Yeah yeah I know; it’s Saturday already. Gloriously. But last night I watched a few things.

First is this interview with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. What I find fascinating about Landrieu is that he served as Louisiana Lt. Gov. and then went back to being mayor of New Orleans.

First of all if he isn’t running for President I’m in the camp that says he probably should. He seams to be able to articulate arguments pretty well. And the Presidency is nothing but a huge bully pulpit.

One fact that Landrieu mentions, since 1980 (Which btw is pretty much when we can reliably track) there have been 630,000 deaths by gun in U.S. streets and homes. That to my reckoning is obscene. Because if you do the math it comes to an average of 16,579 deaths per year. Divide it further by 50 states and you get 331 per state per year. That’s fucking scary. And I realize I’m just being simplistic with the math – that these deaths, every one of them is a good case for real gun legislation.

With regard to the 2nd Amendment Landrieu makes some really good points. That the NRA has gone from agreeable to batshit insane to banning weapons of war. I hate to split hairs but an automatic weapon is in fact a weapon of war.

The other thing I watched was the movie Coco. Our protagonist is a little boy named Miguel. Now Mexicans do Halloween so much better  – the color in this film is gorgeous. You see what we call Halloween and do a very half ass job  of it, the Mexicans call it Dia Del Muerto. The setup for the movie has poor Miguel in a family of shoe makers – he wants to be a musician. But his family is dead set against music for some reason. So on the Day of the Dead (It’s more like Night of the Dead – which btw was sort of a series of movies in it’s own right.) Miguel is in need of a guitar. But his first effort ends with his abuela smashing the guitar to bits. And so the odyssey begins. He enters the world of the dead. You gotta watch to find out how it happens.

What I found interesting is the parallels I saw in that movie –  the color number one is gorgeous, and it damned well should be as it’s a Disney/Pixar film. Number two elements of Dia Del Meurto lend itself to colorful displays. But the whole premise is, photos of the ancestors are put up in a little shrine. That’s how they can cross the bridge between living and dead. That right there is an interesting concept.

Oh go and find it and watch it. Take along kids, nieces, nephews. They’ll get a nice little jolt out the movie Coco.