Free Republic

First this morning the situation in France where in less than 24 hours mass demonstrations are expected to unfold nationwide and especially in Paris. The "yellow vests" movement opposing the gasoline taxes of the increasingly unpopular President Emmanuel Macron is being swelled by others discontented by Macron's pro-big business "liberal reforms"..... The arm twisting continues in London as the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Theresa May tries to cajole both Tories and members of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party who support her government into backing her controversial Brexit proposal.... A lawyer for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says a deal...

Some of you will be familiar with this topic. I sure am. Here is Deuce Spriggins and his 1952 recording of Hungover. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/

Classic rock hit. Enjoy.

If you're old enough to remember 1988, you know it was a terrific year for sitcoms. The Cosby Show was the #1 show in America, and Roseanne was hot on its heels. Cheers, The Golden Girls, Night Court, The Wonder Years -- it was a great time for comedy. And in addition to all those classics, another show also premiered that year: Murphy Brown. Based on my meticulous research 30 seconds of Googling and my vague memories from 30 years ago, Murphy Brown was an ensemble workplace comedy about a TV journalist who yelled a lot, and it was funny...

Great song from the 1990s. Enjoy.

I was out on the Netflix last night and saw this new Coen Brothers movie that was available. I was always a fan of the Coen Brothers with "Fargo" being one of my favorite "dark comedy" movies of all time. I especially liked that car salesman fellow who was constantly screwing up and ended up getting his wife inadvertently murdered by having her kidnapped for ransom by a couple of bungling criminals who hated each other. Basically all their movies are worth watching with "The Big Lebowski" being another favorite. Especially when that John Goodman character throws his friend's ashes...

That’s an article from 13 years ago, at a critical moment in the history of broadcasting. Yes, the American Cinema Foundation was hosting a big Hollywood event, a national online conversation about the future of PBS, sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Yes, the American Cinema Foundation was well known as a group of Hollywood conservatives. The irony of that title is that what keynote speaker Rob Long demanded wasn’t a seat at the PBS table at all. He wanted it ended, but in the nicest, wittiest, most reasonable way. For weeks, the “blob” of employees and administrators of...

Thursday on ABC’s The View, co-host Joy Behar slammed Wednesday night’s Country Music Awards show for staying out of politics. As nearly every entertainment awards show has made itself part of the resistance against President Trump, Behar was sorely disappointed to see this was one show where Trump’s name wasn’t mentioned. . . Whoopi pointed out that people “voted” to fulfill that duty of resisting Trump. “I'm happy for that,” Behar acknowledged, before touting that she, unlike the country music artists, was willing to take a financial hit in order to be loudly anti-Trump.

Is Kanye West in bed with wife Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump? It depends what day of the week it is. Kardashian says that Kanye is more of a fan of Trump’s personality than his politics. Kim Kardashian reckons that she had a talk with her hubby after his recent trip to the White House to educate him and set him straight on politics. Is Kim Saving Kanye West from Himself? Although Kanye West and Kim Kardashian should not really be your first reference point when discussing US politics, they have massive sway with the younger generations of today. I...

You’ve likely seen him on social media, and now, the famous 11-year-old drag queen is gracing the airwaves of popular daytime television show “Good Morning America.” In yet another indication that cross-dressing and the LGBT lifestyle are beyond normalized in our culture, “Desmond is Amazing,” was a guest on the long-running ABC morning show, where he was surprised by some of America’s most famous drag queens. LGBT Nation reports:

Matt Stone and Trey Parker — the “South Park” creators known for their take-no-prisoners mockery of cultural issues from both sides of the sociopolitical aisle — apparently are feeling a little guilty for mocking Al Gore’s climate change evangelism. See, way back in 2006, a “South Park” episode featured the former vice president warning South Park Elementary School students about the “single biggest threat to our planet” — i.e., ManBearPig, a monster representing climate change, NBC News reported. Gore was a month away from releasing “An Inconvenient Truth” when that episode came out — and the network noted that since...

Recorded in Hollywood on 6/6/1946 here is Spade Cooley & Tex Williams with You Better Do It Now. THE WESTERNER https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/ Ranch Radio on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RanchRadio4U/

From the 2007 musical "Young Frankenstein", based on the 1974 movie. This is a favorite of mine for Halloween.

A Halloween classic. It's a graveyeard smash.

A wonderful song to end your month.

The Teares of the Muses : Pavin of Albarti & Galliard Innocenti Alberti (1535 - 1615)

With all of the horrific, infuriating, and generally frustrating news we're bombarded with daily I thought it'd be nice to be reminded of what's really important. This was one of the songs sung at a Bobbie Gentry tribute I went to last night. Definitely worth a listen, especially if you're a Glen Campbell fan.

Pharrell Williams sent President Trump a cease and desist letter Monday after the president’s campaign played the hit song “Happy” during a rally that took place just hours after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. “On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged ‘nationalist,’ you played his song ‘Happy’ to a crowd at a political event in Indiana,” Williams’ attorney wrote in a letter obtained by the Hollywood Reporter. “There was nothing ‘happy’ about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted...

I just had an argument with a Facebook friend who called me "closed minded" when I said I had zero interest in seeing the Broadway musical 'Hamilton'. She says she won't talk to me until I check out the show for myself instead of "pre-judging it" I told her that I know it getting universal acclaim, but after reading about concept, it sound really stupid...it appears the premise is "Let's intentionally cast ethnic minorities and women to play white men from the colonial era so 'modern audiences' can 'relate' to the story. I hate when they do that in movies...

Link to a Tom Lehrer classic.