Mister Rogers' Philosophy

Note*  Before you read this blog, make sure you're viewing on a system that can watch video and/or YouTube, otherwise the end is pointless.  Thanks. - MC

 

 So some kids in the '70s grew up with PBS.  I did.  Science shows in the afternoon as I learned amoebas battling paramecium in real-time through microscopes, and, of course, kids' shows such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company (great and not-so-great actors came from that show), and, iconically, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood which ran just a year prior of Jim Henson's masterwork in 1968 onto 2001 when Fred Rogers retired.
 

  Rumors existed with shifty eyes of Mr. Rogers being a Marine sniper in WW-II though he never served in the military, nor was he a child molester in any way (sad how society attacks the soft-spoken).  He was ordained as a minister, however, and grew up in Pittsburgh.  Angry that children's television sucked in the late '60s he started a show that focused on basic philosophy, music, and teaching kids how to use imagination as a device for creativity. 

  I always thought it was a baby show for under age 3 because of its rudimentary simplicity, yet that, along with the aforementioned shows were almost required viewing education back then.  Mister Rogers' Neighborhood?  I didn't like it after age 5 whatsoever, and I barely even glanced at it after age 9.  These shows lingered for years, Sesame Street having some in-jokes and stayed progressive with the times but, these things that are building-blocks are not really offered now, and kids are spastic because of the lack.  I meet kids who grew up with Barney the Dinosaur instead and, well, they ended up as @&*#-tards.  I've work with some of them in my life.  Sad bunch, their parents allowing them to watch stupid, meaningless shows like TeleTubbies and similar, which have no value and don't make any sense or teach basic concepts vital to early development.  Simply eye-candy and a babysitter so mommy can have wine at 2pm.

  The US Government has seized control of the Children's Television Workshop and had, I suspect, a heavy hand in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood eventually.  It's rather apparent in Sesame Street, I suspect probably when Mr. Snuffleupagus (Big Bird's imaginary friend, which created an "okay" for kids to actually have an imaginary friend adults cannot see for a short while, which is normal in child development from time-to-time before kindergarten) was finally seen and accepted by adults around season 17 in 1985.  This was actually used because of the show 20/20 at the time focusing on child molestation and how adults would never believe children even though it was the truth of things and the show was pressed to change that.  Sigh.  Again, the complexity of the twisted adult world ruining a simple thing Jim Henson was trying to convey, and, well, in my opinion, it all went downhill from there, "Jumping the Shark" as it were.

  I digress.  In looking back at a philosophical level, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was actually pretty decent, if not a bit "pussy" and almost too safe and gentle, it had very good concepts and honest purity, though it's easy to consider Mister McFealy the mustached postman bringing 8mm short reels to Fred which they'd watch down in the basement of children playing with light piano music even makes me cringe a little, but I lost that innocence years ago like most adults as we've seen the corrupt do their deeds in news and paper, and we as corrupt minds no matter how we try cannot barely believe that two men can simply enjoy the simplicity of the joy of a child playing in happiness without some subtext.  Yet, it was pure and true, and you can dissect it all you want, but there's no subtext.  It'd be easy to select a dart here or there, but the bulls-eye isn't where you think, it's back behind you, at your childhood, where a religious man isn't corrupt but honest, pure, both philosophically and theologically.  Hard to believe, but it was true.  He was a good, honest man throughout, and despite a ton of scrutiny.  He was not gay or a closet-gay, he didn't molest children, he didn't have any weird-o freaky hang-ups.  It's hard to believe he was so pure a man.  I had a real hard time with it, but amazingly, despite our doubts, indeed, he stayed a man of God more than any of us until his passing in 2003.

  Please consider this PBS-produced(!) philosophical summary-homage.  It's worthy, and it made me ponder on a deeper level.

                                  

Hulu Ads

  So now that the entire US has switched to Hulu for their source of TV as it's far more convenient and 1/20th the price of Cable or Dish-based systems, we're all subjected to "Hulu Ads".  Usually, these ads are repetitive.  Not too big a deal, but when I watch something media-wise, I watch it.  I don't go to the movies to "not think".  Some people get fussy with me because they say things like, "Aw, Mike, can't you just watch a movie to be entertained?  When I go to a movie, I don't want to have to think."  I'm sad for these people.  I think they're dead inside.  Somewhere, at some time, they gave up in Life.  They've lost their sense of wonder, their sense of wanting, longing, needing to find out the why of things, the how of things.  These people never look up and consider the Arabic iterations of constellations in the night sky versus Norse or our own versions, or consider ancient civilizations sending Aldus-lamp signals to us by laser, now thousands of years antiquated and probably long-since demised due to the delay of light-travel or radio-waves... plus they have iPhones, voted Obama, and are empty, lifeless husks, fillers on this Earth to breed and create matter and ruin a perfectly good planet with their diseased minds.  All except for some guy named Dave.  He's pretty okay.


  So I watch Hulu and enjoy shows that don't suck as much, like Firefly and the most recent season of Saturday Night Live now that Tina Fey is gone they've rediscovered their "Mojo" and, actually, it's quite good again.  A bit of a Renaissance for them, which is nice.  Particularly good is Bill Hader's "Stephon Myers" who's a city correspondent of the club-scene that has a bit of a Harvey Corman habit of accidentally breaking his comedic bearing by laughing during the skits.  As he reads the rehearsed cue-cards, some are altered for the final cut to his surprise as he reads them and it enhances his loss-of-bearing.  Also, dimpled Kate McKinnon is a girl you just want to knock unconscious and play "Lambs" with and try not to get arrested. 

  One of the problems with this mild $4.99 pay service is that you have to endure a scant few commercials; not always however though.  It sometimes vocalizes, "Which ad-experience do you prefer?"  Sometimes it does not!  If you watch a show that's ancient, there's very few ad agencies willing to shovel-out the dough to have placement there, particularly if it's unpopular.  One such example is Michael Pare (of Streets of Fire and Eddie and the Cruisers fame) in Starhunter.  No commercials there, nor in Space Rangers with Clint Howard (of Ice Cream Man and Star Trek's original series second best episode "The Corbomite Maneuver") and Linda Hunt (of Dune).  Some of the commercials are relevant to me, most are not.  What's nice is that you can actually decide if the commercial "ad" (like Apple renaming a program an "app"lication to make it.. um.. better I guess, though no less virus-prone) is something you might like.  What's cool about this is the "ads" start to suck less.



Kirk is distracted constantly by his lust for Yeoman Rand.  McCoy realizes this early on and has her transferred to another ship behind his back in Star Trek's "The Corbomite Maneuver" (November 1966)

  So, of course, I'm going to pick the same things Tony Stark likes, such as booze, chicks, fast cars and bikes, (and unlike him, all things Burger King-a-riffic) as well as funny ones I have no idea what the ad is about in the first place (I love those because they're not readily apparent and usually fail at the main theme of getting you to buy-in to their product in the same way a religious friend once played a Christian-rock song to me and I told him it was so bad it makes me want to pray to Satan it failed so badly to his horror!)  Indeed, some commercials are so bad, you want to do the opposite.  McDonald's is a prime example of this.  I ain't lovin' it and I don't know to what corporate level they're working their commercials but it doesn't resonate with anyone, pals.  Corporate FAIL.  You're all fired!  (except for Jack Napier.. he's doin' just fine)..

 
  I'm able to click "Yes" for "Is this commercial relevant to you?" in the top right corner.  I'm able to eventually get everything I want to see so that the commercials are more eye-candy to me than actual commercials, which is neet.  What's troubling though is that sometimes the commercials are somewhat what I want to see, such as fast, awesome cars, but it's a minivan commercial with kids in the back.  Tricky, because, sure, the minivan is red which suggests I like exciting cars, but at the same time it's, well, a minivan which indicates a male has given up on Life and his testosterone and his soul for convenience and probably has an iPod and like Milton's red Swingline stapler is the last bit of "cool" (it being red) he's clinging to desperately like a dying insect and honestly, those and SUVs (minivans disguised as trucks on cheap car platforms) are not what I'm interested in.  So it's tricky sometimes.  If I click "Yes" then the commercial algorithm might think I like minivans, kids, and other pansy shit I could care less about, like making sure I have room for seven (I don't even KNOW seven people, let alone have them pile into my POS-of-an-SUV that S-U-X!);  nor perhaps a dogfood commercial that's full of "natural grains" when in-fact a dog has canine teeth (hence the sub-family) and is a carnivore not an herbivore lest it malnourish and wither, and left to its own devices would eat mice, rabbits, or in packs "small children" and not an organic bowl of gay.

 
  So I try to outsmart the algorithm blindly.  It's easy if they show something like a Corvette ZR1 commercial.  Sure, I wanna see more of that, or a Mountain Dew commercial, or some hot chick eating ice cream in slow motion messily like she has Down Syndrome.  I get trapped though when it's a Neutrogena commercial though, because it's Jennifer Garner or perhaps Sofia Vergara pushing Diet Pepsi, or if it's a Toyota Corolla commercial?  Well, I don't like those as they're A to B cars and not sports cars, but if I don't choose it, will the algorithm think I don't like cars as a whole?  I'm not really interested in certain specific product per-se but the concept is there.. getting "warmer", Mr.Algorithm...  So what do I do?

  Sometimes, in these tough cases, I click the "Yes" option, but mostly I let it ride and don't react.  It's too much of a trap.  I definitely click "No" to things like Target showing me kids' clothes or two gay dudes jousting then I'm not going to get on that bandwagon.

  I think I've trained Hulu Plus enough that it isn't giving me too many bad "ads" now, and it's nice I can mold it.  To make sure, sometimes I'll click the "open in new window" ad experience full in-your-face like Back to the Future II style so that Hulu Plus will get real excited and play way more of those.  Now if only Hulu Plus had Adrianne Barbeau in a Lamborghini eating Burger King messily with way too much lip gloss while X-Wing fighters were shooting down Smaug with Wolverine on the dragon's back smashing through the plated scales! 

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

"I'm gonna cwyyyyyy!" muses Zachary "I'm Out" "Sylar" "Dr. Crybaby-bitch" Quinto

  So firstly, everyone knows I'm a sci-fi fan and absolutely LOVE all movies, even bad ones such as Manos: Hands of Fate, and I watched Star Trek: Into Darkness which compared to what it was inspired by, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: In Search of Spock, was a bit kiddy but still pretty fun and more "Buck Rogers" than "Star Trek" and... a little gay (why is every guy crying in this freakin' film?  Who does that?) 



Original Star Trek: Wrath of Khan was far superior in scope and acting.

 
 The originals were Shakespearean like "Othello" with the grandiose acting and drama while these are little more than Archie Digest Comics but, in this generation, which I call "Generation Twitchy-Gay" suits it just fine, and, honestly, it wasn't horrible, though I could have done without the 3D (actually, I did, because Abrams wanted to install LED flashlights constantly burning your retinas attached to the 3d-glasses for extra lens-flare.. what's up with that horrible, horrible starship-deck design by Apple Inc.?  Really?  Mercury-halide lamps aimed directly at your eyes ON the walls?) 



Abrams, demanding more lens flare from the mercury-halide 1000-watt wall-light fixtures!  "MORE LENS FLARE!" he bitches.

 Also, I watched Iron Man 3 which I prefer to call the film Tony Stark One as it focuses on just about everything but Iron Man, and it pretty much was the movie The Incredibles by Pixar if you think about it too much.  Still, decent if you like dialogue.  So few kids do these days in favor of blinky-lights.

Obama's administration makes people think that this is a good costume.  Children realize parental voting failure early.

  Can't wait till Avengers 2 comes out.. someday.  Joss Whedon's a fantastic director.  Everyone should watch the short-lived major-fanbased Firefly, as well as watch the motion-comic he did in a 4-part series, The Astonishing X-Men (but not until after Wolverine and the X-Men as it's chronological.)



Actual footage of Avengers 2 pre-release, 2015.

  Waiting for any other "blockbuster" to come out, such as The Wolverine or Superman (DC Comics trying to get back onboard while Marvel is doing fantastically) I went to see After Earth since Tom Cruise's Oblivion (not to be confused with Phantasm: OblIVion which I suspect will be better) is not quite out at the "Dollar Theater" at Citadel Crossing yet, nor is it on Netflix or Bluray yet either).  I was warned by Rotten Tomatoes that it was a real loser of a film, getting a 12% fresh rating; still, I went anyway.  So the movie premise is actually very Star Trek-ian in the sense that Will Smith (who I generally dislike due to his extremely brash goofiness and egocentricity in the same vein as Adam Sandler who also is the demigod-like hero in his films) plays as a Vulcan-like character by necessity because the alien enemy feeds off of pheromones for detection of humans.  Over generations, human soldiers begin to be able to control their pheromone production by having less and less emotions to survive, making the massive force of the alien empire (un-named and bug-like so you can't emote with them as does several horror-sci-fi films and books by way of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Ender's Game, Aliens, or any other giant-bug movie of the '50s, though failing miserably in reverse with Avatar [I hated those blue, giant, pagan, animal-enslaving, USB-tailed demons!]) not able to see them and losing ground on their (of course) onslaught against the human settlements.  Earth has been abandoned long ago and a soldier's son fails his "ranger" exam so when he comes home he takes him on a simple mission to transport one of the alien beasts (an "Ursa".. ahem.. bear?  Really?  Nice American-Indian coming-of-age angle there).  They unfortunately crash-land on (supposedly) Earth but the ready-to-retire expert-soldier-general "dad" has both his legs broken and half the ship is 100km away (62 miles).  The nose-end of the emergency beacon is destroyed in the crash and everyone but dad and the son are left so he sends the boy to get the beacon in the tail section. The atmosphere has evolved to minimal atmosphere so there's a gel pack that must be inhaled every 12 hours to coat the lungs to absorb more O2 and, of course, there's a limited quantity.. and the "Ursa" is likely free and dangerous.  It is said that every creature has evolved to kill humans on Earth now (for some reason, since humans have been now gone for hundreds of years) and the boy who emotes too much has a bit of a harsh journey ahead of him.  Honestly, not that cheesy and a hint of Adam West in Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) [which is a sci-fi must-see by-the-way, as is Forbidden Planet (1956) a sort of prequel to Star Trek in-spirit and you can see where ideas were achieved].



After Earth (2013)

  I also installed a Mild-to-Wild footswitch in "Rosie" today [my 2012 Centennial Edition Grand Sport Corvette] (which, as all car modifications [or motorcycle] requires an involuntary blood-sacrifice, and was not particularly as easy as the short instructions suggested, which involved drilling a hole and snaking some wires in a way humans are not supposed to be able to do) where on the "dead pedal" where one rests one foot aside from the clutch I put a toe-switch that turns-off the stealth-mode exhaust normally "on" when not romping on the accelerator pedal, making the car rumble all the time if chosen (and adding an additional 6 Hp).  It's rather impressive.  It simply disconnects a vacuum fuse for you.  I removed that 10 Amp fuse (which makes it rumble all the time) for a day or so to hear how it might sound and it was pretty impressive, but it does, like many aftermarket exhausts, drone a little on longer trips, making you crank-up the radio if you were to listen to music other than the exhaust note.  The burbling, etc., scares children and makes The Tall Man from Phantasm cringe in fear and makes the car far more aggressive sounding with the added bonus of more throttle response.  Still, though I could ditch the fuse and call it "a day" there are times when "stealth mode" (aka standard mode) is preferred, such as early morning commutes, etc.  The fuse controls a vacuum tube which opens two of the four exhaust valves like an electronic cut-out of the 1970's.  Normally, two are closed and the muffler routing goes around an internal bend so-to-speak.  When romped-on, the valves are pushed open by vacuum tubes attached to the engine (somewhere, I forget) and makes a pleasing VRRRORRRMMMM sound.  Why not all the time?  Well, again, you don't want to terrorize your small neighborhood at 4:30 am going to work and force small children (and sweet ladies) to have heart palpitations!  With my left-big-toe-switch, I have the option.  With great power comes.. yadda yadda.

  I also (a bit ago) sanded down some old, gnarly benches and re-stained them so they look nice and moved them around so they're more useful than under the vineyard (lots of grapes coming up it seems, time to learn how to harvest them properly for BOOZE-makin').  Yep, they're Cawtaba grapes, colonial ones for makin' BOOZE.  I think I did a good job with the "rotary" sander.  I did good.  I make good wit wood thing.  I did labor wood duh good!

  That's it.  Just a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.