Charley Chan

I don't know about you, but I seem to find slim pickings on the tv nowadays. Too many crappy cop shows, comedy shows, amateur hours, etc. One alternative I have discovered is watching Youtube. You tube is also educational in that it teaches one about other cultures.

For example, I now know what life is like as a lesbian in Canada. Thanks to Pillow Talk, I now can watch two women sharing a bed discussing the intimate details of gay women's lives.

I remember the old Charley Chan movies on tv and much to my delight, there are plenty of old Charley Chan movies free for the viewing on YouTube. Here you get an accurate depiction of Asian life and wisdom. I read it is even popular in China.

The movies always start with a mini adventure, sans Chan. There is a murder. Someone always wishes Charley Chan was there. Soon we meet up with Chan, only too happy to get away from his humdrum life and nagging wife. For the next hour we solve the mystery alongside the learned detective.

I do notice there are certain formulas to the movies. Number one (or number two) son wants to help out but is in the way. The chauffeur, played by Eddie Anderson, is always lassoed into going into a cave or a dark basement and is terrified. There is always a beautiful woman. At some point a  man with bandages around his head makes an appearance.

Yes it is wonderful meeting up with the great heroes of childhood. And to be enlightened with an accurate recounting of traditional Chinese philosophy.

Pictures of domestic life

Just saw some swell photographs of motherhood you might enjoy.

The five stages of life

The first stage of life: Infancy and childhood

The second stage of life: Adolescence: This stage begins when you sneak your first cigarette in the woods

The third stage of life: Young Adulthood: This stage begins with your first job and your first apartment. These are  the fun years.

The fourth stage of life: Adulthood: After you sign your divorce papers and start paying child support you are now a mature man

The fifth stage of life: Old age: This begins the first time you walk through the doors of the cardiologist. Above the door is the quotation from Dante's Inferno. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here". "Golly", you laugh,"everybody looks so old". Soon come the EKG, the echo cardiogram, the stress test, the double heart bypass surgery, the triple heart bypass surgery, the stent. Then you are sitting in a nursing home breathing out of an oxygen mask. Then they cart you off to a cemetery. 

The five stages of life.