The Gas Station With Nukes

 

 Like everyone else, I am perturbed about the whole Russia invading Ukraine mess.

However, unlike everyone else, I have not suddenly become an expert in what we used to call "Geo-Politics".  But I did manage to graduate with a degree in History from Kennesaw State University, and I have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. 

Even with all of that, I'm just a guy with some opinions which may be wrong.  Here are my thoughts.

1) There's enough blame to go around.  From W's "I looked into his soul", the Obama-Clinton reset button, Trump's kissy-face, and whatever Biden is doing seems to have missed the mark and gave Putin the confidence to invade another country without suffering any consequences. 

2) The invasion was the end of the "Post Cold War" era.  Putin has said the collapse of The Soviet Union was the worst thing that happened in the Twentieth Century.  That is either the stupidest thing ever said or one of the evilest.

3) Russia is not the power it was during The Cold War. Instead, it has become a gas station with nukes.  People need energy and Russia has it.

4) It was a big mistake to shut down the Keystone pipeline. 

5) President Obama said this to then-candidate Gov. Mitt Romney in their second Presidential debate. "Gov. Romney, I'm glad you recognize al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what is the biggest geopolitical group facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida, you said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War has been over for 20 years."   I remember watching this thinking Kelso from "That's 70's Show" was going to pop up and say, "Ooooo, burn". Well, it looks like Romney was right.

 6) Putin is who he is-a KGB man.   He's not a guy that gained power by kissing babies at state fairs. He is brutal and ruthless.

7) Now is not the time to point out "good" qualities Putin may or may not have like Trump did the other day.  "So, Putin is now saying, “It’s independent,” a large section of Ukraine. I said, “How smart is that?” And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s strongest peace force… We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well."  It's like saying, "Charles Mason, a pretty good folk singer, took in runaways and gave them jobs".

8) We all thought Putin was going to stop in Eastern Ukraine. Why? I don't know. All of the smarty-pants people on radio and TV said it. Do you know who didn't say it?  Putin.

9) What now?  Sanctions. That's about it.  Americans are flat out tired of "endless wars".  On top of that, America is so divided now even a President with good rhetorical skills like Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama could not rally Americans into a war. If you haven't noticed, Biden does not have good rhetorical skills.

10) Liberals always make fun of conservatives saying "thoughts and prayers," but that's all we have.  We can pray that the tough Ukrainian people can somehow hold out and give Putin a "what for," as we say in the South.  Yet, the size of the Russian army argues against this.  

11) This is what happens when you become distracted with politics and our general lovable silliness. Reality has a way of coming up and slapping you in the face.  

12) This time, reality bites. 

 

Reacher Review

 

Several years ago, this blog used to run weekly "24" recap.  Well, "24" is long gone and most of television has gone to the streaming services. This means  you can watch a series in a day or two if you want. As you might expect, this makes recapping difficult.  However, this blog does not know the meaning of the word "difficult" or many other words. 

Anyway (the word Southerners used to indicate a new paragraph) I am reviewing "Reacher". There will be no "spoilers" unless I forget and put them in anyway.

 

How do you describe the Amazon Prime series "Reacher"?

Imagine if Magilla Gorilla was an action hero, that's "Reacher," except he wears tight t-shirts instead of a bow tie.

It is pretty apparent that this guy spends a lot of time in the gym. He has muscles on top of muscles. Whatever the name is for multiple six-packs is, he has that too. The series seems to find reasons for Reacher strip off his shirt.

A word of warning:  your wife may faint from the vapers during the t-shirt changing scenes.  At least, that's what I've heard.

Me and Reacher are practically doppelgangers.  I just need to grow another twelve inches, somehow acquire muscles, get a six-pack (Hey! I already have a keg!  Thank you, you've been fantastic and remember to tip the wait staff) and to somehow become an expert on how to punch people where they stay punched. 

Reacher walks into Margrave, Georgia, which is somewhere between Tallahassee, Florida and Nashville, Tennessee.  Seriously, it sounds like it is around LaGrange, Georgia because, in one episode, Reacher says they are an hour away from Atlanta. 

As he walks into town, he stops in at The Margrave Greasy Spoon which serves the "baist pa-cheeh pie in Jawja", gets a cup of coffee and is immediately arrested for being a big baboon and making the rest of the menfolk in town look bad.

He is taken to jail, where he meets the sheriff (an older middle aged white man), the city's lead (and only) detective (an African-American from the North) and the town's female cop ( a young woman with small bosoms, not that I noticed.)

It turns out that two people were murdered that same morning that Reacher came to town.  That's enough reason to hold Reacher in jail and it even made sense to the Head Detective. 

The detective wants to know why Reacher came to town. Turns out Reacher is a big fan of the blues; you know blues musicians like Nearsighted Johnson, Shorty Pickles, Blind Orange Jello, Barkin' Bob McGee, and Itch Barnes.

They set Reacher free, he takes off his shirt, flex his pecs, puts his shirt back on and walks over to the town's only barbershop for a shave and a good discussion of the Blues. 

The barber tells Reacher about the man who owns the town.  Reacher immediately suspects that this man is behind the murders despite having no evidence and just hearing that the man is rich.

Reacher notices two poop-heads looking at him in the typical small town Southern "Who's Your Daddy" way and it turns out to be the rich guy's son and nephew.  Reacher knows he is going to have to punch these two several times

Reacher and the Head Detective become fast friends despite the fact they hate each other and have nothing in common.

Reacher and the Female Cop become lovers even though Reacher's chest is more prominent than hers.

A lot more people are killed. The Sheriff is "crucified" naked and they cut his you-know-what off.  Reacher says this was a message.  The message I got:  leave Margrave.

It turns out the rich guy has developed such a diabolical scheme to make money, the only person who can figure it out is a gorilla that wears tight shirts. 

I cannot go further without ruining the show for those who have not seen it. However, here some things you need to know about the show

Language:  It is not PG, but it is not Saturday with The Sopranos either. 

Violence:  Lots and lots of violence. Reacher doesn't fool around with his punching. He just goes in for a full pounding. Lots of pow-pow with the guns. Most of the bad guys are killed with shots to the head.

 

Sex and/or Nudity:   Ladies, you get to see Reacher's backside and you would have seen "little Reacher" if it wasn't for a strategically placed towel. The female cop takes a shower with Reacher and makes what we called in the '70s "sweet love". A female former Army buddy of Reacher changes clothes in front of Reacher, but he doesn't seem all that interested even though she has a better body than the female cop.

 

 

Southern stuff:  The geography stuff is the thing that bothered me the most. Margrave is supposedly near the Alabama border and only two hours from Augusta, which is next to the border of South Carolina. Even without adding in Atlanta traffic, there is no way Augusta, Georgia, is two hours away from Margrave.

Most of the characters have the comical Southern accents we have come to expect. The female cop has an accent that comes and goes. 

One good thing is that the fine people of Margrave don't make a big deal about the Head Detective's race. However, they do call him a Yankee a lot. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

Other Stuff:   There are a couple of good one-liners. I liked the Head Detective calling Reacher a gorilla. I also liked that the Head Detective was a classic rock fan and not a neo-intellectual blues fan like Reacher. The Head Detective called the opening of "Carry On My Wayward Son" the best in the history of rock music. He ain't lying. 

Bottom Line:  "Reacher" is a fast-paced show that doesn't ask a lot from the audience, like the distance from a fictional West Georgia town to a town on the eastern border of Georgia. If you like shows where muscle-bound men beat up bad guys, then this is the show for you. 

 

 

 

The Big Super Bowl Game

 

 "Football combines two of the worst things in American life.  It is violence punctuated by committee meetings"   -George Will

 

How old am I?  I am "I remember when people talked about The Super Bowl, they talked about the game and not the commercials or the Half Time Show" old.

Believe it or not, I remember the first Super Bowl, which saw The Kansas City Chiefs playing the Green Bay Packers.  The game was on two different networks, NBC (which only showed that Communist League, The AFL) and CBS (which broadcasted the only sanctified league, The NFL).

This is important.  The game was broadcasted "in color" because that was the latest in modern technology. It is important because we were one of the first homes in Beverly Hills (the subdivision in Marietta, Georgia-not the fancy city in California)to have a color TV set.   It was one of the few times (actually, it was the only time) when the Manis family was an early adopter of any new technology.

If memory serves me right, it was not called "The Super Bowl" back then.  It was called "Watch The Green Bay Packers Kick The Tail Ends Of The Other Stupid League" or something like that.  I was in the second grade, so give me a break. 

The first Super Bowl game was important because of this picture of Chief quarterback Len Dawson smoking a heater and drinking a Fresca at the end of the game.  Fresca was considered an energy drink in 1967.

Green Bay was in "The Big Game" again the following year, playing the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders were led by a guy named Darryl Harmonica or Lamonica or something.  The Packers were led by Bart Starr, who I saw one time at Town Center Mall. I kept saying, "BART STARR! BART STARR!" like Scooby-Doo said when he met Don Knotts. (Trust me, this was a hilarious episode.)  I was an adult by this time, and my wife kept hiding her face for some reason. But, Bart looked at me and that's all that matters. 

The following season was the pivotal Super Bowl. The New York Jets, whose quarterback was a known hippie named Joe Namath, beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts. There was only one person in my fourth-grade class who thought the Jets would win, and it was a boy named Craig, who reminded everyone in East Cobb about this for the next fifty years. 

One fact about the Big Game that gets lost in the commotion is that it used to occur in mid-January. After it was over,  you would have to watch either pro basketball or college basketball or (take this cup from me, Lord) hockey for your sports entertainment. Since I'm from the South, I've never really understood hockey until they began to fight. I'm too short to understand basketball.

The Super Bowl began to grow into the most important date on the calendar, right after Christmas.  I've always considered it the actual New Year's Day. 

The date of The Super Bowl began to push forwards in January.  I thought it was terrible that it happened on the first Sunday in February.  Now it is the second Sunday in February. Mark my words, the Super Bowl will be soon held on the first Sunday of March.  

Way back in the early Super Bowl days, the Half-Time shows were really lame. High School Bands.  There were several years in which a group called "Up With People" sang at the Half-Time Show, which was called "Half-Time."

Now it is known as THE PEPSI SUPER BOWL LVI HALFTIME SHOW BECAUSE COCA-COLA SUCKS FEATURING FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT LIKE SNOOP DOG AND EMINEM.

For some reason, I don't think the Halftime show became a big deal until Michael Jackson did it.  Then each Super Bowl tried to outdo the last Super Bowl, culminating with a cameo appearance of Janet Jackson's right bosom due to a wardrobe malfunction.

After that, The Super Bowl had a series of Dad rockers like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and Tom Petty. Their bosoms, thankfully, never made any appearances.

 When people forgot about the Janet incident, The Super Bowl began to update their half-time shows.  One year, they had the group Oasis because you think of Oasis when you think of football.

This year it is the first time it will be an all Rap artist half-time show.  I'm looking forward to it because I can review all of the commercials with my wife when it is going on.

I want to say it was 1984 when commercials became a big deal at The Super Bowl.  Now the ads are about as big as the game.     

Now get this:  some companies are running "trailers" (what we in the South call "previews" for their commercials to generate excitement over their Super Bowl commercials.  Pretty soon, they will run a trailers of the trailers, and the goobs on TV will talk about which company has the best trailer.

 I haven't read what the theme of the commercials will be this year.  I remember one year the theme was "men are bad," and another year it was "horses fart." 

I don't know if people are doing Super Bowl parties this year.  I heard Len Dawson is having one. He's serving Fresca.