The first joint field mission of the year between the Administration staff and the Bunker Operations Staff went off smoothly, a brief sortie back to Waco to get the former Central Texas Apocalypse Bunker ready for sale. The mission also included a liaison with some of the former support staff for the Bunker Ops Director and several nights’ stay at the CTAB Field Outpost, where much family gossip was dispensed and nieces were seen to. There was also barbecue, and someone got their hair fixed during all of this.
There wasn’t much to do at the former dwelling, as the Bunker Ops former support staff had done an exceptional job getting the place ready for market in her absence. Our involvement mostly amounted to meeting with the realtor, who helped us fend off a hostile takeover by not-so-well-meaning neighbors who just wanted to “help us out” by offering a paltry amount of cash to “take it off of our hands,” because, you know, realtors are bad, and legal documents mumbley-mumble and um, you know, six percent off the top, and blah blah blah blah blah.
Apparently, the well-meaning neighbors were under the delusion that Jes had been interred in a Vault-Tec Cryogenic Pod, and was somehow not aware of the housing and real estate boom that has been going on in Texas for the last twenty years, and more emphatically in Waco for the last five years. Our realtor, who is as canny a trader as ever walked the post-apocalyptic Earth, was convinced, as was I, that the well-meaning neighbors were planning on offering a cash amount of roughly half the market value of the house, with the full intention of listing it at the exact same asking price as us. Nice try!
We also loaded up the car some additional miscellaneous stuff that got shaken out in the clean-up. Nothing major, but lots of minor things of utilitarian or sentimental value that would have been missed had we not snagged it.
The only real snags occurred during the journey home, where a number of brigands, mutants, and assholes tried their level best to murder us and take our stuff by zipping by at 97 miles an hour, whipping in front of the car, and then inexplicably braking for a menace only they could see. Another favored tactic was to merge into my lane without bothering to even glace two millimeters to the left to see where in the lane my orange hatchback was located. Once in front of the car, the aforementioned braking tactic would be employed. It was an adventure, from start to finish, and I just want to add a brief observation: 40% of driving in Texas amounts to trying to see around a ridiculously oversized truck that someone is driving for no commercial reason whatsoever. The amount of over-compensation in the state staggers the imagination. Only about one in five of the Ford F-350s in Texas have dirt from a farm job or actual equipment in the truck bed. Every other large truck with extra wheels is carrying around an over-inflated ego and a micro-penis.
Despite the numerous attempts on our lives it was a successful mission that has only managed to help team cohesion.
Update from the Division of K-9 Maintenance
The bunker mascot was thrilled to have people back in her life, but this excitement was short-lived. She has developed an ulcer on one of her eyes that requires the administration of drops every four hours. This is not fun for anyone, man, woman, or dog. But she has, with some difficulty and much harumphing and grunting, submitted to the indignities of having her head held, being talked soothingly to, having actual medicine administered to her itchy eye, and being showered with guilt-treats for being put through such gross indignities.
On the plus side, it appears her back legs are no longer an issue. It’s very likely that she somehow injured her leg in some undetermined way, and it’s now healed up and doing fine. She’s rocketing up and down the stairs as before, leaping into cars and onto beds, and in all other ways, has the old bounce in her step that she used to. We are keeping her on the arthritis meds for a while longer, just to be certain, and will take her off of them when we have a few days with no special projects, just to see if there is a difference.
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Murderville (Netflix)
I don’t know if anyone else feels this way about Will Arnett, but I run embarrassingly hot and cold on him when it comes to the projects he’s in. Mostly, this is because of how good he was in Arrested Development, and how mediocre he’s been in nearly everything else he’s done (with the notable exception of Lego Batman, a part he was evidently born to, um, voice). I keep wanting to give him breaks, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when I like him in something. I don’t know why this is; I’m sure he’s a very nice person.
Murderville may well be the show where I give up and say, “Okay, I like Will Arnett.” It’s maybe not perfect for him, but he’s certainly perfect in it. The premise is simple: the show is a cliché of every crime-detective-police procedural drama in existence. Arnett’s beleaguered detective is divorced, disheveled, and emotionally distant. He’s passionate about solving crimes and capricious in all other areas of his life. And every episode finds him saddled with a rookie partner with something to prove.
Here's the twist: each rookie partner is a celebrity guest star, and they are on the hook to solve the murder by the end of the episode. However, they have no idea what’s coming, who’s doing what, or even what to say. The entire show is improvised, with Arnett and the other series regulars in on the story, reacting to the guest, and playing along with the fiction. It’s basically a dinner theater murder mystery for one person, and they have to carry scenes and hold their own against veteran improv actors.
It's wonderful. For one thing, the police procedural isn’t skewered nearly enough, given its evergreen popularity, and there is so much to skewer. Murderville hits many of those notes with a hammer and threatens to break the xylophone in doing so. The show also grabs some special guests that are not the usual suspects, either, like Conan O’Brien (really?) and former running back Marshawn Lynch (who knew?), which adds to the awkwardness. Veteran improv actors would have crushed it, but watching these celebrities try to stay in the scene while under duress is a big part of the fun. And yeah, Will Arnett is note-perfect, too, leading the guest along, giving them things to play off of, and prompting when necessary. He’s the show’s star, but he’s really more of a support role, which is, of course, what makes for great improv.
Murderville is a great palate-cleanser show, something to watch in between your bigger and longer and more serious series. There’s not a lot of them, and this may well be the only season, so space them out for maximum enjoyment.
The 2022 NTAB Directorial Culture Exchange Update: Tim Burton
Buoyed by the success of our initial outing, we rolled the dice again, and came up with our first controversial choice: Tim Burton.
This was one of Jes’ contributions to the list. I wouldn’t have picked him, because of how wildly I either love or hate his movies. There is no in-between. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the colossal misfire that was his Planet of the Apes remake, and the total and complete misuse of some of Rick Baker’s most impressive ape make-up to date.
However, we were committed, so I picked something of his that I loved and hadn’t seen in years: Ed Wood (1994). This turned out to be a great choice, because Jes hadn’t seen it at all, and it opened up a discussion about the famously infamous schlock director and his cadre of sycophants and hangers-on. This movie netted Martin Landau an academy award for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi at the end of his life. Johnny Depp, too, got great notices for his sympathetic turn as the titular Wood. I don’t know if the film is a cult classic, as some alleged, but it’s one of Burton’s best films for its restraint and also his fidelity to the milieu in which the story was set; i.e. the seedier side of Hollywood, circa the 1950s, and the exploitation film business at the time.
Jes picked Mars Attacks! (1996), filmed right after Ed Wood and in some ways, a much more Tim Burton-y film; over-the-top, not-quite-as-good-as-you-want-it-to-be, star-laden, and full of personal jokes. Based on the controversial trading cards by Topps, first released in 1962, and reprinted in the 1980s and 1990s, these little gems were a lightning-in-a-bottle project that you should check out if you don’t know any of their storied history. Burton was in the midst of Ed Wood when he was pitched this idea, and it’s rather telling that this is his follow-up to having absorbed a lot of Ed Wood, because the movie doesn’t quite know if it wants to be a satire, a straight comedy, or something else. It’s entertaining enough but it’s one of the few time when I wish Burton would have gone all out. Mars Attacks! is empty calories, but sometimes, a Coke and a Snickers really hits the spot, if you’re in the mood for it.