Fandom.

If Nance is in the kitchen making deviled eggs, cucumber sandwiches and chocolate cream pie, it can only mean one thing:

She is invited to a “Mad Men” viewing party, and needs period snacks to bring to the potluck. But surely deviled eggs are outdated by now in the series, right? We’re into 1969, Megan’s making fondue, and deviled eggs and WASPy little sandwiches are too Betty-in-season-two. However? I don’t care. Deviled eggs are tasty, so deviled eggs it is.

But I put in extra dijon, a mustard that didn’t exist even in sophisticated Megan Draper’s refrigerator, I’d wager. Gotta update.

I am looking forward to this season, but I am not optimistic. I want the holy-shit verve of season 5, not the bourbon-soaked ennui of 1968. If this is Matthew Weiner’s idea of a slow glide to the finish, I will be pissed. Vince Gilligan may have written the manual on how to go out in style with “Breaking Bad.” Weiner may not have it in him. After all, he made his own kid a minor player in this ensemble.

Soon it will be time for me to jump in the shower, so let’s bloggage it up:

This is a developing story, so I may update the link: Someone’s shooting at …elderly Jews? Why? At least they got this one alive. I guess more will be revealed.

One of my social-media connections described going out to a restaurant Saturday night and seeing a couple of mother-daughter pairs, dressed identically in skin-tight this and stiletto that. Chances are, they were headed for the Palace, to the Miley Cyrus concert. She entered on a slide shaped like a tongue and exited on a flying hot dog. And she earned thousands and thousands of dollars doing so. That’s entertainment! Mercy:

“Drive,” aided by an arsenal of lasers, was a power moment, where her vocals took center stage over production tricks, and she dropped the stunts and let her voice carry a set of covers performed at a B-stage in the back of the arena, taking on Bob Dylan (“You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”), Lana del Rey (“Summertime Sadness”), Coldplay (“The Scientist”) and Dolly Parton (“Jolene”). She returned to the main stage for “23,” the one song of the night that felt expendable. But she was soon on to her killer encore, which packed “We Can’t Stop,” “Wrecking Ball” and “Party in the USA” – complete with dancing versions of Mount Rushmore, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan — back-to-back-to-back.

Speaking of “Mad Men,” I think Andy Greenwald gets it right.

And another action-packed week begins.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events, Popculch, Television |
 

27 responses to “Fandom.”

  1. Sherri said on April 14, 2014 at 12:39 am

    Two funny contributions to start the week:

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/libertarian-police-department.html

    http://games.usvsth3m.com/2048/benedict-cumberbatch-vs-otters-edition/

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  2. Dexter said on April 14, 2014 at 1:16 am

    I know, but this transcends sports and enters weirdness and maybe mental crisis areas, anyway it is just plain nuts when you get mad because you’re targeted for a second-screening at an airport and you say you have a bomb. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/49ers-Aldon-Smith-held-at-LAX-for-alleged-bomb-5399612.php

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  3. MaryRC said on April 14, 2014 at 2:29 am

    Andy Greenwald can dismiss the Manson-murder foreshadowing if he wants to but after tonight’s episode, I’m not convinced that it won’t be part of the story. This was such a depressing episode. I hate seeing where Peggy is now. But at least Pete is happy!

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  4. Deborah said on April 14, 2014 at 5:43 am

    I agree that the season opener of Mad Men was depressing, Don is so out of touch with the times, he called Pete a “hippy” of all things. Pete, in his plaid pants and sweater draped around his shoulders was anything but a hippy. Poor Peggy. I was wondering when they were going to get into the frustration of creative people having to kow tow to talentless bottom liners. I like that Mad Men is all about the development of the characters.

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  5. ROGirl said on April 14, 2014 at 6:22 am

    Current temp: 71 degrees, rain this afternoon, colder tonight. Up to an inch of snow tomorrow.

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  6. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 7:23 am

    After a weekend of the Republicans helping Mormon militias spit on the flag in support of sagebrush welfare, maybe it’s time to get Manson back in the national discussion. As the prophet of a race war, he’d serve the Republicans pretty well as a motivational speaker, if not a candidate. He doesn’t even have to dermabrade that swastika from his forehead.

    I’m disappointed the Feds didn’t mop the desert up with all that white trash ass, or at least deputize some Berkeley mall cops to paint their little fat, round inbred faces with cayenne. They had such an opportunity. Even deadbeat dad Joe Walsh was there.

    The feds did the right thing, I guess. I just wish they’d show the same restraint when they’re facing a protest of unarmed college kids.

    Hopefully the feds will move to rip out every roadway and drought supplement and starve these fuckers back to housing blocks in Provo and Salt Lake where they can receive their white welfare with the appropriate degree of motherfucking shame.

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  7. Alan Stamm said on April 14, 2014 at 7:33 am

    The Kansas shootings suspect is a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a history of anti-Semitism and racism, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center — Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, founder and grand dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

    A mad man, literally. What decade is this again?

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  8. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 7:41 am

    Alan Stamm: I went to college with a guy named Gordon Ipoch who was an associate of Glen Miller’s, back in the day. He was also active in Young Republicans.

    He was an otherwise unremarkable preliterate dumbass with khaki pants and a sweater draped around his neck. I guess the Christian Identity shit sucked him into Miller’s orbit.

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  9. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 7:53 am

    Ha. Straight from Glen Miller’s mouth:

    Anticipating going to jail, I had already appointed Cecil Cox as Leader of the Party, during my absence, and Gordon Ipock as number two man under Cox. Cecil had been a highly dedicated and hard working capable Den leader for several years, and I felt I could trust him. Gordon was a relative newcomer but was intelligent, capable, and an experienced journalist who had worked on two North Carolina newspaper staffs, so I felt he was capable of publishing The Confederate Leader newspaper and taking care of the other administrative duties.

    http://www.whty.org/book/16.htm

    Apparently Morris Dees of the SPLC put Miller’s ass behind bars on this occasion.

    Everyone should take a moment right now and cut the SPLC a generous check, to offset the money the Republicans are giving the Klan.

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  10. beb said on April 14, 2014 at 8:02 am

    And apparently Frazier Glen Miller was videotaped chanting “heil hitler” in the back of the squad car. What a nice guy. Maybe he was upset because he couldn’t get to Nevada foor the big show-down between the Piko commie Fed and the Jackbooted Thugs of Sovereign Americans. I’m with Coolzeldad here, I wish the government had come in armed to the teeth and asked ‘who wants to die first?’ instead of surrending the cattle already confiscated. I understand that the BLM doesn’t want another Waco/Ruby Ridge but when you let scofflaws scoff at the law it just emboldens the terrorists.

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  11. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 8:08 am

    Here’s what the Republicans and the Klan are doing with that money in NC: This fecal gem is Dalton Huff, a Republican running as a stalking horse Dem for the NC district 2 house seat.

    http://rantnc.com/2014/04/08/state-house-candidates-fb-page-chock-full-of-racism/

    I ran mail down in that area of Granville County. It was thick with Neo Nazis, Klan, and housebound inbreds, some of them doubtlessly living out their twelve-fingered crosseyed lives in attics or damp basements. I may have seen old Dalton out in his folk’s yard stretching the full length of his chain to bark at my jeep as I drove by.

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  12. Dorothy said on April 14, 2014 at 8:36 am

    I’m finding I don’t have the stomach for much of Game of Thrones anymore. So much sadistic, twisted behavior. Nothing to cling to with a glimmer of hope. The Walking Dead has similar bleakness but for some reason I can handle it. I might just find something else to do when the hubs wants to watch GOT. Mad Men rarely disappointed me in the past, but I found last night’s entry very limp.

    I’m having a very blah Monday – can you tell?!

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  13. brian stouder said on April 14, 2014 at 9:07 am

    Well, and ‘blood on the moon’ just ahead, which seems to be a significant, handy motivational signal, for some very few

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  14. mark said on April 14, 2014 at 9:08 am

    I too found last night’s Mad Men to be largely unexceptional- dull with brief interludes of absurdity.

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  15. Julie Robinson said on April 14, 2014 at 9:09 am

    May deviled eggs never be outdated. Too tasty. Looking forward to having some after we color Easter eggs.

    Dorothy, I don’t think I’ll ever watch Game of Thrones and I dislike Mad Men for its bleakness, so I get you. It’s definitely blah weather here with gray skies and snow/sleet forecast for tonight. Just when we were thinking the nice weather was finally here for good, too.

    Here’s some happy Monday news–if you earn less than $200,000 (I’m guessing that’s all of us here), your chance of being audited by the IRS is .9%. Over $1 million? Your chance is 10.9%. Seems about right to me.

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  16. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 14, 2014 at 9:22 am

    Dang. So I can throw out all those receipts and mileage reports….

    “Mad Men” didn’t seem dull to me, just was an hour getting us all up to speed with what’s happened the last few months. I’m not sure I’m getting Peggy as a landlord, subplot-wise, and am hoping we don’t go full-Manson. Lots of head faking up Benedict Canyon, so I guess we just wait and see.

    Freddy using Don as his Cyrano — nice.

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  17. Deborah said on April 14, 2014 at 9:36 am

    Snowing in Santa Fe now, actually sticking to the ground. Supposed to warm up to 47 and be sunny by the afternoon.

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  18. brian stouder said on April 14, 2014 at 10:35 am

    My lovely wife just sent me this link.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/13/woman-arrested-7-dead-babies/7681445/

    I mean, wow.

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  19. Jeff Borden said on April 14, 2014 at 10:37 am

    How long before the NRA starts calling for the arming of all elderly people in group homes?

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  20. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 10:57 am

    Brian: Mormons are just like all the other fundie/Republican hybrids. Once that baby’s out of the ass, it’s fair game.

    They’re all in favor of Exceedingly late term abortions.

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  21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 14, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    8 out of 10; does this mean I can go to Harvard now?

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/education/edlife/edlife-quiz-psych.html

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  22. Sue said on April 14, 2014 at 1:52 pm

    Miller killed three Christians in his attempt to exterminate Jews. Oopsie.
    The first thing that should happen to Mr. Miller on his conviction is a DNA test to determine his purity, results to be broadcast to the world. That probably would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, though.

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  23. coozledad said on April 14, 2014 at 3:04 pm

    Miller and his various groups have been stockpiling military weaponry for decades, harassing law enforcement and beating up random people of color.

    The Republicans and the Tea Party have offered the White People’s Party the closest thing to legitimacy they’ve ever had, essentially co-opting them in larger white resentment groups. It was probably hurtful for old Glen and his old paramilitary buddies that they’d been herewith conscripted to be a sideshow in the Ron/Rand Paul organization.

    It’s no accident when you keep hearing Fox news, Rush Limbaugh and other bigots calling the SPLC a hate group, or calling it unnecessary. Morris Dees has their number.

    Here’s the current? President of the White People’s Party and Caldwell NC Tea Party member Gordon Ipock talking about the links between Neo-Nazis, the Tea Party, and Republicans. The rhetoric should sound familiar, because right-wing networks have mainstreamed it:
    But the European-American defectors from the Republicans can’t possibly be happy with the multicultural–sexual deviate–leftist entitlement Democrats. They are likely to return to the Republicans if there is any reasonable excuse for doing so. As a result, one counsel among the Republicans will be to simply stay the course.

    There is every reason to think that this might work, at least for an election or two. It’s quite easy to imagine a Republican candidate reclaiming essentially the same electoral victory George W. Bush achieved in 2004 in better economic circumstances. In fact, it probably would have happened this year, except for all of the headwinds of the Bush presidency.

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  24. Dexter said on April 14, 2014 at 3:16 pm

    Otto Petersen, who with his dummy George revolutionized ventriloquism, and was sort of a vaudevillian out-of-place in this century, has died at age 53. Otto felt he was born too late and he would have been much better suited for the 1930s, along with the Marx brothers, Mae West, W.C. Fields, and especially his all-time heroes, Laurel and Hardy.
    He worked dirty, very dirty some said, but if you “got” his comedy you knew he was a genius. I just heard comedian Rich Vos say that in Las Vegas, all the headliners would rush from their gigs to catch an Otto and George show.

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  25. mark said on April 14, 2014 at 4:20 pm

    Sad news about Petersen. He was really funny.

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  26. Deborah said on April 14, 2014 at 4:28 pm

    Jeff Borden, my Mother in-law lives in a group home, a nice one, in Charlotte NC. I can’t imagine her as a pistol packing Grandma. LOL.

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  27. Jeff Borden said on April 14, 2014 at 5:05 pm

    I’m an adjunct faculty instructor at two colleges, so I actually stand a better chance of becoming armedthan your mother-in-law, Deborah, since so many of the gun fetishists think teachers should be armed to prevent another Sandy Hook. As if arming an almost 63-year-old klutz like me would be a good idea, lol.

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