Batteries Not Included
Thin Manned Smiths Named Pete
There are certain times when I speak to you about new releases from Warner Archive that I find myself particularly geeked. Which is to not say I’m not always enthusiastic when speaking about their titles, but sometimes they put out something that hits right in the target of my movie love, and or is something […]
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Rumination on Wellsville
In the weeks following the death of my father, I’ve spent a lot of time re-watching my favorite “comfort food” TV. Many of these are shows I grew up watching as a kid on Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite. I’ve been binging “The Bob Newhart Show” and thinking about how wonderfully brilliant that series is, […]
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Klute
By the early 1970s, Hollywood—and America—was changing. The production code, that set of rules placed in the 1930s that told movie studios what they could, and couldn’t, show on screen had crumbled. Audiences were ready for Hollywood to grow up, as the late 1960s faded into the early 1970s, the innocence that had existed in […]
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Tracking Notification
Do you ever get excited when you receive an email that tells you “your package has shipped?” When I was a kid, and before the existence of eBay, packages showing up at the house were few and far between. I always thought, in that way that kids look at the adult world, that a package […]
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A Weekend Away
I am not, by nature, one of those types who thinks that men need to get away to the woods for a “get in touch with your primitive side” retreat. One of those ridiculous things were men who have more income than I set things on fire in a desperate attempt to battle their insecurity. […]
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Gaslight
Are you familiar with the term “gaslighting?” The term is given to a type of psychological abuse where the victim is purposely and gradually manipulated into questioning their own reality. The moniker comes from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 English stage play “Gas Light,” in which a young woman is purposefully duped into questioning her own sanity. […]
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The Lawnmower Person
My non-existent wife Sheila and I own a lot of acreages thanks to the dowry her parents offered when we were married. We don’t keep this vast amount of land up as much as we should, as with my allergies mowing the lawn isn’t all that fun—even with a mask on. But the other night, […]
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The Magazine Fantasy
For most of my adult life, I’ve subscribed to a cooking magazine. For years it was Gourmet, but when it went defunct I began to search for another one, and for the last couple of years I’ve subscribed to Bon Appetite. Last year, or the year before—I can’t quite recall when—they ran a feature for […]
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Terror on a Monday Morning
It had been a nice morning. I slept well, woke up on time, had a nice breakfast, and was generally feeling good about life. I took in a deep breath of fresh air as I stood on my front porch in my underwear listening to “More Than a Feeling” by Boston. The neighbors didn’t […]
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For Dad
You may have noticed that in last week’s issue of The Loafer, my column was nowhere to be found. That wasn’t a mistake, this was done intentionally. The week that I would have prepared and sent in my column, I was dealing with something. On May 26, my father, Gary Ross, passed away. It wasn’t […]
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The Light Bulb Adventure
In the last twenty plus years, lightbulb technology has come a long way. We’ve gone from incandescents and their familiar shape to a wide range of LED powered bulbs that are more efficient. With this evolution, we have begun to place bulbs everywhere. My parent’s bed even has LEDs under it. But one of […]
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Summer Stock
It was slated to be a reunion for two of MGM’s most popular duos, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. The pair had starred in nine films together, the last of which was 1943’s “Girl Crazy.” The script was even tailored to bring back memories of the films the two had been made before—the central plot […]
