since it's been so long since I have been with another carrier. Maybe it's similar. At any rate, with AT&T you can pay for the phone in 30 monthly installments. Essentially, it's an interest-free loan. Of course, the sales tax cannot be figured into the installments. You have to pay the sales tax when you set up the installment plan.

***Seriously. I don't understand why it's so difficult to say "this is a phone that we ordered for a customer who has not yet picked it up.

****I would learn the "Next Up" was a sales feature. If I sign up for it with the installment plan, and pay the charge every month, then (once I have paid for half of the phone) I can upgrade early and AT&T will absorb the cost of the yet-unpaid installments. I did not agree to the "Next Up program, and I would have turned it down had it been explained to me.

*****One element that boggles my mind is that the store manager insisted that I would have to make another trip to the store to get the sales tax refunded. For some reason she could not (or would not) adequately explain, they would not be able to do that by phone.

******If I have to say "No, I didn't return the phone. The store returned it instead of giving it to me" one more time...

*******I have no idea why that should be a requirement. He could see that I had paid the tax -- and he could even give me the last four digits of the card number.

********Which is a spit in the ocean compared to the time and energy I spent on this ordeal, as well as the cost of gas and wear and tear on the car related to the repeated trips to the store in Floral Park.*********

*********And I implore my reader not to patronize that store.

a coincidence and a letter

This evening, purely by coincidence, I came across a letter my great grandfather wrote 57 years ago
today.

The occasions was the death of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson's succession to the presidency. Great grandpa Simon wrote to President Johnson to express his support and well-wishes.

A bit of background is in order. At some point Simon had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. In order to occupy his time, he started writing letters. To family, to famous people. To anyone he could think to write to. He would type two copies of each letter -- one to send and one to save. This was no easy feat since his left arm was paralyzed and he was typing with one hand. But it served its purpose of keeping him busy. He saved his letters along with the responses in books, which he had bound. The one I have is titled Life Begins After a Stroke, Volume Four. I don't know how many volumes there were or what happened to the others. Simon had fantasies of getting them published.*

I am most amused by Simon's comments regarding the form response he got. He noted that he realized it was a form response, but added "I feel very pleased that my letter to him merited an answer."

_______________________________

*Sounds familiar...

home run leaders by presidential administration

One of the Twitterati I follow wished his favorite baseball player a happy birthday. And noted an achievement. Of course, PrezWisdom subsequently noted that Griffey doesn't actually hold the record cited in that tweet. Alex Rodriguez owns the two-term record for most home runs hit during a presidency, with 364 during the administration of George W. Bush. PrezWisdom prefers not to acknowledge Rodriguez because the latter is an admitted steroid user. The wacky-face emojis tell me he has tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Anyway, that got me to thinking...

Who holds the record for one term presidencies? For partial-term presidencies. Aw, heck...who hit the most home runs in each presidential administration since the advent of Major league Baseball? Is there a way to look that up? This sounds like a job for stoopidstats!

The full table is below. But first a few comments.

For the purposes of this task, it's fortunate that the normal succession date of January 20 is during the offseason. Even before it was moved to January, it was in early March which was during the offseason. Thus, for the most part the task is easy. With a downloadable database (I use Sean Lahman's), it's mostly a matter of simply pivoting on sets of years (e.g., for Wilson, see player totals for the years 1913-1920). The complications come in on the few occasions where presidential succession occurred during a season. As necessary for those seasons, I used the game logs available on Baseball Reference to determine who hit how many home runs during whose presidencies. Fortunately, I never ran across a situation where a contender for a lead actually hit a home run on the day that the presidency changed hands. I'd have hated trying to research times of day to see if I could figure out things like "did he hit that homer before or after President Whosiwhats died.

Even so, I couldn't get full information. Baseball Reference doesn't seem to have game logs from the 19th century. So I was left high and dry trying to parse who hit how many homers when during the 1881 season. President Garfield died during that season. Garfield's presidency was the second-shortest, running from his inauguration on March 4, 1881 until his death on September 19, 1881. 41 players hit homers in 1881, led by Dan Brouthers, who hit 8. But without a game log I can't say definitively who hit the most while Garfield was president.

Similarly, the lack of game logs for 1881 means that I don't have full information for President Arthur. Ned Williamson hit 32 home runs in 1882-1884. He also hit one homer in 1881. No one else hit more than 31 during 1881-1884, so Williamson has the most. But I don't know if his total is 32 or 33.

A few other fun facts before I show the full list. Please note that, in these fun facts, I am sadly leaving out whoever it was who had the most homers during Garfield's presidency:

• The only tie came during Grover Cleveland's first presidency. Yes, I treated his two nonconsecutive terms as separate presidencies. Dan Brothers and Roger Connor each hit 39 homers during the Cleveland I administration.
• Babe Ruth and Mike Schmidt are the only two players who led in homers during more than one administration. And they each did it for three.
• Even though Franklin Roosevelt served more than three terms, Jimmie Foxx's administration-leading total of 353 home runs falls short of Alex Rodriguez' 364 home runs during George W. Bush' presidency. In fairness, Roosevelt died so early during his fourth term that no baseball had been played. So, for these purposes, it's the same as if he had only served three terms.
• Maybe PrezWisdom can take comfort in the knowledge that Griffey's home run total during the Clinton administration might have topped Rodriguez' total during the Bush administration if not for that strike in 1994-1995. Or maybe that makes it worse.

a) insufficient information available to determine. Dan Brouthers hit 8 home runs in 1881, but it is unclear how many he hit during the Garfield presidency.

b) Ned Williamson hit one home run in 1881. It is unclear whether that was before or after Arthur assumed the presidency.

c) Includes all 12 of the home runs Freeman hit in 1901. All 12 were hit before McKinley's death.

d) Does not include any of the 8 home runs Davis hit in 1901. All 8 were hit before McKinley's death.

e) Includes the 25 home runs Ruth hit in 1923 before Harding died. Does not include the 16 home runs he hit in 1923 after Harding died.

f) Includes the 16 home runs Ruth hit in 1923 after Harding died. Does not include the 25 home runs he hit in 1923 before Harding died.

g) Includes the 15 home runs Aaron hit in 1974 before Nixon resigned. Does not include the 5 home runs he hit in 1974 after Nixon resigned.

h) Includes the 11 home runs Schmidt hit in 1974 after Nixon resigned. Does not include the 25 home runs he hit in 1974 before Nixon resigned.

stir crazy in new york

 Yeah...I think some New Yorkers are going stir crazy...

tunesday: "yuve yuve yu" by the hu

I first heard of The Hu about a week ago. I walked into the office and Blair was playing some music the likes of which I had never heard. The vocals were as much growling as singing, and the sound was primal and hypnotic. I stood there transfixed, and Blair said something like "I guess it's not for you."

Au contraire...

Looking them up on Youtube, I watched a few videos (my favorite was "Yuve Yuve Yu," which is the one Blair was listening to), and decided that I had to have their album, The Gereg, which came out a little over a year ago. I also posted one of the videos on Facebook, under the mistaken belief that I was introducing all my FB fiends to this wonderful new exotic thing. And I was stunned by the response. All these people I know on social media were already aware of the group, and loved them. Go figure...

One last thought... Am I the only one who reads the lyrics (the English translation, of course) and thinks they flow like Jewish liturgical prayer poems?

cinema history class: alice, sweet alice

Session: And Then There Were None, Week 4
Movie: Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
Directed by Alfred Sole 

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL. This trailer is for "Holy Terror," which is the same movie as "Alice Sweet Alice." It had been released under more than one name.

Plot:
Alice, a troubled teen in need of psychiatric help seems to have turned her anger up a murderous notch. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

My reaction to Eyes of a Stranger, which we saw a week earlier, was that it was more than just a slasher film. I feel the same way about Alice, Sweet Alice, only more so. It's interesting that this was made in 1975 (and first released in 1976), which was years before slashers really became a thing, and yet it has the slasher genre down. But it has more. There's complexity to the stabbings, and the plot that you don't see in fare such as Halloween or Friday XIII. In many ways Alice feels more like a giallo than a straight slasher film, though it doesn't really fully capture the whole giallo vibe either.

The cast does a really good job, which was a pleasant surprise given that there aren't really any huge stars. The trailer hypes Brooke Shields but this was her first theatrical role, and (trailer notwithstanding) it's actually a pretty minor one.

Alice, Sweet Alice passes the Bechdel test.

Ratings:

Me: 9.1

Christina: 9.5

Ethan: 9

Sean 2 out of 4

cinema history class: eyes of a stranger

Session: And Then There Were None, Week 3
Movie: Eyes of a Stranger (1981)
Directed by Ken Weiderhorn

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A serial killer is terrorizing the women in the Miami area. A TV reporter with a special interest is on the case. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

Eyes is, unmistakably a slasher movie, but it's different. There's no real; mystery here. We know pretty much from the beginning who the killer is, so a good bit of the plot is a chess game between the reporter and the killer. Though it was predictable, the intensity does hold up well and it's fun to watch.

I have to admit that part of my enjoyment of the film was in seeing Lauren Tewes playing a role other than The Love Boat's Julie. I'd never really thought much about it, but until this came along, I couldn't have named any other role she played. And the pairing of her with Jennifer Jason Leigh made the movie a fun watch. And Leigh did a a good job with a particularly challenging part. It was interesting watching her struggling as a blind and deaf teenager with a killer taunting her.

The cript could have used some tweaking to close a few of the more glaring plot holes, and there are some situations that, despite their tension, seem impausible.

Eyes of a Stranger passes the Bechdel test.

Ratings:

Me: 9

Christina: 8

Ethan: 7

Sean 3 out of 4

happy tunesday: whatever became of hubert?

 

Welcome to this Election Day edition of Tunesday.

I wanted something appropriate to the election that's not too partisan. So, since one of the candidates* is a former Vice President, here's a song about another former Vice President.

___________________________________

*Which one? I leave that to the reader.

a political reminder

With just a couple days to go before Election Day, and in the middle of the most contentious Presidential race in my lifetime, I'm going to reiterate a point I made a while back.

If you're posting a lot of political stuff on social media, and you're trying to influence my opinion, I have a couple tips for you.

• Don't make fun of names. If, in your argument, you bastardize the name of the candidate or party that you don't like, then I'm less likely to take you seriously. Referring to "tRump" or "the Demorats" doesn't do anything to convince me.
• Curate. If your Facebook feed is a long stream of questionable memes and links -- lies that have been debunked, or fatally flawed comparisons, then I am unlikely to take any of your memes seriously.

But, as I have said before, if you're posting to vent your spleen and have no real wish to sway me, then enjoy. But don't wonder why I didn't change my opinion.

cinema history class: terror train

Session: And Then There Were None, Week 2
Movie: Terror Train (1980)
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
College students are trying to have a party on a train, but a killer lurks among them. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

For the most part I was judging Terror Train, by comparing it to The Prowler, which we watched a week earlier. Terror Train did a much better job of keeping me guessing, and I enjoyed the heightened suspense. And the ending was much clearer, and more satisfying. The fact that the script threw in a major red herring helped it along.

In some ways this seemed to me less of a typical slasher film, though Keith argues against that. I also wondered out loud whether the fact of it being set on a moving train -- executive producer Daniel Grodnik was trying to make Halloween on a train. Keith and Christina both argued that the train helped make the film work in that it created more of a feeling that the partying potential victims were trapped. I suppose they're right; without the train, there would have been less to make Terror Train stand out from the other revenge slasher movies.

Terror Train was enjoyable and satisfying, but ultimately it was light fare. 

Ratings:

Me: 7.25

Christina: 8.5

Ethan: 8

cinema history class: the prowler

Session: And Then There Were None, Week 1
Movie: The Prowler (1981)
Directed by Joseph Zito

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A college graduation party is stalked by a psychotic killer in full military gear. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

I'm actually of somewhat mixed minds about this movie. There's a certain vagueness about the exposition that I found frustrating. And yet, since I was able to figure out the unstated backstory and the killer's motives, maybe it was OK and I should be thankful that they didn't hit the viewer over the head with it.

I haven't seen a whole lot of slasher movies in my life, but I could still recognize all the standard tropes and formula-driven sequences. So I knew early on which main character would survive, and throughout I could knew exactly how scene after scene would play out. Yeah, she'll struggle with the door until the last second... Yeah, she's gonna die now... He'll save her, but die in the process... But, like the visual equivalent of comfort food, it was satisfying to watch. Not particularly memorable, but satisfying.

I have to give the film credit for Tom Savini's wonderful makeup and effects. They really made it.

Ratings:

Me: 7

Christina: 8.2

Ethan: 7

it's zmedsday!! (xciv)

 

early voting? not me

Some might say that the election is a week away, but in a very real sense it has already begun. And I don't mean that the campaigning has begun or there have been debates. I mean the election has begun because of early voting. The last I saw, something like 70 million votes have already been cast. I see a lot of social media posts celebrating the number of early voters, encouraging people to vote early, and bragging of having voted early. I find it all misguided.

I'm not opposed to the idea of making early voting available. I understand that it's arguably a necessary accommodation to reduce the barriers to voting that some might have. But I don't think we should be encouraging people to vote early as a primary strategy. It really should be for situations where voting on election day presents some kind of difficulty. That's not to say that anyone should have to prove hardship; no eligible voter should be stopped from voting early if they want to. I just wish we didn't have so many people wanting to, and I don't think we should be encouraging people to want to.

If you vote early, you voluntarily give up information. I get that many people have made up their minds, and can't imagine what could possibly make them change their minds -- and that's more true of this year's presidential election than most. I really do get that. Like many people, I've made up my mind and put the probability of my changing it between now and next Tuesday at somewhere around zero. And yet, maybe something will happen to make me change it. I doubt it, but I don't see where trading that possibility is worth the right to brag "I voted already" for a few days.

I'll be at the polls on Election Day.

 

it's zmedsday!! (xciii)

 

cinema history class: white zombie

Session: Pre-Code 1932 Horror on Tap, Week 4
Movie: White Zombie (1932)
Directed by Victor Halperin

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A young couple is eager to be married in Haiti, but their plans are upset by a love-starved plantation owner and an evil voodoo master. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

White Zombie is the only film in this session that I'd seen before, and it's one that I love, so I was really looking forward to it. Interestingly, in the dozen or so years since I saw it last, I'd forgotten some of the plot points. Notably, I'd completely forgotten the love triangle angle. Somehow I'd combined two characters -- Neil Parker (Madeleine's fiance) and Beaumont (the plantation owner who wants her for himself) -- into one. So watching again I found that the plot was a little more complex than I had remembered. So that was a plus.

I'm not exactly an expert on Bela Lugosi, but this is (to my knowledge) his meanest, most sadistic role. In other movies he performs acts of cruelty, but there's always some kind of reason that a viewer can at least appreciate if not support. But in this, he's a sadist for sadism's sake. And it's fun to watch it, thinking "what a scumbag!"

But the plot touches on a couple of issues that hit me on a visceral level. The whole idea of being trapped, and knowing what you could have -- should have -- done differently is a big one for me. And that's the part of the movie I remember most clearly from the past.

It's worth noting the underlying racial dynamic built into this movie and even worked into the title. There's the implicit message that it's Legendre's (Lugosi) use of voodoo to turn people into zombies is all well and good as long as he's limiting it to the black people of Haiti. It only becomes a problem when he turns his attention to the pretty white woman from elsewhere. If they were top make this movie today, they would have to rework certain elements, and the title would have to be changed. Maybe "Zombie Bride" or something like that. But, while I am aware of this aspect of the movie, I'm also aware that this was made in 1932, and that has to be taken into account.

Christina noted something that I hadn't picked up on. Generally, the characters in this movie aren't well-developed. Legendre, played by Lugosi is the exception, as he actually has a bit of a backstory that's touched on in a teasing kind of way. But the others aren't. Madeleine and Neil are basically cardboard cutouts without any notable personalities. And Beaumont is hardly much better. His sudden deep infatuation with Madeleine is really inexplicable. Had Christina given her comments before me, thereby giving me a chance to consider her thoughts before I gave my rating, I probably would have given this film a lower score.

Ratings:

Me: 9.6

Christina: 8.2

Ethan: 9

cinema history class: doctor x

Session: Pre-Code 1932 Horror on Tap, Week 3
Movie: Doctor X (1932)
Directed by Michael Curtiz

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A cannibalistic serial killer is stalking New York, and the evidence points to Dr. Xavier's medical academy. The police and the press want answers, but the good doctor wants to conduct his own investigation.  Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:

I kind of had false expectations going into this. My only familiarity with Dcotor X was from the line in the Rocky Horror sountrack, "Doctor X will build a creature." So I was expecting some kind of Frankenstein-type story, and this wasn't it. So perhaps my rating was unfairly biased by that bit of letdown. Having said that, the fact is there was nothing in the plot to stick with me. So I went home afterwards and hardly thought about the movie again. That's a bad sign.

The visuals were great -- especially the use of shadow in the scene wher Xavier performs his experiments to identify the killer. And I did enjoy the technobabble that the scriptwriters used there. It reminded me of Star Trek. But the visuals and technobabble weren't enough to make this movie memorable for me.

Ratings:

Me: 6

Christina: 8.2

Ethan: 7

Sean: 2 out of 4