Fall TV

It's officially fall now, and Texas is actually holding its State Fair this year. I've never been, and I'm certainly not going to start now while the pandemic continues. At least the summer heat has cooled somewhat, which in Texas just means 80s instead of 90s and 100s.

The TV season has started, and I liked the new Wonder Years with Dule Hill, but found Our Kind of People too soapy and over the top. The other new shows I'm interested in are coming in October or midseason. I recently found the BBC show Ghosts on HBO Max, and it's delightfully funny. CBS is making an American version that I hope will be funny too.

I've been watching Ken Burns's new Muhammad Ali documentary, and I enjoyed the beginning parts when he was known as Cassius Clay, but I start to like him less and less in later episodes. His charm and charisma can't cover for his faults such as cheating on his wives, and being blindly devoted to the Nation of Islam even when Elijah Muhammad suspended him and "revoked" his Muslim name. Ali did take a principled stand against the Vietnam War, of course, but his personal failings bother me, especially him having big fights funded by dictators in Zaire and the Philippines. Anyway, I also ended up watching the related One Night in Miami movie, based off the real night Ali spent with Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. It tackles a lot of political and racial issues as the men debate what they ought to do to support civil rights and uplift other Black people.

Dark Days

No surprise, Greg Abbott signed the new Texas voting restriction law. It's only gonna get worse when the GOP gerrymander our maps again with the new Census information. Voting rights organizations are suing, of course, but I sure wish the Senate would pass the federal law to help us out. We'll see what they do when Congress returns from recess.

The odious Texas abortion law, and the Supreme Court letting it stand, have been very disheartening lately. I had hoped that, given that the Supreme Court had punted or ruled favorably on a couple of transgender rights cases, that they didn't want involve themselves in culture war fights anymore. But I was wrong. It is indeed a deeply rightwing court.

At least many people and companies have been resisting the abortion law, and Garland just said the DOJ would sue. I don't know if people are going to start boycotting Texas like they do Georgia. I just hope that Blue State democrats remember that Texas Democrats are still worth fighting for. I can't stand when they blame us for the gerrymandering or gleefully cheer on secession like they're happy to abandon us to the crazies.

Labor Day

Well I'm happy that Shang-Chi broke box office records this weekend. It means a lot for Asian representation in this country to have another Gold Open. I know the Delta variant is still out there, but I'm vaccinated, and the movie theatres should be enforcing mask mandates anyway. Eventually the FDA should approve booster shots, though I hope they approve vaccines for kids first, so they can be safe too. (I did read somewhere that, now that Pfizer's vaccine is approved, doctors can individually give vaccines to young kids for "off-label" use, but I don't know if that's true.)

I enjoyed Shang-Chi, though I didn't get some of the references to Wong and his cage fight partner, as I've not seen Dr Strange. I also was very annoyed that nobody spoke the name of Death Dealer in the movie, so I had no idea who the fuck he was; I had to google him afterward based on the fact that he was masked. The faceless animal Morris freaked me out a little, and I was surprised that he was based on a Chinese mythological creature called a hundun. I did like the return of Trevor Slattery as a call back to Iron Man 3. The women characters got to shine as well, and the villain Wenwu thoroughly debunked the racist old caricature of the Mandarin; there was no trace of his comics Fu Manchu origins. He was a complicated villain with sympathetic moments who still had to be defeated, sort of like Killmonger. The protector dragon was very beautiful and it flew in spirals sort of like the dragons in Raya and the Last Dragon.

Meanwhile, there's a new Native American show called Reservation Dogs, about a gang of teens trying to get out of Oklahoma through crime. It has an Indigenous cast and crew, like Peacock's Rutherford Falls. Unfortunately, I don't have FX or Hulu, so I can't watch it myself. It's fairly acclaimed, though, so I'll have to see if it comes out on DVD later.

The drama about the new Jeopardy host was such a roller coaster. Sony finally fired Mike Richards after initially letting him keep his executive producer role. I don't know why they even hired him in the first place given his track record of discrimination at The Price is Right. I'm starting to not care who the permanent host is going to be, because the brand is so tainted by this scandal.