Top Gun 2

I just heard that Tony Scott is set to direct the sequel to the smash hit Top Gun. I'd like to throw my hat into the ring and provide Mr. Scott with a few ideas I had for Top Gun 2:Electric Boogalew.

Maverick (Tom Cruise) struggles with his sexuality while fighting Xenu for the necessary thetans to restore the woman he loves.

Iceman (Val Kilmer) is a fat and bloated shell of his former self. He lost his eyesight, but with the love and support of his girlfriend (Mira Sorvino) he gets an eye transplant and makes it his mission to get back into flying shape.

Goose (Anthony Edwards), living comfortably in heaven with the girl from the Lovely Bones, looks on in horror at the life his wife is leading (Meg Ryan). The unnecessary plastic surgery she gets in order to hold onto her fading youth is all the motivation he needs to contact Whoopi Goldberg to help him reach out to her from the great beyond.

Those are just a few ideas for now, but I'm sure I can think of more. We all know that the one thing this country needs right now is a 90 minute commercial for the air force. If you like what you read Mr. Scott, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Smile, you're on candid camera!

I find myself having a hard time feeling any sympathy for the Rutgers Freshman who took a swan dive off the GWB. Suicide, regardless of the reasoning, is a cowardly and selfish act. I feel worse for his family then I do for him.

The reactionary world that we live in is working feverishly to point as many fingers possible at as many different people. The roommate, Rutgers, society, Glen Beck, the corpse of Tony Curtis. I happen to feel that, for whatever it is worth, that if his suicide was a reactionary response to the invasion of privacy and perhaps the embarrassment of the act, he would have probably killed himself closer to home.

You don't drive an hour through rush hour traffic to one of the busiest bridges in the world to kill yourself as a knee jerk reaction to one event. The people that video taped the kid are douche bags, I'm pretty sure we can all agree to that, but I sure hope they don't end up getting torn down over what amounts to a childish, idiotic, prank.

Can we all get back to more important matters now, like Boo-Gate?

Where have I gone?

So I haven't written a blog in roughly two months, my reason is one I am all too familiar with. This blog met the same fate as every other creative endeavor of mine. It found itself in good company with a half dozen stories and ideas that I started and stopped, all for the same reason.

I always seem to get to a point where I believe all my work will amount to nothing. Where some poeple write just for the joy they get by putting words on a screen, ideas into tangible sentences and paragraphs; my joy snuffed out by the belief that in the end it will all signify nothing.

It is hard, at least for me, to write when you feel as though nothing will come of it. I write a story and stop mid-way and I ask myself "who will end up reading this?", "will anything come of my time spent?", etc. I talk myself out of writing, I talk myself out of something I enjoy.

Hopefully the fact that I have come back to this blog and added a new entry to it, is a sign of change for me. Perhaps I will go back to those unfinished stories and finish them for me. Perhaps no one will read them, perhaps no one will read this, but does that really matter? I don't think it should.

Sarah Palin & Freedom-Loving Patriots

I like to keep on top of what is going on in the world. I don't sit and read the New York Times daily, but I'll take a gander at CNN when I'm at the gym and read any news story that catches my eye on the internet. Today the NAACP has officially accused the Tea Party of tolerating racism and bigotry. The so-called leader of the Tea Party, the woman who just won't go away aka Sarah Palin, issued a statement yesterday regarding the claims. It was too good not to share with the handful of people who read this...and mock.

"I am saddened by the NAACP’s claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America’s Constitutional rights are somehow “racists.” The charge that Tea Party Americans judge people by the color of their skin is false, appalling, and is a regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject at hand."

Really? "Tea Party Americans" is what we are calling them these days? Points for throwing in the word patriotic at the beginning too. If you don't throw that in there and label yourself as patriotic you can't later claim that it means those who disagree with you are then unpatriotic.

"President Reagan called America’s past racism “a legacy of evil” against which we have seen the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights. He condemned any sort of racism, as all good and decent people do today. He also called it a “point of pride for all Americans” that as a nation, we have successfully struggled to overcome this evil."

Quick, someone think of the last Republican president that wasn't considered an all around failure! Also let me point out that I was totally unaware that racism ended in the mid 80s.

"I know how Tea Party Americans feel to be falsely accused. To be unjustly accused of association with what Reagan so aptly called that “legacy of evil” is a traumatizing experience, and one of which the honest, freedom-loving patriots of the Tea Party movement are truly undeserving."

I almost gagged when I read "freedom-loving partiots". Also another reminder that racism is over, and we should really not forget that. It has been over for nearly 20 years so I'm not sure why we still bring it up.

"Like President Reagan, Tea Party Americans believe that “the glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.” Isn’t it time we put aside the divisive politics of the past once and for all and celebrate the fact that neither race nor gender is any longer a barrier to achieving success in America – even in achieving the highest office in the land?"

Someone should really tell her we have had a few presidents after Reagan. Maybe 20+ years is far enough in the past to seem sagely but not far enough to seem irrelevant and he is dead so he can't get pissed. Also, this entire organization seems to be rather fond of divisive tactics. I've seen the posters and heard some of the rhetoric, this party appeals to pretty much the lowest common denomintor...oops I mean "freedom-loving partiots".

"I just spent a few beautiful Alaskan days with some beautiful Americans in my husband’s birthplace – they are Todd’s family and they are Yupik Eskimo."

I can't be racist, I have non-white friends! She will be on the GOPs ballot in 2012, and that fact alone makes me believe maybe the Mayans were right.

Stop Me Before I Flop Again!

My World Cup 2010 experiment is still going strong. I honestly did not think I'd still be watching and following a week later. Granted the majority of my watching has been done via ESPN Gamecast since 90% of the games broadcast take place prior to me leaving work, but still, I'm following and interested.

Lots of tie games so far this World Cup, a lot of 0-0 finishes, it seems if you want to score goals you have to play against North Korea. Portugal whooped them 7-0, I think Portugal needs to watch the skies for incoming nukes now. The massive amount of tie games really hasn't taken away from me enjoying the matches, what has driven me nuts is all the flopping.

The last time I played soccer was during middle school gym class. I'm sure that if you are running down the field with the ball and a guy comes with a sliding tackle you may get tripped up and fall. However, guys have been throwing themselves on the ground like children. Guys are flying all over the field, tumbling to the ground and grabbing various body parts like they have been split in two. They look around to see if anyone is buying their act and if not they spring back up and sprint down the field.

I understand the idea of selling a foul, though I don't agree with it. The only time you should hit the turf and grab your femur is if you have a piece of it poking through your leg. The biggest offense was some player from Greece getting kicked in the leg. The other player was clearly in the wrong because he did straight up kick the Greek, however, after the kick he looked down at his leg, looked back up at the other player, grabbed his leg in pain and threw himself on the floor. It was horrid acting, and embarrassing.

I know soccer doesn't care whether or not they make fans out of the Americans, but if they do care, they should inform the world that a country that loves its NFL doesn't appreciate flopping.

I Got the Fever! (maybe)

World Cup Fever is in the air people, catch it while it's hot! Now I'll be the very first to admit that I have spent the majority of my time telling people that soccer sucks. I complain about the rules, the positions, the inability to use your hands, and the low scoring. However, all that aside, I'm going to try my hardest to come down with a case of World Cup Fever this year.

Soccer is "the beautiful game" or so I have heard. The entire world plays soccer, and if an alien race ever landed on Earth and challenged us to 1 game to decide our fate, you'd have to believe it would be a soccer match. Still, America rejects the sport, even going so far as to redub it soccer and invent another sport and call that Football. I don't want to hear about the fact that millions of kids play it in the US, it is easily the 5th most popular sport with the AFL nipping at its heels.

My reasoning for trying to catch the fever is based primarily on the fact that it gives me something to watch. Hockey and basketball are playing their respective finals. Since I'm a Ranger and Knicks fan, I usually don't have a rooting interest this time of year. Football is still a few months off, and you can only read so many articles devoted to the minutiae of your team (Pay Revis as much as he wants!). Lastly baseball is still chugging along in the pre All-Star break portion of the season. For many teams this is an exciting time of hope and possibilities. As a Yankee fan this is merely pre-postseason, I'll sit in front of a game with a beer and get pissed at every loss, but the real deal doesn't start into August.

But I digress, the World Cup starts June 11th and I'm going to try my hardest to get into it. I'll read the articles, catch the breakdowns, follow the scores and watch a few matches. Well, at least I'm going to try to do all that. Go USA!

Safe?

By now if you follow sports you know all about the call at 1st that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. Instant replay clearly showed that the ball hit the glove well before the runner made it to 1st, however Jim Joyce called the runner safe. It seems to me every year a controversial play leads to the public outcry of instant replay being a full time part of sports, and in my opinion the fact this is even up for debate is ridiculous.

Sports in America (I'm looking at you MLB & NFL) see themselves as almost religious institutions. Ballparks are referred to as cathedrals and the media and fans wax poetically about the halcyon days of the past. Sports figures are revered as saints, there deeds retold from generations to generation. The purity and sanctity of the games most be upheld at all costs! Enough is enough!

I understand that from the beginning of time umpires and refs were given supreme rule over the sporting arena, but times change. You can't honestly believe that to uphold the purity of the game is to have an umpire blow an obvious call and maintain that call even though seconds after it is made the entire stadium and nation were clearly able to see he was wrong. Football has instituted a two challenge rule that I'd explain in detail if it wasn't for the fact that I'm sure you all know what it is, and baseball now does it for controversial HR calls, but why stop there?

I understand that instituting across the board instant replay would slow down the pace of the game, but getting the call right is more important and it isn't like every call would need to be reviewed. It is re-donk-ulous to use the length of game argument, because it is an argument that goes out the window when your team loses a game because the refs and umps blow a controversial call.

I'm a Yankee fan and I realize that with across the board instant replay the phantom Jeter homerun might have changed Yankee lore forever if they were able to check the tape and see that Jeffrey Maier interfered with that play. It has come to the point where it isn't about individual teams but about the sport in general. Times change and sports need to change with them.