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Blue Skies

 

A musician telling a story about two golfers, a lost ball in the woods, and a magic frog. You have the right ingredients for a country song if you add some whiskey, a friendly dog, and an old truck.



Call it football or soccer; Wisconsin has some skin in the game.

I'm sure that all the Premier League football fans know that an American manager has taken over at Leeds United. What the rest of Wisconsin should know is Jesse Marsch is from Milwaukee. Read on.

It's All About The Drama.
I skew my TV watching toward drama. The genre includes police procedurals, hospital settings, period pieces, fantasy tales, and family crises scenarios. But it's essentially an explanation I heard about opera. The storyline in an opera is that a soprano and a tenor fall in love but are threatened by a baritone. 
When watching these shows, the quality comes out when we can freely identify with the couple and hate the baritone. Some of the best acting comes from the 'bad guy." Be that person male or female from The Wicked Witch of the North to The Sheriff of Nottingham, we love to hate the bad guy.
I think of the late Heath Ledger as the Riddler, Jack Nickleson in The Shinning and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction as memorable performances of characters we couldn't wait to witness their downfall.
I think it's hard to play the bad guy because it is so easy to run the character over the top. The stereotype mad man with wild eyes and a long, twisted mustache is easily identified but hopelessly outdated. The nuanced performance by Antony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs might be a pinnacle example of pure evil looking like normal behavior.
It helps if the evil one has a backstory that explains when, where, and how his mind went off the rails. It gives us a moment to think this evil person has a soul. Somehow, it's comforting to know we aren't the only ones harmed by our parents.
Often, I find myself upset at bedtime by the stories I'm watching that haven't reached the point where evil has been conquered. But, I've learned that an Episode of Disenchantment or John Oliver's Stand Up New York helps me transition. Comedy is a marvelous medicine.

Old Person Observation.
As I've aged, I find my emotions swing a little further in both directions. I feel more anger and disgust at destructive behavior. It can move me to tears when love conquers all.

From The File Marked, Where Does David Nitz Find This Stuff?


I replied to Dave that the dancer had a future in show biz, but the Pianist wasn't a howling success.





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