As a child of the 70s, I have long considered myself a Star Wars fan, which is why I impulsively decided to follow the link to "The Best Star Wars Trivia Quiz Questions to See How Much You Really Know" at Mental Floss dot com. The quiz has 100 questions, only the first 19 of which are in the category "Classic Trilogy (Episodes IV–VI)." But that's about where my fandom ends, so I figured I'd do pretty well. And I'm happy to report that I did know the name of Han Solo's ship and Luke Skywalker's trainer on Dagobah. But then I got to question 15.

15. What is the Emperor called in The Emperor Strikes Back?

I know I'm getting old, but I don't recall a movie named The Emperor Strikes Back in the "classic trilogy." And I certainly didn't know the answer.

Darth Sidious

Again, I'm old now, but I do remember a Darth Sidious who was the Sith Lord master of Darth Maul and later (after Maul gets cut in half) Darth Tyrannus and later (after Tyrannus gets decapitated) Darth Vader. (As Luke's trainer says of the Sith, "Always two there are. No more, no less." By which he clearly means a top half and a bottom half.) Darth Sidious was the evil alter ego of Sheev Palpatine, the representative of the planet Naboo in the Galactic Senate who manipulated events to rise to Supreme Chancellor before disbanding the Senate and ruling the galaxy as Emperor. So, yeah, Darth Sidious and the Emperor are the same person, but technically speaking, since Sidious wasn't introduced as a character until the fourth Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace, no one called the Emperor that in any of the "classic trilogy" films, especially one that doesn't exist. (Point of fact: the prequels played so coy about Palpatine/Sidious's future as "The Emperor" that I have often wondered if Lucas expected contemporary audiences to be unaware they were all the same person.)

So I call bullshit. But what else should I expect from a piece of Internet clickbait in the post-truth culture in which we now live, where every major technology and media company has turned their content engines over to poorly curated supervised LLMs that "hallucinate" up to half their facts? The fault is clearly mine for expecting reality to live up to my fantasies of living in a more civilized age.

Happy May 4th to those who celebrate.

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121/2553. Saturday Night (2024)
Just like Unfrosted, I very much enjoyed this obviously fictionalized semi-historical story, an "inspired by true events" tale of the first Saturday Night Live episode determined to squeeze in as much of the early show's lore as it can manage. Think of it as a worthwhile celebration of the founding of an American institution.

122/2554. The Willoughbys (2020)
A Netflix suggestion I'd never heard of. It has the feel of a film adapted from a children's book, though as I learned, the source is a YA novel, not an illustrated art book. It's cute.

123/2555. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
This story has exposition, rising action, and then the animated equivalent of an escape from Cloud City. I've often defended Empire Strikes Back as having the best world-building of any Star Wars film, but maybe I've been overly kind to its ending. This film has a similar structure (with a somewhat stupider set of villains), and I found the lack of any plot resolution very, very irritating.

124/2556. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
A triumph of style over substance, by which I specifically mean plot and art design over characterization. The entire human race faces extinction, and all the potential victims are kept at such arm's length from the audience, it's hard to give a shit that their pocket universe is set to be pruned by a purple giant who eats babies. It's a crime that FF are presented as icons, not the endearingly dysfunctional family of charismatic, relatable people that sold bunches of comics in the 1960s.

125/2557. 'G' Men (1935)
The film that gave FBI agents their nickname is worth watching only because Jimmy Cagney (as a former gangster turned federal policeman) is always worth watching.

126/2558. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Friend James described this movie as "2% fight in a minivan in a forest and 98% not worth watching." I might adjust those odds slightly in the minivan's favor, but only slightly. It really is just a bunch of nostalgic fan service for preexisting Marvel stans. (And seriously, you'll never convince me that anyone has ever really liked Gambit.)

More to come.

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Recent circumstances conspired to take away my TCM but grant me a month of Netflix access. So, at the recommendation of Friend Ken, I started at the top:

104/2536. KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
If you wondered why Google reported that 6 of the top 10 Halloween costumes for 2025 were characters from this movie, the answer is simple: it's good. Very good. So good, in fact, I cannot believe that Sony and Netflix didn't negotiate a more traditional box office release. The creators learned all the right lessons from George Lucas's usual box of tricks, taking inspiration from a bunch of long pre-existing concepts and designs, blending them into a story of good versus evil in a lived-in world, and pouring the results into a time-tested, character-first dramatic format that is comfortable and rewarding to viewers. For extra Star Wars vibes: like Fox in '77, Netflix seemed totally unprepared for the flood of demands for kids' merchandise. History may not repeat itself, but it sure as hell stutters.

As amazing as John Williams is, what Star Wars does not have is pop songs. It's no accident that the Kpop soundtrack has had a very catchy (and plot advancing) song from the fictional Huntr/x at the top of the Billboard global charts for 15 weeks and counting. A song, I'll point out, that has a one-word title:

Golden

Kudos to all involved; I hope you like printing money. (Count me in for a Derpy Tiger Funko Pop! figure, if ya'll can ever actually get them to market.)

More to come.

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I've almost finished my latest painting. Henry tells me it's pretty good.

And that's why dogs are a man's best friend.

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When I started this painting, I was trying to have it done by May Fourth. But, as a wise puppet once said, "Do or do not. There is no try." And I did not.

However, in honor of Star Wars Day, I'll make my apologies with this here recent-ish picture of the work in progress.

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'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare wrote those lines in 1597,^[1] by which time Greenland had been called "Greenland" for 611 years,^[2] which I mention only to give perspective to the following bill introduced this week into the United States Congress,^[3] itself founded 173 years after Shakespeare died.

---

119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1161

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 10, 2025

Mr. [Earl L. "Buddy"] Carter of Georgia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025”.

SEC. 2. Purchase or other acquisition of Greenland.

The President is authorized to enter into negotiations with the Government of Denmark to purchase or otherwise acquire Greenland.

SEC. 3. Renaming of Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(a) Renaming.—Greenland shall be known as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(b) References.—Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to Greenland shall be deemed to be a reference to “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(c) Implementation.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Chairman of the Board on Geographic Names, shall oversee the implementation of the renaming described in subsection (a) with respect to each Federal document and map.

(2) REQUIREMENT.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the head of each Federal agency shall update each document and map of the Federal agency in accordance with the renaming described in subsection (a).

---

I wish I could say that this bill is the dumbest thing we will see in 2025, but we all know better.^[4]

We are now living in a theater of the absurd. It's only a matter of time before someone actually makes their horse a senator.

Here's drink. I drink to thee.

^[1] Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 38-44. (You know, the balcony scene.)

^[2] "Grœnland" is the name given by tenth century Norse colonizers, but there is no record of what the previous inhabitants called it, and the current "natives" are actually newer settlers than the Vikings. At what point does the colonizer become the native? As an American who can trace my ancestry back to the American Revolution, I can only say that I don't know.

^[3] Source: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161/text

^[4] I mean, for one thing, a man convicted of 34 state felonies, found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation, and charged with fomenting rebellion against the federal government and stealing classified documents from the federal government has been sworn-in as president, and in just the past six weeks we've witnessed, in no particular order, the United States under his direction withdrawing from the World Health Organization; sanctioning the International Criminal Court; starting trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and Columbia; threatening Panama, Greenland, and Denmark; buying-out the contracts of an estimated 75,000 government employees without the funding to do so; ending the corruption prosecution of the mayor of New York City accused of taking bribes from Turkey; ordering the Army Corp of Engineers to fight future fires in Los Angeles by releasing water from California dams into streams that do not reach Los Angeles; blaming an airliner crash in Washington DC on handicapped people; re-renaming Mount McKinley and Fort Bragg; firing 17 Inspectors General in the Executive branch; pledging to permanently displace all Palestinians so that Gaza can be turned into "the Riviera of the Middle East"; banning Constitutionally-granted birthright citizenship; eradicating "anti-Christian bias in government" before demanding an apology from a bishop for suggesting the president show mercy to marginalized communities; ending the "weaponization of the federal government" by appointing a man with an enemies list of "conspirators" to be FBI Director, blocking all transgendered people from the military; ordering colleges to give medals to non-transgendered athletes; refusing to enforce the anti-bribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because its bad for business; selling meme coins; restarting Ronald Regan's Star Wars missile defense project; removing any reference to climate change from the Department of Agriculture; freezing Congress-allotted funding agencies including FEMA, USAID, EPA, CDC, NIH, CFPB, NOAA and others; axing any mention of "Diversity," "Equity," and "Inclusion" from government websites and databases (with sometimes hilarious results); ignoring election pledges to take action on inflated grocery prices; assuring Russia that Ukraine will never join NATO; replacing the board of the Kennedy Center with loyalists so that the president could be elected chair in order to stop "wokey" productions; appointing an accused statutory rapist to Attorney General, an anti-vaxxer to lead Health and Human Services, a conspiracy-theorist to lead National Intelligence, an avowed dog-killer to lead Homeland Security, an accused alcoholic to lead Defense, and the world's richest man to lead deregulation efforts in the name of "Government Efficiency"; and, of course, pardoning everyone involved in the January 6 riot. Note that I did not mention getting rid of the penny; it is well past time for the penny to go (although the president doesn't actually have the power to do that). At least he hasn't gassed any protesters again... yet. It's going to be a very long four years.

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Can you guess what my next painting is going to be?

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Earlier this year, friend Keith suggested that instead of blogging, I should just post my text messages. So here you go, Keith. This was today's conversation with friend Ken.

For the record, according to StarWars.com, the Death Star's planet-destroying superlaser (more specifically identified as a Concave Dish Composite Beam Superlaser on Wookiepedia, [starwars.fandom.com]) "was powered by a hypermatter reactor, which would generate the destructive reaction that was then focused through eight giant kyber crystals." Which doesn't really answer the question of how large its capacitors were.

The Star Trek Technological Assessment (st-v-sw.net) analysis of the weapon's 8 tributary focusing beams concluded that they could not have been less than 25 meters in diameter. Which is big. Again, not an exact answer, but it's safe to say any bank of Death Star capacitors would have had to have been somewhat larger than the 70MFD capacitor you'd find in a Genie garage door opener.

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One of the best parts of the annual Little League World Series on ESPN is seeing how the latest crop of 10- to 12-year-olds answer the questionnaire about their likes and dislikes. I've never played organized baseball, but because I'm an egotist, I wonder how I would answer those questions if I was in their place, by which I mean how would I have answered these questions when I was 12... in 1987. Let's find out together!

1. What is your favorite MLB team?
Atlanta Braves. (Yes, they were the local team, but I actually liked pro baseball in 1987. I went to games a few times a year until the strike of 1994, which completely killed any desire I had to watch MLB games. I haven't been back since. I'm not mad about it anymore; I've moved on to just not caring.)

2. Who is your favorite MLB player or non-MLB athlete?
Bruce Benedict, catcher, Atlanta Braves (because when the Fulton County Stadium announcer called his name, the crowd howled "Bruuuuuuuuuuuce!").

3. What is your favorite movie?
Star Wars. (Don't ask which one. Everyone knows there's only one Star Wars.)

4. What is your favorite television show?
Bionic Six. (You have probably never heard of Bionic Six. It wasn't even popular in my school at the time. But I still occasionally use Rock-1's catchphrase: "So-LAR!")

5. Who is your favorite actor?
Han Solo I mean, Harrison Ford. (Note: This was almost Michael J. Fox because Family Ties and Back to the Future, but it was not because Teen Wolf. And Han Solo was also Indiana Jones, so he wins.)

6. Who is your favorite artist?
"Weird Al" Yankovic. (It might still be "Weird Al" Yankovic.)

7. Who is the person you'd most like to meet?
"Weird Al" Yankovic. (It is definitely still "Weird Al" Yankovic.)

8. What is your favorite food?
The french fries that came with a Chili's Oldtimer. (The Chili's on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain is where my parents would take me on special occasions, like birthdays. The chain is a shadow of its former shadow, but back in the day, their french fries and chocolate shakes were *amazing*.)

9. What is your favorite animal?
I've always really liked dogs, but I don't know that's what I would have said in 1987. My family had a Scottish Terrier named Jammie back then. Jammie was great. So let's just say I would have said dogs.

10. What is your favorite emoji?
The only emoji that existed in 1987 was a smiley face, so even though I hated it, I guess... smiley face?

11. What is your dream job?
Architect. (Given that I didn't know much about construction, I suspect that was largely due to Hollywood using "architect" as shorthand for someone who had a job that was creative, lucrative, and allowed plenty of free time. That "dream" would die when I ran into high school calculus.)

12. What is your favorite hobby?
Collecting comic books. (Some things never change.)

13. What is your favorite school subject?
By far, my favorite subject was whatever we were doing in my "gifted" class, which was essentially a period of structured creativity practice, like math games and creative writing. (Do they not have gifted classes in schools outside Georgia? None of these modern Little Leaguers ever answer "gifted class." Although, come to think of it, none of us were great athletes, either.)

14. Do you have a special talent?
Drawing. (I suppose that's been supplanted by "sarcasm." Although, come to think of it, I always had a bit of a smart mouth. At my 7th grade graduation, when my elementary school principal told the assembled cafetorium that my class was all such good well behaved kids, he made a point of looking me in the eye when he appended "most of you." So maybe always "sarcasm.")

15. What would you do if you win the lottery?
Honestly, I have no idea how I would have answered this In 1987. The kids often like to say they'd buy cars, but I was never really a car guy. Money was... an issue between my parents (who wouldn't divorce until 1990), so I probably just would have given it to them. After I bought a bunch of comic books, of course.

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57/2368. American Graffiti (1973)
I avoided this movie for years in part because I expected it to be the worst kind of nostalgia trip. It is indeed what I thought it was, but it also has a truly great cast, and the soundtrack is even better than advertised. I've got to give it to George Lucas, he really knows how to give audiences what they want when he wants to. (Which makes those later Star Wars movies even more baffling.)

Coke note: For a movie built on pure, distilled 1950s Americana, Coca-Cola is conspicuously hard to find. It only appears in a mini-golf snack shop intentionally obscured from the camera because it was obviously part of the actual snack shop and not paid product placement. (The "Frozen Coca-Cola" logo dates to 1969, an anachronism in a movie that takes place in 1962. Obviously.) What, did Coke want a cut of the box office?

58/2369. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Clearly the wrong lessons were learned from Ragnarok. The key theme of both the the A and B plots in this film are squarely focused on death, or more specifically, how to come to terms with surviving the death of loved ones. I think this is what makes the incessant, juvenile antics of Thor and company land so badly. There's just too much happening that's too heavy for the audience to enjoy casually tossed-off punchlines (mostly about destruction) and a badly underrealized visit to God City (which should be a movie in itself).

59/2370. The Hateful Eight (2015)
When I reviewed Django Unchained, I mentioned that it felt plodding. This movie moves half as fast, but since it is set up like a horror film (wearing the skin a Western), the slow pace is actually its strongest asset. (Perhaps because of Kurt Russell's presence, it becomes clear pretty quickly that John Carpenter's The Thing is the style template here.) The overriding theme in Tarantino's best work is the fluid state between trust and betrayal (the guy must have issues), and all roads lead here. Very good, I'd say; among Tarantino's best.

60/2371. MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)
This is a documentary about how a company germinated by a good idea was killed by greed. It is a very American story, but it's clear even the filmmakers don't think anyone will learn any lessons from it.

61/2372. Scott Joplin (1977)
Billy Dee Williams plays the King of Ragtime in a period piece biography heavy on the syphilis. The movie is not great -- the director is unable to rise above its made-for-television feel -- but Billy Dee is.

More to come.

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