gigi-tastic

Wow. I mostly know Catholic church's and according to a friend whose mom works for one of their local Catholic colleges the priests drink heavily at any and all banquets or events.

I mean... It could have been worse than a little bit of Arson. In the original myths Hercules is driven mad by Hera and murders his wife and kids. This is why he takes on his 12 labors as penance.

So in this version of the Hercules story I feel like they cut out the fact he is a demigod! Instead they have Zeus imbue a fully mortal baby who has 2 mortal parents with the powers of a god. Ademigod has one godly parent, usually Zeus because he can't keep his dick in his toga. Christ of the 12 Olympians 7 are his kids and 5 of THEM are the result of infidelity.

In Greek mythology Iris is the personification of the rainbow and is a messenger of the gods . She acts as the go between for the gods and humanity in several cases . She's not a literal bridge though. That looked like the Bifrost like you mentioned.

A very happy belated birthday to @Cameron H.!

This is the greatest thing I have ever witnessed. I want this played at my funeral with no context

Is this town next to the Footloose town? I don't know if it's because we rarely went to church or what but to run a single mother out of town for singing secular music seems a *bit* extreme yes?

Oof that whole story is weird and uncomfortable. The original is very odd. I never understood why they made the queen dance to death in fiery iron shoes. It just seemed excessive and also weird for wedding entertainment. I really enjoyed Big Gross Movies coverage of Snow White

Oh ok I was listening at like 2 am trying to go to sleep and was confused . It would be the case that a major blow out happened and I was just in my corner typing away about facts I googled lol!

Oh totally. I think it's a very personal choice and I don't blame anyone for what they decide. I try to live my life by this great Amy Poehler quote from her book Yes Please. "Good for you, Not for me". It works for most things and I've found that I'm genuinely happier because of it.

I take umbrage to the idea we were fighting on the message boards. As far as I could see it was business as usual. There was a lot of discussion about baseball that I didn't understand but I don't think that got particularly heated? Am I missing something?

It's really not about the money for me so much as I feel like when I do buy their stuff (even older stuff in some people's case) it's like I'm saying " I support you and I don't care what you did. " That's not always how I feel and it definitely depends on the context. Also sometimes it honestly upsets me to see them as someone who has a good number of people in my life who have suffered abuse or sexual assault. That's just me though and in general I take it case by case .

Me either! I know so many people who talk about what an amazing fundamental movie it is/ was for them but somehow I've just never seen it. I would love to see it with you guys!

Agreed. However I also agree that sometimes you can separate the work from the artist it's just where you personally say this is something I cannot forgive. It's very tricky. I love Picasso but abhor Picasso. However he's dead and I'm never going to be in a position to own a piece of his work.

I love this one series of communist ones that are of Russia and China. It looks like a delightful story of two comrades falling in love and raising children together. Look! They love to read together! They have a garden! A family portrait! ( with terrifying children. )

Yeah that's how I am usually too but I guess the stories I've heard about Penn just make me feel even worse?

If they were glow in the dark like he said theres a good chance they are radioactive. It would have used Radioluminescent paint or some kind of radium laced dye? If it was phosphorescent paint the glow wouldn't last very long. Right? I don't know anything about science but I know this was around the time of the Radium Girls suing their bosses for compensation because of their health issues.

Am I the only one who was uncomfortable watching this given the abuse allegations against Sean Penn and how he supposedly beat Madonna? I've been trying really hard make an effort not to buy media that has abusive/predatory people (men or women) in them this year and I only watched it because it was free on YouTube. So maybe I'm the only one who will have an issue with it because I'm trying to be more conscientious about who I support with my money but I wanted to ask if I was alone in feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Also would you guys be ok with maybe watching full on Broadway shows? I know some of them have done cast recordings because I've seen a few on PBS. If I can find ones like that that are short maybe we can enjoy the theater and feel cultured!

I have actually seen this!! It's been years because I rented it from Blockbuster

Oh my god have so much fun !!! As a giant nerd London is the Dream. I hope that you get to live out whatever your most likely much cooler fantasy is in your time off! ( trying to get a signed copy of any book by Lucy Worsley the head curator of the Historic Palaces while at Hampton Court if you must know is mine). Take some pictures for us if you can! Also I am so in love with the Clash and now am just listening to them on a loop so thanks for that! ... Ironically I might currently be wearing my Death or Glory shirt

I would really like that! I think maybe a non musical theme per month or something would be neat. I know and there are some iconic movie soundtracks that go with non musical movies. I think @taylorannephoto mentioned that when we talked about it in a mini episode. So I would really like to explore that too . How music plays a part in film. In this week's episode of I Hate It But I Love It (another great podcast) they talked about Practical Magic which is a personal favorite. They mentioned something I had never noticed until then but the music choices are either full on literal with Faith Hill's This Kiss playing when Sally kisses her soon to be husband or just off for the scene like in the exorcism where they thought it should have been more dramatic and scary. I would never have noticed because I've been watching it since I was a kid and I fully admit I have rose colored glasses when it comes to this film but they brought up great points! So that's something I wonder about other movies. LIke I know that Home Alone had an AMAZING score and just... The music adds depth to they film you know? So now I wonder if bad movie music is a new trope to look for (Usually if I hear that sexy 80's jazz sax I worry) or if good music means that your in good hands?

I'm still in! I know we talked about possibly opening the theme to let in other movies as well. Is that something you still want to do?

So I just stumbled on an old Japan Time article from 2007 about how the Japanese government secretly sold opium during the war and the occupation of China. The whole thing is fascinating as all get out so I'm just copying it verbatim if that's ok. If it's too long let me know! "A Japanese narcotics firm in wartime occupied China sold enough opium to nearly match the annual budget of Tokyo’s puppet government in Nanjing, according to an internal company document recently discovered by The Japan Times. The 21-page document, found in an archive at the National Diet Library of Tokyo, showed opium dealer Hung Chi Shan Tang (or Hong Ji Shan Tang as it would now be spelled) sold as much as 300 million yuan worth of opium in 1941, when the annual budget of the Nanjing Government was 370 million yuan. Although not widely known at home, Japan’s opium trade in China was considered an essential financial resource for the Imperial Japanese Army and Japan’s puppet governments. An outline of the opium dealings first came to light in the mid-1980s, when historians uncovered several secret government documents. Many key details, however, have remained a mystery. The document, titled “Outline of Hung Chi Shan Tang,” reveals the history of the Shanghai-based company, headed by Hajime Satomi, that was believed to be the dominant opium trader in Japanese-controlled central China, including Shanghai, until early 1944. The document breaks down the company’s operating costs, details the wholesale price structure of opium, the firm’s assets and debts as well as how the rapid inflation of local currencies affected its narcotics trade. Hung Chi Shan Tang was technically a private company with an exclusive license issued by the Japanese puppet government established in Nanjing in 1938. “The discovery of this document is really significant. It has been known that Hajime Satomi headed Hung Chi Shan Tang and generated huge profits, but concrete details have been elusive,” said Masanao Kurahashi, a leading expert on Japan’s opium policy in China and a professor at Aichi Prefectural University. The document shows Hung Chi Shan Tang sold 6 million “liang,” or 222 tons, of opium in 1941 to local-level Chinese dealers. One of the reasons Hung Chi Shan Tang was established in 1939 was “to put the opium business under Japan’s wartime control,” Satomi wrote in the document, whose first page is stamped “secret.” According to historians, profits from the opium trade bankrolled the Imperial army’s unofficial spying activities not covered by the official military budget. Later, revenue from the opium monopoly became a major financial source for the puppet governments of Inner Mongolia, Nanjing and Manchukuo, which was set up in 1932 in Manchuria. The Inner Mongolia puppet government, set up in 1937, systematically grew poppies to raise revenue, and its largest opium dealer was Hung Chi Shan Tang. In 1942, its opium revenues accounted for as much as 28 percent of its initial budget. “Since (opium) was the only product with which the Mongolian Government can earn foreign currency, we have made our best efforts to expand sales channels,” Satomi stated in the document. It was discovered among 545 archived documents once in the possession of former Finance Ministry official Hideoto Mori, a close friend of Satomi. The opium document has been open to public viewing at the National Diet Library, but experts didn’t know it was there. In the typewritten document, Satomi also reported that in addition to Mongolian opium, his company imported the product from Iran as well as from Rehe, northeastern China, where the Manchukuo regime allowed farmers to grow poppies under the state opium monopoly. Of 6 million liang in opium that Hung Chi Shan Tang sold in 1941, Mongolian opium accounted for 4 million liang and Iranian opium for 1.6 million liang, according to the document. The dealer charged a commission of 8 percent in selling Mongolian opium to local dealers, in addition to transport fees, insurance fees, tax and other miscellaneous expenses, according to the cost breakdown detailed in the document. “(Opium) from Mongolia and Manchukuo are all transported by air, and transport payment to Chinese Aviation Airway reached ¥3 million in ‘gunpyo’ in the last fiscal year,” Satomi said. Gunpyo was the military scrip Japan issued in occupied China. To whom Satomi wrote the document has not been confirmed, but professor Junichi Chiba at Tokyo Metropolitan University, an expert on prewar corporate accounting rules who examined the financial data in the document, said it appears to be a report from Satomi to the China Affairs Board (Ko-a-in), Japan’s wartime ministry on China affairs. In fact, a memorandum dated April 10, 1941, and addressed to Genshichi Oikawa, the China Affairs Board chief, was attached to the document, and Satomi confirmed in the memorandum that his opium trader borrowed operating funds from Tokyo. The attached memo pins down the direct connection of the Imperial government in Tokyo and Satomi’s opium organization, said Motohiro Kobayashi, an associate professor at Niigata University of International and Information Studies and an expert on Japan’s opium trade in China. In that memo, Satomi pledged to “manage and invest (the loaned money) for the sake of future benefits of the Imperial government.” “Now it’s clear that Hung Chi Shan Tang was an organization that solely worked for the sake of the Japanese government in Tokyo,” Kobayashi said. Oikawa of the China Affairs Board, who was summoned to testify in the postwar International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, denied any connection with Satomi’s opium business. “During my time in office, I had no association whatever with him,” Oikawa told the tribunal. But the memorandum shows Oikawa’s testimony was “a complete lie,” said writer Shinichi Sano, who in 2005 published the book “The Opium King,” which traces the life of Satomi, a former newspaper reporter whose Chinese alias was Li Ming. “The document is undeniable evidence (linking Satomi to Oikawa),” Sano said. The document also reveals another apparent lie in Satomi’s court testimony. For the Tokyo war crimes court, Satomi was arrested as a Class-A war criminal suspect but, for unknown reasons, was not charged. He was later released and died in 1965 of cardiac failure at age 69. During the Tokyo tribunal, Satomi was summoned as a witness. He admitted having opium dealings but denied Hung Chi Shan Tang dealt with morphine or heroin, derivatives of opium that were widely traded by Japanese nationals in China. Morphine and heroin are far more toxic and addictive than opium. But the latest finding shows Hung Chi Shan Tang had 999 kg of morphine made in Manchukuo, in addition to 277 kg of cocaine processed by the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan as of June 1, 1942. The narcotics were originally prepared for the Southeast Asian market, but Hung Chin Shan Tang held onto the stocks after the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, Satomi reported in the 1942 paper. Japanese historical documents have shown Tokyo at that time considered expanding its opium business from China to Southeast Asia, where Chinese residents consumed a considerable amount of narcotics. The document for the first time reveals Hung Chin Shan Tang’s drug stocks prepared for the market outside China. Satomi also reported that his company could immediately sell off the morphine and cocaine on the Chinese market at street prices, which were twice the book value. “It is enough to guarantee that Hung Chi Shan Tang’s financial footing is extremely stable,” Satomi wrote." https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/08/30/national/japan-profited-as-opium-dealer-in-wartime-china/#.XNcUy98pC2c

So at the start they say one of these opium flowers is worth a grand. I think that this really weird for two British men to be using U.S currency but whatever I'll go with it. If we go by inflation, and what Google tells me, that means that in today's money that one of those is worth $17,945.21 (I personally love the 21 cents. ). That's a shit ton of money. Especially if we keep in mind this is 1937/38. The tail end of the Great Depression. The U.K was only slowly starting to recover and the U.S was still going through it.