Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. I am delighted to say we are back up and running. We received our new surfboard modem from UPS, and it works well. We are now able to connect to the internet. This is of course a blessing and a curse. The internet is a vast expanse of information and as a poodle I find myself sometimes getting lost in its cavernous wonderland. I wander around looking at this video or reading that article or window shopping for those sparkly collars and then I look at the clock and I am stunned. The entire day is gone. How can this be? How can I have lost so much time? It is dreadful. It is wasteful. And yet, I am drawn to it like a bunny to a carrot. This nightmarish binge lasted a couple of days after we were back online and then I said to myself, I must stop. Life is too short to wander about in a virtual universe. There must be more to life than this. What did parti poodles do before the internet? I think they went to malls and strutted their beauty. I think they went to parties and strutted their beauty. I think they went to the park and strutted their beauty. How will I ever be able to strut my beautiful gorgeous black and white curls if I hide inside all day? I must be adored. There is a great big world out there of cats, bunnies, and dogs all strutting their beauty and they are missing out on the most beautiful creature of them all: Gigi. How can I deny the world my presence? Shame on me! I must rise on all fours, depart from my computer and voyage out on a mission to be absolutely adored. I will get on that right away…just as soon as I finish this game of solitaire. Until next week I bid you adieu.   

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY (2024)-SHOWTIME

Small and quirky, this week’s pick takes a fresh spin on the hostage situation story written and directed by Francis Galluppi. Paying homage to tense low budget 70’s psychological thrillers, the film starts out on a quiet morning in Arizona with shots of a truck ala Duel and quickly takes us to a remote roadside diner and gas station with little else for miles around. A man known only as The Knife Salesman (Jim Cummings) has stopped for gas. He is enroute to see his little girl for her birthday who lives with her mother and stepfather in Carlsbad, California. When he arrives the gas station owner Vernon (Faizon Love) tells him the station’s pumps are empty and there isn’t another gas station for one hundred miles, but a refueling truck should be coming along shortly and he is welcome to wait in the diner next door.

The diner is owned by a pretty waitress named Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue) whom the salesman sees getting dropped off for work in a police car driven by her husband Sheriff Charlie (Michael Abbott Jr.). The Knife Salesman heads inside, and Charlotte pours him a cup of coffee and apologizes for the broken air conditioner. Over the radio we hear the Radio Host (Matt McVay) talk about a bank robbery that happened early this morning in Buckeye, Arizona involving thieves who fled with approximately $700,000 in a green Ford Pinto with a damaged rear end. Not long after that, a green Ford Pinto, which is running out of gas, pulls up to the gas station. The car has two men in it, a seasoned criminal named Beau (Richard Brake), and a young hot shot named Travis (Nicholas Logan). After finding out from Vernon they need to wait for the refueling truck to arrive, they enter the café, sit down and order coffee. As customer after customer comes into the diner the tension begins to rise and the sign outside that reads “You’ll Die for Our Rhubarb Pie” gets closer and closer to becoming literal for the patrons inside.