(Why I Support) Oregon Masking...Forever? Alec Baldwin "Didn't Pull the Trigger." Jussie Smollet Killed...My Last Chance at TV, Korean TV Shows are the new Beatles/Stones? (The Five for 12/03/21)
Hey, welcome to The Five.
If you want to support the creation of this publication, use the code FREESPEECH to get $15 off your purchase of the producte below.
I wrote The Blue Collar Guide to Effortless Output to teach you the system I learned from mega-millionaire entrepreneurs to manage The Five (and several other projects).
With the discount code:
Due to supply chain issues, the crewneck will only be available through the weekend, before that design is permanently retired.
You’ll get the ebook same day, sweatshirts ship in time for Christmas.
It’s Friday, so let’s dive into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
The state of Oregon may be masking…forever.
That’s not hyperbole.
From a reporter at ABC Portland:
In my opinion, this will result in a handful of outcomes.
A. People will move out of Portland, but the mandate may also attract the pro-mask crowd to move into the city. My best guess is this policy will be a net population loss for Portland, and the more rural, more independent areas of the state will simply ignore it.
B. I do have some concern here that such extreme policy (masking forever) will spill over into domestic terrorism. Oregon is one of the top states for White Supremacist groups, and I can (grimly) imagine them blowing up a government building over this, a la Oklahoma City in 1995. I hope I’m wrong about that…but desperate, unstable individuals are not in the habit of responding reasonably to unreasonable laws.
(For the record, Oregon was founded, despicably, as a white’s only state).
C. Finally, I want to offer my full, unwavering support for Oregon to implement a permanent mask mandate…forever. The point of federalism (balance of power between localities, states and the national government) is to serve as an incubator for ideas.
I also support my own right to never, ever visit Portland (wish I would have gone before the whole thing went to hell).
Portland is serving a valuable role in U.S. democracy right now.
Because of Portland, we don’t have to imagine what a city will look like if it bends the knee to Antifa. We can hop on Google and see the burned out buildings and smashed storefronts.
The rest of us can observe, and decide if those policies were wise.
[two]
A strange turn in the Jussie Smollet case this week.
There have been so many high profile cases in the last month…a quick refresher on Jussie.
The actor on the Chicago-based TV show Empire allegedly hired two Nigerian immigrants to stage a hate crime against him, in order to raise his acting profile (and pay).
When strong evidence came out that Jussie had not been “attacked” by White Supremacists in MAGA hats, but had carefully staged the incident with two brothers who were on his payroll as personal trainers. According to Variety, the brothers produced a receipt to a hardware store for the rope thrown around Smollet’s neck in the alleged “attack.” Shortly after, store video emerged of the brothers buying the exact materials used.
Despite a mountain of evidence the hate crime was a hoax, Smollet stood by his outlandish story, and his lawyers went so far as to claim the Nigerian brothers wore “whiteface” makeup under ski masks.
During the trial this week (in which analysts are reporting Smollet is losing badly), Smollet’s attorney asked for a mistrial, claiming the judge tried to attack her.
Newsweek reports:
Tamara Walker, the defense attorney of openly gay actor Jussie Smollett, accused Cook County Judge James Linn of "physically lunging" at her after Linn questioned Walker's cross-examination of a prosecution witness' past use of homophobic language in his social media posts.
The trial questions whether Smollett lied to Chicago police on January 29, 2019, about being victimized in a racist and homophobic attack. Prosecutors allege that Smollett paid $3,500 to two brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, to stage the attack against him. Smollett has denied the charges.
The journalist in me knows we have to leave the door open for all the facts to come in, but both Smollet’s defense (Nigerian immigrants in whiteface under their masks?!) and Attorney Walker’s allegations that a Cook County Judge would attack her…
…are absurd to the point of parody.
Believe it or not, I’m a (very minor) victim of Smollet’s alleged hoax. I was working on a reality TV concept with a couple of TV producers in Chicago at the time of Smollet’s incident, including one who worked on Empire.
After the negative press around Smollet, everyone working with the show became radioactive. A year later, a streaming platform picked up a similar concept to what we were working on.
That doesn’t mean our show would have been greenlit, just that we never got a real chance due to Smollet. And it’s not just me…the anecdotal evidence is that the Smollet incident slowed down (or killed) the scripted TV production revival that was happening in Chicago.
Assuming he’s guilty, Smollet has hurt a lot of people, and cost Chicago taxpayers more than $130,000 in expenses investigating an allegedly fraudulent event.
He could simply fess up and get on with his life.
Instead, Smollet drug regular folks away from their families and jobs for a full jury trial and is represented by an attorney who appears to care less about the truth than he does.
Zooming out, we see the same behavior in the Theranos trial of allegedly fraudulent founder Elizabeth Holmes, who allegedly swindled investors out of $400 million.
Both Smollet and Holmes are showing an ability to lie in the face of overwhelming evidence against them, the victims of their sins be damned.
I really detest the phrase “live your truth” for this exact reason.
Both Smollet and Holms seem to have constructed an imaginary world where their fraud and falsehoods didn’t hurt anyone, and now they don’t want to face the music.
Smollet and Holmes are the natural conclusion of a culture that places so much emphasis on feelings over facts.
[three]
…and speaking of pathological liars.
Alec Baldwin gave his first interview since the accidental shooting death of a cinematographer on the set of the western Rust.
In a clip released by ABC on Wednesday, Baldwin breaks down in tears as he recalls how much Hutchins was loved and admired by people who worked with her. The full conversation airs Thursday evening.
"You said you're not a victim, but is this the worst thing that's ever happened to you?" Stephanopoulos asks.
Baldwin immediately replies: "Yes."
When Stephanopoulos mentions that it wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled, Baldwin counters, "The trigger wasn't pulled, I didn't pull the trigger."
He says, "I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger, never."
Others connected to the Rust shooting spoke with Good Morning America Thursday.
The attorney for Dave Halls, Rust's assistant director, told the show that Halls has also maintained that Baldwin didn't pull the trigger. Lawyer Lisa Torraco said her client, speaking about Baldwin, told her: "His finger was never in the trigger guard."
My friend Craig, who spent me this story, claims “not to know two beans” about guns.
Well, here’s the quick summary for the antique revolver that (somehow) had a live bullet in it, which led to the fatal shooting.
A. The bullet comes out the end of the barrel, so don’t point it at people. Even if it’s a prop gun. I didn’t point my nerf guns at real people as a kid. I wasn’t allowed to, because my parents (and grandparents, and community) taught me proper safety.
B. A single action revolver must have the hammer cocked, and the trigger pulled, to fire. Unless there’s some kind of (very odd) modification to the pistol I don’t know about, Baldwin, like Holmes and Smollet, is lying so blatantly I can’t even wrap my head around it.
Baldwin’s “didn’t pull the trigger” theory won’t hold up to a simple examination of the firearm.
Barring some kind of of sinister murder plot here (which seems highly improbable) I do feel for Baldwin. He took an innocent woman’s life due to carelessness, and that’s a horrible burden to carry for the rest of his days on this earth.
But, like Smollet and Holmes, Baldwin appears to favor going down with the ship, and lying at every point along the way, rather than simply speaking the truth.
This lie cannot hold up to fact.
And I’m guessing Baldwin will have to deal with the consequences, not just of the killing by his hand, but also his ridiculous attempt to shift blame.
[four]
The Netflix thriller series Squid Game has become an American phenomenon, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum.
The stream of popular content originating in South Korea has been growing for over a decade, and has now been deemed the “Korean invasion,” in the same vein as the rise of British Rock, a la The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, with teens in the 1960’s.
In the same way South Korea borrowed from Japan and the United States to develop its manufacturing prowess, the country’s directors and producers say they have been studying Hollywood and other entertainment hubs for years, adopting and refining formulas by adding distinctly Korean touches. Once streaming services like Netflix tore down geographical barriers, the creators say, the country transformed from a consumer of Western culture into an entertainment juggernaut and major cultural exporter in its own right.
In the last few years alone, South Korea shocked the world with “Parasite,” the first foreign language film to win best picture at the Academy Awards. It has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, band in the world with BTS. Netflix has introduced 80 Korean movies and TV shows in the last few years, far more than it had imagined when it started its service in South Korea in 2016, according to the company. Three of the 10 most popular TV shows on Netflix as of Monday were South Korean.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup.
Peter Jackson (best known as the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) released The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+, a documentary about the making of the band’s seminal 1970 album Let it Be. One one hand, the documentary is distilled down from 57 hours of never before seen footage. On the other hand, it’s only distilled down to an 8 hour run time, so if you’re going to dive into this one, keep in mind that the reviews are great, but this one is…a lot, and likely not for the casual viewer.
But hey, the extended edition of Lord of the Rings clocks in at 11.5 hours, so the length is just par for the course for Jackson.
Sons of Anarchy (also known as “my favorite show of all time”) creator Kurt Sutter has two new projects in the works with Netflix. A movie, This Beast, is based on a French folk tale of a werewolf like creatures, and set in England in the 1700’s and appears to walk the line between suspense, action and horror.
Sutter is also developing a Sons-of-Anarchy-like western, The Abandons, which will hopefully air on Netflix, about a family becoming outlaws in the American West in the 1850’s. And while we’re on the subject, Sons of Anarchy is streaming on Hulu, and holds up quite well…just keep in mind A). it’s based on Hamlet and is set up as a modern tragedy and B). it pushes the limits on violence on basic cable..
Jack Reacher may not be as iconic as James Bond, but the (more or less) Americanized version of 007 has a strong following across 26 thriller novels from author Lee Childs. Tom Cruise took a stab at the character in the 2012 film Jack Reacher, a mostly forgettable paint-by-numbers action flick.
Now, Amazon Prime is reviving the character for Reacher, a much more interesting take on the action genre that sets Jack up as a murder-suspect-turned-investigator in a series of small town murders (which will inevitably level up to a larger conspiracy).
This time around, the 6’4” Alan Ritchsen (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Titans) will step into the shoes of the title character, who is 6’5” in the novels. (By comparison, the vertically challenged Cruise is roughly the size of a G.I. Joe).
The novels are a billion dollar franchise, with printings in 49 different languages. Although I haven’t read anything in the series, I’m guessing the wild success of the character in print is due to a much more compelling story than we got the last time around.
Out February 4 on Amazon Prime Video. First trailer here.
(Note: Mr. Cruise, if you’re reading this, I do enjoy several of your movies and you’re in absolutely incredible shape for a man approaching 60. Please do not resort to violence and hit me with an action movie head butt…to my kneecap.)
MOVIE/MY PICK: I don’t cover movie/music/TV awards (or even look at who’s nominated these days), but if House of Gucci isn’t knee deep in nominations this winter, there’s something wrong.
Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) and Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer’s Club, Zack Snyder’s Justic League) both turn in unbelievable performances. Adam Driver (Star Wars VII-IX, The Last Duel) is solid here as well, but Gaga/Leto are breathtaking. The only downside is this is a movie about horrible, selfish people…and there’ not much to root for, but Ridley Scott (The Martian, Gladiator) proves once again to be among the best living directors. A depressing movie, but a master class in filmmaking.
MUSIC NEWS/MY PICK: This generation’s best country/roots/Americana band, Turnpike Troubadours, are back together after an “indefinite haitus” split the group up in 2019, fueled by singer Evan Felker’s alcoholism.
The newly sober Felker appears to be ready to start writing for a new album, presumably continuing the “Lorrie Saga” the band is best known for. The “Lorrie Saga” refers to Felker’s series of songs with the protagonist of the song works through his relationship with the fictional Lorrie, a “dark haired daughter of Southwest Arkansas.”
Rolling Stone has an excellent feature on the band’s return.
Even if you’re not traditionally a fan of the genre, the Lorrie narrative is compelling songwriting worth a listen. Here’s a playlist of just the “Lorrie songs.”
And on a final note, fellow Red Dirt star Zach Bryan’s single “Felker,” which was written to encourage the Turnpike front man during his recovery from alcohol abuse, is also worth a spin.
Until the next one,
-sth