who's afraid of the big bad wolf?...flywheel that is

Before you all start shouting profanities, hear me out. My wife is about to have our second child and has been on bed rest for the last two weeks. I have also just started a new job and was intently working on acquiring that new job through interviews and a few “hoop jumping” sessions, which consumed all of my days off from the old job. You could say that things have been like Ted Kennedy’s Friday night: a blur.
Actually it’s not a “new” job for me. I’m doing the same job for a different employer. Just in case you might need the answer for “Trivial Pursuit: The Loophole and Flywheel Edition”, I’m a cop. I happened to find an agency that cares about their officers and pays them accordingly, so I made the switch. Enough about me. I’ve got plenty of others to talk about. I’ve got a medley of summarized thoughts to lay out on the shelf today. I’m kinda’ making up for lost time.
First on the chopping block today is Daniel Craig. I am speaking as a fan of the James Bond series when I say this, so you can take it or leave it. I will not be watching the new Bond film. I don’t care that Mr. Craig is a blonde Bond. I don’t mind them using Robbie Williams to do the theme song. I can get past all that. It’s the full frontal nudity of the main character that gets me. Through all of the Bond movies, there has not been one shot of nudity. There have certainly been some very steamy scenes but they managed to keep the nudity out of it. Those scenes were there to remind us of 007’s studliness. They often led us into other scenes or helped to develop plot. Why do I need to see Daniel Craig’s wedding tackle in this movie? (Look it up on the Drudge Report if you don‘t believe me.) Does it help move the plot along? Is it an indispensable segue into a scene that involves Gonzo from the Muppets? I don’t think that either applies. Mr. Craig is quoted as saying, ”I’m not shy and Bond wouldn’t be shy either.” So now he knows what bond is thinking? This series of films has always progressed with the times including those very awkward years with Roger Moore and his huge bowties. The difference is that even though those movies had some modern music and modern clothing, Bond was the same. They never went too far into the fads of the day. The character never changed. It seems as though Pierce Brosnan was the beginning of Bond’s death. I liked Pierce Brosnan, but his Bond was somewhat different. Of course they were all a little different, but there was something about him that wasn’t quite right. We accepted him though. Little did we know that he was a wedge that would leave us open to this schmuck? Sean Connery was Bond when Bond’s creator was on the set to consult. I don’t think you get any closer to the essence of Bond than him. Deviate too far from that and you’ve lost me. Feel free to leave comments of your own ranking, but for me the order is thus: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and Timothy Dalton. The last two are far behind the first two and the rest don’t deserve a mention. I would’ve enjoyed seeing Hugh Jackman working for MI6, though.

Well, I’ve beaten that horse to death. On we move to another horse. Chris Penn. How does the coroner report that Chris Penn’s death was an “accidental mixing of two prescription medications”? Promethizine and codeine were found in his system and his heart was greatly enlarged. Those two medications are highly addictive and have become a very popular street drug. Sense everyone else is too scared to say it, I will. Overdose. Plain and simple. God bless the dead, but let’s not lie about them either.

Portgate. Why is it that reporters feel the need to place gate behind everything? Is it a hearkening back to a day when they had major influence to do major things? Is it creative constipation mixed with diarrheal stupidity? It’s both. Gather your friends and family around the computer screen for this one folks. Wolfy is going to do a rare thing. I’ll criticize and defend the President in the same paragraph. Don’t sell American port contracts to foreign governments. I don’t care if we were dealing with England. It’s American. No one else needs to have any sort of influence over it. There’s too much foreign influence in our affairs as it is. The defense? Why are the Libs and their media cohorts attacking this move? Have they forgotten that their “fair haired boy”, one Bilious Clinton, did the very same thing with the Chinese during his reign? At least the UAE pretends to be a friend. China is a communist country!! Communists have American port contracts in California at this very moment because of Slick Willy. The same goes for this whole wiretapping scandal. Bill did it. Jimmy the P-nut did it too. Where was the uproar from Woodward and Bernstein then?

I shouldn’t, but I’m going to do it anyway. Let’s talk about “BrokeBack Mountain”. First of all, how do you purposely write a screenplay about homosexuals that is to be purely artistic and dramatic and then consciously use the words ’brokeback’ and ’mount’ in the title? And what’s with Larry Mcmurtry jumping on the bandwagon to write this one? I don’t care that it’s a movie about a homosexual relationship between two cowboys. The creators have the right to create it and display it just like I have the right not to watch it. What I can’t grasp is, why this one Larry. Here’s a guy whose bread and butter is westerns. He had some success with ‘Terms of Endearment’, but generally speaking he has made his money from westerns. All of his other western films were produced as TV mini-series or straight-to-video releases. He’s had great success with them. He could’ve found a company to put any one of them on the big screen. Why just this one? Why not ‘Streets of Laredo’ or ‘Lonesome Dove’? Could it be that he smelled controversy, which often leads to money? Larry, all I ask is for you to be real with me. Is it all about the Benjamins? Were the Hamiltons and the Jacksons not doin’ it for ya’?

Vice President Cheney- Why is it that the hunting incident (Why not shotgun-gate?) involving the V.P. is being treated like a murder attempt? One of the most common hunting accidents is when someone stands or steps in front of another hunter while he is shooting at a fowl of some type. If you check around on this particular incident, you will find that it was a very small-gauged shotgun and the distance was something like 30 yards. Oh, and there’s that letter of apology the “victim” wrote explaining how he stepped into the line of fire causing the incident himself. I’ve heard people who saw that picture of Cheney’s hunting partner taken on the day of his release where his face is all bruised. They seemed to be so shocked and angered at the Veep by the appearance of the wound. People! The man is 78 years old. A rough bout of gas would leave his rear end looking the same way. Do you want to be angry at something? Do you want to get to the bottom of a politician’s violent acts? How about asking Ted Kennedy where he was on the night of July 19, 1969. On that topic, I saw an advertisement for a t-shirt that reads, “I’d rather go hunting with Dick Cheney than get a ride from Ted Kennedy”. Comedy at its best folks.

On the lighter side, a much-anticipated event is finally in our midst. ‘The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother’ will be released on DVD April 4th. This is one of those little known but great films that, for some reason or another, have taken until now to be released on DVD. It stars Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and Madeline Kahn in a “Brooksian” type film. I caught it on TCM a few years ago and have been eagerly waiting for this day since. I’m quite curious though. Another Wilder rarity, ’The World’s Greatest Lover’ is set to be released on the same day. Do I sense a Wilder box set coming our way?

Random thoughts:

- I wish they would make a special edition for ’Spies Like Us’. My wife doesn’t think it’s funny, but I enjoy it as one of the last times I laughed at Chevy Chase.

-I’m not watching the Oscars. How about the rest of you? I don’t mind that Hollywood meets several times a year to pat each other on the back and flaunt expensive apparel, but for the love of Pete, don’t waste prime time television to do it.

-Is it just me, or does everyone else buy the newspaper just for the comics and the crossword puzzle. Most people I see thumbing through the paper don’t stay on one page long enough to actually read more than just the headlines of the articles they are pretending to peruse. I think it’s a ruse that most people put on because somehow they feel they are smarter for looking through the articles instead of going straight to Haggar The Horrible and Foxtrot like they really want to…and what is up with Funky Winkerbean these days? I don’t know if this is circulated in your local rag, but it used to be an unfunny comic strip about some high school students and their band director. Nowadays, everyone in the strip is an adult and it’s all about car bombs and post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m not kidding. Apparently one of the characters went to the mid-east to fight and all you see is violence and mayhem. I’m serious. I saw it once where the whole strip was a nightmare this guy was having about being in war and people dying. He wakes up and you see a single tear on his cheek. That was it. It was some sort of throwback to Chief “Iron Eyes” Cody in that old littering commercial. It’s a comic strip guys, don’t turn psycho on us.

-Hey, ’CSI’ and ’Law and Order’. We get the point. Enough already. One show is plenty. That goes for you too, ’Star Trek’. The new ’Star Trek’ series are like lizard tails: once you cut it off, another grows back in its place. It should’ve ended with Picard.

-I can’t watch TV anymore. Just DVDs. I can’t take the pressure to buy deodorant and breakfast cereal.

-Why is Jimmy Carter still talking? He was one of the worst presidents in our nation's history, and he won’t stop flooding us with his opinions on politics. Who asked him?

-Patrick Warburton as Kronk from ‘Emperor’s New Groove’ gets my vote for the best choice Disney has made since getting Clarence Nash to voice Donald Duck.

-My favorite Website this week is http://www.80scartoons.net/. It’s a walk down memory lane for me.

-Somebody please comment and tell me the name of that chubby little character from those Saturday morning cartoon PSA’s where he would tell you how to make healthy snacks and such. I remember one where he was talking about wagon wheels of cheese. Someone recently told me his name, but I’ve already forgotten it and I would like to try and find those commercials on the net.

Well, I’m sorry this post was not up to par, but due to the scattered state of my life right now you all had to endure a scattered post. I promise I’ll try to be back up to standard soon. By the way, we still can’t agree on a name for our forthcoming baby boy. Suggestions would be appreciated.




Please feel free to comment if the need strikes you.





Are there any Paraguayans here? No... Well, of course, their request for subsities wasn't as paraguayanism as it were. The United States Government would never have if the president, Our President had not... and as far as I know that's the way it will always be. Is that Clear?