Category Archives: entertainment news

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Downtown doesn’t exist here

Allow me a moment to vent about something that’s been gnawing at me since just about the time I laid eyes on the city I am proud to call home.

I have lived in Princeton, Texas, for seven years. My wife and I found a lovely, modest home in a newly built subdivision just south of U.S. 380.

We took to life in this Dallas suburban community right away … except for one key element that was missing. Princeton does not have any sort of downtown business, finance or entertainment district. I know where it should be, near the Veterans Park near Second Avenue. But it ain’t there, man.

The city has become the fastest-growing city in America, a label that I love advertising to people I meet. Many of the Dallas-Fort Worth residents know it already. I tell folks we’ve exploded from fewer than 10,000 residents to something north of 40,000 in just the past 15 years. The growth isn’t letting up, not even a little bit.

It’s happening, though, despite the absence of a downtown district that could serve as a magnet for those seeking a place to do business, to shop for goods and gifts, or to enjoy a quality meal with friends and family.

I spoke to Derek Borg, who at the time of our arrival in Princeton served as city manager. He told me of some conceptual plans that the city had approved and assured me downtown development would occur. He offered no timetable, no specific notion of what downtown would include. All he spoke about, as I recall it, was of some vague notion that the City Council had approved. Borg is now gone from City Hall and all the reporting I have read about the city’s future has made next to zero mention of downtown development.

I have noted already on this blog that Princeton is sprouting into a city with no personality, no identity. The place to establish such a trait must be in its downtown district. State demographers tell us the city will be home eventually to more than 100,000 people. Where in the world are they going to go to enjoy city life in this one-time burg?

We aren’t a burg any longer. I am just one resident in a community that needs to build an identity on which it can attract others to come here to enjoy themselves, or just to do business.

Downtown Princeton needs to be conceived and then given a set time for birth and then growth.

entertainment news

Trump’s narcissism flies off the rails

Donald J. Trump’s latest exhibition of narcissism goes so far off the rails that I am struggling with strong enough words to condemn it.

He slapped his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a D.C. structure built to honor the memory of the slain President John F. Kennedy. What galls millions of Americans, though, is how Trump’s name appears ahead of JFK’s name on what Trump wants to be known as the “Donald Trump John Kennedy Center … “

Leave it to Maria Shriver, JFK’s niece, to drive home the family’s outrage. She said that if Trump’s name remains on the building the Kennedy family is going to withdraw all contributions to anything that occurs under the center’s name. The family, she said, also intends to sue to get Trump’s name off the edifice and it will pull every dollar from the family to the center.

The Kennedy Center was named by congressional fiat. It is inscribed in federal statute, which means that Trump’s decision to add his own name is nothing more than a symbolic demonstration of his greed and his monstrous ego.

I want to send my expression of supreme outrage into cyberland and to offer my heartfelt thanks to Maria Shriver for standing up to the megalomaniac in chief whose name on a building erected to honor her Uncle Jack only proves this pretender’s unfitness for the office he occupies.

entertainment news

Is White House next for Trump brand?

A little more than a decade ago, President Barack Obama stood before the White House Correspondents Dinner audience and joked that Donald Trump might want to hang a huge “Trump” sign on the White House were he elected president of the United States.

The quip drew uproarious laughter. Trump, who was in the audience, wasn’t laughing.

Now, it seems that the joke isn’t so funny. Trump has just agreed to plaster his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The center board has voted to call it the “Trump Kennedy Center … “

Roll that around for a moment and consider why this is so horribly wrong. Trump’s name would appear in front of the slain president for whom the center was named … in his honor! Moreover, it’s not at all clear that the decision is legal, given that the center was named through a congressional act; therefore, it well could require an act of Congress to change the name.

Trump continues to insult the intelligence of Americans — and those around the world — through his callously disrespecful acts. Placing his name on a building intended to honor those who contribute to society’s art is beyond hideous. JFK honored the arts, along with his wife, Jacqueline. The Kennedy name alone should stand forever on the center that seeks to honor a slain — and beloved — leader of this great nation.

I am going to ask something I once thought was unthinkable: Is the White House really immune from this type of PR chicanery?

entertainment news

Landmark birthday … for the ages

I think of landmark birthdays when they arrive on the calendar and I miss the people who would celebrate them were they still around.

One such person’s birthday comes up on Oct. 9. That’s today. He would be 85 years of age. He’s no longer around to mark the event. He was gunned down at 40. Far too young. He was John Lennon.

Of all the assassinations we have endured over the years, this one made the least sense of all of them. John Lennon’s killer earlier in evening of Dec. 8, 1980, had gotten the ex-Beatle’s autograph. Then he waited for John and his wife to return home to their apartment in New York City. He pulled out his pistol and then … well, you know the rest of it.

The shooter is serving a life sentence for the senseless murder of a man who preached the cause of world peace. He had taken a five-year sabbatical from the limelight to raise his young son. John had returned to the studio to make music again.

John Lennon’s work already is the stuff of legend. He was one-half of the most successful songwriting team in music history. Only God knows what he would have produced had he been given the chance.

John Lennon and his Beatle band mates helped raise me. I miss him every day.

entertainment news

Beatles are done … forever

Friends can accuse me of being slow on the uptake and I wouldn’t mind, as I recognize that in my ownself.

Example? When The Beatles released their single, “Now and Then” in 2023, they said it would be their final song. No more Beatles records for those of us who believe they are the greatest rock band in history. My first reaction was kinda goofy. What do you mean no more?

“Now and Then” was presented to Paul McCartney by Yoko Oho, John Lennon’s wife along with two other demo tapes that Paul, George Harrison and Ringo Starr finished and released as singles in 1995. They all worked on “Now and Then,” then gave up on it, as the quality of the demo tape didn’t measure up to the other two. George was the first to abandon the “Now and Then” project.

Then, in 2001, George got sick and died of cancer in November of that year. John, of course, died in 1980 in one of the most senseless acts of violence I’ve ever seen.

Paul then got a wild hair and decided to finish the recording of “Now and Then” with Ringo, using John’s voice and George’s work on the unfinished recording. Technology has advanced well beyond what was available to the lads in 1995.

Where am I going with this? “Now and Then” was the last recording with all of The Beatles taking part. There ain’t no more. All of The Beatles have said the group does not exist without all of them present. George Harrison famously said in the 1980s when asked if The Beatles would reunite: “No. Not as long as John Lennon is still dead.” There you have it. One’s death is as permanent a condition as one can find.

As the cliche goes: The group is gone, but their music lives forever.

 

entertainment news

RIP, Brian Wilson

What does one say about the death of a man whose musical genius comes along just once in any normal human being’s lifetime.

Brian Wilson was the rarest of geniuses. He founded a musical group, the Beach Boys with his brothers, a cousin and a boyhood pal. They made music for 60 years that stands the test of time to this very day.

He blended exquisite harmonies with extraordinary production values and left a legacy that will live far beyond Wilson’s 82 years on this Earth. Indeed, they might, indeed, live forever.

Wilson led a well-chronicled troubled life. He was beset with drug addiction, personality disorders, emotional fragility caused in large part by his well-known stage fright. He fought through it all.

He continued to make music that will last through the ages.

I am not equipped rhetorically to pay appropriate tribute to this once-in-a-lifetime talent. I just know in my heart that his music helped me come of age in the 1960s … and for that he will have my eternal gratitude.

entertainment news, national news, political news

The Boss speaks for many of us

Bruce Springsteen once was thought of as merely a musical icon, a man whose notes resonated with generations of Americans.

Suddenly, though,, he now has become — dare I say it — an iconic political commentator.

The Boss stopped a concert he was performing in Manchester, England, the other evening to offer a commentary on the country he loves and has sung about with great passion for more than 50 years. He doesn’t like what he’s seeing in the halls of power in Washington, D.C., and said as much to his audience of thousands of admirers. Turns out his soliloquy reverberated far beyond the audience that heard it in person.

He spoke of the damage being done to the world’s greatest republic by Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk, the MAGA dipshits who are cheering them on and the Republican majority in Congress that lacks the courage to stand up to the machinations of a madman/would-be dictator.

To be sure, it can be argued — and I won’t do it here — that an American citizen shouldn’t take his message overseas to deliver what’s in his heart. Springsteen noted, though, that Americans here at home are being detained and jailed for doing the very thing he reminded the Brits in Manchester that our Constitution guarantees as a fundamental right of citizenship. This nation was founded by dissenters, those who spoke against the Crown and who finally went to war to free themselves of the oppression brought to them by their British masters.

So, there was a certain irony that Bruce Springsteen, the man who was “born in the USA,” would speak from the depths of his heart about the anguish he is feeling about the nation he loves.

He did so with remarkable eloquence.

entertainment news

Alphabet keeps growing

I am going to need to carry a glossary with me eventually while referring to a certain segment of our society.

OK. Here we go.

The gay community a while back began using the term LGBT to define itself. It stood for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender; the way I see these things, the terms lesbian and gay mean the same thing, as it defines those who are attracted sexually to others of the same gender.

Then LGBT added the letter Q, meaning queer. When I was a kid, queer was thought to be an epithet; no more, apparently.

Let’s throw in the letter P, which stands for pedosexual. I understand there’s a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, although I understand that pedosexual refers only to boys. Sheesh!

Now we see the letters “I” and “A” added along with a plus sign.

So … the identity of some of us is now expanded to read LGBTQPIA+

What the hell? Is your head spinning? Mine sure is.

I am not comfortable even talking casually about individuals’ sexual orientation. It’s none of my damn business. I have never discussed sexual intimacy with strangers.

But this growth in the alphabet-soup listing of individuals with a seemingly endless list of sexual orientations borders on the ridiculous. What about the I and the A? Here’s what I found:

  • Intersex: A term to describe individuals who are born with variations of sex characteristics that do not fit with binary definitions of male or female bodies.1
  • Asexual: Sometimes shortened to “ace,” this term refers to someone who has little or no sexual attraction; they may, however, experience romantic attraction.

Oh, and how about the +? It means: The ‘plus’ is used to signify all of the gender identities and sexual orientations that are not specifically covered by the other five initials. An example is Two-Spirit, a pan-Indigenous American identity.

Are you confused now? I damn sure am.

entertainment news

Their music is timeless

Here’s a quickie quiz for you: How many popular music acts can you name where children generations removed from their time in the spotlight can remember every lyric to every song they seemingly ever recorded?

Time’s up. I can think of one: The Beatles.

OK. Maybe there are others.

Still, it makes today such a special day in popular culture history. Sixty years ago this evening, TV variety show host Ed Sullivan introduced John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to America: Here are … The Beatles!

I was among the millions of youngsters who watched ’em that night in our living room.

I’ve been singing their songs ever since. So have my sons and maybe one day so will my granddaughter.

entertainment news

A Christmas film? You bet!

I will be brief with this blog post, in that I want to deliver a simple, straightforward message.

“Die Hard,” the first in a series of films, should be considered a Christmas movie. It’s a Christmas movie, man! Period!

Bruce Willis portrays Detective John McClane, whose wife, Holly — portrayed by Bonnie Bedalia — is attending a Christmas party. Terrorists led by Hans Gruber — portrayed by the late Alan Rickman — take the partiers captive.

McClane fights like the dickens to free them. There are Christmas references sprinkled throughout the film. McClane is successful, Gruber falls 30 stories to his death.

And everyone is able to enjoy Christmas.

I feel better already just making this proclamation.

Yippee-kai-yay … !