Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! As for me? I don't get to celebrate being a cat-dad... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Tokio! I first heard of the German band Tokio Hotel years ago when I was in Italy, I think. They were getting some notice from their debut album Schrei (probably because they were so young when they recorded it). It's a dang good album if you like hard rock. Fast-forward to yesterday and I happened across a new song from them called When We Were Younger which was quite surprising for three reasons. 1) It's in English. 2) It's pure pop. 3) It's actually really good, and I've been playing it on repeat for a day now...
Great, right? But it's the end where they say "Together since 2001" where it kinda gets you. All those photos are of the band as kids... essentially growing up before your eyes...
I love stuff like this.
• Smooth! Welp. Cooper Raiff has 1000% done it again. How he manages to not take the easy or expected route... but still manages to create such satisfying movies is beyond me. All this and he's actually a really good actor on top of of being an exceptional writer and director. The setup for Cha Cha Real Smooth is like films you've seen dozens of times before... and yet the payoff is so much better because it's not like films you've seen dozens of times before. You end up feeling completely different about some characters at the end than you did in the beginning, and that takes true talent to accomplish because most times when this is attempted it just feels so fake and unearned.
In both Shithouse and Cha Cha Real Smooth there's that one scene which really crushes you. And in Cha Cha Real Smooth you never see it coming. Really looking forward to whatever Cooper Raiff does next.
• She's a Beauty! Well, you are (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...
@callmegrand You are beautiful❤️ from “Man of the World”
♬ Sunroof - Nicky Youre & dazy
Ukrainian and Czech are close enough to Russian that I got those. I haven't studied Japanese in forever, but that one was easy. I thought I would have had a shot at Chile, Puerto Rico, and Spain... but the only other one I got was USA!
• Raise the Roof! I've never been to The Palace theater in New York City. But I have stayed at The Doubletree hotel that was built around it. I had read a while ago that they were planning on doing something extraordinary... raise The Palace 30 feet in the air so they can build a new hotel and entertainment complex around it. That's now been completed, and how they went about it is fascinating...
I'm not a "Broadway guy" but I admit to wanting to see how this all works out. It all looks pretty darn incredible.
• Oh Jodie! I missed the entire last season of Graham Norton because Philo didn't record it. On the episode I'm watching now, Coldplay is singing "My Universe" (with a cool BTS video background) and it's great. BUT THE BEST PART is that Coldplay super-fan Jodie Whittaker from Doctor Who was on the show, and this happened...
After it was over, they went back to the couch and Jodie mentioned that she has her alarm set for next week so she can try to get tickets for when Coldplay is playing Wembley. Well, needless to say, Jodie now has tickets to go to see ColdPlay. And it will be one of the greatest missed opportunities ever if they don't get her on stage!
• Seriously? BWAH HA HA HA HAAAAA! no.
• This time... There's a very good sleight of hand magician on TikTok named Mat Franco who is constantly having to re-do his tricks because people believe that he's not being honest about what he's doing. Like this one, for example (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...
@matfrancomagic Reply to @everythingballard ♬ original sound - Mat Franco
And here we go again (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...
@matfrancomagic Reply to @dembirdsbedirty ♬ nhạc nền - AK乂Duty
Fortunately, the guy is patient enough to keep humoring everybody. But you'd think that eventually people would just enjoy the show.
• Pixar! I responded to a meme where people were ranking all the Pixar films. My Top 5 hadn't changed in years... until Luca came out, which I loved...
Yeah, not a fan of the Cars films. But even a bad Pixar film is better than most.
And now back to your regularly scheduled Sunday.
As a kid, I was obsessed with magic. I saw all those David Copperfield specials on TV and dreamed of being a magician just like him. Whether he was walking through the Great Wall of China or making a Learjet disappear or vanishing the Statue of Liberty, he made the magic of magic entirely too cool.
My attempts at becoming a magician were not terribly successful (as you probably guessed). My parents were really supportive about it... ordering magic sets from the Sears & Roebuck catalog for Christmases and birthdays... but all of the mass-produced toy crap in the world wasn't going to turn me into a master magician.
Don't tell that to me at the time though.
I was convinced that all I really needed to be successful was the latest and greatest magic set. It all culminated with "The Magic Hat," which was a fairly expensive toy that I was certain would get me my own television special when I saw it in the catalog...
Photo Credit: thargoids/eBay UK
But when it arrived, it was pretty shitty. The "hat" was hard plastic... and heavy. There was no way you could ever actually wear it. The tricks were crap as well. There was a hidden compartment for a wand in the sides that was obvious... a hidden swing-door compartment in the bottom that wouldn't fool anybody who bothered to look at it... and it had a tank in it so you could pour in a glass of water which would "disappear" that you could then pump out with a hidden bladder under the band. Awful, awful stuff.
Eventually I graduated to more professional tricks. Most of which were purchased from a magic shop hidden away in Seattle's Pike Place Market. Well, I say they were professional, but they were pretty much crap as well. You'd get a plastic baggy with some kind of prop inside that came with instructions mimeographed on colored paper. Perhaps tons of practice would make the investment pay off down the road, but I guess I wasn't patient enough.
Eventually my obsession with performing magic died out (as most obsessions do) and I went on to whatever was next. I still enjoyed watching magic though.
At least I did until Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed started airing in 1997. It revealed how all the most famous tricks were done and all the magic kind of died after that.
But magic was always in the back of my mind. Whether it was seeing a Penn & Teller show in Las Vegas or seeing their television show Fool Us... or watching shows like Deception (now canceled) which had magic at its core... there was always something magical going on somewhere.
The latest is a Netflix show from Justin Willman called Magic for Humans which is pretty great...
Another show on Netflix that approaches magic from an entirely different angle? Magicians: Life in the Impossible. It's actually a bit depressing, but interesting as well...
What I really need right now is not magic... it's some kind of miracle to save us from all this smoke. Two weeks of feeling sick and not being able to sleep is more than enough.
Use the fourth, you... because Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Forced. It's Star Wars Day! "May the Fourth" be with you!
• Neutral. I have written about the importance of net neutrality many, many times (the latest is here), and it still completely boggles my mind how people just don't seem to care. The FCC, whose job it should be to ensure a free and open internet took a huge crap all over the American people when FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler came out in support of abandoning true net neutrality. This is a horrendous fucking blow to the internet, and I am disgusted to my very core that President Obama, WHO CONSISTENTLY PROMISED TO DEFEND NET NEUTRALITY DURING HIS CAMPAIGN, remains silent on the matter. When are these politician assholes going to remember that THEY FUCKING WORK FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE? Oh... that would be never. Because companies with deep pockets are throwing a fuck-ton of money at them to get what they want. Democrats, Republicans, or whatever... our politicians work for lobbyists and corporate greed, not US citizens, and anybody who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. So, yeah... go ahead and buy into the artificial wall of hate created to divide and distract everybody... that's exactly what the people who really control this country want. In the meanwhile, say goodbye to the internet as we know it.
• Magic. I don't know if this can be considered cruel or not... but dogs being fooled by close-up magic is sure funny...
The reactions are priceless. I'm kinda amazed at how many of the dogs grasp the effects of gravity enough to think the treat must have fallen to the floor. Here's part two.
• Burrito. BECAUSE I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF!"
Videos like this are what the internet was made for.
• Stacked. So... apparently competitive cup-stacking is a thing...
Kind of a really cool thing. A search on YouTube turns up all kinds of fascinating cup-foolery.
Now, if you'll excuse me, if I don't have those units in the south range repaired be midday, there'll be hell to pay!
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