I can’t tell you how happy I am to be sharing my “Random Friday Thoughts” with you again on a regular basis and the feedback has been great. Thank you for not only reading to see what I’m thinking about, but also commenting.
As always, you don’t have to agree with me, but be diplomatic about it if you disagree.
WARNING — THIS IS NOT DIPLOMATIC!!!
This is the response I got earlier this week to last week’s blog explaining why I support Hillary Clinton for president, which featured a photo of my beautiful family.
Pathetic! But, we know there are many people out there like this! Putting ignorance aside, let’s move on…
Here is the blog that brought out the hate: https://anthonypeoples.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/my-teenaged-daughter-a-damn-good-reason-i-support-hillary-clinton/
WHAT I REALLY WANT FOR VALENTINE’S DAY…
Candy is always nice and flowers are beautiful, but here’s how I plan on spending Valentine’s Day — a little snow storm, a few glasses of wine by the fireplace with Ray, and the return of the sixth season of “The Walking Dead” Sunday night!
SNOWY VALENTINE’S DAY
If you live in the Midwest, especially across eastern Iowa and northern Illinois, snow is in the forecast late Saturday night and Sunday.
In the Quad Cities, I’m still expecting 3″ or so of snow that’ll fall mostly on Valentine’s Day.
The snow diminishes to flurries Sunday night and Monday.
CHARLIE SHEEN’S SCARY DR. SAM
There are medications now to make living with HIV more manageable and it’s no longer a death sentence. However, unless someone is hiding information from me and the 37 million people living with HIV and AIDS across the world, there is no (realistic) cure.
In my opinion, actor Charlie Sheen is a poor spokesperson for those living with HIV, even though the high visibility is a good thing. Sheen’s antics since going public with his HIV-positive status has made me shake my head in surprise or shock more than once.
Now, the story is even more insane and bizarre when you find out that he’s associated with an Australian doctor who claims he injected himself with Sheen’s tainted blood and cured the infection with goat milk! Goat milk???
This is how Dr. Sam Chachoua describes himself on Twitter!
I’m not buying into any “effective way to treat” cancer or AIDS. If it was that easy, he’d be winning every award there is for humanity and wouldn’t have to make his claim to fame through the troubled Sheen!
Sad!
ABC NEWS — BLATANTLY SEXIST MOVE
ABC News made a big blunder last Saturday night when hosting a New Hampshire presidential debate by not allowing candidate Carly Fiorina to participate.
While I’m not a fan of Fiorina and I can’t say she wasn’t invited because she is a woman, she had every right to be there.
In the Iowa Caucus last week, she beat Chris Christie in both votes and delegates and got just as many votes and delegates as John Kasich and had the same number of delegates as Jeb Bush.
So, it makes no sense that she wasn’t invited. Jim Gilmore wasn’t invited either, but rightfully so. He picked up only 12 votes in the Iowa Caucus last week and is polling at 0%!
After the New Hampshire Primary Tuesday, both Christie and Fiorina dropped out of the presidential race. Dr. Ben Carson, we’re waiting on you (and Gilmore) next.
TRAIN WRECK INTRODUCTION OF CANDIDATES
Maybe it’s a good thing that Fiorina wasn’t there. The introduction to the ABC News debate looked more like a skit from NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”.
This is hilarious — just as funny as seeing Marco Rubio falling on his face and getting agitated by Christie!
GLENDA JACKSON
Two-time Best Actress Oscar winner Glenda Jackson, now 79, was last seen in a Hollywood movie 24 years ago, but she’s been very busy. She was a member of Parliament from 1992 through March 2015.
She’s gained a new fan in me with her openness. Here are some of the things she recently told “Entertainment Weekly”.
On “12 Years a Slave” winning the Best Picture Oscar and social change: “But how can you say that 12 Years a Slave or Selma has caused a fundamental cultural shift? And then you have these black guys being shot by policemen. Would that the Oscars could change the world but, I’m sorry, it just ain’t true.”
On the media making Donald Trump a viable Republican presidential candidate: “It’s going to come down to what people are prepared to back with their votes, in terms of the status quo, and whether they’ll still go with that nutcase with the worst hair in the world. All that money and you think he could buy himself a decent wig.”
On her Oscar-nominated role in the bisexual love story, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, in which she played a businesswoman in love with an artist (Murray Head), who loves a doctor (Peter Finch). “Best film script I’d ever read.”
“It was about relationships between people who wanted more than they could furnish. And, of course, United Artists was scared to death of it and didn’t know how to sell it. Apologies to Uncle Sam, but in America, they think homosexual affairs are about sex. But they are about love.”
“AMERICAN CRIME”
The first season of ABC’s Emmy-winning series “American Crime” was great and featured a college actor friend of mine, W. Earl Brown, in a major recurring role.
The second season of the drama, airing now, is phenomenal.
Felicity Huffman and Lili Taylor are both superb in their roles as the principal of an elite private school that’s facing a student sex scandal and as the mother of the young man that’s the victim in that scandal, respectively.
However, the standout this season is 21-year-old Canadian actor Connor Jessup. Every moment he’s on camera trying to hold it together and make it through the day, your heart breaks for Taylor.
We’re a little past midway through the ten episode season, so it’s not too late to get caught up. And, since season two is not a continuation of season one, you don’t have to know anything about the first season.
“BURNT”
Bradley Cooper stars in this movie as an acclaimed chef that lost everything because of a drug addiction.
He tries to make a comeback in London, but the road to redemption is not a smooth one.
The foodie in me loved the food porn.
But, while watching the movie, I was also hoping that my chef friend, Monika Sudakov, and the chef I most admire, Grant Achatz, are not like Cooper’s character, Adam Jones, when they’re in a high pressure kitchen making their culinary creations!
GRADE: B
BRETT KISSEL
When you think of Canadian county music stars, I’m sure Shania Twain, Terri Clark, and Anne Murray come to mind. However, the only Canadian male country singer I can think of off the top of my head is Paul Brandt. I love his voice and have some of his earlier American releases.
Recently, I saw the nominations for the Juno Awards and Brett Kissel caught my eye –he’s up against Brandt this year.
So, I went to YouTube and started watching his videos and before I knew it, I bought his fall 2015 release, “Pick Me Up”.
It’s crazy how he’s already had seven Top Ten country hits on the Canadian chart, but is still an unknown here in America. He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, so I hope his American radio debut is coming soon.
“Pick Me Up” is a great country album with a slightly different feel than today’s American hit makers. It’s a real feel that I think is missing from the current bro-country sounds you hear overplayed on U.S. country stations.
The album features the two Canadian hits, “Airwaves” (#1) and the title track (#6), which are both great country songs. My other upbeat favorites are “I Hope It’s Me”, “Cool With That”, and “I Can Play Guitar” (with Hunter Hayes).
If you love ballads, “Why Won’t You” is amazing and “Feet Back on the Ground” is a beautiful tribute to those of us that love our mamas, even if they’re no longer with us!
After buying and loving “Pick Me Up”, I’ll now have to get Kissel’s 2013 album, “Started With a Song”.
Here’s hoping American audiences will get to hear Brett on the radio in 2016!
GRADE: A-
“THE RIVER LIVE TOUR”
In his long career, Bruce Springsteen has done it all and he’s still doing it. There’s a reason he’s called “The Boss”!
His current 42-show concert tour will play America through April and then Europe and Israel this May, June, and July.
It’s called “The River Live Tour” and it’s exactly that — his entire 1980 20-song double album, “The River”, played in sequential order! In addition to that, he also does other songs — about 30 in all in a concert that runs about 3 1/2 hours! The man must be a machine!
Here I’m featuring the first release from “The River” and my favorite Springsteen song, “Hungry Heart”. It was his third Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and his first Top Ten. It peaked at #5.
So, think about it. If any of your favorite artists would perform a full-length album in addition to other hits, who would it be and what album?
Mine would be “Rumor Has It” (1990), “For My Broken Heart” (1991), and “Starting Over” (1995) by Reba McEntire, Madonna and her 1983 self-titled debut, and Toni Braxton’s 1993 self-titled debut.
MORE GLENDA JACKSON IN “ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY”
On her disdain of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when South African President Nelson Mandela visited Parliament in 1996: “I stood to watch Mandela and there was bloody Margaret Thatcher, the woman who had called him a terrorist, sitting in the front row in this big f*cking hat, obstructing the view. Acting like she was doing everybody a f*cking favor by coming there.”
On Hillary Clinton and her presidential run: “I would like to see her become the first female president… the Republicans don’t have anybody who can take her on politically. So it’ll be very ugly.”
THAT’S IT FOR THIS WEEK
I hope you enjoyed the read. Please share your thoughts with me and have a great weekend.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Anthony
What's Peeps Thinking About Now? It's Probably Random! 