Cleaning out the attic

Synchronicity, y'all.  Earlier today I (facetiously, I admit) proposed that Time put Dolly Parton on its Entity of the Year cover, just because I want to see Trump's face on her unmistakable body.  I want him to be gone and a subject for psychobiographers by then, but I'm not what you'd call a cockeyed optimist.  Turns out Parton has been on other people's minds, too, like Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-TN).  He proposes to take the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest out of the Tennessee state capitol, which is a great idea on its own, and replace it with one of Dolly Parton.  Forrest was three times a bastard -- seditious general, war criminal (murderer of prisoners of war at the battle of Fort Pillow) and founder of the Ku Klux Klan.  Dolly, on the other hand, is a singer-songwriter, an actor, the founder of Dollywood, and a hell of a saxophone player.  (She regaled the Glastonbury Festival, Britain's annual Woodstock of bad weather and primitive plumbing, with a rendition of "Yackety Sax" that got everybody up out of the mud and dancing.)

I'm totally behind this, Congressman, even though you probably supported that law to prevent municipal governments in Tennessee from taking down grisly relics of people like Forrest on public land.  Memphis came up with a perfectly brilliant plan to rid itself of his ugly statue -- even the horse was ugly, which takes determination on the part of the sculptor.  They sold the park to a non-profit which agreed to keep operating it as a park, and in the dead of night they sent in the heavy equipment and moved the monument off the now privatized land.  Wherever it is, you can stick the bust there, too.  Bring on Dolly!

I got some bad news today, too -- looks like Mikhail Bulgakov's comic novel The Master and Margarita will finally be filmed, by Baz Luhrmann.  Because the complete pig's breakfast he made of The Great Gatsby wasn't enough of an insult to twentieth century fiction.  Could someone tell him about books that come pre-trashed, like the work of Dan Brown?  Or does Opie have a lock on all of those?  Also, the author's first name is pronounced "Mee-ka-eel," not "McHale."  That annoys the hell out of me.  Spasibo.

Everything you've read about The Irishman is true.  See it anyway, preferably on Netflix in digestible segments.  Yes, it's too long.  Yes, it's based on Frank Sheeran's unreliable memoir and the history probably wouldn't pass the Snopes.com test.  Yes, the computer wizardry can make DeNiro look like a younger man but it can't make him move like one, especially when he's called upon to brutalize a grocer.  Yes, Harvey Keitel and Bobby Cannavale get important billing, but turn away to peel a banana (you'll need sustenance) and you could miss them altogether.  Yes, Stephen Graham is so good as Anthony Provenzano that I now have to see Boardwalk Empire (Al Capone) again.  And yes, I would buy the soundtrack by Robbie Robertson just for the period songs, a Scorsese trademark.  Not that I care about awards but I think it's technically possible this could win an Oscar and an Emmy, which would be weird.

I thought I was done being angry about the Vietnam War and the psychopaths (there's no other word) who kept it going long after they knew it was futile.  Last night I stumbled on a YouTube video of Hamilton Gregory discussing his book McNamara's Folly, and I wanted to smash things all over again.  I thought I was cynical, but I can't even play second string on Big Mac's team.  Bastard.