The Best Movies of 2016

“I can’t beat it.”  Those four words delivered by Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea epitomize the last 365 days in America.  2016 and the two months of 2017 really, truly have re-defined the boundaries of what we thought was impossible.  It has been a difficult year for many of us with far too many surprises both wonderful (Go Cubs) and truly terrible.  Luckily for us, there can be solace found in even the darkest of days.  We will always have the movies.  

This year has been perhaps the most educational year in cinema of my life.  I didn’t watch as many films as I have in years’ past.  For once, I actually tried to watch quality films over quantity and while I didn’t see as many classics as I have in previous Oscar cycles, I did see plenty of films I would like to watch again.  Films that inspired me, made me think, and most importantly spurred creativity in recesses of my brain that had been left dormant.  Before I begin my list, I would like to make one caveat.  As my friends and family can attest, I am definitely a difficult critic to please.  In previous years, I have joked, poked fun at, mocked, and even open-mouth gaped incredulously when people told me their favorite movie of the year.   I won’t be doing that anymore (unless you liked Suicide Squad).  For the most part, I’ve learned the nature of perspective in appreciating film.  I know that my list is extremely subjective at best and everyone has the right to their opinions.  I think, we as a nation, have lost sight of this simple truth.  When you embrace opinions that differ from yours, you might actually learn a little and grow.  If you liked Rogue One: fantastic.  I thought it was mismanaged and poorly written with a kickass third act.  If you liked Jason Bourne, thought it was a great spy flick - wonderful!  I thought it was so forgettable, my best friend had to remind me that we went to see it.  These examples aren’t meant as sarcastic, in fact quite the opposite.  There are certain movies BvS, Suicide Squad, and the Hillary Clinton Smear movie that I will still go to the mat as being truly atrocious, but I embrace anyone who has the courage to share what they honestly believe.  Movie theaters are meant to be places of escape and not everyone needs the same escape that I do.

One other note:  Time is an important factor in understanding a movie critique.  Time is perhaps the greatest inherent bias when watching a film.  I remember watching Her one week after I finally came to terms with my ex-girlfriend leaving me.  No matter how good that movie may or may not have been, I couldn’t emotionally connect with it because I had already moved on.  The same is true with my list this year.  You will notice that phenomenally made films like Fences and Hidden Figures are not on my list.  They are undeniably wonderful films and perhaps in time I can appreciate them more, but with a movie like Fences I couldn’t get the extremely powerful performance I once saw of James Earl Jones and Courtney B Vance out of my head and so the film didn’t resonate as much with me.  In time I hope to revisit Fences along with many other films on this list.  

Finally, perhaps the best movie made this year is the documentary OJ: Made in America, but seeing as I watched the film as a mini-series it felt disingenuous to include it on this list.  It is a must see, incredibly timely and thought-provoking, and is as much about race and celebrity as it is about OJ.

My list is of the top 20 films of the year, but I will only go into detail on the top ten to save on time, energy, and of course, your patience.  

20.  The Lobster 19.  Doctor Strange 18.  Hacksaw Ridge 17.  Green Room

16.  Zootopia 15.  Moana 14.  Sully 13.  La La Land

12.  Captain America: Civil War/Deadpool 11.  The Nice Guys

10.  Moonlight

I will admit that Moonlight did not capture my creativity in the same way that it captured a lot of my friends.  I believe that director Barry Jenkins is trying to accomplish too much with this film and so it constantly changes the movie’s defined category.  As a viewer, while captivated by the majesty of his storytelling, I wasn’t always sure what story he wanted to tell.  Nevertheless, it makes both my list and the top of the Academy Awards Best Picture list, after the biggest flub in Oscar history.  I hope people won’t remember this film by the moments it had on stage during the Oscars, but rather by the moments of careful precision acted powerfully and perfectly by Naomie Harris, Ashton Sanders, and one of my favorite actors working today, Mahershala Ali.  I remember first seeing Ali in 2004 in the role of Richard Tyler on The 4400 and thinking that he would go somewhere.  Now thirteen years later, he’s an Academy Award winner.  I’ve never seen an actor deserve an award for just one line of dialogue, but for those who’ve seen the movie, the line is obvious, “yes.”  And I say, “yes,” to all the brilliant performers of Moonlight who truly make the movie special.

9.  Other People

If you didn’t see this little movie, don’t worry, you aren’t the only one.  I’m thankful that the Independent Spirit Awards saw fit to award Molly Shannon with a Best Supporting Actress Award.  She deserves it for portraying Joanna, a mother suffering from terminal cancer trying to live out the final months of her life while still maintaining motherhood.  I adored this little film shot through the perspective of Friday Night Lights alum Jesse Plemons who plays a gay, out-of-work comedy writer whose homosexuality is accepted by everyone other than his father.  It intermixes tragedy with comedy, light with dark (perhaps a theme from 2016).  The end result of the film is inevitable but still subtly satisfying as Plemons finally learns that unconditional love is still incredibly messy.  

8.  Don’t Think Twice

Comedian Mike Birbiglia’s follow-up to his 2012 comedy Sleepwalk with Me proves that Birbiglia’s brand of slightly off-kilter comedy works really well in low-budget independent films.  I’ve heard this film compared to Annie Hall and I personally believe it's better told, where Annie Hall follows two people as their main story, this follows the nature of comedy and how it affects everyone it touches.  The film is a heart-breaking hilarious ride in that its third act is definitely sad, but never loses the benefit of goodwill that the hilarity of the first act has carried.  Comedians Chris Gethard, Tami Sagher, Kate Micucci, Keegan-Michael Key, and even Birbiglia contribute to the films overall success, but the real star of this movie is Gillian Jacobs.  She proves that the comedy she provided on Community is only one facet of her skillset.  

7.  Eye in the Sky

Released in the early months of 2016, this film looked doomed from the start.  It was just another re-hash of the same tired old action movie premise.  Army + Terrorists + decisions = 1000 other movies; but what followed was certainly not another carbon copy of previous films.  This is a taut and timely film about the morality of drone warfare and the inability of government to take responsibility.  All of the actors do the majority of their work in a small amount of real estate, a bunker, a cabinet room, a chair piloting the drone, but each actor uses the excellent script and emotional dilemma created to the best of its advantages.  This film is also the final live action acting piece of the beloved Alan Rickman who goes out on top.  His second to last line of the film, “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war,” is delivered with such experience and weight that whatever moral decisions you’ve made throughout the film, they're once again thrown into flux.  Eye in the Sky does not telegraph the audience’s final perspective, but rather gives the gift of allowing you to make up your own mind.  

6.  13th

This slot could’ve easily gone to any one of the magnificent documentaries made in 2016, but unfortunately I still have yet to see I Am Not Your Negro and Cameraperson.  Instead the slot goes to 13th, a movie that I put off seeing as long as I could.  A few years ago, I dramaturged a production that centered around the Prison Industrial Complex and racism within prison.  Since I knew all of that information, I figured I had already watched 13th without actually seeing it.  Boy was I wrong.  The difference between my belief and reality is that while I knew the majority of the facts, I was not fully aware of the historical depth perception required in understanding the context of those facts.  13th might be the most re-watchable movie of 2016; not because of fun or frivolity, but because Ava DuVernay packs so much information into its 100 minute run time.  DuVernay shines as a director in this piece, both from subject matter and from film composition.  In 2015’s Selma, I took issue with the way in which LBJ was vilified, citing that George Wallace was already a villain, why do we need to add another one.  In this film the villain, while painful to accept stares us in the mirror and doesn’t let go of our gaze.  Available on Netflix, 13th is a powerful reminder that slavery didn’t die when the North won the Civil War, it simply evolved.  

5.  Midnight Special

Midnight Special is the less critically lauded Jeff Nichols film of 2016, being passed over for his impactful tale of the heart bridging the racial divide in Loving.  For me and my tastes, the more complete film is Midnight Special.  This is a strange little science fiction movie that left some fans wanting a different third act, but myself wanting to applaud.  I love a good twist as much as anyone and in a film that combines cult worship with aliens; morality with murder it would make sense for a twist - if you’re looking at it as a larger story, but it doesn’t have to be that.  When it boils down to the nitty gritty, this is a tale about a family, the father played extraordinarily by Hollywood’s most underrated actor, Michael Shannon, the mother, Kirsten Dunst who continues to turn in subtle, yet nuanced roles and the son played by newcomer, Jaeden Lieberher.  This is a movie that shifts between tense drama and fulfilling wonderment.  Deeply powerful and passionately potent, Midnight Special is much more than a simple science fiction movie.  

4.  Kubo and the Two Strings

Anyone who knows my taste in pop culture knows there are two things that I vehemently dislike:  Pop Country Music and Animated Films; so it is surprising to find an animated film so high on my list.  This year I found three films that were exceptions to the rule.  I liked Zootopia, loved the music in Moana, and was completely mesmerized by Kubo.  I’ve never seen an animated picture quite like this one.  With the musical Avenue Q, it’s said that if after ten minutes you still see puppets acting then the show isn’t doing its job.  The same can be said with Kubo, even while I was being dazzled by the artistry and diligent hard work that went into creating this animation, I stopped thinking of it as an animated film and instead as a well-acted drama with comedic relief.  A much darker plot than I imagined and a much deeper film, I’ll be watching Kubo for many years to come.

3.  Manchester by the Sea   

Much like 13th, I held off watching this film for as long as I could.  I was told over and over again just how much I would cry, how much it would rip my heart out.  I held out for as long as I could, but when it reached redbox I couldn’t wait any longer.  What I found out was that while this is certainly gut-wrenching, it’s also quite funny.  I first heard about Kenneth Lonergan’s work in college while acting in scenes from This is Our Youth and then later when directing scenes from Lobby Hero.  It took me a little while to come around to understand the true brilliance of this man.  He writes real life, the dirty, the misunderstood, the lost so deftly and with so much kindness that it feels less like a work of dramatic fiction and more like an honest documentary made with actors.  His direction of Sea was my highlight in direction this year.  Lonergan understands shot composition much in the same way that 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen does.  Both understand that the truth in filmmaking isn’t putting bows on scenes or directing moments that are “oscar worthy.”  The true essence of filmmaking lives in the minutiae of everyday life.  I laughed as much as I cried watching this film and I applaud both the Writer/Director Lonergan and stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, and newcomer Lucas Hedges.  

2.  Arrival

I have already written a review of Arrival that you can read in a previous post.  As a recap, this was less of a movie going experience and more of a religious baptism.  Something happened to me in that movie theatre that I may never be able to fully explain.  At one point in the film, Jeremy Renner says to Amy Adams, “Are you dreaming in their language?”  This line perhaps can sum up the film for me.  I started to watch the film as if I was inside the film and I spoke and thought the same words as the character.  Very trippy, very out of body, but entirely needed and spiritual.  I am thankful for Arrival and the brilliant work of director Denis Villenueve.  I cannot wait to see his sequel to Blade Runner.  

1.  Hell or High Water

In 2015, I watched Sicario and was incredibly critical of the film.  While I found the cinematography stunning and beautiful, I didn’t love the script.  I remember thinking that the screenwriter needed a lot more work before trying another film.  Two years later and the director of Sicario is the director of Arrival and the screenwriter is the writer of Hell or High Water.  As I said in the open, time changes everything.  Hell or High Water is a western noir that details a family drama with the backdrop of the recession and the south.  The setting for this film is as much a co-star as any actor in the film.  I loved this movie.  Going into it, I expected a simple bank robbery movie but what I got was a passionate film about the depth of love that lives within us all, the destruction of the South and the agrarian economy, and a look at the banking crisis all packed into a crime thriller.  The final scene of this film between Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine can rival anything that is in No Country for Old Men.  Taylor Sheridan (writer) and David Mackenzie (director) have crafted a masterpiece in storytelling.  One that tells three significant stories simultaneously without the audience realizing they're watching more than one.  I applaud the significant contribution this movie brings to the history of cinema and I am proud to name it my best picture of 2016.  

Last Night I Saw God in an Iowa Movie Theatre

I didn’t know any better.  My first day of graduate school I sat down in my advisors’ office while she poured me a cup of bitter tea that ended up tasting a little too much like bark.  As she poured, she discussed the variety of classes that I could take in my first semester.  After deciding my third class, she told me to take Asian Theatre, a subject that I knew very little about (you could say I knew “Noh-thing”).  She said I’d like the Professor and I might have my mind opened up.  Four months later, after hours of taxing study that blew my mind at least once a night, she was right.  The class had gotten me through a rocky start to graduate school complete with three concussions, two hospital visits, and one dog attack.  As the class came to an end my classmates and I each had to perform a selection from one of the art forms we had learned about in the course of the year.  I chose Butoh, a spiritual-based, highly specialized form of dance that arose (almost quite literally) out of the Japanese ashes of WW II.  The art form is quite difficult to define and covers a variety of issues including grotesque body imagery, taboo topics, and an artistic connection with “distress”.  Artists are usually clad in white body paint, which can be quiet disturbing, and dances are filled with slow hyper-controlled, sometimes manic, motion.  Somehow I was supposed to perform it.

Performing Butoh changed my life.  

My performance lasted five minutes and thirty-two seconds and I’m pretty sure I never got up off the ground.  Still, when I was done, I was physically and mentally exhausted, covered in pain, and on the verge of tears.  It was the first and only time in my life that a piece of art had transformed into something else; something more.  For me it was a religious experience.  Somehow I had been transported from my body, like detaching your soul but still feeling both at the same time.  It was something I’ll never be able to explain and it most certainly will never happen again.  Or so I thought.  

Last night it happened again.  

And I was watching a science fiction movie about aliens. 

Last night I saw God in an Iowa movie theatre and I cannot tell you why.  Before you get worried about me, no, I did not see Jesus or a guy on a cloud with a long beard.  I didn’t actually “see” anything other than a very good movie.  The film is called Arrival starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner and directed by Denis Villeneuve.  As I walked out of the theatre, after nearly ten minutes of silence, I turned to my friend and said, “that’s the best movie I’ve ever seen.”  Honestly, that might be a tad hyperbolic.  I’m sure if I watched the film from a critical perspective I’d find a few problems with the script, the plot-twist probably doesn’t actually make sense, and the soldier’s acting might have been a bit too stock, but critically and personally I know two things to be true.  The first, critically, is that Villeneuve might be the best working director on the planet.  Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, and now Arrival are masterpieces in directing.  Even though I was not a fan of the film Sicario, I still walked away from it saying that the director and writer are geniuses (no wonder by favorite two movies of the year are Arrival (same director) and Hell or High Water (same writer).  The second thing I know to be true is personal.  This film has changed my life.  

By mid-way through the movie I was crying, and it takes a lot of me to cry in a movie theatre.  Hell, it takes a lot for me to cry in general.  In fact, I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve cried in five years.  By the time the film was over, I couldn’t see because my eyes were filled with tears.  This movie was a religious experience for me.  I cannot tell you why.  I can’t even explain it, but I know something happened to me last night in the theatre.  It was like I was no longer in control of my emotions or my body or better put like I could swap senses.  Like I felt language and I spoke feelings.  Almost like I was inhabited by a language that transcends the ways in which we conceive that language.  And if this all sounds weird (it is) something similar to my experience is experienced by a character in the film.  

Did I have a cosmic connection with a movie?

Or am I just so overwhelmed by the events of the past few weeks that I cried while watching a film?

I’m not sure and I’ll never be quite sure.  

One of the two founders of Butoh, Hijikata Tatsumi described Butoh as “a corpse reaching out for life.”  The performance does not lie in the achievement of life, but rather in the reach.  It is through silence and strife and pain that we reach out for hope.  We don’t actually have to achieve our end goal to accomplish it; the reach itself is the goal.  How does an artist explain such a complex thought/feeling?  They can’t, so instead they create a spiritual dance that transcends words to create their own understanding of language and communication.  

For me, Arrival was a more than a movie.  It was a form of Butoh.  

Or maybe it was just a film and I’m a rambling lunatic.  Watch the movie and find out for yourself.  

This Week in Meaningless Sport Betting: The Hot Dog Eating Championship

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest (although really the 40th).  According to local legend, four immigrants had a Hot Dog eating contest in 1916 to decide which one was the most patriotic, although that legend is up for debate.  The competition heated up in the 70’s and became more internationally known with the inclusion of the IFOCE, the International Federation of Competitive Eating, in 1997.  Now all competitions, usually about 20 per year are required to be card carrying members of the IFOCE.  

The event is not without it’s fair share of controversy.  In 1999, Competitor Steve Kainer was caught on camera eating half of his first dog before competition began, but the judges never saw it and he was awarded the championship.  Also in 2003 attempts were made for a celebrity edition starring William "the Refrigerator" Perry, but after he failed to complete his sixth dog, the idea was quickly abandoned.  

In 2001, Takeru Kobayashi took home the championship catapulting the event to new levels of international acclaim.  He would go on to hold the belt for six years before the eight year reign of Joey Chestnut.  Kobayashi almost lost his title in 2007 when known around the IFOCE the Roman Method Incident, more commonly known as vomiting, nearly cost him disqualification. Last year, in an All American final, Matt Stonie took away Chestnut’s belt winning 62-60 in a ten minute bout.

There are multiple different strategies used by the competitors today.  Kobayashi invented the Solomon method, where a competitor breaks the dog in half, eats, and then eats the bun.  Other methods include the Carlene Pop, the Buns & Roses, which both include movement and of course “Julieting” which only occurs when a competitor cheats and throws the buns over their shoulder.  

This year looks at fierce competition between defending Champion Matt Stonie and eight time champ Joey Chestnut.  Current odds see Stonie as the favorite with Stonie at -130 and Chestnut at -110.  Originally you could’ve gotten Chestnut at +135, which is where I took him.  Chestnut is 32 years old and owns plenty of world records including 12.8 lbs of deep fried Asparagus in 10 minutes, 13.76 lbs of pork rib meat in 12, and 141 hard boiled eggs in eight minutes.  He also has the current Nathan record with 69.  For years he has complained of not having a true rival, but now he does.  Also before last years competition he was getting over his fiancee breaking up with him.  I believe the extra year gave him time to reflect and considering that 62 dogs was the winning total last year and Chestnut has overtaken said number 5 times in championship competition; the safe bet is with the underdog. 

On this weekend’s episode we will look at the Munster Senior Championship in Gaelic Football between Kerry and Tipperary.  Kerry features as a gigantic favorite, but we will discuss if Tipperary is worth a few dollars at +1000 odds.    

I'm Not Okay

Yesterday, a friend asked me, “How are you doing,” and I replied, “I’m fine,” but of course I’m not fine.  Rarely when someone says they’re fine do they actually mean it.  I wish I would’ve said how I really felt.  How the mess of the world makes me feel small and scared and alone.  I wish I would’ve said, “I’m not okay,” because, I’m not.  

I’m not okay with what happened in Florida

I’m not okay with our reaction to that tragedy

I’m not okay with the anger I feel

I’m not okay with the country I live in

I’m not okay that a man can waltz into a nightclub and kill forty-nine people

  that he can do so with a gun that serves no legal purpose other than death

  that he can claim ISIS and with it take away his victim’s identities

I’m not okay that Fox news can mourn the loss of forty-nine Americans, but not the loss of forty-nine LGBT Americans.

I’m not okay when hypocrites dictate American Policy

   when politicians mourn LGBT lives while working tirelessly to wipe their existence off the face of the Earth

   when news agencies use tragedies to tout their ratings and applaud their anchors

           when I’m not surprised

I’m not okay with Second Amendment worshippers 

I’m not okay with illogical arguments based on a lack of historical perspective

   with there being enough guns to give every American man, woman, and child a firearm

   with shoot first, ask questions later

I’m not okay with “from my cold, dead hands” being a rallying cry rather than a warning

I’m not okay with people remembering Adam Lanza’s name, but forgetting Vicki Soto's

     with the NRA having more political power than the President

I’m not okay with that gun on your belt

I’m not okay when an attack on the LGBT community becomes a secondary headline

I’m not okay when an attack on the LGBT community becomes fodder for a terrorism debate

  when an attack on the LGBT community becomes a bigot’s get out of jail free card

  when an attack on the LGBT community becomes a two-day story

But that’s not all

I’m not okay that we cringe for the first Female Candidate

I’m not okay that we condemn her for emails, while a fraud and racist dances free

I’m not okay that her imperfections ring louder than all the other men before her

I’m not okay that we’ve accepted our role in watching this witch burning

I’m not okay with six month penalties for “20 minute crimes”

  with band aids for bruises that will never heal

  with judges representing perpetrators over victims

I’m not okay with one out of every six women

It’s not okay that I can raise my hands in class, but change my location and skin color and I’ll be shot

It’s not okay that Ferguson has become a bad word rather than a revolution

It’s not okay that we fight arguments over headlines rather than facts

It’s not okay that “I have a dream” is now just a hashtag

It’s not okay when my students can tell me why the Kardashians matter but not why the Civil War was fought

   when we laugh at Senators with snowballs, but do nothing to stop their ignorance

It’s not okay when revolutions must be started by artists rather than leaders 

   when we care about being right now rather than being right.  

It’s not okay that our public grief can be summed up by a temporary profile picture

It’s not okay that guns don’t kill people; Americans do

It’s not okay that we’re accustomed to tragedy 

It’s not okay that Orlando won’t be the last one

I’m not okay with my American pulse because my heart has been shot to shit

So if you see me and ask me, “How are you doing?”  I’ll answer clearly and succinctly, “I’m fine"

Apparently I’m a Trump Supporter

To begin: watch the following clip (just the first 30 seconds) Hug a Bernie Supporter.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  Watched it?  Good.  For those of you who are unaware, that is in fact me at the 23 second mark.  I did attend a Trump rally and I also decided not to hug a random stranger.  However, there are two things missing from the clip.  The first is that the man proclaiming to be a Bernie supporter is, in fact, Kenny Wassus, a contributor to the Independent Journal Review and he made another video proclaiming to be a Trump supporter at a Sanders rally.  The second is the fact that in reality I actually said to the man, “Get out alive.”  Neither of these facts are present in the video and for that, I say, “ok, whatever.”  By spending more than five minutes trying to defend myself, I've already wasted too much time.  I don’t care if I was misquoted in a Youtube video.  If a friend hadn’t recognized me then I would’ve gone oblivious and that would be absolutely fine with me.  If anything, I’m glad the video popped up, because otherwise I wouldn’t have written this post.  So Kenny Wassus, thank you for misquoting me.  

Originally I didn’t want to write or even talk about my experience going to a Trump Rally.  It’s one of those experiences that you just want to go home, drink bourbon, and forget about, but alas I couldn’t.  The weekend before the Iowa Caucus, my Uncle came to Iowa and wanted to attend some of the Republican events to learn about their supporters and so over the course of 48 hours we saw Cruz, Bush, and Trump, along with many other prominent Republican wackos like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.  The most surprising event was the Jeb Bush town hall in Davenport.  Bush was charismatic and extremely likable.  I even agreed with some of his policies (like 10%).  But the Trump rally was definitely the most disturbing of the three.  

When we arrived, I expected to find a crowd of red, white, and blue rednecks still hiding their white hoods in their back pockets.  Unfortunately this was far from the truth.  In fact, I saw regular Iowans.  Some people I even knew.  That’s why Trump supporters are truly scary.  If his crowds were filled with hoods and swastikas, with 40’s anti-japanese rhetoric and modern day muslim scare tactics, then I could easily understand why they would endorse him, but the much scarier supporters are the ones who wear an American Flag lapel pin and sing Country songs.  People like the little white boy in front of me who wanted a sign just so Trump could sign it.  People like the Korean War Vet who high-fived a Korean couple while sneering at a woman wearing a hijab.  People like the man three rows behind us, clutching Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue” like it was the Bible and stretching his neck as far as he could to catch a glimpse of her.  

Trump was thirty or so minutes late and so the sound system kept repeating the same five songs incessantly which included Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and Adele’s “Skyfall”.  When he finally arrived he was accompanied by Sarah Palin, His wife Melania, and his daughter Ivanka.  As a Speech Professor, the most polite way to describe his speaking style is off-the-cuff.  During one of his tangential rumblings, he brought his wife and daughter onstage to say a few words.  I snapped a picture of the three of them and looked down at my phone.  I remember thinking, “this must be what a South American Dictatorship is like,” because that’s what it looked like.  The three of them resembled a dictatorship in the 60’s and 70’s and Melania speaks like a dictator’s wife.  Very beautiful with very little substance.  Then Trump ushered them off and went on the attack against Sanders and socialism.  He even added in a few jokes that, I am ashamed to say, made me laugh.  I actually laughed with Donald Trump and not just at him.  By the end of the event, I felt sick to my stomach.  Was it his regular supporters or his wife or his jokes?  It was a combination of the three and so much more.  I finally understood why people liked Donald Trump and why people would vote for him.  

If you stripped away all the bigotry and racism.  If you threw out his views and his arrogant righteousness.  If you just looked at what his ability to succeed means; I understand why people would vote for him.  He’s charismatic, anti-establishment, and honest.  And of course I don’t mean honest in a truthful way, because almost everything he says is a lie, but honest in an open forum kind of way.  He really does say whatever is on his mind.  And people eat it up.  People think he’s the type of guy who they could have a beer with (of course they don’t know that his secret service would tackle them before they got the chance).

My favorite movie quote comes from the film “Men in Black,” in which Tommy Lee Jones says, “A person is smart.  People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.”  This sums up how I feel about Trump’s supporters.  They’re scared.  They’re scared of the middle east and middle eastern people, they’re scared of the economy and the leftist socialist agenda, they’re scared of losing; and here comes a guy who says, “We’re going to win,” it seems only natural that they’d support him.  

Tomorrow the election moves into Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, and Ohio.  Ohio represents the high noon of this campaign season.  If Trump sweeps the table, the election will be over and Donald Trump will be the nominee.  If Kasich can squeak by a win then it will be nearly impossible for Trump to reach the total number of delegates before the convention and we may have a brokered GOP convention.  So, I guess, I wrote this post for you, the Republicans of Ohio.  Vote for Governor Kasich.  I know you’re scared and I know you think that people like me (Yes, surprise, I voted for Sanders) are ruining your country, but I promise you that Donald Trump won’t help you.  Tomorrow, hug a random stranger and vote for John Kasich.  Trust me, you’ll be happy you did.