Artwork of the Day: How To Respect And Display Our Flag (by Mitchell Hooks)

Posted on July 2, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

by Mitchell Hooks

Thank you, Mitchell Hooks!

Music Video of the Day: You Don’t Know How It Feels by Tom Petty (1994, directed by Phil Joanu)

Posted on July 2, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Shockingly enough, this song and video was actually considered to be controversial in 1994. Today, we just wish that Tom Petty was still here to roll another joint.

This video was directed by Phil Joanu, who directed several videos for both Tom Petty and U2. He also directed films like State of Grace and Gridiron Gang.

Enjoy!

Poem Of The Day: I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Walt Whitman wrote this poem in 1860, when America was on the verge of Civil War.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Guilty Pleasure #120: The Internship (dir by Shawn Levy)

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2o13’s The Internship, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play Nick and Billy, two longtime salesman who, having lost their jobs, apply for an internship at Google. Despite there not being any logical reason for either one of them to be given a spot, Nick and Billy are accepted. Suddenly, these two middle-aged guys who know next to nothing about programming or the Internet find themselves at the Google campus. Teaming up with a group of much younger outcasts (albeit very smart outcasts), Nick and Billy compete for a job at Google.

(Personally, the only job I would want at Google would be designing the Google Doodle.)

At first, no one is happy about having to work with Nick and Billy. Nick and Billy are adults, the type who still use landline phones and wonder why the kids are so obsessed with looking at a little screen. They’re loud. They make crude jokes and they don’t understand stuff like safe spaces. They fall for obvious pranks, like being sent to a college campus to track down “Professor Charles Xavier.” This leads to them both getting knocked out by a bald man in a wheelchair. “Professor Xavier’s a total dick!” Billy gasps.

Eventually, though, Nick and Billy start to win everyone over. Their old school competitiveness comes in handy during a game of Quidditch. They know how to talk to women at bars. They know how to appeal to someone running an old-fashioned business. But will that be enough to win them a job at Google?

Back when the Onion was funny, one of their best headlines was ‘The Internship’ Poised To Be Biggest Comedy Of 2005! The joke, of course, was that the film was coming out in 2013. The headline worked because it was true. The film felt very much out-of-place in the world of 2013. The majority of the film’s humor came from Nick and Billy not really knowing what Google was but, by 2013, even the most cranky of boomer grandparents were using Google to search for their Facebook password. Nick and Billy were not boomers. They may have been older than the other interns but still, it’s hard to believe that two guys in their mid-40s would be that clueless about everything from the Internet to the identity of Charles Xavier. I mean, the X-Men movies were kind of a big deal.

The other thig that dated the film was its portrayal of Google as essentially just being a fun playground full of nerdy prodigies who just needed someone to teach them how to party. By 2013, everyone knew that Google was a powerful and somewhat intimidating company. Indeed, at its weakest, the film basically feels like a 2-hour commercial for Google. Never mind that, by 2013, Google was so big and omnipresent that it really didn’t need to advertise.

So, with all that in mind, why do I find myself watching this movie whenever I happen to come across it? First off, as uneven as the movie is, it is funny. The Quidditch scene did make me laugh. John Goodman’s and Will Ferrell’s unhinged cameos made me laugh, almost despite myself. The scene where Nick and Billy annoy the group by misinterpreting what is meant by “coding” made me laugh, if just because of how bizarrely enthusiastic Nick and Billy were when they convinced themselves that their internship director was a Jeff Goldblum fan. (It makes no sense but just go with it.) Most importantly, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn made me laugh. There was absolutely no way to make it plausible that Nick and Billy would be that clueless about technology but Wilson and Vaughn really threw themselves into their roles and, as a result, I’m always willing to forgive some of the film’s missteps. The mix of Vaughn’s overage frat boy goofiness and Wilson’s mellow spaciness always makes me laugh more than it probably should. They’re a good comedic team and they’re both just so damn earnest in this movie that it works a lot better than it really should. In the end, you do find yourself rooting for them. They’re two hard-workers who like to play hard and who have the courage to reinvent themselves. What’s more American than that?

(Even more importantly, when you come across the film on cable, you’re free to pretend that it actually came out in 2005, back when the plot would have actually made more sense.)

If any film lives up to the term guilty pleasure, it’s The Internship.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Tubi/Lifetime Film Review: Get Off My Lawn (dir by Amara Cash)

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, remember Tahj Mowry? He was the star of Smart Guy, that WB show that ran in the late 90s. On Smart Guy, he played 10 year old prodigy who goes from being in Elementary School to being in High School. Towards the end of the show’s three-season run, there was an episode in which the smart guy had to decide whether or not to give into peer pressure and drink. The commercials were like, “Tahj Mowry, in a performance that you have to see.” I never saw the episode but, decades later, I still remember the commercial.

Well, in Get Off My Lawn, Tahj Mowry is all grown up. He’s playing Jason Moss, who is not a particularly smart guy. When he and his wife, Jackie (Camila Banus), move into a new house, they find themselves being harassed by a teenager named Alex (Jonah Hwang). Alex grew up in the house and he’s obsessed with making sure that Jason and Jackie “follow the rules.” Because Jason and Jackie are still in the process of buying the house and Alex is the son of the house’s actual owners, all of the old furniture is still sitting inside the building. When Alex notices that Jason and Jackie have moved a chair, he loses it. It turns out that it’s pretty easy to make Alex lose it.

Jason spends a lot of time trying to be a tough guy when it comes to Alex but, even grown up, he’s still Tahj Mowry and it’s a little bit hard to take him seriously doing anything. It’s like when Jaleel White occasionally shows up in a Lifetime film and he’s trying to play a detective but he still basically looks and sounds just like Urkel. Jason comes across as being kind of a wimp and it’s not always easy to sympathize with him. It doesn’t help that Alex is obviously unstable from the minute that he meets Jason and Jackie. This film’s main lesson would appear to be that you don’t have to be nice to everyone who introduces himself to you. That’s actually not a bad lesson.

As far as I can tell, Get Off My Lawn premiered on Tubi in 2025 and then it was recently aired on Lifetime. The film is obviously meant to be a satire of the typical Tubi/Lifetime formula but it’s a little bit difficult to satirize something that is pretty much a self-parody to begin with. That’s not to say that there aren’t funny moments. In the role of the clueless local policeman, Ben Zelevansky made me laugh several times. He gets the final line of the film and he delivers it so well that it actually made feel bad that the rest of the film didn’t always live up to his performance. Watching the film made me long for the cleverly played humor of A Deadly Adoption.

But here’s the odd thing about it all. For all of my complaints, the movie held my attention. It really did. Alex goes so overboard in his attempts to harass Jason and Jackie that I found myself watching just to see what he could possibly do next. On the one hand, the film is flawed. On the other hand, a character pulls out his own eyeball in slow motion. That’s not something that you regularly see, at least not on Lifetime.

I guess my point is that it’s an uneven film and Tahj Mowry is miscast. But, that said, it’s almost compulsively watchable.

A Blast From The Past: Make Mine Freedom

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the 250th birthday of America approaching, here’s a rather odd but charming blast from the past (1948, to be exact) called Make Mine Freedom. It’s a cartoon about why America rules and the rest of the world sucks.

This cartoon was produced by Arkansas’s Harding College and there is some debate over who actually directed it. Some sources claim that this was one of the first projects on which Joseph Barbera and William Hanna ever worked. Others insist that this film should be properly credited to either Fritz Freling or Fred Moore.

The important thing is that the film did a good job of exposing Dr. Utopia and his empty promises….

Hero of the Day: Haven Hamilton (Nashville)

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A lot of people might not automatically think of Haven Hamilton as being one of the heroes of Robert Altman’s 1975 masterpiece, Nashville. In fact, one could argue that there really aren’t any true heroes to be found in Nashville. No one in the film lives a perfect life. Everyone has their selfish moments. Even an otherwise sympathetic character like Lily Tomlin’s Linnea Reese still cheats on her husband. That said, I would argue that, at the end of the film, Haven Hamilton proves himself to be a far better person than anyone was expecting.

Played by Henry Gibson, Haven Hamilton is first seen recording a patriotic song about “how we must be doing something right” to last 200 years. He’s one of the elder statesmen of Nashville, an obviously vain man who is instantly identifiable due to his white suits and his sideburns. He’s a figure who represents what the majority of the film’s viewers would consider to be the past. He sings about and sells a vision of an idealized life. He sings a song about how he can’t leave his wife because he loves his children too much. Meanwhile, in reality, he’s carrying on an open affair with Lady Pearl (Barbara Baxley) and barely seems to acknowledge his loyal son, Bud (Dave Peel). Bud has a nice singing voice but Haven has made it clear that the Hamilton family only has room for one singer. Instead, Haven sent his son to Harvard and then put him in charge of his business affairs. It’s easy to dismissive of Haven. He’s vain. He’s old-fashioned. He looks down on the younger talent that’s coming into Nashville. He’s a celebrity but he’s only a Nashville celebrity. An awkward scene in which he meets Elliott Gould and Julie Christie (both playing themselves) captures the contrast between Nashville and Hollywood.

And yet, at the film’s conclusion, when the gunshots ring out and Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakely) collapses on stage, Haven is the one who tries to shield her. Even after he takes a bullet to the arm, Haven is the one who shouts that “This isn’t Dallas, it’s Nashville!” Haven Hamilton is the one who cries out for someone to sing and, when Albuquerque (Baraba Harris) does so, it unites the panicked crowd and prevents a riot. While everyone was too stunned to act, Haven Hamilton took charge and he said exactly the right thing. After spending the film being viewed as an out-of-touch blowhard, Haven Hamilton is the one who risked his life in an unsuccessful attempt to save Barbara Jean. And, in the end, Haven is the one character who truly understands the power of music to bring people together. “This isn’t Dallas!” Haven shouts, a demand that his city, his kingdom, will not give into the madness that seems to be afflicting the rest of the country. At that moment, the viewer sees that, regardless of what the film may want us to think about the character, Haven Hamilton was right. We must be doing something right to have lasted 200 (or 250) years.

And, for that reason, Haven Hamilton — for all of his flaws — is today’s Hero of the Day.

Hero of the Day

The Adventures of a History Nerd: Right From The Start by Gary Hart

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 presidential campaign was a strange one.

Today, it’s best-remembered for the fact that Richard Nixon carried 49 states and won 60.7% of the popular vote. Nixon’s victory came after the Democratic nominee, George McGovern, dropped his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, from the ticket after it was revealed that Eagleton had undergone electroshock treatment for depression. McGovern was also, at that point, one of the most liberal candidates to ever be nominated by a major political party. Much as with the earlier Barry Goldwater campaign, many of McGovern’s campaign volunteers and aides went on to have long careers in politics but their enthusiasm did not translate into votes for McGovern. Today, Nixon’s victory is seen as being such a foregone conclusion that people still wonder why a group of campaign operatives and White House aides even felt like they needed to break into the Watergate hotel to win.

1972 was a bit before my time but, if you look at the number of candidates who ran for the Democratic nomination, it’s obvious that, despite how thing ultimately turned out, quite a few people originally thought Nixon was vulnerable in 1972. Over 20 Democratic office holders competed for the right to run against Nixon. Sen. Edmund Muskie was the early favorite but, in the end, George McGovern won the nomination as the result of a largely grassroots effort. McGovern became the first Democrat to win the nomination through the primary system as opposed to making deals with political and labor bosses. McGovern’s campaign was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War and an earnest idealism that got on the nerves of just about everyone outside of the campaign. One of McGovern’s rivals, Sen. Henry Jackson, said that McGovern was the candidate of “abortion, amnesty, and acid.”

McGovern’s campaign manager was a Colorado lawyer named Gary Hart. Hart would later be elected to the U.S. Senate and would twice run for president himself. (Hugh Jackman played Hart in the rather forgettable film, The Front Runner.) However, before Hart first ran for the Senate, he took the time to write a book about the McGovern campaign. That book was called Right From The Start. I ordered a used copy off of Amazon about ten years ago. It cost me about twenty dollars. If I ordered the book today, it would only cost me $16.00.

The book is an interesting historical document. Hart writes about the day-to-day operations of the McGovern campaign. He does a very good job of showing how McGovern came from behind to win the Democratic nomination. Hart writes about how the campaign recruited people who were new to politics but who were passionate about the issues. He writes about how Morris Dees (yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center guy) spearheaded the campaign’s fundraising. He writes about the day that Governor George Wallace was shot in Maryland. He shows how a group of committed activists were able to bypass the party bosses and win their candidate the nomination. Where Hart struggles is with explaining why McGovern lost the general election. Hart puts a lot of the blame on Thomas Eagleton and perhaps that’s justified. But McGovern still lost 49 states. To me, that would indicate there were even bigger problems then picking a bad running mate. But, because Hart was on the same side of McGovern, it’s perhaps understandable that he would struggle to admit that the electorate simply didn’t respond to what McGovern was selling.

(Ironically, in 1984, Hart and McGovern would both run for the Democratic presidential nomination.)

The chapter where Hart discusses the process that led to Thomas Eagleton becoming, albeit temporarily, McGovern’s running mate is the book’s highlight. As Hart explains it, he and the rest of McGovern’s aides had been so busy winning McGovern the nomination that none of them had really bothered to consider who McGovern should run with. McGovern had his own preferences but they all declined to join the ticket. A bunch of exhausted men ended up sitting around and tossing out names like CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Someone suggested that, since the convention was being held in Miami, the second spot should go to New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu just so the next day’s paper would read “MOON OVER MIAMI.” In the end, Thomas Eagleton was picked not because anyone feels strongly about him but instead because he was the only one that nobody felt any passion about whatsoever. He was serviceable and inoffensive and, when he was asked if there was anything in his past that might embarrass the campaign, he replied that they’re wasn’t. A few weeks later, Eagleton’s psychiatric history was leaked to the press and the McGovern campaign imploded. Maybe they should have just asked Cronkite.

Right From The Start is an compulsively readable and interesting campaign memoir, perfect for history nerds like you and me.

Almost Heroes (1998, directed by Christopher Guest)

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Jedadiah Leland

Harry Shearer narrates the story of Leslie Edwards (Matthew Perry) and Bathowlemew Hunt (Chris Farley), the leaders of an expedition that competed with the more famous Lewis & Clark expedition to see who could first to reach the Pacific Ocean. Edwards is foppish and naive. Hunt is illiterate and loud. Included in their expediton is French pirate Fontenot (Eugene Levy) and Fontenot’s Indian wife, Shaquinna (Lisa Barbuscia). The journey leads the expidition to multiple whorehouses, an angry Eagle, and a group of arrogant conquistadors led by Hidalgo (Kevin Dunn). Edwards tries to teach Hunt how to read but Hunt gives up after learning “A.” Hunt, however, gets a chance to not only prove his worth but also to get a haircut from a taxidermist.

Given the talent involved, it’s too bad that this is neither a good comedy nor a good movie. Christopher Guest directs with none of the wit that had made his improvised films so memorable. Apparently, the film was originally envisioned as being an ensemble piece but, once filming began, the studio insisted on just focusing on Farley and, to a lesser extent, Perry. This was also Farley’s last leading role, with the film itself being released several months after his death. Today, if the film is remembered for anything, it’s for featuring two comedic actors who struggled with similar demons and who both died too young. Unfortunately, neither Farley nor Perry are really at their best in this film. Farley yells but with little of the energy that made Tommy Boy a hit. Matthew Perry resorts to playing Chandler Bing in the 1700s. For that matter, this film also features what may be Eugene Levy’s worst performance. It’s a disappointing effort all around. (Would the film have worked better with Farley’s usual foil, David Spade, in the role of Edwards? Probably not. I don’t think any combination of actors could have saved the script.)

What is unfotunate is that the premise had promise. The early years of the United States was full of eccentric characters, quite a few of which were involved in exploring the still-largely uknown continet. Christopher Guest really does seem like he should have been the ideal director for a project liket this but instead, Almost Heroes is overly broad and features its two leading actors giving performanes that fill more appropriate for a sitcom than a motion picture. Almost Heroes was a misfire all the way around.

Feel The Love With The Covers of Romantic Range!

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Dazzling Erin

With the 4th approaching, let’s celebrate the romance of the American frontier with these covers from Romantic Range. Romantic Range was a pulp magazine that ran from 1935 throughout the 1940s. The magazine featured love stories that took place on the range and the covers provided a break from the gunplay and deadly rattlesnakes that dominated most western magazines of the era. The covers are notable today for being romantic but surprisingly chaste, especially by the standards of the pulps.

Here’s a small sampling of some of the most innocent covers in the history of ranch romance.