Barry Wendell for Congress

 Thanks to redistricting, and our state's population loss over the last ten years, West Virginia has gone from three congresspeople to two in this year's election. Our representative, David McKinley, was placed in the same district as another incumbent, Alex Mooney. People have been looking at this as a contest between two Republicans, McKinley as a "moderate" and Mooney as a full-on MAGA devotee. While McKinley did vote for the infrastructure bill, he calls Build Back Better "reckless social spending." He also claims President Biden has done nothing to stop the pandemic. His party has not proposed anything to help. Mooney criticizes McKinley for supporting Nancy Pelosi and the infrastructure bill. He also touts his own endorsement by the previous President.

This race leaves an opening for a Democrat, someone open-hearted, who favors social justice spending by the government, who is  pro-family, pro-choice, pro-science and willing to do whatever is best for the country, not just for a political party. I've asked at the last few monthly county Democratic Party meetings if anyone had signed up to run against McKinley and Mooney, and was met with silence. 

I'm a Maryland native who lived in Miami and Los Angeles for most of my adult life. I'm Jewish and a gay man in a same-gender marriage. I'm also seventy-two years old. I used these as an excuse not to put in my name for this contest. But I'm younger than David McKinley, and I've lived in West Virginia longer than Alex Mooney. I was elected twice to Morgantown's City Council, the second time, in 2019, with seventy-three percent of the vote. 

There is now another candidate for the Democratic nomination in our district, a woman in Martinsburg. I don't know her. Nominations must be postmarked by tonight (Saturday, January 29), so it will be a few days before we all know if there are other candidates.

I've done interviews with news sources already, and I have calls and emails to return tonight. I still need a treasurer and a campaign manager, and I have ethics forms to complete, so everything is canceled while I get to work on my campaign.

I know it's a long shot, but West Virginians need a candidate who stands for civility, working people, unions, the environment and the science of public health. I'm that person.

Contact me at barryforcongress2022@gmail.com

The SAG Awards nominating committee

 There are about 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), and 2,500 are selected every year to nominate films for the upcoming SAG Awards. There are two groups: one for television and one for film. This year, in September, I was selected to be an alternate to the nominating committee. Somewhere along the line, I became a full member.

I paid to join AFTRA in 1986, before the unions merged, and I got an "under-five" part on "General Hospital" in April 1987, through an acting class showcase. That made me eligible to join SAG, which I did. I didn't work a lot or often for them over the years, but I kept up my membership. Now that I'm over seventy, I don't have to pay any more dues. 

I am no longer an active movie-goer. I did see "In The Heights" and "West Side Story" in a theater. Joe and I saw "Summer of Soul" when we were in San Francisco this summer, but because it is a documentary, it's not up for SAG awards. We also watched " tick, tick...BOOM" on cable when we visited my sister over Thanksgiving. I received forty DVDs in the mail of nominated films, and sixty-four digital links to films on my computer. For some, I received both a digital invitation and a DVD. These are not transferable and many of the DVDS will not work after January 10. Don't even ask. 

I didn't get right on this because I was teaching a class at Life-Long Learning for six weeks in October and November. It took some weeks for me to figure out a way to see one movie per day, about all I could do. 

I wasn't going to nominate people in films I didn't like, but after consulting with my sister, a film buff who said I should look at the acting, since that was what I was supposed to do, I did vote for the actors, even if I didn't like the film. 

Here's what I saw, alphabetically:

"Annette," "Being The Ricardos," "Belfast," "C'mon, C'mon," "CODA," "Cyrano," "Dear Evan Hansen," "Don't Look Up," "Drive My Car," "The Humans," "The Electric Life of Louis Wain," "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," "The French Dispatch...," "The Hand Of God," "House of Gucci," "In The Heights,""Language Lessons," "Licorice Pizza," "Lost Daughter,""No Time To Die," "Parallel Mothers," "Nightmare Alley," "The Power of the Dog," "Spencer," "Swan Song" (the one about the older gay man in Sandusky), "Tango Shalom," "tick, tick...BOOM," "West Side Story," and "The Worst Person In The World." 

The votes were for "Lead Actor-Male," "Lead Actor-Female" (no non-binary characters), and the same for supporting actors, then "Cast", and "Stunt Ensemble." I only saw four films with a stunt ensemble, so I voted for four in that category, five in the others.

I prefer small movies to big ones, foreign to domestic, and I like to see Jewish and/or LGBT characters, of which there were precious few this year. There were many performances I like enough to nominate, but I had to pick only five. I had more performances I liked in the co-star category than in the starring role category, and there were more males than females up for nomination, which is typical, unfortunately.

Here are my votes: 

For  Lead Actor: Daniel Craig in "No Time To Die," Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Power of the Dog," Leonardo DiCaprio in "Don't Look Up," Udo Kier in "Swan Song," Hidetoshi Nishijima in "Drive My Car."

For Lead Actress: Penélope Cruz in "Parallel Mothers," Alana Haim in "Licorice Pizza," Rachel Zegler in "West Side Story," Lady Gaga in "House of Gucci," and Kristen Stewart in "Spencer."

For Supporting Actor:  Anders Danielsen Lie in "Worst Person In The World," Robin DeJesús in "tick, tick...BOOM," Tyler Perry in "Don't Look Up," Koli Smit-McPhee in "The Power of the Dog," and Ben Whitshaw in "No Time To Die." 

For Supporting Actress: Nina Arianda in "Being The Ricardos," Kate Blanchett in "Don't Look Up," Vanessa Hudgins in "tick, tick...BOOM," Dakota Johnson in "Lost Daughter," and Amandla Stenberg in "Dear Evan Hansen."

For Cast: "Dear Evan Hansen," "Don't Look Up," "The Hand Of God," "Licorice Pizza," and "Nightmare Alley."

For Stunt Ensemble: "In The Heights," "No Time To Die," tick, tick...BOOM," and "The Power Of The Dog." 

The nominations close Sunday, January 9, and the nominees will be announced Wednesday, January 12. It should be interesting. 

I didn't see everything I was sent, and many of the nominees did not send me DVDs or digital screeners. If you want to argue with me, you can comment on my Facebook page, if we are friends. If we're not friends yet, shoot me an email at doveliezer2001@yahoo.com or send a note to Barry Wendell at P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507. If you have my phone number, you can call.