Hi all!
Let's start this one out with 90 seconds of pure bliss. Here is John Mulaney presenting at last week's Oscars. This is comedy brilliance.
These are the mad political rantings of one Matthew McNeil, Liberal/Democratic radio host in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. The postings are mine, the thoughts are mine. Mostly about politics, but I will occasionally get into raising kids, cooking, gardening, the arts and my favorite sports. Bon Appetite!
Hi all!
Let's start this one out with 90 seconds of pure bliss. Here is John Mulaney presenting at last week's Oscars. This is comedy brilliance.
Hi all! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Let's start it off by giving everyone recurring nightmares.
When I was a kid, there was one character that scared me, and most people, to the core; The Child Catcher from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.' That move was weirdly unsettling overall, but The Child Catcher had kids screaming themselves awake for years. The movie was released in the late 1960s, but (like a lot of kids' movies back then) was played consistently in theaters on weekends up through the 1970s. I must have been 5 or 6 when I saw The Child Catcher for the first time and I remember refusing to look at the screen for the rest of the movie in case he showed up again.
To tell you how scary The Child Catcher was, I remember seeing 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' on a weekend flipping through TV channels in the 80s, and when I saw The Child Catcher again, I froze. Who was the psychopath who decided he needed a hook?!? Even today the character gives me the freaking creeps!
I had placed him out of my mind until The Cyan Man on YouTube decided that we really needed to talk about how messed up The Child Catcher really was. Relive the terror for yourself (and laugh a little too) as The Cyan Man has a pretty funny take.
Hi all!
This week let's start with the SCOTUS' decision to weigh in on whether or not Trump has full immunity from all actions while he was president. It's clear Trump tried to orchestrate an overthrowing of the government on January 6th, 2021 with the intentional purpose of disregarding a legitimate election and installing himself as President. But now he claims that as long as he was President, you can't hold him accountable for any crime he committed while in the White House.
The Supreme Court could have picked this case up in December when there was a call for them to weigh in on it. They turned down the chance then, and now seem to have given Trump a massive advantage by waiting until March to change their minds. This delays his trial until likely Fall, but that will only happen then if they don't make one of the worst rulings in the history of this country and side with Trump.
The founding Fathers CLEARLY did not want the position of President to be unaccountable to anyone, but let's face reality. Alito and Thomas are already bought and paid for Immunity votes. Gorsuch will likely join them. The rest of the Supreme Court must decide if they want to be part of what would be one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Let's hope they think about their legacy.
This is a great opportunity to revisit what could be the worst SCOTUS decision in the history of this country, Dred Scott. The case involved a slave who left a slave state, was in a free state (at one point being stationed at Fort Snelling in Minnesota), and then returned to a slave state. The law back then was that if a slave was taken to a free state, that slave was then free in the eyes of the law. The SCOTUS ruling contradicted the existing law, basically saying slaves would be slaves regardless of where they were in the US (Free state or Slave state), that Black Americans were never to be considered actual citizens of the country, and the ruling clearly implied freed Black people could become slaves again with zero recourse. Next stop the Civil War.
Sweet Lord was that an atrocious ruling. Taney was a horrible human being.
Crash Course Black American History has the details of the ruling.
Howdy all! Hope you've had a great week.
This week we start with The Daily Show, but NOT with Jon Stewart (wait for it!). Michael Kosta is the resident white guy, right-leaning correspondent for the show, a role the former correspondent Jason Jones was AMAZING at. I preface this video with that information because he does come off a little jerk-ish in this piece.
With climate change undeniable (See: 2024 Minnesota Winter) there have been a few stories of climate refugees making their way to northern Minnesota and the beautiful city of Duluth. I love Duluth but it is cold, something Kosta plays up here in a piece about the city as a refuge.
It's a little punching down, but I think Duluth looks good at the end of it. And they did make Kosta do a polar plunge!
We delve into familiar territory with this week's Friday Link as we get the best of the Super Bowl Ads.
These are my picks for the best ones from last weekend's game, and FYI the Arnold Schwarzenegger State Farm ad and the Beyonce Verizon ad finished 4 and 5.
Number 3 for me was the Booking.com ad featuring Tina Fey. Forget the 30-second ad from the game and focus on the 90-second MUCH better version:
Hi all! Tonight it's all political on the Friday Link, starting with what might be the smartest mind in political analysis today, Kat Abu!
Katherine Abughazaleh, or as she goes by on social media Kat Abu, is wonderful! Here is a link to the full bio piece Huffington Post did on her last year (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kat-abu-the-tiktoker-mocking-fox-news-just-for-funsies_n_644c0f85e4b04997b577b4c2). Basically this poor woman subjects herself to watching Fox News and breaks down the network's stupidity, so you don't have to watch it. How she manages that without going crazy remains to be seen.
But what makes Kat exceptional is how she takes a complicated issue, breaks it down into almost Hemingway-esque minimalism, and conveys it to the average social media viewer in a completeness that puts a long New York Times article to shame.
Case in point, she tackles the lie that "shoplifting is destroying the retail sector." It's not, and not only does she expose that truth, but then expertly links it back to how this lie is just greedy executives trying to cover their company's disappointing earnings. AND SHE DID IT IN 2:18!!! I'm 55 years old and have 30 years of radio under me and I only wish I could be so clean with a topic.
This week we start with a weird phenomenon in online video posting, the popularity of mowing/yard clean up videos.
We've all seen that house where the grass and yard are overgrown and it's the neighborhood eyesore. I actually have one a few blocks from my house, a place that was foreclosed on in 2009 and has sat empty ever since. A few times it's been mowed, but for the most part it stays overgrown more often than not.
As bad as it gets, it's still nowhere as bad as some of the houses featured in the videos from SB Mowing. This is a guy who goes around (he started in Kansas but I am not sure if he exclusively mows there or goes around the country), finds the most overgrown yards he can, and then trims them back for free. The transformations are incredible and it is a ton of work. I think the popularity of these videos comes from the idea of bringing order from chaos.
I have enjoyed these videos for a while, but I had not posted them on the Friday Link because I thought this was an old man thing. That was until I found one of my 20-something friends posting one of the videos, telling me they loved watching them too.
Here are two from SB Mowing to get us started.
Let's start with the video this week that got everyone in the world of dance abuzz! This is the University of Minnesota Dance Team 2024 Jazz performance from the national championships. The first video is the preliminary run through, the qualifying round. This one features the music more clearly.
Howdy all! I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.
The Doctor Who convention is in Minneapolis this weekend and it allows me to revisit my favorite TV show of all time! Quick recap, David Tennant returned as the 14th version of the Doctor and in the finale of his three special run (titled 'The Giggle') he ran into an OLD foe of his from the 1st Doctor's run, The Toymaker, an insanely powerful entity.
In a bit of brilliant casting, Neil Patrick Harris was cast as the new version of The Toymaker and it went spectacularly. Watch these specials and the first episode with the 15th Doctor Ncuti Gatwa on Disney Plus.
Here are three clips from 'The Giggle' to wet your whistle, including the incredible Spice Girl scene.
Happy New Year to everyone! Let's hope it's a good one.
This week I am going to post the complete series 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy,' all 7 hours and 16 minutes of it! This originally was a much smaller documentary, about 2 hours, produced by ITV in England. The documentary was a deep dive into the allegations that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone in killing John F. Kennedy.
Let me start with what the documentary got wrong. The documentary's original allegations were three men were guilty of the assassination and named all three men specifically. Then one of the men threatened to sue. Upon further review, the men all had pretty good alibis that they were not in Dallas in November of 1963. Nigel Turner who put this documentary together admitted he didn't interview at least one of the men, failing to do even a basic fact check on some elements of the documentary.
Also, the documentary kept getting added to. The original documentary came out in 1988, and then in 1991, it was re-edited and more footage was added. In 1995, another episode was added, and then in 2003, they added three whole new episodes, bringing the total to 7. The later episodes were criticized for their implication LBJ himself was somehow involved in the assassination. Today, the complete episode list is cataloged at 9. I have no idea.
Here's what sent a chill through me in this documentary. Two known facts about the assassination point to Oswald not being the lone shooter. First is the President's head moving back into the shot from the book depository behind him. That is absolute garbage. The physics of force don't work that way. If he was shot from behind, his head would have flown forward. The second is the magic bullet. Bullets don't do what the Warren Commission claimed the magic bullet did. When you present these two facts, skeptics will say "If Oswald didn't work alone, then where is the evidence of someone else shooting?"
A lot of people reported gunshots from the grassy knoll, but a lot of the film taken towards the grassy knoll was confiscated by the government and never seen again. There was one picture that clearly shows the grassy knoll and in the 2nd episode, they have a photo expert analyze the image. What they discover would stop anyone in their tracks. Watch the 2nd episode 'The Forces of Darkness' from 51 minutes in.
The documentary might have laid the blame at the wrong feet, but someone else CLEARLY was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. That's a conspiracy.
Please get vaccinated immediately, especially for COVID and the flu.
Have a great weekend!
Hi all!
I hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's. Plan ahead and PLEASE do not drink and drive. It has been a long year for me, recovering from being hit by a drunk driver. The pain, stress, and awfulness of the last 12 months should not be thrust upon anyone.
Plain and simple this week. The Honest Trailers folks have put together their trailers for some of the worst movies ever made. Some of these are brutal, but Honest Trailers always does a good job. Enjoy!
I'm officially calling it. Although I won't kill my Twitter page, I'm mostly done posting there.
Yes, it's Elon Musk. I'm not sure if he bought this site because his petty small ego couldn't handle criticism, if he was actually part of a plan to try to manipulate public sentiment to welcome fascism to America, or a little of both, but his latest decisions make me staying on Twitter feel more like watching that friend or family member spiraling out of control. While you hope they pull out of their tailspin, you finally come to the realization they are beyond saving.
There was a nice stretch of Twitter post-Trump, a reminder of what it was like before Trump and the trolls took over in 2016. I was able to have discussions again, my timeline and DM's were relatively civil and I didn't feel icky after spending 10-15 minutes scrolling posts. That all immediately changed after Elon took over.
I have 5 other social pages: Facebook, BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, and Instagram. Of the six total sites, the vast overwhelming amount of threats, insults, and stupidity/bigotry/racism trying to disguise itself as viable political opinions I'm exposed to on any given day are on Twitter.
Since Thanksgiving, I've blocked a total of 487 people on social media, 460 on Twitter. If I remove the Facebook scams where they are trying to convince me my page is about to be shut down, it's 460 out of 462.
The stunning level of racism and bigotry spewed on Twitter today is unbelievable. It's like you're at a convention in a hotel and the hotel is also hosting a KKK/Nazi convention at the same time. It's not just the exposure to racism and bigotry you see coming and going in the hotel halls, but it's also that when you're supposedly in the safety of your own conference room, there's not only the occasional emboldened racist or bigot co-worker who comes by, but it's also a feeling of dread which permeates your existence in the hotel itself. You know it's only a matter of time before you have someone screaming horrible things at you. That's Twitter, and I'm really tired of it.
There is one metric that causes many people to hesitate to quit Twitter, followers. I was at nearly 4000 on Thursday (more on that in a second) and walking away from a following you've cultivated over time is not easy. That's what initially kept me on the site.
When Elon endorsed an anti-Semitic post, and then doubled down on his intolerance, that's when I knew the convention was pretty much over for me. I made the decision that if my newer, lesser three social media pages (Threads, BlueSky, and Mastodon) got to 1000 followers, I'd stop posting regularly on Twitter.
Then came the bizarre interview where he started to swear at the leaders of other major corporations for daring to not advertise with him due to his endorsement of anti-Semitism. That was not a mentally well man. I realized I might need to speed up my decision.
But now we have two things that show me Elon's buying of Twitter might indeed be more about trying to sweeten the appeal of fascism in America. The first was his decision to reinstate Alex Jones, a man who is human feces. This is the guy who insisted the Newtown massacre never happened and encouraged his followers to harass and torment the families of the young victims, something he is already been found guilty of, and now is desperately trying to prevent from paying for. No decent human being would ever think this guy has anything to add to the betterment of humanity.
Then there is this..."event" Elon hosted on Twitter, the one where Vivek Ramaswamy went to the bathroom live. Out of decency, I won't post the audio, but rather a screenshot:
Now I know I will get Far Rightos screaming "You're against free speech." Absolutely not. Alex Jones is more than welcome to go to the town square and scream his thoughts into the air. Twitter is NOT a town square. It is a privately held corporation that already restricts a lot of comments from opinions Elon doesn't like (but far Rightos have NO PROBLEM with that censorship). That aside, Freedom of Speech doesn't mean anyone HAS TO listen to it. That's the Right's fantasy; forcing people to have to listen to and respect their brainless grunting. I've often said the modern Republican thinks 'debate' is them kicking in your front door, going to the bathroom on the floor in your living room, pointing at it with a smile on their face, and screaming "YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT!" No, no I don't. You can't force people to stand in the town square and agree with insanity, nor does anyone have to stay on a social media site and listen to/sponsor this craziness.
These clowns think 'Freedom of Speech' means 'Freedom from Criticism' (unless it's something they don't like!). Rightos, stop screaming your Freedom of Speech is being infringed from the biggest megaphone you can find, and stop expecting others to live by a code you yourselves are nowhere even close to following.
Since Alex Jones was reinstated by Elon on Twitter, my follower count has dropped significantly. I presume this is the people fleeing the site. I have currently 570 followers on the other three sites so that is good enough. I highly encourage anyone to follow me on those sites or on Facebook:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TMGImNotIdiot/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/mattmcneilshow.bsky.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@matthewmcneil1
Mastodon: https://mstdn.party/@MattMcNeilShow
Instagram (but I don't use it that much): https://www.instagram.com/matthewmcneil1/
I will keep Twitter open, but I just won't be posting there with any regularity, mainly retweets of other people's posts or the occasional post where I know a person mentioned is mainly on Twitter. I would hope someday that I might revisit this page when someone else finally buys it at a steeply discounted rate from Elon, but I think Elon would rather turn the site off than admit how bad he is at running it.
And Elon, Stop trying to make 'X' happen. It's not going to happen.
Howdy all!
I have featured Joe Scott and his YouTube channel 'Answers With Joe' a few times in the Friday link. One time was the fascinating question 'Who the heck is using all the glitter?' Another time I focused on his piece about the actual oldest human-recorded voice, from the year 1860.
This week, I give Joe his due, because his videos are really addictive. Three for you tonight starting with a look at the countdown of the worst years in human history. I featured some videos about 536, which even Joe agrees (with evidence) was the all-time worst, but some of the other years mentioned were pretty horrific too. And Joe's arguments on including them are spot on.
Sorry, I was MIA last week. It was Thanksgiving and time with the kids overrode everything else.
This week we start with a video that seems to size up the feelings a lot of people had at the news of the passing of Henry Kissinger. Don't get me wrong, I think the former Secretary of State is going to have some serious explaining to do in the afterlife, but some people were ecstatic. He had a pretty horrific track record, something that showed with the jubilation and celebration embraced by many by the news.
I don't take joy in people dying. There are always those who did love him and will miss them. You can cheer someone's death as loudly as you want, but the only people who will hear it will be the ones who are mourning.
The last time I saw this many people happy at someone's death would be...this little musical number.
Okay, I know it's late, guilty as charged, but I had all the kids home for Thanksgiving, and I have priorities. Plus I made a kick caboose soup!
Good Friday all!
As we set sail for Thanksgiving next Thursday, let me first get to the 60th Anniversary that comes up on Wednesday. That's the day Doctor Who first debuted. This is not to take away from the more important anniversary from that same exact day, the Assassination of JFK, but it is remarkable that one TV show has been on the air for that long (fine, with a few breaks).
On Saturday we are going to get the revisiting of David Tennant as the Doctor, but not the same version of the 10th Doctor he played until 13 years ago. Nope, David Tennant is officially the 14th Doctor, after regenerating from the 13th Doctor (an underrated Jodie Whittaker) into the same form he had before, only this time he is different from his original run, hence a NEW Doctor.
The good news is you do not have to wait for Saturday to see the 14th Doctor's (short) run begin (he is only doing a series of specials before handing over the reins to the 15th Doctor Ncuti Gatwa). Children in Need is a charitable event they have every year in England, and in the past Doctor Who has created special videos for the event. This five-minute clip is pure gold as the 14th Doctor crashes into a classic moment from Doctor Who, the 4th Doctor's Genesis Of The Daleks story. Although we don't see the 4th Doctor Tom Baker, fans of the show will love it. And Tennant was made to play the character.
Hi all. To all those who served, at home and abroad, and their families who served on the homefront, all my best on Veteran's Day tomorrow.
With it Veteran's Day tomorrow, you know exactly where I'm going. The 1st Minnesota's brave stand that saved the Union toward the end of the day on the 2nd day at Gettysburg in 1863.
The American Battlefield Trust has a great perspective video that gets you the lay of the land at Gettysburg, and where the 1st Minnesota actually charged.
I hope everyone has a nice Halloween on Tuesday and a lot of fun this weekend.
I remember the first time someone sent a VHS tape of an episode of the first Comedy Channel's season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Compared to how polished the show would become it still seemed somewhat amateurish, but Robot Holocaust was so funny.
I didn't see much of the show in Germany, and it was only when I returned to MSP in 1992 did I finally see an episode on the now-branded Comedy Central, realizing it had become a cultural phenomenon. Long-time readers of Progressive Citizen X know I love the show.
But I have not seen too many of the original KTMA episodes. The early shows were very different from what would become the beloved later show, but this episode 'SST: Death Flight' was the episode where it all started to come together in regards to riffing. I had a few other fans suggest it as a good place to start the KTMA season and it does not disappoint. It does help that this pathetically bad 'Airport' rip-off has an easy-to-mock cast of celebrities.
And how about Trace Beaulieu looking like Dan Gladden!
Enjoy!
Hi all! It is the spooky season and tonight I have a scare that has stayed with me from the first time I watched it, the short 'The Raft,' from Creepshow 2.
The characters in this are fairly predictable, although the order in which they go is a little unique (at least it was for the time). What 'The Raft' does is prove you can get great horror and scares from a very simple concept and very simple effects. The creature in this is pretty much a garbage bag in the water, but it sure scared the crud out of me nearly 40 years ago and still does to a point today.
I remember being very freaked out about going in lakes for a year after watching this.
Happy Friday the 13th everyone. This week I have something REALLY scary for you! ME!
I have spent my day dealing with the installation of a new water heater and now I have a ceiling fan dripping in my bathroom. I am officially tapping out.
For you tonight are two of my better AM 950 radio rants from the last few years. First up is why you should have never named Lake Calhoun after John C Calhoun.
Afterwards was me exploding at Trump for his treatment of the four soldiers who were killed in Niger, and their families.
Enjoy!
Howdy all!
This week we start off with a true American hero, General Mark Milley. Thanks to him (and a few others) we still have a functioning Democracy. When the bloated traitor that is Donald Trump took office, I made a few posts where I pointed out I could never see the military sacrificing this country for one egotistical narcissistic man. I was right. As the General says, the military serves the Constitution, not any one individual. Although Trump CLEARLY pressured to military to support him over the country, General Milley and the rest of the armed forces did not waiver.
Thank you for all you did for our country, sir. I salute you. And General, if anyone does come after you, they'll have to go through me, and a heck of a lot of us too! God bless you! Go Army!
Howdy all!
Minneapolis/St. Paul and Minnesota are AMAZING! I love living here and I love exploring the city. Lately, the metro area and the state have been featured repeatedly on many different top ten lists for livability, quality of life, happiness, and other categories. Many times we hit #1. I think that's great, but this seems to pain some people, and that's sad.
If you really hate this city, why are you here? You have ONE TRIP on this spinning rock and here you are wasting it. Will you say "My job is too good"? Well, then the city can't be that bad if you are willing to stay for that reason, considering jobs are everywhere. Will you say "I have a family member I need to stay by"? That's also a fake crutch. You could move with them to another state, or at the very least you could move out of the city entirely and commute to them in the metro, yet you don't.
If you really hate the city, then leave. Go be happy. I'm staying. I love it here.
For some reason the YouTube page had the CityNerd account pop up in my suggested viewing. The page looks at cities from a transportation, quality of life, and practicality perspective. Ray Delahanty is the host and he decided to pay Minneapolis a visit. There are a lot of things about this evaluation I find spot on. I love how he was told to avoid the Lake Street station, yet he goes the and doesn't find it any worse than most other cities. He praises us for our bike paths, park system, and lakes. He is critical of our wide streets and the obstacles we have a tendency to put into crosswalks. Also, he is not a fan of the winters.
Give the video a watch. I agree with him more than I disagree.
Also this week a fun video for Science Fiction nerds like me. Have you ever wondered where most of the Science fiction locations from franchises like Star Trek and Dune take place? Most of them have very specific locations on our neighboring star maps.
The Overview Effect has a breakdown.
Have a great weekend.
Get your Flu and COVID shots!
Hey all! I hope you had a nice week.
I have recently been fascinated by something I never really thought about before. After the 13 colonies won their freedom, how exactly did they get to the point of electing the first President, George Washington? Sure, it's easy to say "Well duh, he was the obvious choice to lead the country, but it's not like the fledgling country even had a concept of what the President would be, or even how the President would be picked.
Heck, my guess is most people are somewhat ill-informed about how Presidential elections work today (even though we have gotten a bit of a history lesson from Trump's attempts to overthrow the government). On Election Day every four years we do not elect a President, but rather your state's electors, who then themselves go and vote for the President in December. For the most part the electors back up the will of their state's voters...for the most part.
Tonight for you, two videos from a YouTube historian The Premodernist. First, he talks about the long weird path to the first-ever Presidential Election in the US.
Hi all! I hope you had a good week.
Let's start off with food! I love a good Italian sandwich. Although I was born in MSP, I spent most of my youth in Rhode Island, with its large Italian population. A grossly underrated food state.
This sandwich is genius. I can not figure out why I never thought of doing this before. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Italian Chopped Sub, courtesy of Sam the Cooking Guy:
Hi all! To start off this week let me encourage you to go watch 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.' When that movie came out, nerd celebrities bashed on it. I am guessing because they were upset they didn't get to kiss the girl in the end or the production company dared to NOT make the movie in their head. I was skeptical so I passed.
The other night I saw it was on streaming, so I decided to watch it. It's a freaking hoot! It is a lot of fun. Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez are fantastic. Even Hugh Grant is enjoyable!
To prove it, here is a great scene where they have to reanimate a dead person to find out the location of a certain helmet. They can only ask each dead person 5 questions. This is played out nearly perfectly.