Made Time for "No Time to Die" and Happy About It

 

I talked about going to see the latest (and Daniel Craig's final) James Bond movie in terms of looking forward to seeing things blow up...and I was not disappointed. James Bond himself blew up five times throughout the course of the movie, let alone the cars and crypts and buildings.

Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody's Freddie Mercury) plays the film's villain, who wants to better the world by selling a new nanobot weapon that targets specific DNA blah, blah, blah. He apparently is a proponent of the less-is-more theory of acting as he practically whispers every line with a deadpan, I-might-be-high-on-something expression that is less menacing than it is just kind of creepy in an I've-been-peeking-through-your-window kind of way.

But none of that is important compared to the gritty fighting and eye-popping chase scenes (including some phenomenal motorcycle stunts that make Steve McQueen's work in The Great Escape look like a blooper reel).

Two biggest laughs:

       1)  After one particularly confusing "coming attraction" trailer, ActorBoy said, "What was that even about? I hope YOU could understand it!" To which, his father-in-law, WrecklessBassman, replied, "I understand that I won't be seeing that movie."

       2)  There's a scene in the movie where Bond has to turn on the power in an old missle silo/submarine station and Q, the techno-wizard in his earpiece, starts to explain how he'll have to do things in a precise order in order to blah, blah, blah and Bond just starts flipping all the switches and pulling levers until Q says, "Now, first..." and Bond already has things up and running and says, "Got it."

Bottom line: If you like Craig's Bourne-like take on Bond, you won't be disappointed. Come for the action, stay for the laughs.

Welcome to My Creative Outlets

 

The problem with having multiple interests and a variety of talents is that the separate pockets of your creative life can get isolated from each other and people who appreciate one particular thing you do may not even be aware of the other things you do.

And so, for your education, entertainment, and to give you something to do while your latest TikTok upload is processing, here's a relatively concise rundown of my current creative outlets:

Almost the Truth™ (http://www.almostthetruth.com)  -  This was my first online presence...not counting MySpace, which certainly doesn't count...and originated from an idea Sam Helgerson and I had about a humor-laced Bible study radio show (because podcasts had not been invented yet).

     Almost the Truth Blog (https://almostthetruth.blogspot.com): If laughter is the best medicine, ALMOST THE TRUTH™ exists to heal the world. New posts every Friday.

     Almost the Truth™ Publishing on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AlmostTheTruth): In addition to the Friday postings of the blog, this page is the host of #TheMorningGames - 8:30 Central, almost every weekday morning, you will find the following line up of diversions:
          Monday - #MondayMirth - A video clip or illustration that should start your week with a smile
          Tuesday - #TuesdayTrivia - Be the first to give the correct, non-Googled answer and win the day's VirtualPrize (no actual prizes are harmed in the playing of #TheMorningGames)
          Wednesday - #WednesdayWhatIsIt - A cropped image is posted and the VirtualPrize goes to the first person who correctly identifies it. (It could be a product logo, a scene from film or television, or an almost-common object)
          Thursday - #TBT - Our Throwback Thursday will feature blog posts from the early days when hardly anybody knew about us.
          Friday - #Earworm Friday - Start the weekend with a song that just might cycle through your head until Monday.

     Almost the Truth™ Publishing Books  (https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/deweyroth): Self-published collections of the blog's posts and Almost the Truth About Youth Ministry: Salesmen, Secretaries, and Smart Alecks which is a book full of twisted tales and suspect opinions based on my 14+ years as a youth minister.

     Almost the Truth™ YouTube Playlist (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLruHdMzfLT7wYAaJCFmlwaF64MAyg8nmt): From time to time, I make a video of me reading one of the blog posts...usually because it involves some singing.

Truth Is... (https://www.facebook.com/DeweyTruth): While Almost the Truth is all about laughs, Truth Is... is all about looking a little deeper.

     Truth Is... Blog (https://deweytruth.blogspot.com): It's been said that no one has cornered the market on truth. That's probably accurate, but it doesn't rule out the possibility of this being a little corner of truth, tucked away in the huge City of Life, where, according to Paul Simon, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls. New posts every Thursday.

     Truth Is... Podcast: After 10 years of blogging, I decided to create a podcast that kind of functions as a Throwback Thursday because the podcast consists of me reading the Truth Is... blog, starting with the very first ones from 2012. But for people who listen to podcasts and don't read blogs, this is all brand new stuff! Good thing Truth is timeless.
          New podcasts are dropped every Tuesday on SEVEN streaming platforms PLUS a video version posted on Dewey Roth's YouTube channel!
          Anchor: https://anchor.fm/dewey-roth
          Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1JgQzFmNgGX25ofwgjYJoA
          Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/truth-is…/id1586997516
          Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/truth-is-dot-dot-dot-1
          Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy82NTNiMzlhOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==
          Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/eyc6uwz0
          Radio Public: https://radiopublic.com/truth-is-GqvmQr
               and
          YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQBwF3gcF1itdroQ208MVPA 

Dewey's Jukebox (https://www.facebook.com/DeweysJukebox): This podcast is a #VirtualWurlitzer filled with personal favorites and secret gems. Six decades of music are swimming around in my head, and now it can swim around in YOUR head, too. But please, mister, please...don't play B-17.

     Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1EtUT0bmkUmj8S18jmomnv?si=f1b0308c56b94e26
     Anchor: https://anchor.fm/dewey-roth0

Twitter (@deweyroth): Where links to all new blog and podcast posts can be found, along with random bits of serious silliness and silly seriousness. If you have a Twitter account, I would appreciate being followed by you. Makes me look good to possible book publishers and employers!

Instagram (@deweyroth): Where I don't do a whole heckuva lot, but sometimes #MondayMirth and #TuesdayTrivia show up here as well as on Facebook.

Books I Read in 2021, Vol XII

 

LETTERMAN: The Last Giant of Late Night
Jason Zinoman

In a career spanning more than thirty years, David Letterman redefined the modern talk show with an ironic comic style that transcended traditional television....Moving from letterman's early days in Indiana to his retirement, Zinoman has explored behind the scenes of Letterman's television career to shed light on the origins of his revolutionary comedy, its overlooked influences, and how his work intersects with and reveals his famously eccentric personality....With this enlightening biography, Zinoman offers a perceptive study of the man and the artist whose caustic voice was crucial to an entire generation of comedians and viewers  -  and whose singular style ushered in new tropes that have become cliches in contemporary comedy.

This is another one of those books that I found while browsing the biography section of the library. Zinoman's focus on comedic innovation and the analysis of Letterman's personality almost overwhelms the biographic storyline, but he keeps it all moving fast enough to qualify as a revealing set of personal anecdotes that had me interested throughout.

First Line: In the summer of 1968, David Letterman's girlfriend gave him an ultimatum: Get married or break up.

 Page 56, Sentence 5: When we got on the air and I started reading our mail, I quickly realized it was mainly insane people.

Last Line: Let me mention...kindness.

Books I Read in 2021, Vol XI

 

GLENSHEEN'S DAUGHTER: The Marjorie Congdon Story
Sharon Darby Hendry

In 1932, Elisabeth Congdon, an unmarried heiress to a mining fortune, adopts a three-month-old baby girl. The child, Marjorie, grows up in the Glensheen Mansion in Duluth, Minnesota, given everything she could possibly need or want. Forty-five years later, Elisabeth is found smothered in her bed. Her night nurse has been bludgeoned to death with a candlestick. Evidence points to Elisabeth's son-in-law, Roger Caldwell, and her adopted daughter Marjorie. This is the inside story of Marjorie Congdon and the stream of mysterious arsons and murders that have followed in her wake.

I bought this book (from the used book corner of a local-crafts store in Grand Marais, MN) because I once sung about Marjorie Congdon LeRoy Caldwell Hagen in the Dakota Chautauqua at the Dakota County (MN) Fair. It was a deceptively bouncy song about such a dark, twisted woman:

Oh Marjorie, Marjorie you tried so hard

To do that perfect crime

Marjorie, Marjorie, and now you're in the slammer

Doing time

You had a wealthy mother who was murderously smothered

With a pillow across her face

And when you went to trial and issued your denial

Somehow you were acquitted, got away that case

(Pete Martin & Eric Peltoniemi)

It took a little effort to get into the book because I felt assaulted with lots of names and relationships that I couldn't keep straight, but once Hendry started documenting Marjorie's parade of financial misdealings, arsons, and murders, it got pretty interesting.

The book, published in 1999, ends with Congdon sitting in prison for arson (having somehow gotten away with the murder of her third husband), awaiting parole. Wikipedia updates the story: "Marjorie was released from Arizona State Prison on January 5, 2004. She was arrested again, on March 23, 2007, in Tucson, Arizona, at her residence at an assisted living facility on charges of computer fraud and several other counts. In November 2008, Marjorie Congdon LeRoy Caldwell Hagen pleaded guilty to fraud after illegally taking funds from the bank account of Roger Sammis after his death. Mr. Sammis had been under her care before his death, and some suspect Ms. Congdon of foul play."

What a woman!

First Line: It was a warm fall afternoon, October 30, 1992.

Page 56, Line 5: At this, Marjorie pulled him out of the public school and enrolled him in Benilde, a Catholic school.

Last Line: It was one of many prices, he said, for the bad choices he'd made in life.

Free Guy: An Entirely Enjoyable Return to the Movies

 

On the strength of ActorBoy's recommendation, and paid for by a very old gift card from AngelFace, I went to see Free Guy, starring Ryan Renolds, today.

The reason it was a very old gift card is, of course, because COVID-19 hit soon after I got it for Christmas in 2019. And let me tell you, just walking into the theater lobby and smelling that popcorn was a little emotional. It very well could have been two full years since I had been to a movie theater; I don't really know.

"But what about the movie, Dewey?"

Oh...well...let me just say that I never expected to enjoy a sci-fi/romantic comedy/action movie this much.

Yeah.

It hit all the right beats and nailed every joke and I wish I had a copy of the script so I could lay some of the quotable quotes on you...including the obligatory rousing "come on, guys, we can do this if we all work together" speech that leads to the film's climactic battle.

[I originally wrote "...leads to the film's climax," but I changed it because there's ANOTHER climax involving the romantic comedy aspect of the movie that I will not say anything more about so as not to spoil it for anyone...because I'm thinking y'all should go see Free Guy for yourselves.]

Fair warning...there are just enough four-letter words used to give it its PG-13 rating. And as always, they could have done without them and no one would have noticed. But I don't know...it may have gotten a PG-13 anyway for the amount of video-game-style violence.

On top of the humor and action, the movie also has some decent things to say about life-as-we-know it and how people can make a difference if they try. That's another reason why I like it so much.

There IS one quote that I'm pretty sure I'll be using in real life: "Don't have a good day. Have a great day."

Books I Read in 2021, Vol. X

 

DEEP DISCIPLESHIP: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus
J. T. English

"The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. [This book] equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey."

I got slowed down a lot in my efforts to get this book read:

       1. Had to study my lines for the Dakota Chautauqua at the Dakota County Fair (August 9-15).

       2. The author says the same thing, over and over, not only in every chapter but in almost every paragraph. It tended to make the reading a tedious exercise in "Well, Brad bought this book for me, so I am going to read it."

Don't misunderstand. What the author had to say was worthy of being read and discussed and implemented in one form or another, it's just that it seems he took what could have been an insightful and in-depth magazine article and somehow squeezed it into 213 pages.

True confession: Each chapter ended with a section called "Main Ideas," and for the final three chapters, all I did was read those three or four main ideas and skim the chapter itself.

First Line: On Memorial Day weekend 2018 my wife and I were driving to see an orthopedic surgeon in Dallas.

Page 56/ Sentence 5: Pastors and ministers are called by God to shepherd the flock of God in front of them, not on their Twitter feed.

Last Line: Questions that hopefully will not just lead to a better philosophy of ministry, but to transformed lives that are growing deeper into fellowship with the Triune God.

Books I Read in 2021, Vol. IX

 

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE: A Sortabiography
Eric Idle

We know him best for his unforgettable roles with Monty Python  -  from Flying Circus to The Meaning of Life. Now Eric Idle reflects on the meaning of his own life in this entertaining memoir that takes us on a remarkable journey from his childhood in an austere boarding school through his successful career in comedy. Coming of age as a writer during the Sixties and Seventies, Eric stumbled into the crossroads of the cultural revolution and found himself rubbing shoulders with the likes of George Harrison, David Bowie, and Robin Williams, all of whom became dear lifelong friends. With anecdotes sprinkled throughout involving other close friends and luminaries, Eric captures a time of tremendous creative output with equal parts hilarity and heart.

There are plenty of laughs in these pages, but just enough actual info to keep things rolling along nicely, thank you very much. Idle does a little bouncing around through time when it comes to talking about particular friendships, but there is still a general chronology that helps a person keep things in order. The emphasis is on keeping things light and humorous, while still giving the reader insights into the hard work that goes into being silly. Fair warning: in addition to the laughs, there are plenty of instances of PG-13 and R-rated language, as well.

First Line: It's October 1978 and I'm being crucified.

Page 56/Sentence 5: The clincher was they wanted us to come over for a writing recce so they could show us some of the places we could write sketches for.

Last Line: She, who sadly knows me best, thinks my last words will probably be "F*** off," but that doesn't look good on a tombstone, so instead I would like on my grave: Eric Idle. See Google.