Continued

 So let's delve a little deeper.

This topic is difficult to address mainly because it's uncomfortable.  It's also a very difficult topic to understand simply because it doesn't seem logical.

There were two parts of The Two Coreys story that hit me the hardest, and they both involved Feldman.  The first was when Haim was first entering the film industry, Feldman was an old pro.  It sounds like, through their conversations, Haim (even though I think he was older) looked to Feldman as a kind of a mentor.  

Here is problem number one.  Feldman was in no position to be a mentor.  He couldn't even handle his own problems.  Corey Feldman was essentially sold to predators at a very young age, and it's all he ever knew.  He had his own battles to fight, and he cannot be blamed for the downfall of Corey Haim.  But I don't know if either of the two Corey's ever came to terms with that.  This is speculation.  The one thing I know is that Feldman, through no fault of his own, failed Haim.  I think that may resonate with just about anyone who has been through a serious bout of clinical depression.  There will be times when people come to you for help, and you just can't help them.  Then, you cycle out of control because you beat yourself up over it.  That's something I've been through.  I can't say for sure that I know how either of the two Coreys felt about it, but I do know for sure that hearing him talk about it was painful.

Haim died from a condition I like to call "complications from childhood abuse" three days before my birthday in 2010.  That rocked my world pretty hard even though I always knew him as "The Other Corey".  It sounds like Haim's life was punctuated by a a child's most cherished dream quickly turning into a nightmare, and that's something that hits pretty hard because it foreshadows the second problem, which hits even deeper.

The reason I know the depths of Corey Feldman's pain is because of the accounts he had of his relationship with Michael Jackson.  Feldman has been Jackson's staunchest supporter over the years, but when I read Feldman speak of Jackson, there is no question in my mind that Jackson is guilty of many of the crimes that he was accused of.  Corey Feldman has a seriously messed up mind, again through no fault of his own, because that's what happens when you use an abusive relationship to escape a relationship that is abusive in a different way.  

Think about what I'm saying here long and hard.  

There are two things that hit me very hard about this account.  The first is that it sounds to me like Feldman has repressed many of his memories with Jackson, likely involuntarily, because he considered Jackson's home to be a "safe place".  Those were Feldman's own words.  The second is that Feldman viewed his relationship with Jackson to be 100% consensual.  That's part of the "grooming" process, and it wasn't until Feldman was in his late 40s when he started to realize "holy crap, some of this really isn't adding up."

That hits a little too close to home. 

The Two Coreys

 The 1980s were supposed to be a time of innocence for a late Generation X kid like me, but as I grow older, that idea falls further and further from the realm of reality.  The stories of Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson were hurtful to those of us who looked up to those men as idols as we grew up.  Those two men *were* the 1980s to me.

I think the tale of The Two Coreys hits home even a little harder.  I grew up with Corey Feldman.  He epitomized the 1980s more than any other person for me.  He was in all of the great 1980s movies that define the decade.  Stand by Me.  The Goonies.  Gremlins.  The Lost Boys. Licensed to Drive.  And of course, the place where I was first introduced to him, the hero of Friday the 13th:  The Final Chapter.

I didn't think nearly the same for Corey Haim. He came later, but that doesn't make his story any less tragic   I didn't get to grow up with him, but I do know that when I was in junior high and high school, he was one of *the* teen heart throbs for the girls in our school.  Sure, I'd seen movies with him in them, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you which kid was him in the late 80s to early 90s.  

Feldman was the first celebrity that I ever connected with on a psychological level.  He is easily the one celebrity that I have connected with the most closely largely because that connection transcends a generation.   I think the movie Stand by Me, which was a reflection of his life, was a huge part of that connection.  I didn't know it until decades later, but Feldman came from an extremely dysfunctional home where his parents essentially used him for the money he made while turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse he faced in the industry.  Feldman was able to win his emancipation at the age of 15 based on the fact that he was worth over $10 million in the film industry, but his bank account had barely anything in it.  

There was a tremendous amount of anger in Corey Feldman as a kid.  There was also a tremendous amount of pain.  As a kid, I could feel that pain.  It's probably why Feldman resonated so closely with me, as there were a considerable number of elements in my life that paralleled with his. 

It is unfortunate to know, though, that since all of that crap was corroborated, I'm finding it extremely difficult to find any joy in 1980s nostalgia anymore.  There is a tremendous amount of pain residing in that decade for me.  Watching Corey Feldman on the big screen brings back a lot of that pain.  I can see his pain, and I just can't do anything about it.  That is overwhelming for me.  

Corey Haim's story, even though I never felt that same kinship with him, hurts even more.  

Mask Mandates

 I find it interesting.

Three quarters of the population doesn't bat an eye on the topic of mask mandates.  It's quite literally a non-issue to the majority of Americans.  We wear masks in the same light that someone might wear pants.  It's an extra step that we have to do before we leave the house and not much else.

Then you have the people who completely freak out at the utmost mention of the term "mask mandate".  This reaction seems neurotic because it *is* neurotic.  

Meanwhile, the 2/3 of the population who isn't batting an eye is left confused.  How could such a simple thing elicit such a strong emotional backlash?

Welcome to politics 2021, fueled by the for-profit American media.

It happens on both sides.  It's just that the left is more prone to freak out over more benign topics like plastic straws or the singular "they".  

The backlash on the right seems to be causing people to die.  

Brett Favre says he wants politics out of sports

 I happen to agree.  Let's start with the National Anthem and the military flyovers.  

The way I see it, sports and politics are unquestionably intermingled.  They have been since 1938 when some dude named Jesse Owens was the highlight of the Berlin Olympics.

You really can't have it both ways.  It sounds like what Mr. Favre is really saying is that he wants the politics he disagrees with out of sports.  

Cable Channels

Over the past 20 years or so, one of the most significant public outcries has been a demand for a la carte TV programming when ordering cable services.  Sometimes, people have to be careful of what they wish for because they just might get it.

We are in the golden age of television right now.  The amount of choice we have for watching television programs is astounding because there are so many content providers vying for viewership.  The concept of television has evolved into a streaming model which has not only made the quantity of quality programming possible, but it has also made the concept of a la carte programming possible.

If you're willing to pay for it. 

Unfortunately, greed, the need for consistent profits, is probably what will kill this golden age of television.

The business model of content providers has traditionally been to demand that their channels be packaged with other channels.  While this business model provided a great deal for cable subscribers, most of those cable subscribers were disgruntled because they were paying for channels that they did not want.  In 2016, cable and satellite providers were paying an average of $6 to $8 per month for ESPN, a single channel.  ESPN 2 was an additional $3 to $4 a month.  Those two channels cost the average cable subscriber between $9 and $12 a month!  When my family first subscribed to cable in the 1980s, our entire cable bill wasn't even that much!

So let's use ESPN as an example.  It's been a few years since I have seen any quantifiable data as to how much people actually watch ESPN.  The data I have from 2008 says that approximately 20% of cable subscribers watched ESPN while only 8% claimed that they would cancel their cable subscriptions if ESPN was dropped from the lineup.  That means that 92% of cable subscribers are subsidizing what 8% of cable subscribers would otherwise purchase. 

Since we are gradually moving over to an a la carte business model thanks to the advent of streaming data over the internet, ESPN is going to have to find a way to recoup the revenue that they will lose by not requiring most cable subscribers to include ESPN in their basic lineup whether they want it or not.  If we use the above data to extrapolate that only 8 out of every 100 subscribers will subscribe to an ESPN a la carte product, that means that in order to raise the same revenue, ESPN would have to charge between $72 and $96 a month for their services in order to capture the same revenue as they did in their hey day.

Of course this is an unsustainable model.  No one is going to pay that, so one of two things will have to happen.  Either ESPN will have to cut programming to bring their costs down, or ESPN will cease to exist.

I sense this is the pending disaster that is awaiting the established TV industry.  New players like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are poised to take advantage of this model.  However, the way I like at it, one who is subscribing to Netflix for $10 a month is paying $10 a month for a single channel.  CBS is the newest player on the scene, and their decision to charge subscribers $5.99 a month for the privilege of watching the new Star Trek Discovery series has been extremely controversial.  However, consumers must realize two things.  1)  This is exactly what they have been asking for and 2) CBS is doing this in order to survive.  I promise:  The other networks are going to follow suit.  It is their only choice.

I envision a future where consumers will subscribe to 8-10 channels over the internet, and their total monthly bill will be just as much (if not more) than what they used to pay for video service.  Of course, in another 10-15 years, it is highly likely that content providers will start working with each other to bundle their services again, and we will have come full circle ending up exactly where we started.

North Korea

Short and sweet.

I'm typically a pacifist.  War is an absolute last resort.

North Korea just launched a missile over Japan.  That is an act of war.  They fired the first shot.  But Americans are so sick of war because of the useless excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan that they simply aren't ready for another engagement.  Once again, I have to thank the Bush Administration for destabilizing the world.

Immigration

Barack Obama was the toughest president on illegal immigration since we started to track it.  Under the Obama Administration, illegal immigration in the United States decreased by 90%, and the United States began to record a net loss in the number of undocumented workers present in the country.

There are such things as facts, and there are such things as opinions.  Opinions are frequently wrong.  Facts are never wrong.

The first sentence of the above paragraph is an opinion.  The second sentence is a fact that I use to back up the opinion.  Before we can have a discussion about illegal immigration in this country, everyone involved in that negotiation needs to understand that the second sentence is a fact.  Anyone who does not understand that second sentence is not competent enough to negotiate.

The reason I bring this up is because the Obama Administration did something amazing in regards to illegal immigration.  I think it's fair to say that President Obama was conscious about his legacy, and I think it's also fair to say that going on a witch hunt for undocumented workers who many times have no recollection whatsoever of their home countries because they were moved here at such a young age is something that would not have reflected well on his legacy.  Never mind the fact that it was the right thing to do.

Obama was the toughest president on illegal immigration, but he managed to accomplish that while leaving behind a legacy of being compassionate and caring about the subject.  Why?  Because he considered Dreamers to be untouchable while ensuring that the number of future Dreamers would be as small as possible.

Let me put it bluntly.  I am concerned that people I might now and/or care about are going to get deported because of the stupid jackass in the White House who thinks it's fun to play president.

I am concerned that 8 years of advances in the topic of illegal immigration, a problem that was sufficiently solved by the Obama Administration, will be rolled back.

I've tried to be pragmatic about the Trump Administration.  The problem is, I have a hard time believing that repealing DACA is even on the table.  It makes me wonder if perhaps repealing the 15th and 19th Amendments might be next on the Trumpnado's wish list.