Middle Schoolers and Bette Davis Say The Darnedest Things!

Join Mr. B at the table for delectable delights of musings from a review of the Academy Awards to a review of the 1964 camp film "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" and take another step along with Mr. B on his spiritual journey of recovery and, boy, do those junior high kids ever say the darnedest things!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

It's time for dinner. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. From the creative mind of Scott Bertelson, after four decades of teaching our impressionable youth, the dinner, you are invited to enjoy conversational morsels for the mind at Mr. B's dinner party.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Yeah, dinner. Well, guess what? Ring the bell.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Mr. B's got a table so wide. Pull up a chair at your worry slide. School days, tales, and a movie or two. He's serving up wisdom with a side of stew. Belly up to the table, my friend. The feast of thought will never end. From travels far to a spiritual climb. Morsels of music served in rhyme.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Oh, alright, alright. Let's get to the business at hand. Hello, it's Mr. B, and it's time for Mr. B's dinner party. And I'm so glad to be at the table with you today. I hope that we have some delectable tidbits of delicacies that we can enjoy. Mmm, did you like the way I said that? Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So let's barely up to the table and let's enjoy the feast. Friends, for as long as I can remember, there have been a few events that on television I have always enjoyed. I used to really enjoy when The Wizard of Oz was on CBS once a year, and we'd all gather around the television and watch this wonderful classic about going down the yellow brick road. Now you can see it anytime anywhere with streaming, I guess. I also um really enjoyed watching the Academy Awards, and I still do. And I remember when I was young, everybody else would go to bed, and I would stay up because you know they never finish in less than three hours. Fewer than three hours, use your correct grammar, Scott. Anyway, and uh would stay up late to watch them because at that time you couldn't record anything and you had to watch it live. And I love to watch the pageantry, I loved uh seeing if my predictions came true. Had I seen all the movies, no. Even this year, have I seen all the movies? No. But I really do enjoy it, and I don't necessarily make it up now to the end of the show, but I do record it, and so then right away the next day, uh, before I have any influence of the news, I watch it and then see if it turns out the way that I thought it would. And this year I was really excited about Conan O'Brien for the second time being the host. I am a huge fan of Conan O'Brien, and I thought he was very ingenious with his um parodies that he did, uh, his introductions, his slight political take on things. I think he's a great host. Uh also Jimmy Kimmel, I think, is really great too. And I've seen many, many, many, many hosts over the years. But Colonel Brian, to me, I hope that he continues doing it. Anyway, uh, was I surprised by any of the winners? Not necessarily. Uh, I know that many critics that I listened to uh on podcasts, they gave their predictions, and there were people on Facebook who gave their predictions, and I gave my predictions, and now I'm just going to tell you who won. And then I'll talk about the actual program. Not necessarily in any order. Best actor went to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners. I was ecstatic when this happened. Ecstatic. I think Michael B. Jordan is a superb actor. Uh Fruitville Station. Um, he directed the third Krieg movie and starred in it uh in Black Panther and in Sinners, which I've seen a couple times and I'll probably rewatch, is such a great film. It was nominated for 16 Academy Awards. 16, my friends! I think that's the biggest, largest number ever for one film. I think it took home four. So congratulations to Sinners, which you can see on HBO Max at this time. Anyway, uh, he's one of very few black actors who has won the Academy Award for Best Actor. I think Denzel Washington has won. Of course, my memory doesn't help me at this time. But anyway, he gave this wonderfully moving acceptance speech. And in the film, he plays twins, stack and smoke, and they're very different, but very much alike. And it was just amazing, absolutely amazing. And so that was so richly deserved. I thought if he didn't win, uh, then maybe uh Timothy Chalamet might have won uh for the film that he was in. But he's very talented, he has lots of opportunity yet, so I'm sure we'll see him still in the running for an academy award sometime. Uh let's move on to Best Actress, Jesse Buckley, yes, who gave a wonderful, wonderful speech about her family, her child, her husband, Mother's Day. Oh, it was just adorable. Uh for Hamnet, uh, the story about um Shakespeare uh and his personal life with his wife and his uh children. And uh she's also recently come out in a film called The Bride uh with Christian Bale, which is uh take on the Bride of Frankenstein story. Uh I haven't seen it, I'm not sure if I will, but I do want to see Hamnet for sure. I think you could see that on Peacock now. So she is an up-and-coming actress. Uh one of the best movies of the year, or probably the best according to the Academy. It was really down to one battle after another and Sinners, and I was putting my money on Sinners, uh, even though I've seen both, and I like both very much. But I just thought that Sinners would be the underdog because I I had really felt all along that the Academy of Voters would give it to Paul Thomas Anderson for one battle after another, and they did. And rightly so. Rightly so. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful movie. And uh Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite directors, uh, Licor's Pizza, Boogie Knights, um, so many others, and this is really the pinnacle of his uh directing career, and so kudos to Paul Thomas Anderson for one battle after another. Uh, another winner I was ecstatic about was Sean Penn winning for Best Supporting Actor for one battle after another. Now, was Sean at the awards? No, of course not. He wouldn't probably go to that. He's not interested. Uh, but I did see him at a couple other awards programs, but whatever the case is. Again, I have been a long fan, long admirer of Sean Penn, uh at Clange, uh, so many other wonderful films, Mystic River. And uh so I'm so glad that he won the Academy Award for that. Sean Penn um Fast Times at Ridgemont High, one of his first films, the uh marijuana-induced student in school. Anyway, hey dude. Oh, bad impression. But uh I never uh refused to watch Sean Penn. Uh, and he has had a long, long career. So way to go, Sean. Uh another great big uh excited aspect of the show for me was Amy Madigan, one best supporting actress for weapons. She plays Aunt Gladys, the macabre, strange, bizarre aunt who comes to live with a family, and then may we say all hell breaks loose. And um Colonel O'Brien on the show, if you saw at the beginning, uh he was all dressed up like uh her character and um was chased by the children as happens in the film, if you've seen it at the end, and um after they find them. Oh, I'm probably giving out too many spoilers. Sorry, anyway, and um then they uh they chase him dressed as the Amy Madigan character across a Supreme, uh Marty Supreme set and one battle after another set. And it was just very, very funny. Anyway, so Amy Madigan, uh 75 uh years young, uh, has been in the business forever, married to another one great of my favorite great actress actors that would be Ed Harris. Uh I still go back to the days that she was in um Field of Dreams and uh Uncle Buck, and she did way more movies than that. Um, but she is amazing. And I have seen on uh Facebook that is the talk of uh prequel where they show the origins of Aunt Gladys and how she became to be the type of person entity that she was. I hope that's true. I really do. I'd like to know more about her. Okay, another uh winner was the best international feature film, and that went to Sentimental Value. And I really don't know much about it. Um, there were a number of people nominated from the film. Um I guess you'll just have to see it. Sentimental value. Okay, best original score went to Sinners. Uh, they did um a song from Sinners near the beginning of the show. It was brilliant. The choreography, the uh musicianship, the dancing, the the costuming, it was an amazing number. Something about I Ain't Going to Lie, I'm not sure if I got the title correct, but oh my goodness, go to YouTube and and look at that song, and it really shows the evolution all-in-one song of blues uh as it has uh uh grown uh in our society. And um the blues is a big part of sinners. There's so many different levels to sinners uh that you could watch the film on, and I think that's why people keep coming back to it. It's not strictly a vampire story, it's much, much more than that. Uh then, best animated feature went to K-pop Demon Hunters. I bet you're not surprised about that. Have I seen it? No. Would I? Maybe. Maybe, maybe. I have Netflix. I might check it out. Uh it's been very, very, very, very popular. Uh, of course, then uh the best director went to Paul Thomas Anderson. Way to go, Paul Thomas Anderson. Oh, he also directed There Will Be Blood. Oh my gosh. Love, love, love, love that movie. And I'll talk about that sometime. Uh, best song went to Golden, which is from K-pop Demon Hunters. And I had never heard the song before, and then they staged it during the Academy Awards. You should go to YouTube and watch that clip. And it was so exciting to watch, so colorful, dancing, singing. It really was a fun, fun song, fun song. Okay. Best original screenplay went to Ryan Kugler, the guy behind Sinners. He was also nominee for best director. I'm sorry that he didn't win. He is uh as talented or more so as Paul Thomas Anderson. I've always been a huge fan of Ryan Kugler, uh, who also directed Black Panther, uh, who also directed the first Creed movie. Um it's amazing. And he wrote this story, and it is a brilliant story on so many multi-faceted label lay layers. Come on, Scott. Can you talk today? Thank you, folks, for learning to live with my incompetence as a speaker. Sometimes I blame it on age. That's what I do. That's what I do. I blame it on age. Uh Best Cinematography went to Autumn. Well, anyway, Autumn his wife. That's not her last name, but she's the first black woman to ever win the award for best uh cinematography. So she gave a great, great speech, and she's married to Ryan Kugler.

SPEAKER_06 15:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

And uh it was really great. Uh Best Visual Effects, special effects went to the only award for this film, Avatar Fire and Ash, which is the third Avatar film. Not had a chance to watch it, but I'm sure that the special effects are breathtaking. Best film editing went to Movie of the Year to Andy Jurgensen. One battle after another. Uh Frankenstein won a couple awards. This seemed to be the year for horror films. Uh Amy Manigan for Weapons, uh Frankenstein had itself nominated. Uh Frankenstein won for Best Makeup and Hairstyle and Best Costume Design. And um, this is on, as I think I've shared with you before, this is on Netflix, and it is a lavish, over-the-top interpretation of the Frankenstein story, which has been done a million times before, but not like this. This is the best I have ever seen. The acting, the, as I just said, the makeup, the hairstyling, uh, the sets. It it is so opulent, uh, breathtaking. Uh, even if you don't care about the uh Frankenstein story, I highly recommend you see this film on Netflix for the story. The story is amazing. We all know the story to some degree, but yet this film goes in a direction that many films have not gone. So I recommend that. All right, and with that being said, best adapted screenplay from a book went to one battle after another. Uh, also best production design went to Frankenstein, and best sound went to the movie F1, which is a Brad Pitt movie about racing, which I still have not seen either, which I really would like to. So I may have not covered all of the categories, but I covered most of them. So the actual ceremony. There was a moment where they did in memoriam. That's for all of the actors, producers, directors, anybody affiliated with film has died in the last year. And I was so impressed with what was done this year. Uh, Billy Crystal came out and talked about Rob Reiner, uh, the fabulous, wonderful director. And then they um brought up the lights on stage, and all many of the actors in his films came out and took a bow. You had Kathy Bates from Misery, you had um, of course, Billy Crystal from When Harry Met Sally, um, you had Meg Ryan from Harry Met Sally, you had so many other actors uh from the great, great uh library of films that he directed. He went so tragically, and then you had Rachel Adams, who talked about one of my favorite actresses, I think I told you, Diane Keaton, and um also talked about Diane Ladd, who is a great actress, and also um O'Hara. I can't think of her first name now. Uh should have it in front of me, shouldn't I? Mm-hmm. Yes. She starred in um Beetlejuice, and then she starred in uh Creek. So anyway, and the mother in uh home alone. Anyway. But the the greatest moment for the evening for that was when my ultimate favorite favorite favorite singer, director, actress, overall performer, Barbara Streisand came out and did a tribute to Robert Redford. Now they only starred in one film together, the classic, classic, classic, The Way We Were. But she talked about their very close relationship over the years, how he called her Babs, and how they stayed in touch all these years, and how he didn't want to make the way we were. He didn't want to be a part of that film, but she encouraged him and he did decide to do it. Thank goodness. I can't see anybody else playing that part. And then, of course, she sang a few lyrics of the way we were at the end of it. Now, Barbara is in her mid-80s, she's she's aging just like the rest of us. Uh, she doesn't go out in public much anymore. Uh and her singing isn't probably of the quality that it would be in the 70s and 80s or 90s. I mean, I get that. I get that. But still, to hear her sing was a moment to cherish. It was it was so great. It was so great. So, with the great amount of actors, and nobody got hit during the show, no slapping, no Will Smith, uh problem like we had before years ago with uh Chris Rock, I think it was. Uh everybody got along, uh, it was very lighthearted. The musical numbers were great. Again, kudos to Conan for his great expertise and ingenuity in creating this role as a host. And it was just a great celebration of film. Oh, also too, the uh it was uh reuniting of the bridesmaids, uh the original bride ma bridesmaids 15 years ago, I believe it's been, came out on stage and that was really fun to see them. So if you get a chance, go to YouTube if you miss the ceremony. And see some highlights from the show. You can see uh Conan's uh opening monologue. Uh you can see musical numbers, you can see acceptance speeches. I I I really the only thing I didn't like was, and I I know this happens every year, is that say that in an event there's uh two to three or four winners, and they all come up on stage and they all want to talk, and I get that, this is their moment, but then the orchestra cuts them off because they have to try to keep it to a time limit. And it just to me seems incredibly rude to do that when you have worked so hard to reach this pinnacle. But that's what happened in a number of cases. Now, of course, they wouldn't do that for best actor, best actress, or anything like that, but for smaller, maybe less well-known awards, I noticed that they did this. So leaving some of the uh speakers in a rather awkward moment. Uh, I remember one in particular where the music just started blaring and the guy was still talking and he just stopped because he knew he had lost the battle. So again, I I still think it's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful show. It's going to be going to YouTube in a few years now uh to be um on their live instead of on network television. Pros and cons? I don't know. But anyway, I hope that I've given you some uh advice as to some movie viewing if you haven't seen any of these films. I guess, and I probably have said this before, the two I really, really recommend would be Sinners and One Battle After Another. And uh get out and see them, or sit in your chair and stream it. So, there you go. So that's what I have to say about the Academy Awards. I'm just hoping sometime they'll invite me and I can sit in the front row with Michael B. Jordan. Do you think?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

For the next course, come one, come all. Nothing spoiled here, from Comfort Classics to What's Hot Now, film reviews from Mr. B's Rewatchables.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Oh, happy cinematic friends. I have so many films I still want to talk about. But I just decided this morning before coming out here, one of the top five I wanted to talk about for some time is one that I've just recently seen again, which probably does uh make it more desirable for me to talk about it. Is that I say to myself, why am I attracted to watching this for the tenth time? Or I'm sure I've seen this at least 10 times, uh, would be the classic 1964, oh yes, Betty Davis classic, Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

The winners of five prior Academy Awards and 21 Academy nominations now bring you suspense, unequaled in the history of the screen. Shock that will leave you speechless.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Now, this came after the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in 1960-61. Huge, huge success for Betty Davis and John Crawford. It uh rejuvenated their uh careers, was made on a shoestring budget, made hordes of money, and re-established them as two great film stars again, even though many people thought they were washed up because they were old.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

You're never washed up when you're old. I like to think I'm an example of that. Okay. Well, anyway, the film starred Betty Davis.

SPEAKER_05 25:52

Where do you think you're going? I'm going upstairs and I'm gonna tell them what you've been up to. What's going up there that you don't want me to see?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Um, another one of my great uh cinematic uh people I like, Olivia de Havilland, who was also in Gone with the Wind in many other movies.

SPEAKER_05 26:13

Why wouldn't I tell him that this poor darling little girl was having a dirty little bell with a married man?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Uh Joseph Cotton.

SPEAKER_05 26:25

Oh, but uh things conceal. Where do you suppose I keep them? How would you get?

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Agnes Moorhead.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

Let me tell you, Miriam Deering, that murder starts in the heart.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Um The Mother Witch on Bewitched, uh, Mary Esther, and a very young Bruce Dern. And you might say to yourself, Well, where would I find Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte? Well, you can find that on probably TCM, or you could find it on a streaming service anytime. And it's a 1964 film, as I said, a psychological horror thriller film. What do you think about that title? It was directed by Robert Aldridge, who directed Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. And um, if you've ever seen the TV series Feud on FX, it was on a few years ago, of the story of Joan Crawford and Betty Davis, particularly about the making of this movie. Uh he had a very difficult time working with those two women who supposedly hated each other. But yet the TV series paints a different picture about that. So I would recommend you see that sometime too. That's called Feud, F-E-U-D. Um, murder of her lover from decades before, who is plagued by bizarre occurrences after summoning her cousin to help challenge the local government's impending demolition of her home. And this is very much in the same vein as whatever happened to Baby Jane, uh, with um horror involved and Betty Davis screaming, and um fake heads rolling downstairs and people in peril, and somebody's supposed to be dead, but the person isn't dead, and what can we do to drive a person crazy? Were we successful? Were we not? It it has all of that, and it's very campy, C-A-M-P-Y. Yes, I know you know how to spell, but okay, but it it it's it's really funny because it's so campy, it's so ridiculous. Uh, but yet anything that Betty Davis can do, and she can do a great Southern drawl too. Uh, she plays a wide range of ages here. Uh, when she's supposed to be really, really young, of course, they have her in the shadows, so you can't really see. Because at this point of her career, I believe she was in probably her late 50s, maybe early 60s.

SPEAKER_05 29:21

How would I to know it would end in murder?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

And so, anyway, Aldridge uh wanted to bring Davis and Joan Crawford back together uh for this film because they've been so successful in Baby Jane. And they did start uh doing the film working together, but uh ultimately Crawford was replaced with the Havilland, who was also a wonderful addition to this movie. She plays this vile, evil cousin who's only out for herself and will do anything to get the money from Charlotte and so she concocts a scheme to try to drive Charlotte crazy. But will Charlotte succumb to that? Did Charlotte actually kill her lover many, many years before? Or did she not? Well, we find out in the film. So anyway, so she was replaced with Crawford was replaced with the Havlin. So anyway, it starts with in 1927, Charlotte is going to mi marry uh well she wants to marry, but he's already married. Problem. Uh her lover John Mayhew, and they were going to elope. But then he is ambushed, John is, and decapitated, oh yes, decapitated in the summer house by a cleaver, but we never know who the killer is. So then 37 years later, a little amount of time, Charlotte, who has been come, who has become a spinster, uh has inherited the estate after her father died, is tended by a local housekeeper and just stays to herself. It was uh his death was remained an unsolved murder, even though many people in town thought that Charlotte was responsible. And they're trying to evict her from her home because they're going to try to build a new interstate. And so then she summons Miriam, Miriam, played by Olivia de Havlin, uh, to come and help her fight this highway commission so that she doesn't have to leave her home. Uh so anyway, Miriam comes and she seems a delightful, I'll do anything for you, Charlotte Gail, but don't be misled. Because once Miriam arrives, we hear the harpsichord playing at night, we see a disembodied hand on the floor and a head. And Charlotte says to Miriam, I I think I'm losing my mind, I think I'm going crazy. And then, of course, uh Miriam playing the part says, Oh, you're fine, you're fine. Well, she wasn't fine. Well, anyway, what the point that really supposedly drives uh Charlotte over the edge is where um Miriam uh convinces Charlotte that she has murdered uh the doctor who always comes to visit her and takes care of her, but he's in cahoots with Miriam. So they stage this whole thing that he's dead, they toss his water into the lake, he comes back covered in seaweed, soggy shoes, and presents himself to Charlotte. Well, supposedly that was it, that was the ticket to insanity for Charlotte. But then we find out that Miriam all these years witnessed who actually killed John years and years before, and that was his wife, played by Mary Esther. And she's been blackmailing her all these years, draining her dry of all her money, so she will never tell people that she was the killer. So anyway, they admit all this once they think they've driven um Charlotte to crazy town and left her on the street, and Charlotte kills him, and a crowd gathers the next day, and Charlotte gets an envelope which tells her because um this woman who did kill John has died, she said, Give this Charlotte, give Charlotte this envelope after I die, only after I die, and finds out that she never, never, never, never was involved with that killing of her lover. And so the police take her away. We don't know what happens to Charlotte, we don't know what happens to the house, but Charlotte has her sanity, she kept her wits about her, so to speak, through all this chaos. And that's why I really recommend, you know how much I like horror films. Uh, I like all genres, but I like psychological horror really well, which is the case also with Betty and um Joan and whatever happened to Baby Jane, that they're playing these mind games with Charlotte. And the question you keep asking yourself is, is Betty Davis going to lose her fruit loops? And then Miriam can take all her money and live lavishly as she wants to, and as she has been from blackmailing this other woman all these years. But that woman now is a run out of money. So what is she going to do? Will she keep her sanity? And is it one of Betty Davis's most notable performances? No, probably not. Anything she does is good, everything she touches is gold. And you've got the look, you've got the walk, you've got her impersonating a southern bell. It's you gotta see it. Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte. And um, she went on to make some other psychologically scary films like Dead Ringer and The Nanny. She was um, I think pegged for a while as uh as a star, and so was Joan Crawford, unfortunately, of horror films because after Baby Jane Joan Crawford made uh, let's see, Straight Jacket, she made Berserk, um just didn't get the leads for uh stories that didn't not deal with horror. Typecasts. That's what happened. They were typecasts. But Betty Davis, no other like her. My tribute to her will never end. Thank you, Betty, for bringing me the bizarre campy story of Hush Hush, sweet Charlotte.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte. Charlotte. Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Let's have a seat round the proverbial table. Like I said, Grace, with a nod to our higher power and Mr. B's spiritual journey.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

From my spiritual journey, friends, I have been sharing with you uh readings from the 12 of 12, from the uh 12 traditions of the Overeater's book, and I would like to finish reading to you about step three. And step three was made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. So, thus I share. In thus making major decisions, of course, we will not assume that every thought which comes into our minds is inspired by God. When we're considering taking an unusual action, we will want to consult with a sponsor or a spiritual guide. It is not this person's job to decide for us. No human can do that. But a person who is detached from our immediate situation and has some experience in this way of life can help us apply sound spiritual principles in learning our higher powers will for us. This then is how we will operate our lives once we have made the decision called for in step three. None of us can follow this way of life perfectly, but we find that our success and recovery and our freedom from food obsession are in direct proportion to how sincerely we try to live in this manner. What it takes to work step three is a real willingness to live by God's will one day at a time. Having this willingness, we cannot let any doubt or confusion we may still have keep us from acting. We concentrate on wherever or whatever we think God might be, and we say out loud in words of our own choosing that we now turn our will and our lives over to our higher power, holding nothing back. When we say this prayer and mean it, we have made the key life-changing decision which will lead us to recovery. We have taken the third step. We now have a new reaction when we face a problem or a decision, whether it has to do with food, with life, or with our runaway emotions. Instead of acting on impulse, we pause long enough to learn God's will. Then instead of resorting to willpower, we relax and reach out to receive help from our higher power. All we need to say is, God, please help me do your will. Once we compulsive over eaters truly take the third step, we cannot fail to recover. As we live out our decision day by day, our higher power guides us through the remaining nine steps. When we falter, we are reminded of our commitment to live by God's will alone, and we trust that the willingness and ability will come if we only ask for them. When we get off track, our higher power will guide us back as long as we are sincerely trying to know and do God's will. We can confidently face any situation life brings because we no longer have to face it alone. We have what we need anytime we are willing to let go of self-will and humbly ask for help. This ends the reading for uh step three. And I just want to emphasize it's I don't have to go into great detail about it because it was so eloquently said in the reading, is that our higher power will always guide us back as long as that we are willing to do God's will. We can face any situation, my friends, with God's power behind us. We cannot let our self-will run riot. It will not work. Let's move on to step four, which is made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Now I've walked through all the steps, and I've been thinking I would probably need to go through the steps again and maybe do another uh inventory. And so I'm going to visit with my sponsor about that. And if you're not quite sure what that is, this is a crucial part of the whole program. If you don't do this, this is not going to work. That I would like to share with you today. The fourth step calls for us to examine our lives up to the present day, writing down all important actions and events of a moral or ethical nature, our feelings about them, and the character traits in us from which those actions stemmed. So, as an aside here, folks, this is something that takes time. It takes commitment, it takes hard work, but the payoff is so wonderful. Writing this inventory is an important process which tests our commitment to the 12-step program. How can we face this channel fearlessly as the step asks us to do? Those of us who have completed step four have found that taking this searching and fearless moral inventory is one of the most loving things we have ever done for ourselves. And I would I would attest to that, yes. I share things with my sponsor that I thought I would never be able to share because I I just felt ashamed, I felt humiliated, and I didn't think anybody would accept me if I voiced what I thought I had done that was so horrible. And you know what? My sponsor accepted me no matter what. No judgment. What a great way to live, no judgment. As we took an honest look at the past and what we'd been and what we'd Done, we began to understand ourselves better. That understanding was the beginning of emotional healing. Many of us have lived our lives up to this point with a secret feeling of shame, and I surely was one of them. We carry deep in our hearts the feeling that we were worthless, insignificant. Often this shame stemmed from unresolved guilt over mistakes we never fully dealt with. We had never faced our wrongs honestly and acknowledged them. So we were left feeling ashamed. Writing our step four inventory enables us to begin cleaning up the messes of the past so we could start life afresh. The self-analysis we do in step four is essential to our recovery from compulsive eating. This step continues a process of transformation which began with our admission of powerlessness in step one, a process of increasing honesty and self-awareness that will gradually free us from our bondage to self. Our past problems have been controlling our actions and feelings for years, often in ways of which we are not aware. As we face the problems, they lose their power to overwhelm and control us. The chains of self-obsession drop from us one by one, and we were able to know and do our higher powers will more easily without the need to protect ourselves from uncomfortable feelings by eating compulsively. As an aside, that has been, and I've shared with you my happy ones so many times, that's been the miracle of this program for me. That I have dropped the chains of self-obsession, and because of that, I don't have to eat compulsively anymore to cover up the shame, the guilt, the resentment, the fear. I don't want it, I don't need it, I have achieved food neutrality. Just for today, I can't speak about tomorrow, but for today I am pre of that obsession. Back to the reading. We find it best to approach this inventory with the word fearless and searching uppermost in our minds. Many of us have become experts in self-deception. Oh yes. After years of lying to ourselves about how much we were eating and the problems our compulsive eating were causing us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We've lied to ourselves about our other problems too, denying that we made mistakes, that we've been wrong about things, that we need to change. We must change if we are going to recover. May I underscore that? We must change. If you're not willing to change, this program will not work. Change begins with honesty, which is so important with the fourth step. As we work the step, we develop a new ability to see our own dishonesty and a greater willingness to live by truth. It is an inventory to be taken after we have stopped eating compulsively, so that we will have the clarity of mind to be thorough in our self-examination. Some of us, however, have gone ahead with a four-step inventory as soon as we finished the first three steps, even though we weren't yet abstinent. We found that writing the inventory helped us live by our decision in step three, and in some cases helped us become abstinent. In fact, we've learned that delaying the fourth step until we feel we can do it perfectly, which is one of the problems with my previous self, it all had to be done perfectly or I didn't do it at all. It was feast or famine. Often delays our recovery. Some of us spent months seeking advice from sponsors, friends, people at meetings, studying all sorts of literature, looking for the one right. The one right way to do step four. When our sponsors told us the important thing is just do it, which my sponsor did after I kept bulking at doing it, we better understood. We didn't realize until after we took the step that perfectionism was one of the troublesome defects of character we needed to get rid of. Oh yes, perfectionism. Get rid of it now. It doesn't work. Many of us delayed beginning step four simply because we didn't want to do it. We said we were not yet willing, but when it came right down to it, being willing to do the inventory and wanting to do it were two different things. Sometimes we began the program with enthusiasm, but fell back into the disease while waiting for the desire to do step four to overtake us. We have found that a simple prayer, my loved ones, don't ever underestimate the power of prayer, for willingness works to get us going on the inventory, especially when the prayer is followed by some further action. Any action, no matter how small, will help us to overcome deadly procrastination. It helps too if we follow through with the commitment to work on the step regularly and faithfully until it is completed. And that's where I'm going to end it today. I'm guessing we'll probably have to take two more sessions to talk about step four because then I would like to share with you uh some of the questions that you normally have to answer and find out why you are responding the way you are, and how that has got in the way of you being clean from your obsessive foods. And there are many different forms of um uh formats, I should say, that you can follow for a four step that you can get from your sponsor. Uh and so it is just a great way to really do analysis. You need to go deep inside yourself and be completely honest with yourself and know that by honesty you will be set free. Your compulsions will disappear, they will evaporate if you're completely honest. If you ever feel that they're creeping back in after you've done a fourth step, then it's time to sit down and do another one, or it's time to just isolate some of your character defects and try to figure out why they're trying to run your life again. But the only entity that should be running your life, my loved ones, should be your higher power for me. That is God, and God directs me every day. I give my stubborn willfulness to him every single day, and let him take care of me, and know that my higher power loves me, and he loves you too. No matter what your religious background is or you're not religious, we have to believe that there is a power greater than ourselves in order for this program to work.

SPEAKER_02 51:41

Hello, friends and neighbors. Welcome to the Sunny Side of Life Bible in a year experience. Join me each day as I read the Bible from start to finish. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. These are the instructions for the guilt offering. If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. Do you really think these men are coming here to honor your father? Now, fire flashed down from heaven and burned up the burnt offerings and sacrifices, Mr. You who have understanding, everyone knows that God doesn't sin. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. He tore his clothes and put on burlap and went into the temple of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to Israel. How long, O Lord, must I call for help? The word was with God, and the word was God. But by Jesus Christ Himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead, he who is the faithful witness to all these things says, Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's holy people. Its own podcast, January 1st through December 31st, every year. The Sunny Side of Life, Bible in a Year Experience. For free from Sunnyside Farm Studios. I pray this daily reading will bless you as much as it does me. So let's get started. And now, school days with Mr. B.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Folks, I haven't talked about the classroom for a long time. I love being around young people. I still sub. I still enjoy it. But I came upon these uh really funny statements that particularly middle schoolers have said, and they've been submitted by teachers, and I just thought I would share some of these with you. Um and I don't know who these um writers are, but let's just see what happens when I try to um share these with you. Um okay. Let's use this one instead. Folks, I still have great love for the classroom, even though I've been out of it now for coming up on seven years. I'm still there with subbing and I still feel like I'm in tune with young people and I love visiting with teachers about uh their issues and their um statements about what life is like. Uh but I have really particularly grown fond of middle school students. Uh now many terms could be used for middle schoolers. Um hygiene, uh respect, um lots of different things. Um, let's try this for the third time, disregard the last two introductions. Middle schoolers are a lot of fun, my friends. I still love subbing. I've been out of the regular classroom for coming up on seven years, but that doesn't mean that I don't love going back. And one of the things I've learned about high schoolers and particularly middle schoolers would be their slang use that they use. And I don't always understand being out of the classroom now what it means. And so if they ask me to repeat something, I normally don't because I might I'm afraid that it might be something sexually oriented, and I don't want to get myself in that situation. But here's just a list of some of the current uh slang terms that I've heard and I found online that maybe you can hear from your middle schooler at home. Uh 6-7, oh yeah, also known as 67 or just 6-7, is the comedic interruption when anybody mentions a number or basically anything close to the word six or seven. Uh, I do think this is dying out some. I thought last year it was just horrifically popular. Uh actually it was nauseating. Uh, and I they would come up to me and say, do the six seven or say six seven, and I wouldn't do it because again, I thought it had sexual overtones. Um, the meaning is really ambiguous. Um it really came from a song called Don't Don't Six Seven by a rapper and also an American basketball star uh who is six foot seven uh kind of started it. And when I tell them this year, and I I'm careful where I say this, that I'm now sixty-seven, they just splatter all over the walls. So I can't really talk about my age, or I have to admit I fib a little bit and say I'm not 67, but I am. Uh another term I hear is adulting, A-D-U-L-T-I-N-G. Uh, which means to me what things uh an adult would do. For example, adulting is no fun. Why do I have to give all my money to the government? Well, there's a lot of questions that we even adults ask, but middle schoolers particularly um want to know some of the answers. Here's another one, ate and left no crumbs. This is used when someone does an exceptional job at something. For example, Tamarot just performed all of Bohemian Rhapsody by herself, ate and left no crumbs. Ate and left no crumbs. I like that. I've used that before. How about aura? Uh, not just middle schoolers say this one. Describes a vibe somebody gives off. Did you see Dylan score the winning point last night's game? His aura goes crazy. Uh another one is basic, a way to describe someone who's lacking originality, enjoys the most mainstream predictable things. Yeah, a little insulting. Um it's kind of a put-down, so you gotta be careful of that word. I've heard it a couple times from middle schoolers to describe other people, but I do not in any shape or form encourage that. Baddie, B-A-D-D-I-E. Now, this is a compliment describing somebody looking good. They've never said that about me. Uh so uh bestie, B-E-S-T-I-E. Uh not just middle schoolers, all people short for best friend. Um big, a word that adds emphasis in multiple contexts. Uh being extremely mad about something, big sad, really sad, big brain. Uh boo, one significant other. That's been around for a long time. Uh this one, brain rot, content that's uninspired internet slop or the act of watching said content. That's what teachers say to students, you are suffering from brain rot. Bruh. This is a more modern version of bro. Bruh. So anyway, that's not an extensive list, but I did want to share some. And maybe in the future, if I still have my brain engaged, that's always questionable, that uh I might have more. So I'll try to keep a list in my head or on paper, which then I'll lose it of expressions I hear. But the the prevalent one I have heard quite a bit, and I'm very happy to say not as much now is a 6'7. And uh that spreads like wildfire. So let's stomp that out. Okay. But every age level has their own language to identify with, and uh, that's what makes teaching being in a classroom so enjoyable. All right, more stories to tell later.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:56

Don't you forget this?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Well, there you have it, folks. I shared a number of different topics with you today, but Mr. B has to go. Mr. B has things to do. But I do always hope that you'll take time, find one of my podcasts to listen to at any time while you are making a sculpture, painting the garage. Whatever you want to do, it's your life.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:20

I listen to it in the morning when I'm getting ready for the day, and I am also in love with your new theme music. I sing and dance while I'm getting ready. Keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

So, until we commune again, this has been Mr. B at Mr. B's dinner party, and I'm going to escort you to the door, and I'll see you for delicacies next.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:46

Television dramas and comedic reviews, pet peeves buzzing like honeydew blues, poetry sprinkled like salt on a dish, every word served with a twist and a switch belly up to the table, my friend. The feast of thought will never end. From travel to far to a spiritual climb.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Mr. B's dinner party is hosted by Scott Burkelson, edited and produced by Troy Thompson, recorded and distributed at Scottyside Farm Studios, and platform by Scrap.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

World journeys mapped with tails divine. He's hosting a dinner for your hungry mind. A banquet of life where you can unwind the lead to the table, my friend. The feast of never end. From travel spot to spiritual climb.