Year: 2017

6:00–Apparently it starts at 6:30. See you then.

6:30–Welcome to the Long Island Super Bowl. At least that’s what Kath keeps calling it, because it says Super Bowl LI.

6:32–I wonder if H.W. feels good knowing his son is no longer the worst president in American history.

6:34–Kath is happy because as a former Atlanta resident, she is rooting for the Falcons.

6:36–Great Ford commercial, especially for someone like me who just hates getting stuck pretty much anywhere. I hate traffic lights, for God’s sake.

6:45–Yeah, sure, Google seems fine now, but when the machines rise up, does anyone doubt that Google will be leading the charge?

6:46–I find it interesting how many commercials seem to be slanted around families.

6:47–For some reason, I suddenly want Avocados. And to watch a movie with Jon Lovitz.

6:48–My favorite Jon Lovitz moment. He’s not in it, but you’ll understand when you watch it.

6:53–Well, Trump must be hating THIS commercial. He’s probably demanding that a video game starring him be fast tracked.

6:54–And Watson will be aiding Google. No doubt about that.

6:55–I’ve known Katie for thirty seconds and I hate her already. Frickin’ Skittles.

7:00–Eh. Beer. Don’t care.

7:01–You know, there weren’t an infinite number of dinosaurs in the world. Am I the only person who worries about fossil fuel running out?

7:01–Another Godaddy commercial. I’ve been watching their commercials for years and I’m still unclear who they are or what they do.

7:04–Dudes, water is water. It’s not art.

7:05–Well, SOME of us believe that whoever you are, we accept you. Others want to keep you out of the country.

7:06–Not interested in the tank video game, but I would totally watch “Real Bad Moms.”

7:09–FINALLY a pirates ad with Jack in it. Hoping this film will be better than the previous.

7:10–Well, I’m going to have to watch that Buick commercial again, because Kathleen was laughing so loudly I couldn’t hear the dialogue after Cam Newton showed up.

7:13–Okay, this song goes way better with the movie than the Pirates one did. But Logan is rated R? I guess Deadpool opened that door.

7:14–Say goodbye to limits? Can’t we just say goodbye to Justin Bieber?

717–I hate that that’s a commercial for Honda, but I loved the way it was put together.

7:18–Anthony Hopkins is in Transformers? What the hëll?!

7:20–Oh. Atlanta scored. I’m reading a book during the show and didn’t notice. Well, yay for Kathleen.

7:24–OK, that’s the best Tide commercial I’ve ever seen. Because I don’t recall any others.

7:30–I don’t really drink Coke anymore, but I like their commercials.

7:31–Handmaid’s Tale. I’m there.

7:32–Yeah, my bathroom’s ready. Got a toilet and a roll of toilet paper and that’s all I need, Febreze. And I never noticed before how weirdly you spell your name.

7:45–Jesus, the Falcons are killing them. Kath is happy.

7:46–We were taught all this? Really? I honestly don’t remember being taught any of that.

7:47–I dunno. I go to the gym all the time and nobody there knows my name.

7:50–Historical note. Humpty Dumpty wasn’t an egg. It was a cannon.

7:51–I’ve reached the age of 60 and I still haven’t seen a single Fast and Furious movie. Not sure whether to be proud of that or just indifferent.

7:53–That’s how I felt when somebody else had PeterDavid.com.

7:54–Eh. Wendys hasn’t had a memorable commercial since “Where’s the beef?!”

8:04–Music’s biggest moment of the year? Dude, it’s FEBRUARY.

8:06–So remember, if you have as much money as Lady Gaga, you can be a Tiffany’s customer.

8:10–That was a commercial for LUMBER? I thought it was a dramatization of a mother and daughter trying to sneak into the country. What the hëll was that about?

8:15–Well, now we know what Lady Gaga would be like if she was in Cirque du Soleil.

8:27–Okay, does anyone know if Einstein could really play the violin?

8:29–Scientology? REALLY?

8:32–Where the hëll are commercials with horses?

8:39–Well, yeah, you could tell her something different, but in the world we’re currently living in, the other stuff would be more accurate.

8:40–They sexed up Mr. Clean? Really?

8:41–Okay, that was a great Snickers commercial.

8:46–He probably wouldn’t have been allowed into the country within a few months.

8:47–Well, I’ve never heard of Persil, but if it’s good enough for Bill Nye, I may buy a bottle.

8:55–Between this commercial and her turn as Sean Spicer yesterday on SNL, Melissa McCarthy wins the weekend.

8:56–HALLOWEEN?! Aw, C’MON!

9:06–“A Cure for Wellness.” Yeah, I’m definitely not the target audience for this.

9:07–Oh, “Walking Dead.” For a moment I thought it was a commercial for baseball.

9:11–You know, I never watched the Baywatch TV series, but I might check out the movie.

9:12–So that was Fifty Shades of T-Mobile, I guess.

9:12–Wait, is Geoffrey Rush playing Einstein? Okay, now I’m interested.

9:19–We’re three quarters of the way through the game. Where the hëll are the Clydesdales?!

9:20–I’m sorry, but Tim Horton’s has pretty much ruined Dunkin’ Donuts for me.

9:29–Okay, Morgan Freeman, bringing the class to the Super Bowl. And I’ve flown Turkish Airlines. They were VERY customer conscious.

9:31–All right, fine, I’ll watch Legion! Happy?

9:32–Spuds McKenzie. Jesus Christ.

9:36–My problem is that every time she opens her mouth I picture Mabel from “Gravity Falls.”

9:36–I can’t buy any new video games. All my video game players are out of date.

9:43–Was that Peter Fonda?

9:43–I don’t care about the Simpsons or even the commercials for it: I don’t give a dámņ about the Daytona 500.

10:00–Some cars take your breath away. And some car commercials just bore the crap out of you.

10:02–Finger licking gold? Seriously? Guys, KFC is insanely unhealthy. Just deal with that.

10:12–Christ, this game is going overtime.

10:16–So we’re into repeats on the commercials and the Clydesdales never showed up. I’m done. Good night.

Not the game. The commercials. So swing by at 6 PM tomorrow.

PAD

Here is a website when you can go to contribute.

Please help and support the survivors of the horrific Bowling Green tragedy.

PAD

It seems to me that Donald Trump could potentially wind up taking over this whole blog. Because every day he or his aides are saying or doing something stupid. Indeed, if they had a “# of Days Without Screwing Up” counter in the Oval Office, it would have to be reset every day. So I am going to confine Trump comments to Freak Out Friday. That way we can simply freak out over everything they’ve done in the past week and get it out of our systems, and thus have clear heads for the weekend.

It remains amazing to me how conservatives have rewritten history, having forgotten their own determination to block everything Obama did and make him a one term president, and their incessant lies about Obama’s birthplace and picketing with racist signs and epithets, and instead now claim that we should give Trump a chance. Especially considering that in the past week:

1) Trump forgot to mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day. I suspect he also forgot to mention the Romani, but considering how he positioned himself as a friend of the Jews, it’s a notable omission.

2) Threatened to send in American troops to Mexico, a sovereign nation, to “help” with drug enforcement.

3) Picked a fight with the Prime Minister of Australia. How in the HÊLL does ANYONE pick a fight with a country where everyone says “G’day” and “No worries?”

4) Steve Bannon declared that we will be at war with China within the next decade. Yeah, that’s what we want to hear. Let’s pick fights with Mexico, Australia and China in the course of one week.

5) Kellyanne Conway declared on television that Trump’s Muslim ban was to prevent another massacre at Bowling Green, an incident which she claimed was covered by no newspapers. Possibly because it never happened. Some terrorists who resided in Bowling Green were arrested, but they had no plans to launch any assaults on the U.S., and their arrest was indeed thoroughly covered by the media.

6) I have no personal comments on Judge Gorsuch, his nominee for SCOTUS, but I’m getting emails from alarmed Gay and Lesbian organizations who seem to be freaking out about him, so I figure that’s not good.

I have to admit, I’m wondering what in the world he would have to do that would prompt current supporters of his to admit they screwed up. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that his claim that he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue and his backers would not be bothered by it is the single most truthful thing he’s ever said.

PAD

It is fascinating to see how the famous George Santayana quotation, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” is being tossed on its ear since the Trump presidency began. Trump’s actions and choices of advisors has prompted many comparisons to Nazis and Hitler. The coining of “Alternative Facts” drew immediate parallels to “1984” and “Newspeak.” The firing of Sally Yates, who committed the unspeakable crime of saying “No” to a president who was acting in what she believed was an unconstitutional manner–just as she assured Senator Jeff Sessions she would do when she was first being approved for being the assistant AG–caused many to invoke the Saturday Night Massacre of Richard Nixon. So not only is history being attended to, but it is being invoked all over the place.

It is impressive to me how in just ten days Trump has turned this country on its ear. Those who opined that the Trump we saw during the campaign was not an accurate reflection of how he would govern have been proven as wrong as those of us who thought he had no chance of winning the presidency in the first place. His anti-Mexican tirades were supported by his being the first president in thirty years to have no Hispanic or Latino members on his cabinet. His anti-Muslim rants and declaring that he would ban them from entering have been borne out by his actions, although he was considerate enough to ban only Muslims coming from countries where the citizens have killed exactly zero Americans. As opposed to those who brought down the Twin Towers; they’d still have been clear to enter. And by startling coincidence, Trump has business connections to every Muslim country permitted to come to the U.S.

“But it’s necessary!” I’ve been told. “All terrorists are Muslims,” I’m informed, “so we have to ban all of them.” Which I suppose makes sense if you’re willing to admit that since all members of the KKK are white Christian males, we need to ban all White Christian males.

Perhaps the final word on the Muslim ban is reflected in another quotation, this one from Ben Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” The original quote was actually in a very different context, having less to do with Liberty than it did taxes during war time, but subsequent generations found that it spoke in a broader sense than Franklin originally intended, and I’m pretty much fine with that. Sure makes more sense than listening to a Trump tweet.

PAD

Well, 2017 is off to a great gøddámņëd start.

Miguel Ferrer, the son of Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer, has passed away of cancer at the age of 61.

Miguel was a friend. I met him through Bill Mumy and although I haven’t seen him in years, he was never far from my thoughts. I named Miguel O’Hara after him and still remember when my editor challenged me on the fact that his nickname was “Miggy,” declaring that it was not a nickname anyone used for Miguel. Which was hilarious since that was what we all called Miguel.

I’ve been following his acting career for years, back to when he died horribly in “Robocop” as Bob Morton He told me about his death scene in great, enthusiastic detail, so when I actually saw the movie, I was the only person in the theater laughing during that intense scene because all I could envision was Miguel’s recitation of his acting. I visited him and his then-wife at their home, held his infant son Lukas in my arms, chuckling over the fact that he had Miggy’s nose. He played drums in the comic writer/artist band “Seduction of the Innocent.” He was a great guy.

And now he’s gone.

My sympathies to his wife and sons, and to all his friends and extended family.

Yeah, fantastic launch of the year.

PAD

It occurs to me that rather than simply criticize Trump for what he says, thereby adding nothing to the discourse and simply infuriating his followers, I should instead make clear the way a future leader should conduct himself.

What Trump should have said in his Twitter feed is: “I regret that John Lewis believes my presidency is illegitimate. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to working with him and his peers to make America great again.”

That is the proper response for the leader of the free world. Not an assault on the city that the man has represented for decades, and about which Trump himself spoke positively a mere 10 years ago.

PAD