All posts by Ray Ivey

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 4 Comments

March 13, 2011

Los Angeles – Chicago – Cleveland

Distance traveled today: 2075

Total distance traveled: 2075

Today I leave home for an eleven week work trip. This is the longest I have ever been away from home base in the twenty-plus years I have lived in Los Angeles. It surpasses the last such record which was made last year, when I was on the road for seven weeks for this same client.

Spent a very short night sort-of-sleeping before getting up at 3:00 a.m. to catch a 6:00 flight to Cleveland. The night was made even shorter by the fact that, as luck would have it, this was the weekend we lost an hour of sleep as we resume Daylight Savings Time. I didn’t care, though, for three interrelated reasons:

I have a rule that I only get up this early to Go on a Trip or to Star in a Major Motion Picture. (The fact that this rule has been heretofore employed excusively in service of the first circumstance minimizes its legitimacy not one bit.)
I’m particularly excited about this unusual trip. More on that later.
Finally, when you’re flying East for work, it’s always worth the extra trouble of taking as early a flight as possible. You get to your destination hotel earlier and have plenty of time to relax, unwind and prepare for Entry into the new office bright and early Monday morning.

After hauling my five bags into the cab at 3:30 a.m. I immediately noticed that the cabbie had a thick Russian accent. I told him the last stop of my trip was Moscow. He grunted and said nothing more. Not particularly encouraging, I thought, considering I was at least as nervous about visiting this notorious city as I was excited at the opportunity. Perhaps I should have asked his advice for Best Practices When Kidnapped.

I don’t love flying even though I love to travel. However, I used to really enjoy The Travel Day. Choosing what book and what video game to spend time with, splurging on overpriced tacky airport food, the friendly flight attendants, the excitement of going somewhere.

It’s much more difficult now. Since 2001 almost every aspect of The Travel Day has gotten worse. Actually, it began to happen several years before 2001. Everyone blames 9/11 for how awful flying is now, but many people have forgotten that much of the unpleasant routine we have grudgingly gotten used to was in place well before that awful day in September.

Today was even more challenging than usual, as I had made the perhaps foolish decision to bring all of my fancy photo equipment with me. What this meant was that this would be the first time I have traveled with three things that I must take on the plane with me: photo bag, laptop and C-PAP[1]. There was a tense moment when the We Don’t Care, We Don’t Have To gate attendant growled at me that if I didn’t check one of my three bags, and if I got inside the plane and couldn’t find a place for one of the bags, it would be my tough luck. I “wouldn’t be able to check the bag at that point.” Her unspoken threat hung in the air. Yeah. I imagined the tantrum I would throw if they tried to “dispose” of one of my three bags at the last minute, and realized that, while I can throw a pretty good tantrum, these days the airlines always win. I saw myself getting thrown off the plane. Great start to the trip. I imagined the awkward call to the Client.

Luck was with me, though, and I sprinted down the aisle and found space for everything.

///

It has occurred to me that I should not enter into such an impressively long trip without giving it some thought. Without having a goal or two. I should have something to show for the trip when I’m done beyond money and some snapshots.

Goals For My Eleven Week Globetrotting Work Trip

Endeavor to not merely look, but to See.
Write as much as possible.
Take as many good photographs as possible.
Try to find Mexican food in every city I’m in.
Try to go to the movies in every city I’m in.
Try to return from the trip thinner than when I left.

: Do you look anything like this? Then the correct answer when I approach you and tell you I want to photograph you for a magazine is “Yes.”

On the short hop from Chicago to Cleveland, there was a pretty impressive hunk sitting right in front of me who I managed to catch up with after the flight and give him my “I’m a photographer for Exercise For Men mag” spiel. If I believed in omens I’d take it as a good omen. It’s a good start, anyway.

He probably will not call me, which is a shame, because he’s perfect for the magazine. Screw him; his loss.

[1] Continuous Positive Air Pressure machine. It treats my sleep apnea.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 274 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Low Carb Living

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

My fourth experiment in low carb treat making was my most successful so far. To date, I’ve made two different recipes for peanut butter cookies and one brownie recipe. They were all okay, but not great.

Much better results with Nancy’s Forgotten Cookies. These are essentially meringues. They are ridiculously easy to make.

They are made with egg whites, artificial sweetner, sugar-free chocolate chips, vanilla and lots of chopped pecans. I added a bit of instant espresso for richness.

Out of the oven they are sweet, chewy and chocolaty. I really recommend them. I plan on doing some variations on them soon.

I plan on taking a bunch of them on my trip. We’ll see how they freeze.

http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe449.nancys-forgotten-cookies-low-carb-version.html

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 256 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Pronouncements

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

“He can have it, ” exiting despot Muammar Gaddafi said to reporters.

In what seemed to be a serendipitous win/win situation, the two men are reportedly actually switching residences.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 218 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Movies, Pronouncements

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 3 Comments

The Year’s Best Movies. In Order.

Winter’s Bone. An amazing Ozark family gothic thriller, this beautiful movie really got under my skin.
The Social Network. Together, director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin hit the ball out of the park with this dizzyingly smart and watchable movie.
True Grit. Once again Joel and Ethan Coen astound with their filmmaking skills.
Inception. A flawed masterpiece which gets high marks 1) for sheer chutzpah, 2) for challenging the viewers with something more complex than an episode of Blue’s Clues, 3) for having visual effects that, while spectacular, always served the plot, and finally 4) FOR NOT BEING IN 3D.
How To Train Your Dragon. An amazingy satisfying movie, written with intelligence, wit and warmth, featuring splendid voice acting and spectacular visuals that really do need to be seen in 3D.
Toy Story 3. Yeah, big surprise, huh?
The King’s Speech. Yeah, what everyone else has already said. It’s really good, except for Guy Pearce.
127 Hours. Ewwww. Look away at the most difficult parts if you must, but this energetic and intriguing film should not be missed.
Never Let Me Go. Scary and sad film about a group of young people with a horrifying destiny.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Absolutely beautifully made warm-up to the end of the Harry Potter saga. A triumph of pure commercial filmmaking.

Honorable Mention: The Ghost Writer, Let Me In, The Last Exorcism, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Despicable Me, The Town

Maybe Not Great, but highly recommended

Hot Tub Time Machine, Just Wright, Agora, Cairo Time, Step Up 3D, Who is Harry Nilsson and Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?, Catfish, City Island, Devil, Life As We Know It, Unstoppable, The Losers

Regarding The Fighter

I loathe boxing. I am uninterested in stories about scrappy underdog fighters. And I’d rather jam poison-dipped upholstery tacks into my gums than sit through another too-much-acting-per-square-inch performance by Christian Bale. The Fighter may be the greatest film ever made. I’ll never know.

Asterisk indicates the winner. Thank you for playing.

Best Actor

Robert Duvall, Get Low

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

James Franco, 127 Hours

*Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Honorable Mention: Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine Andy Garcia in City Island, Alexander Siddig in Cairo Time

Best Actress

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Tilda Swinton, I Am Love

Noomi Rapace, The Girl Who Got the International Book And Movie Franchise

*Annette Bening in Mother and Child

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Honorable Mention: Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

*Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Josh Brolin, True Grit

Barry Pepper, True Grit

Honorable Mention: Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer in The Social Network, Henry Thomas (yeah, from E.T.) in Dear John, Joel Edgerton in The Square and Animal Kingdom, Lucas Black in Get Low

Best Supporting Actress

Dale Dickey, Winter’s Bone

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Chloe Moretz, Let Me In

*Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Best Director

Debra Granik, Winter’s Bone

Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech

*David Fincher, The Social Network

Christopher Nolan, Inception

Art Direction

*Winter’s Bone

True Grit

Inception

Tron Legacy

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Casting

Winter’s Bone

Cinematography

Winter’s Bone

*Inception

True Grit

Tron: Legacy

The Social Network

Original Screenplay

Inception (Christopher Nolan)

*The King’s Speech (David Seidler)

Despicable Me (Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul)

Adapted Screenplay

Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini)

Never Let Me Go (Alex Garland)

True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)

How To Train Your Dragon (William Davies, Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders)

*The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin)

Costumes

Special Mention to Rob Cron for getting his first on-screen credit in Tron: Legacy!

Visual Effects

*Inception

The Social Network

Tron: Legacy

Incredible Year for Documentaries

Waking Sleeping Beauty. The excellent string of documentaries about Disney continues. Remember when Disney feature animation hit its nadir in the 1980s with The Black Cauldron. This sprightly film is about how the Mouse House made it from there to the glories of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money. Our government: for sale!

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Indeed.

8: The Mormon Proposition. The movie that clearly shows the Mormon Church’s vast violations of its tax-exempt status by sponsoring and supporting the notorious California Proposition 8.

Stonewall Uprising. Hear about the beginning of the revolution from people who where there.

The Tillman Story. The story of the iconclastic and heroic Pat Tillman and the shameful military and governmental coverup regarding the circumstances of his death in Afghanistan.

*Freakanomics. Delightful film adaptation of the fascinating best-selling book.

Foreign Language

Micmacs (France)

Patrik, Age 1.5 (Sweden)

*Rare Exports. You’ve got to rent this insane Christmas horror film from Finland. No, seriously, you really have to rent it.

A Very Good Year for Jay Baruchel

The talented young star of How To Train Your Dragon, She’s Out of My League, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Good Neighbors (Canadian) and The Trotsky. Mr. Baruchel is a major talent and I expect big things from him.

It’s Facebook’s World; We Just Live In It

2010 saw not one but two really good movies that centered on the ubiquitous social network: Catfish and, well, The Social Network.

What Kind of Movies Are These?

Both Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop blurred the lines between where a documentary ends and cinematic scam begins. If you just remember Ray’s mantra (All movies are fiction!) you can sit back and relax these two crazy stories. Who cares whether they’re true or not?

Best Lines

Owen: But how old are you, really? Abby: Twelve. But… I’ve been twelve for a very long time. (A deliciously creepy and telling moment from Let Me In.)

“I’m six-five, 220, and there’s two of me.” – Twin talk from The Social Network.

Funniest Moments

Craig Robinson gets to work in the title of the movie (and then steal a glance at the camera) in Hot Tub Time Machine

Dwayne Johnson and and Samuel L. Jackson cluelessly jump off a tall building in The Other Guys.

The mounted wall décor inside the evil mansion in Despicable Me.

Best Movie About an Ancient Female Astronomer

Agora

Please Let Us See More Of . . .

Craig Robinson. I can’t watch The Office, so I need him to make more movies.

Chloe Moretz. After terrific performances in (500) Days of Summer and Let Me In, I am eager to see more work from this talented young lady.

City Island’s Steven Strait. I’m only human.

Yaniv Schulman, the subject (or star?) of the fascinating hybrid film Catfish.

Jenny O’Hara. This veteran character woman has got it goin’ on, and she made the surprisingly good Devil even better.

Make fun of me all you want, I say he has genuine star quality:

Channing Tatum. He proved in Dear John that he’s got actual movie star charisma. He’s not just another Abercrombie model who got lucky.

Surprisingly Good!

Hot Tub Time Machine. Believe it or not. It’s a real hoot, and Craig Robinson is hilarious.

Ridiculously Attractive Movie Couples

Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in Life As We Know It

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in Love and Other Drugs

Best Compliance With the “Ray and Tayler Rule”

Alex O’Loughlin, a handsome actor never known for having much of a physique, got into RIDICULOUSLY good shape for his lead role opposite Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan. Well done.

Common, who buffed up admirably for his turn as a professional basketball player in Just Wright.

Jake Gyllenhaal, who paid careful attention to the Ray and Tayler Rule for both Prince of Persia and Love and Other Drugs

Eggregious Violations of the “Ray and Tayler Rule”

Did Christopher Egan not read the script of Letters to Juliet when he got the job? And, you know, notice the scene in Act III in which he went swimming? What was he thinking?

Puzzling Casting

Why was Guy Pearce, who is seven years Colin Firth’s junior, get cast as his older brother in The King’s Speech? He also wasn’t very good.

Best in a Historically Weak Field

I’m not saying Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a great movie, but it was the best movie I’ve ever seen based on a video game franchise. At the very least, it was a step in the right direction.

I Haven’t Given Up on Zac Efron . . .

. . despite the sappiness of Charlie St. Cloud. And bonus points to Zac for his faithful compliance with the Ray and Tayler Rule.

Excellent Title

Hot Tub Time Machine

My Very Favorite Rapist Film Director Ever

The Ghost Writer’s Roman Polanski

The Girl Who Got the International Book and Movie Franchise

I can’t get that excited about the books or the movies. But they’re okay if you like that sort of thing.

Better Than I Expected!

Devil

The Last Exorcism

Life As We Know It

It Had to Happen Some Time

An good American remake of a well-received European film. Really? Yep, that’s just what Let Me In is. Check it out.

Strange, but I Liked it Anyway

Easier With Practice. This movie had a terrible title, but it’s a surprisingly sweet exploration of the unorthodox relationship that grows between two people who only know each other through the telephone. Brian Geraghty, who was so good in The Hurt Locker, stars.

Face It, I Like the Minimalist Horror Films

Both The Last Exorcism and Paranormal Activity 2 did a terrific job of scaring audiences without special effects or much of a budget. Well done.

Thought I Would HATE It

But The Losers was really fun!

She Never Lets Me Down

I don’t think I’ve ever sat through a Queen Latifah vehicle that I didn’t really enjoy. This year’s Just Wright was no exception. It was fun to root for her to win the heart of the studly basketball player (Common) who was her physical therapy patient.

Like Dance Movies?

Then don’t miss the highly kinetic and sexy Step Up 3D.

Sweet RomComs

Letters to Juliet. Corny, predictable, and utterly charming fantasy about purloined love letters, with the added bonus of featuring a screen reuniting of real-life lovers Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero.

Life As We Know It. Also predictable but oddly irresistable bit of fluff about growing up against your will.

They Got the Wrong Annette Bening Performance!

Instead of her excellent work in the sappy and stupidly overrated The Kids Are All Right, the supremely talented Bening should have been lauded for her stunning work in Mother and Child, which no one saw but me.

They Got The Wrong Aussie Noir!

Mountains of praise got heaped on the mediocre “The Animal Kingdom.” The scrappy little crime thriller from Down Under that everyone SHOULD have seen was The Square, a nasty and fascinating story of greed and murder.

Well-Meaning But Zzzzzzz

The Green Zone

Disappointments

The Illusionist. The tedious new film from the creator of the breathtakingly good The Triplets of Belleville.

Life During Wartime. Todd Solondz’s follow-up to his amazing film Happiness was, to be kind, lackluster.

Most Overrated

A Prophet. This French crime film got reviews like it was the second coming of Pee Wee Herman. It thought it was just barely okay.

The Kids Are All Right. Dull and unconvincing.

Please Give. Dull and whiny.

Black Swan. Followed closely by Darren Aronofsky. This movie was overrought, pretentious and boring.

Animal Kingdom. The reviewers were wrong.

Restropo. Overrated writer Sebastian Junger reaped huge praise for holding a camera while visiting deployed soldiers in Afghanistan. And then complaining in interviews about having to go without sex or the internet while he was there. Oh, how you suffer for your art, Sebastian.

My Dog Tulip. Great reviews. Dull as dishwater.

Conviction. Very pedestrian treatment of a true-life legal battle.

I Just Don’t Get It

Shutter Island. Martin Scorcese continues to be the most overrated director in American film.

The Year’s Worst Movies

*The Last Airbender. I never thought I’d walk out of an M. Night Shyamalan film. But now it’s happened.

Alice in Wonderland. Tim Burton reaches a new low in excess and bad storytelling in this quasi-3D piece of crap.

Hereafter. Shallow treatment of a potentially profound subject. Clint Eastwood was off his game on this one.

In Memoriam

Barbara Billingsley

Leslie Nielsen

Peter Graves

Steve Landesberg

Blake Edwards

Jill Clayburgh

Dino De Laurentiis

Tony Curtis

Rue McClanahan

Dennis Hopper

Gary Coleman

Dixie Carter

John Forsyth

Corey Haim

Please post your comments! Now get out there and go to the movies!!!

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 247 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Food For Thought, Low Carb Living

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey 2 Comments

Second experiment in Low Carb Baking this week. I made a big batch of ridiculously not-bad-for me brownies. But how do they taste?

Well, to be honest, they’re not bad. But not, it must be said, particularly good. They’re very very dark brown (I used Scharffen Berger unsweetened dark chocolate and high-quality cocoa powder); almost browner than you think brownies should be. I mean, they’re really devil’s-food black. But that’s okay. And they’re kind of dry and crumbly. And they’re not especially sweet.

BUT. I’ll probably make them again. Sounds crazy? Read on.

Well, it turns out that’s not the only consideration when it comes to satisfying my rampaging sweet tooth. The more I thought about it (as I munched on my third guilt-free brownie), the more complicated the issue of Home Baked Low Carb Brownies became. I eventually realized I had no choice but to put properly analyze the issues with a table. Here’s the data:

Real Brownies		Low Carb Brownies
Delicious	+1	Just okay	-1
Expensive	-1	Less Expensive	+1
Convenient	+1	Have to make them myself	-1
Make me feel bad	-1	Make me feel fine!	+1
Are actually really bad for me	-1	Are actually good for me	+1
Thwart my weight goals	-1	Help me reach my weight goals!	+1
Total Score	-2	Total Score	+2

So you see, even though my home-baked low carb brownies aren’t as decadently yummy as their full-sugar counterparts, they still win big!

Here’s a link to the recipe:

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/desserts/r/miraclebrownies.htm

Note: I substituted almond flour for the flaxseed meal.

CONCLUSION: Low carb sweets, especially the ones you make yourself, don’t HAVE to be spectacularly good. They just have to be good enough to slake your desire for something sweet. And these brownies do the job just fine.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 279 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Food For Thought, Low Carb Living

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

Well it’s been a year. I’ve lost eighty pounds. Yay! Forty or so more to go.

After doing the low-carb thing for so long, I’m looking at it as a lifestyle change, rather than a temporary diet. One of the ways I’ve kept myself sane these last twelve months is having plenty of low-carb fake sweets on hand to calm my legendary sweet tooth. There are lots of good options in this area, but they are mostly quite overpriced.

To that end, and to introduce some very needed variety into my diet, I’ve recently ordered a whole slew of exotic ingredients with which to bake my own damn fake sweets. Stuff like xanthan gum, soy protein isolate, almond flower, glycerin, liquid lecithin. Yay!

Last night I had my first expermental low-carb baking attempt. Peanut Butter Cookies.

Made with natural (unsweetened) peanut butter, almond flour, Splenda, pecans, cream, and coconut, they are surprisingly good!

Here’s the recipe: http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/recipes/recipe-cookie01.html

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 280 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Movies

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

If you’re a moviegoer, and your friends are moviegoers, I promise you this week that one of you is going suggest that you all go see the new film Hereafter.

Hereafter is the new film from the venerable Clint Eastwood, which of course makes it An Important Movie. Which means when you walk in and plop down your $15, you’re going to expect that it’s a serious treatment of its subject – that is, Near Death Experiences.

And I’m not here to tell you not to see it. It’s reasonably well told, and full of attractive people. But I do want to warn you that the movie isn’t really about near-death experiences. The movie isn’t the least bit interested in near-death experiences. In case that matters to you, I’ll save you your $15 right now and tell you what Hereafter is about:

It’s about Matt Damon really, really needing to get laid.

I’m not kidding. Every death in the movie – from a senseless traffic fatality in London to the ghastly carnage brought about by the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – simply serves as a mechanism to help Matt Damon finally solve his romance troubles.

Sorry we had to kill your brother, but how else are we going to get Matt Damon a date?

Matt Damon stars as a glum guy who used to be a successful professional psychic. Sort of like John Edwards, except a) his talent is real, meaning he’s not b) a reprehensible scum-of-the-earth creep. He’s just lonely and sad, as only good-looking movie stars can be.

His psychic gift became such a burden that he gave it up, and he now plods through a depressing factory job at the S&H Sugar factory in San Francisco. But his gift stubbornly haunts him, and once again ruins his chance at love with a beautiful and available fellow cooking student (the always-welcome and puzzlingly underrated Bryce Dallas Howard).

Meanwhile, two other seemingly deeply meaning-filled stories develop elsewhere in the movie. In once, a famous French journalist (the arrestingly beautiful Cécile de France) struggles to come to grips with the near-death experience she had during the tsunami (which is depicted quite impressively). In the other, a young English boy (played by both Charlie and Frankie McClaren) struggles to come to grips with the abrupt death of his twin.

The movie is never boring, but it’s sloppy. Eastwood is famous for working quickly, but this time I think everyone went a bit too quickly. There’s a howling mistake during a scene in which Damon is touring the home of Charles Dickens. Damon’s character is a Dickens freak, so it’s fun to watch him whisper the answers to every trivia question about the great writer asked by the unctuous tour guide. Therefore, when the guide makes a stunningly basic mistake about Dickensian lore (the subject of Dickens’ last novel was named Edwin not Edward Drood) it makes absolutely no sense that Damon wouldn’t react. But he doesn’t . . . I’m assuming because the mistake was unintentional, and Mr. Eastwood said “Cut! Print!” before any literate person on the set had a chance to raise her hand and say, “Ahem, actually the book was called . . . “

I'm firing you AND breaking up with you so you will be sad and lonely and available for Matt!

Even worse, Eastwood succumbs to one of the biggest clichés in the history of movies – a chestnut that’s been endlessly lampooned in those lists that circulate on the internet: the old Eiffel Tower Through The Window So You Don’t Forget You’re in Paris shot. Honestly, Clint . . . you didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and for that matter neither did we, so how could you foist that clunker on us? It’s embarrassing, really.

But back to the plot! Since this is a Big Important Movie, it’s easy to get seduced into believing that all three stories will eventually come together in some meaningful and illuminating way.

And they do come together in act three. Huzzah!

And guess what we learn about the hereafter?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That big a fool Clint Eastwood isn’t. He knows that what lies beyond the veil of death is one of life’s unknowable mysteries, and that to pretend to know otherwise is an invitation to ridicule. It’s a bit shocking to think that this movie was written by the gifted Peter Morgan, who penned Frost/Nixon and The Queen, which were both actual adult movies, and good ones.

Would you sleep with me if I told you that I actually liked Lady in the Water?

So why, then, make this movie? Why dangle this big, tantalizing topic in front of us when you know there are no real answers to be had? The more I think about it, the more offensive it is. I hate to say it, but Hereafter reminds me of the loathsome Awakenings (1990), which pretended to be about catatonic encephalitis victims and their failure to have long-term benefits from an experimental treatment, but in the end it turned out it was really about Robin Williams getting to have sex with Julie Kavner. Yippee, happy ending! I remember sitting in my seat twenty years ago in slack-jawed disbelief, half-expecting Robin and Julie to roll the once-again unresponsive Robert DeNiro off his gurney so the they could use it to get busy.

Hereafter is that distasteful, because its message is the following: Don’t feel bad that your twin got creamed by that truck, and don’t think that the deaths of those 200, 000 brown people in the tsunami were in vain! All that happened for a really good reason: Two lonely, attractive white people finally get laid!

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 215 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Minutia of My Fascinating Life

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

You know those internet offers that seem too good to be true? So much so that you simply ignore them?

CLICK HERE TO GET A 52 INCH SAMSUNG LED LCD HDTV TELEVISION FOR $99!! You know what I mean.

I ignore them too.

Or I did until yesterday when I logged onto Facebook. Yes, September 23 was not only the date of longest Facebook DNS debacle, it was also that day that I decided to try my hand at one of these fishy, yet tempting, offers.

Maybe it was the fact that the offer appeared on my Facebook page. But mostly it was because one of the goodies being dangled in front of me was a $1, 000 Gift Card to Best Buy. That got my attention.

Here's the screen. Would YOU have been tempted?

If I managed to win money on a game show, or have a really good night at the blackjack tables, or successfully engage in a bit of blackmail, the first place I would run to with my questionably-gotten gains would be Best Buy. All the toys I currently want can be purchased at Best Buy. Between the 52 inch Samsung television, the PS3, and the Nikon camera and lens that can all be purchased there, I could quickly demolish the largest part of $5, 000 in about an hour at Best Buy.

So I decided to break my own rule and give this damn fake offer a try. See how far I could get with it.

Next up: First Steps, First Suspicions.

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 200 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Theater

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

It’s easy for an old actor like me to get depressed about the current state of commercial theater. Broadway seems to have been taken over by corporate interests and slumming movie and television stars. A cursory look at the Internet Broadway Database (www.ibdb.com) can be disheartening: Is there anything there that’s not a rock concert, a Disney franchise, or a revival?

I’m happy to report that Broadway is getting a scandalous blast of fresh air this week in the form of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a new musical by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman about our charismatic but highly controversial seventh President.

This is a crazy which show comes to Broadway from the downtown New York theater group Les Freres Corbusier. LFC is, according to their press materials, “devoted to aggressively visceral theater combining historical revisionism, sophomoric humor and rigorous academic research.” Uh, so noted.

Your immersion into the world of this show begins the moment you enter into Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theater. Donyale Werle’s set design spills off of the stage and engulfs the entire theater with an anarchic melange of frontier, rock and roll, and, well, blood. (Example: I was sitting almost directly underneath a suspended, full-sized, upside-down pony. No, don’t ask why.)

Blood? Yep. The galaxy of tiny red lights that fill the space set you up for one of the main themes of the evening. More on that below.

When the show begins, the young cast of fourteen (plus three on-stage musicians) take the stage with an aggressive swagger and high-octane energy that doesn’t let up for the next hour and forty minutes.

The best way I can describe the delightful show that follows is a combination of history class meets SCTV, blended together in a gumbo of rock and roll and classic burlesque theatrics.

Burlesque? Let me be clear. I mean the traditional sense of burlesque; that is, an entertainment style that characterized by extremely broad, even grotesque, parody, and short, staccato rhythms.

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson tells the story of Old Hickory through a series of raucous sketches and songs. It traces Jackson’s history from his rough-and-ready childhood on the Indian-plagued frontier to his military heroics and ultimately his political triumphs.

Benjamin Walker as Jackson has gotten a lot of buzz, much of it about how hot he is. In addition, the producers are aggressively marketing the sexy quotient of BBAJ, down to the blurb on the show’s poster – “History just got all sexypants, ” not to mention that the poster itself is a blatant rip-off of the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA album.

This approach may help sell tickets, but I think it’s selling the show, and Walker, short. Walker is certainly an attractive leading man, and he can pull off the form-fitting outfits the costumer has put him in with aplomb. But mostly he’s just good. It’s a demanding role that allows him to display a dizzying range as a performer. Like the rest of the show, his performance is funny, sad and smart.

One of the main weapons in the show’s arsenal is a cheerful sense of offensiveness. Far from trying to clean up the less politically correct aspects of Jackson’s character, BBAJ positively revels in them, and in fact goes out of its way to offend in any other way it can. This kind of humor – offensive jokes that are funny not because of their specific content but because of their sheer offensiveness – are right up my alley. Not everyone in the audience agreed, however. I heard several disapproving mutters from the theater patron sitting next to me as I guffawed at the tasteless fun the show has with the show’s studious narrator character (a hilarious

Kristine Nielsen).

Neilsen scores big as the deranged narrator.

As mentioned above, the show makes sure you think of Jackson as being drenched in blood.

I’m pretty sure the love song between Jackson and his true love Rachel is the first one I’ve ever seen in which the lovers are covered in blood by the last stanza.

As a production, BBAJ is a remarkable piece of controlled chaos. The feeling of spontaneity is palpable: songs and scenes regularly get interrupted or even completely derailed. The cast is uniformly nimble, strong, and convincing throughout all of the mayhem. I also could actually understand what they were saying and singing, which is more than I can say for other current shows (COUGH*Next to Normal*COUGH). Much credit for the antic and intense staging to director Alex Timbers.

Another genius thing the show does is to make the political world of the early 19^th Century feel startlingly, alarmingly, familiar. Far from being a golden age of innocence, the show makes clear that politics and statecraft have always been a corrupt, rigged game. Playing Monroe, Van Buren, and Clay, respectively, Ben Steinfeld, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Bryce Pinkham regularly stop the show with their broad and brave clowning. And special mention must be made of Jeff Hiller, who turns John Quincy Adams into an astonishingly funny cartoon.

Jeff Hiller knocks it out of the park as John Quincy Adams.

But the most transporting accomplishment of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is the fact that, well before the end of the show, you realize that the main character of the play isn’t really Andrew Jackson. It’s us. Jackson is merely a stand-in for a nation of people who have always believed two things: 1) We are the nice guy; the good guy; we believe in freedom and liberty; and 2) What we want, we REALLY want, and we’re going to take it, no matter what. The sad truth underlying the gonzo humor of the show is that these two beliefs are, of course, mutually contradictory, which means that our proxy Jackson is, like us, both guilty and insane.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of theater that more devastatingly explored the American character than Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. I highly recommend you get to the Jacobs Theater posthaste and see it.

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 174 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]

Food For Thought, Pronouncements

May 25, 2026 Ray Ivey Leave a comment

I love Bill Bryson. So. Much. He’s my favorite teacher. I wish he could be my teacher for every subject.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 250 user reviews.

[ | | | | ]