It's Their Fault!

I read that director Ridley Scott is blaming millennials for the failure of his latest movie The Last Duel, starring those hot millennial stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Millennials may be the ones to blame for some things, but I don't think it's their fault this movie failed. No one seemed to want to watch this movie: boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z...no one and that's why it bombed. Ben and Matt playing Europeans? Get real. Plus, their schtick is tired. Who cares about these guys anymore? Neither one has had a box office hit in a while. The movie also featured a woman being raped on screen. Who wants to see that? The market has changed, Mr. Scott. Old guys like himself may enjoy watching a woman being attacked on screen, but I have to assume a lot of millennials (and others) don't want to watch someone being raped as a form of entertainment. Then you add Covid into the mix, and you've got a recipe for disaster. If someone is going to venture to a theater to see a movie these days, I have to assume they'd have to really want to see it. Otherwise, they'd just wait for it to show up for home viewing via On Demand.

Expensive!

I went grocery shopping this weekend and spent $50 at Target, $25 at Trader Joe's, $60 at Jewel-Osco. And I didn't buy much stuff (and hardly any meat), but everything is so expensive. When I was in Alabama last month, my father and I picked up a bag of Lay's at Walmart (shown below) and I couldn't believe the price was over $5....for a bag of chips. Crazy (which is why I took a picture of the price)! I'm grateful I have a job and money to buy groceries and that I only have myself to feed. I can only imagine what people with kids are spending weekly/monthly on food. And what if your kids are older kids who eat a lot? Oy vey! 

In addition to paying a lot for food and basic needs stuff like toilet paper (a whopping $9.99 for six rolls at Jewel for me), housing costs are out of control too. I just read an article in the NY Times today about how intense the bidding wars are now for homes in some areas. People are bidding $50K or more over the asking price and still being outbid on homes. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. I couldn't compete with that kind of competition. It's brutal. I'm glad to live in my little co-op that I bought a few years ago and didn't have to get into a bidding war over (although I was outbid initially by an all-cash offer that fell through). The NY Times article showed a series of houses a couple lost out on in Austin, Texas and many of them looked like small homes that I found hard to believe anyone would bid $400K or more for. The market is insane and I feel for anyone who's out there now trying to buy a home. I know interest rates are low and people are saving more due to working from home and not having commuter and other work costs, but still. 

Only the Strong

I've been on a Journey kick over the past week and had to break out my Journey's Greatest Hits CD (shown below that I got for a whopping $6.99 from Street Corner Music many many years ago). Journey was such an 80's band, but I love them and their music still holds up for me (but I'm a 70's and 80s' kid, so I'm biased). Everyone loves to praise "Don't Stop Believin'" as the ultimate Journey song, but that one was seriously overplayed for me. (I also cringe whenever Steve Perry sings about the kid who was "born and raised in South Detroit" in that song. South Detroit doesn't exist, Steve! Southwest Detroit would be acceptable, but I digress.) Not that I don't like "Don't Stop," but I've heard it too many times throughout my life to want to hear it again. Instead, I'm a fan of songs like "Lights," "Send Her My Love," and "Only the Young." I love "Only the Young" and I just recently realized I've been singing the wrong lyrics for that song. I thought for sure Steve Perry was saying, "Brave carry on / Only the strong" and I found out, just this week, that he's saying "Brave carry on / Bold and the strong." Huh! I've been singing the wrong words for decades! You really do learn something every day, don't you? In addition to singing the wrong lyrics, I'd totally forgotten this song was featured in the 80's movie Vision Quest starring a young Matthew Modine. I'd forgotten about that movie and that this song was in it. I watched the video on You Tube earlier this week and now I feel like I'd like to see the movie again. It's available on Prime now. I might have to check it out. I remember Madonna being in the movie (in one of her first movie rolls) as a singer doing "Crazy for You", but I totally forgot "Only the Young" was on that soundtrack too. 

Journey's music is so quintessential American 80's music and I get nostalgic for that time period sometimes. Things certainly weren't perfect, but I like to think they were pretty darn good. Being a teenager in the 1980s, all things considered, wasn't a bad deal. There was a certain freedom in being a kid during that time that the kids today don't have.