Grab Some Top Gun Off the Bottom Shelf

Warning! Beware! This film is pure concentrated Eighties! 100% pure! Always dilute for Shave-Shampoo-Massage-Dental-Soap Bath!

Top Gun (1986)

Director: Tony Scott

Writers: Jim Cash, Jack Epps, Jr. (screenplay), Ehud Yonay (magazine article)

As we know, Drama is Conflict, and this drama has so much conflict that it actually opens with an argument between the titles and the theme song. According to the superimposed dateline, we’re in the INDIAN OCEAN. PRESENT DAY. But the hit single by Kenny Loggins insists we’re in the DANGER ZONE, which seems to be a place where jets ceaselessly take off and land while men in glans-shaped helmets handle big hoses and vogue.

Tom Cruise is a Navy fighter jock whose callsign -- “Maverick” -- suggests he’s a reckless, hot shot pilot who doesn’t play by the rules, probably because he’s actually sitting in a mockup of a cockpit on Stage 14 at the Paramount Lot, and the rules don’t technically apply to the military equivalent of a dollhouse. Tom flies with “Goose” (Anthony Edwards), whose callsign suggests he’s either the comic relief, or has an enlarged and delicious liver. We join them for a jet-fueled playdate with “Cougar,” whose callsign indicates he’s a mature woman with a taste for boytoys, and his backseater “Merlin” (Tim Robbins, who we know from Bull Durham has penchant for older ladies, so they seem like a fun couple).

When they get into a hassle with some aerial Communists, Cougar loses control of his sweat glands, but Tom saves the day by flying upside down and giving the Russians the finger. Back at the aircraft carrier, Tom’s flying makes a man spill  his coffee, so his  commanding officer, Mr. Clean, shouts “Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash!”, although you’d think it would be the other way around, since between the two of them, the body is the only one with a photo I.D. Then he sends Maverick and Goose to fighter school at “Fightertown U.S.A.”, home of the Fightin’ Fighters.

Tom rides his motorcycle to Top Gun school because apparently it’s Danger Zone adjacent, and suddenly we find ourselves in a class taught by military hardass Michael Ironside (callsign: “What Do I Need a Butch Callsign For? My Name is Ironside), but it’s a different class than the one taught by military hardass Michael Ironside in Starship Troopers. A beefy, bleached blonde pilot (callsign: “Rocky Horror”) turns to Val Kilmer (callsign: “My Career Didn’t Really Work Out the Way I Thought It Would”) and whispers in his ear, “This gives me a hard-on.” Meanwhile, Rick Rossovich (callsign: “Slider,” I guess because “White Castle” was already taken) casually slips his arm around Val’s shoulders from the opposite side, so this sandwich has three all beef patties. But Val is too busy fingering his ballpoint pen as he and Tom trade smoldering glances to dispense the Special Sauce.

Cut to a bar, where Val and Tom are face-to-face, drinking longnecks and making steamy eye contact again. But it was all just foreplay, because Goose and Tom make a bet: first one to have intercourse with a woman wins twenty dollars. Tom immediately picks Kelly McGillis out of the crowd and tonelessly serenades her with “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” It’s a justly famous scene, because if you watch closely you can actually see the moment when she became a lesbian.

Now we’re back in class, and guess what? We have a substitute today, and it’s Kelly!  But instead of just showing us a film strip, we get more flying scenes: lots of “He’s on our tail!” and “Show me what you got!” and “You’re MINE, now!”  They “turn and burn” and “go ballistic,” and – well, basically it’s the Kama Sutra meets the Urban Dictionary.

Say, how about a stunningly long, boldly gratuitous volleyball game, in which Val, Slider, and Tom are hilariously oily and turgid? But Goose does teach us a valuable life lesson: When you’re the comic relief you don’t get the girl, but you do get a shirt.

Tom rushes directly over to Kelly’s house to fumigate it with his stank and pheromones while he fills us in on his dead dad (he always seems to have one) and why it drives him to be awesome.  The next day after class they have silhouette sex (and by “sex” I mean they lick each other so much this movie should be called Top Tongue).

More flying scenes, did you say? “Stick with it!” Come on come on come ON!” “Was it good for you too?”

No? Well, how about more traditional erotica? Let’s head to the locker room, where everyone is in towels and beaded with moisture. Val lounges seductively against a pillar like Maria Montez, while Tom turns away from the camera, puts a foot up on a bench and points his ass at us almost menacingly, as though his rectum were the barrel of a gun.

More flying? Sure, dig in, we’ve got plenty. Unfortunately for Goose, it’s the end of the second act and Maverick needs motivation, so they blunder into their neighbor’s jet wash and go into a flat spin. Tom ejects safely, but Goose collides with a plot point and dies.

Tom visits Goose’s grieving widow, Meg Ryan, to pay his respects, but as we’ve seen, he’s driven and competitive, and just winds up getting in a grief-off with her. Then he mopes around for a few scenes, but fortunately, the Indian Ocean is having a crisis (just a regular crisis, not an identity crisis like it had at the beginning of the movie).

Val flies off into combat, while Tom walks around his plane and rubs the rounded tip of the missile.  Meanwhile, that same guy from before announces another hard-on.

Val gets crawled by aerodynamic Bolsheviks, but Maverick flies off to his rescue (just as both catapults on the carrier break, so it can’t launch any more fighters). Tom gets himself into another flat spin and has a crisis of confidence, but after fingering Goose’s dog-tags like worry beads he experiences a moment of pure epiphany and blows up the same MIG three times.  Then he celebrates by making some guy spill his coffee.

Tom and Val hug on the deck while men pump their fists in the background.  Then Tom throws Goose’s dog-tags off the carrier, symbolically freeing himself from the burdens of their relationship which was frankly going nowhere. Commander Clean sends him back to Fighter Town U.S.A., this time as an instructor. Not a flight instructor, I assume, since he can’t even walk to the bathroom without going into a flat spin, but maybe they’ll give him an autoharp and let him teach music, or be the faculty advisor for the Pep Squad or something.

The end.

Oh, wait…There’s a tacked-on conclusion where Kelly reminds us that we hate the Righteous Brothers now by playing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” on the jukebox and sneaking up on Tom while he sits at the bar. I mention this only because director Tony Scott did a masterful job of framing the shot so you can’t see Tom's booster seat.

The end. 

Happy Birthday, Chris V! I Got You a Murder Hat!

Yes, ChrisVmas, that most festive time of year, when we gather 'round the roaring hearth with kith and kin, and get roaring drunk, which never turns out well, and is probably the origin of that old saw, "Don't give gin to your kin, or a fifth to your kith."

As most Crappers know, Chris Vosburg is a veteran and valued member of the community, a source of wisdom and trivia in comments, and an occasional correspondent here on the front page, so naturally we wanted to get him something nice this year, and I think I've found the perfect thing: GOP Homicide Swag!

As you know, Reince Priebus has been stalking me ever since a deliriously romantic one night stand turned bitter when I began to decline his calls and ignore his fundraising appeals. (But I did it for you, Reince, because after what we shared, I thought giving you money would make you feel like a whore.) However, I failed to realize that "whore" is the Chairman's factory standard setting, and rather than sparing him an insult, I was interfering with his business model. So not only is he crouching in my shrubs, he's gotten all his girlfriends to send me shaming emails.

Scott, the Chairman was asking about you

Did you tell him I like him? Don't tell him I like him!

Hey -  

I'm about to step in a meeting with the Chairman to go over our plan for the final three days before the election. And I know he's going to ask me if you have contributed yet.

Well, I contributed to his sperm bank, if you know what I mean.

Scott, can I give him your name as a donor to the Final Election Day Voter Fund?

Look, he's already got my name as a Potential Booty Call if Lindsey Graham is Washing His Hair, and I don't want to clutter up his Rolodex.

Seeing that his Mean Girls weren't getting it done, however, Reince tried to bribe me with baubles:

Scott, 

It's time. 

Just like in sports, when the season is on the line, you put on the gear that shows what team you are on.

Yes, but what if you don't suffer the delusion that you're a member of your favorite professional sports team, and realize that suiting up before the big game will just get you tossed out of the locker room and cited for trespassing?

That's why we are rolling out the GOP's newest product: an American-made, full-zip hoodie.

Waiiiiiiit a minute!  Why would Reince entice me to add Thugwear to my trousseau, unless he secretly wants me to get shot by a cop!  Has he really given up on our love, and moved on to the "If I can't have you, nobody can!" stage?

Apparently so, because next he dangled this GOP dunce cap before my dazzled eyes:

While his email insists this is a "cool Camo hat," I see one problem with it: how am I supposed to seamlessly blend in with my surroundings when I've got a big neon TARGET in the middle of my forehead!? Design flaw, or the Hell-like fury of a Chairman scorned?

So anyway, I'm going into the witness production program until the election is over, because if there's one thing I fear more than death, it's dying as the result of a half-assed, passive-aggressive plot that requires me to pay shipping and handling. But before I go, let's close with a shot of Vosburg approved B-Movie babe Allison Hayes sitting too close to the TV...

Stop that Allison, you'll ruin your eyes!

And finally, for our Sexy Birthday Lizard, we have a SBL that's actually a SBL: the Side-Blotched Lizard of Catalina Island, where Chris misspent much of his youth:

Happy Birthday and Merry Vmas, Chris!

Happy Halloween II: This Year I'm Going as Hyperglocemia

Mary and I never buy Halloween candy, because in the 14 years we've lived in this building we've never had a trick-or-treater. Well, we did once get a Russian girl with smeared make-up pounding on our door late at night, and I got excited thinking her pale, puffy face and runny mascara meant she was going as Pagliaccio, or The Crow, but it turned out she was just confused about which apartment her Craigslist hookup lived in. The point is, I haven't tasted seasonal confections on Samhain since I was young enough to unironically wear a plastic Ben Cooper mask of Superman, or Caspar the Friendly Ghost, so imagine my joy (my Almond joy) when we heard a knock on the door and discovered it was not a slutty Dora the Explorer demanding candy, but a postman delivering it:

This was sent to us by a very kind Crapper who shall remain nameless (unless they don't care about preserving their anonymity, in which case let me know and I'll name names like Elia Kazan at HUAC).  In any case, thank you very much. As it happens, chocolate and peanut are my favorite combination, so I plan -- just this once! -- to get into the spirit of the thing and celebrate the holiday season in style, with a diabetic coma.

We now join our First Annual Horrible Halloween Movie Bash already in progress below...

Happy Halloween!

Welcome to the First Annual World O' Crap Horrible Halloween Movie Bash, chosen by you, the World O' Crap reader. The totals are in, and this year's top vote getters are World War Z (2013) and The Lost Continent (1968). Both are sad botches worthy of inaugurating this feature, so it came down to a question of accessibility. And since I already had it saved to my DVR, World War Z is the winner (and I, needless to say, am the loser). However, I've found a source for Lost Continent, so look for that to appear in a future Monday Movie column.

Now I invite you to sit back, grab some candy (the good stuff, not that dross you've been giving the snot-dripping urchins on your doorstep) and learn how the filmmakers turned an unfilmable book into an unwatchable movie.

World War Z

Director: Marc Forster

Writers: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard & Damon Lindelof (screenplay), Matthew Michael Carnahan and J. Michael Straczinski (screen story). Based on the novel by Max Brooks

It’s morning in Anytown, U.S.A. In a charming clapboard house, Brad Pitt and his wife are asleep, which means that two giggling children are about to come running in and jump on the bed, because that’s what families do in movies, as opposed to real life, where I would have gotten in so much trouble for waking up my old man on his day off. Unless it was Christmas morning, which is like The Purge for the specific crime of parent-waking.

Cut to the kitchen. Brad has long blonde locks and a beard, because someone apparently told him this movie is about Thor. Instead, it’s about a guy who used to work for the UN in some vague capacity, and now makes pancakes for his daughters all day, wielding a spatula like it’s the mighty Mjolnir.

Cut to Philadelphia, where Brad and his family sit in traffic while we learn that Brad’s wife used to be British, but has lost her accent, and there are rabies in Taiwan. Turns out there’s also zombies in Philadelphia – quite a lot of them, actually – but no one thinks to mention it until suddenly they’re swarming all over the traffic jam like it’s Black Friday at Wal-Mart. And not only are these undead fast – they can outrun a Winnebago, which suggests the zombie apocalypse is going to hit Texas and South Dakota particularly hard – but so is the virus which creates them; Brad watches one discount hipster get chomped and go from Old Navy model to full-blown revenant in about ten seconds, which strikes me as premature incubation. I like a little tension in my zombie movies -- the pathos and suspense of waiting for a bitten friend to turn -- but here the transformations are over quicker than an Amish wedding night.

Brad jacks an old RV – personally, I would have stolen something faster than a zombie, but it does come with its own hunting rifle – and immediately pulls over because his daughter is having an asthma attack. So fine, let’s all stop the Apocalypse because Brianna can’t find her inhaler. Just then Jack’s former boss calls; he's fleeing the UN building in a helicopter because New York is in flames and overrun by the undead. On the bright side, he got his whole staff killed, so there’s got a job opening in Ordinary Premium Accounting.

Brad and his family loot a Shop-Rite in Newark, where Brad shoots an irritated consumer near a Prestone point-of-purchase display, then they invite themselves to squat with a nice Latino family. Brad fiddles with their radio and gets the Emergency Broadcast System, and even though, for once, it’s not a test, he is still not instructed where to tune in his local area for news and official information. Instead, he makes shitty armor out of magazines, and duct tapes a steak knife to his rifle, then leads his family into a stairwell where they hunker down to wait. After awhile, Daughter Number Two says, “I’m scared” (in a tone of voice that suggests she really meant “I’m bored, but was trying to be polite), but Brad tells her a helicopter is coming for them, and to “keep your eyes on Mommy and Daddy.” Really? I’d tell the kid to keep an eye out for zombies, but I’m not the guy with the bayonet from Chicago Cutlery.

The chopper flies Brad and family to the United Nations Command Ship, the U.S.S. Exposition, where his Boss explains that the president is dead, there are gun battles in the streets of Washington, D.C., and Ted Cruz’s erection has lasted longer than four hours. Big cities are the hardest hit, because “airlines are the perfect delivery system,” which seems odd, since the disease has a ten second incubation period, so I’m pretty sure the passengers would start leaping around and devouring each other well short of their destination, and making it extremely difficult to maneuver the drinks cart through the aisle.

Anyway, young Dr. Fastback wants to go South Korea to see if he can find a vaccine or something, and the military blackmails Brad into going along. In the plane, Fastback explains his theory that “Mother Nature is a serial killer,” and “like all serial killers she can’t help the urge to want to get caught,” so she cuts out letters from magazines and mails cryptic messages to the newspaper.

When they get to South Korea they’re met by a Welcome Wagon of extremely athletic dead people, and Dr. Fastback immediately slips on the wet tarmac, shoots himself, and dies. (I saw it, it was his own fault, he can’t pin this one on Mother Nature.)

So Brad’s business trip was a complete waste of time. Fortunately, he meets David Morse, who just happens to be in midst of a nice juicy cameo role as a disgraced CIA agent with a lot of convenient information, and he tells Brad that Israel made its borders zombie-proof, so Brad takes off for Jerusalem (but first a bunch of soldiers have to refuel his plane while getting attacked by the undead, as Brad rides a squeaky bicycle in inclement weather like Miss Gulch from The Wizard of Oz).

During the flight Brad calls his wife to chat about the kids, but then someone sets off an atomic bomb right under the plane and the call drops. But it was such a boring conversation that neither one bothers to call back.

Israel has built a 100-foot high wall all around the country (meanwhile, John McCain stands on the U.S. southern border shouting, “Finish the dang fence!”, but nobody pays any attention to him because they’ve all turned into cross-training carrion). The people inside, Jews and Arabs alike, all so filled with a love that they gather together and sing a happy, Kumbaya-like song, which drives the zombies into a fever of organization, and they build a human pyramid from a million undead cheerleaders, and spill over the wall.  So the lesson here is: hootenannies kill.

Brad immediately runs for his plane like a little wuss. His Israeli bodyguard gets bitten, so he lops her hand off to stop the infection, or to prove he saw Evil Dead II. Unfortunately, his pilot is an even bigger wuss, and takes off before Brad can even get on the plane, even though he’s a Premiere Club member and entitled to early boarding.

Brad thumbs a ride with a taxiing airliner, dragging along the woman he mutilated, and as they fly to Cardiff, presumably to see if Torchwood can help, he figures out the ANSWER! Unfortunately, somebody brought a zombie as carry-on and the passengers start eating each other rather than pay eleven dollars for one of those crappy box lunches they give you. Brad throws a grenade into Coach, blowing a hole in the fuselage and scattering zombies across the idyllic Welsh countryside. The aircraft plows into a forest and completely breaks apart, but Brad survives, although he’s got a huge aluminum splinter stuck through his body.

Despite being speared like a cocktail weenie, Brad and his amputee victim walk to the nearest World Health Organization facility. But back aboard the good ship Exposition, Brad has been written off as MIA and his wife and children evicted, their bunks turned over to a family whose father isn’t stupid enough to chuck grenades around an airliner.

Brad wakes up at the WHO, and finds himself staring into the face of Doctor Who! (The cranky, 12^th one.) Unfortunately, the Doctor’s not that helpful, but he is still cranky, especially after Brad tells him about his plan to infect everybody with a terminal illness so the zombies won’t find them appetizing.

Unfortunately, the pathogens they need are stored in the Plot Point Memorial Wing, which is occupied by zombies, so the next twenty minutes consist mostly of people sneaking and running and sliding around hospital corridors like a particularly wacky episode of Scrubs.

Anyway, Brad injects himself with a fatal disease, and what do you know, his stupid plan works. So he takes a boat to go pick up his family, but suddenly announces in voice over: “It’s not over,” which strikes me as needlessly cruel, like taunting a garden slug after you’ve already poured salt on it.

To sum up: it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, mainly because she’s a serial killer, so don’t pretend your smooth, creamery margarine is butter, or she’ll give you zombies and Brad Pitt will give you swine flu.

The end.

To B Or Not To B Movie

Before we start the show, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for the many kind birthday wishes -- they truly made my day. And while I'm at it, I'd also like to thank Ivan, who really got me in the Halloween mood with his spot-on Renfield impression (seriously, by the time his gibbering encomium got to "I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth," you could almost taste the dead flies and rat tartare).

And I especially want to thank Sheri for braving Blogger's mind-boggling back end to post some extraordinarily nice words about me which -- as she  helpfully suggested in a message -- I should be able to repurpose for my funeral.  Having her return to the wonderfully weird little community she created was the best present I could have received.

And I have another treat for you guys: Hank Parmer, the Human Oven Mitt is back, providing a protective layer of quilted fabric between you and sizzlingly bad cinema. Today Hank examines the motion picture which answers that age-old question, "Just how crappy does a movie have to be before it rates second billing to Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster?"

Curse of the Voodoo (Original title: Voodoo Blood Death)

A Galaworld production, in black and white. In 1965. Keep in mind that we're not dealing with just any old voodoo here, but the Voodoo.

The movie opens with some African natives jumping up and down around a bonfire, to the pounding of jungle drums. A female dancer is really getting into it. One warrior seems to be practicing with his spear. He needs all the practice he can get: he's got a bad case of the shakes, so his aim is bound to be awful. The dancer falls down. (She'll do that a lot.)

Stock footage of Africa, accompanied by the hyper-manly, John-Barry-knockoff score we'll come to heartily loathe during the course of this film.

Voice-over:  Africa - a country [so what if those snooty geographers call it a “continent”] that for centuries was hidden from civilized men. [e.g. White male Western Europeans] Africa - a country of grandeur, power, beauty and sudden death. Africa - where primitive tribes still practice evil religions which weave a dark web of death around all who sin against their gods. One such god is Simba, the lion. [There's also Goomba, the wiseguy, and Skwishi, the slug, although for some reason these don't attract as many followers.] And for any man who dares to kill a lion, the penalty is death!

The veldt – actually, Regent's Park, but let's not quibble – where we're introduced to our hero, the extremely manly Great White Hunter, Mike Stacey (Bryant Haliday). Alright, so he's actually a pale, cadaverous gink who sort of resembles George F. Will, if Will ditched the glasses and bow tie, grew about a half-inch more chin and got an ash-blond rinse ... but he's got a very masculine musical theme!

He watches through binoculars as his dweebish client Radlett shoots at, but, predictably, only wounds some stock footage of a lion, which promptly takes off into the stock footage bush. Maj. Lomas – played by Dennis Price, the Real Actor in this mess, who's obviously been diligently cultivating his gin blooms since his star turn in Kind Hearts and Coronets – tells Radlett that they can't leave a wounded lion roaming about. Especially in Regent's Park, where it might raise havoc with joggers.

Mike disgustedly informs his client that he'll be the one who has to go in after it. More hyper-manly theme, as  Mike and his "boys" spread out and go after the lion. Bad news: not only is the lion wounded, but he's gone over the hill and taken refuge in territory inhabited by the dreaded Simbaza tribe, which is verboten to lion-hunting honkies. The others refuse to go any further.

Mike: "Don't tell me you believe in that mumbo-jumbo."

Lomas: "I've been here long enough never to dismiss anything as mumbo-jumbo!" (Boogedy-boo, however, is a different story.)

Mike insists he can get in, kill the lion and be back in time for tea. Mike's faithful gun-bearer Saidi tries to dissuade him, but he persists in his mad scheme. Saidi reluctantly follows him.

Meanwhile, Radlett dithers and halfheartedly suggests he really ought to go with Mike, since he was the one who wounded the lion. (Uh-huh.) In a vain attempt to divert everyone from his wimpiness, he asks Major Lomas what all the fuss is with the Simbazas.

Lomas explains they worship lions, and practice a potent brew of black magic and merciless passive aggression. Radlett scoffs, but Lomas is deadly serious: "Mr. Radlett, this is neither Southend nor Surrey. These people are further from civilization than Stone Age men!" (The Major would sing a different tune, if he'd ever attended the charity jumble at St. Dunstan's.)

Radlett: "Yes, but he didn't seem frightened!"

Lomas: "He's either a fool – or a very brave man."

Cut to Mike and Saidi, stalking the dweeb's wounded lion through a stand of "African" maples, to the exotic chirping of British songbirds. Underscoring his manliness, Mike tells Saidi to wait, while he continues the hunt alone. Stock footage of lion. Mike follows it through a lush forest and rain-wet leaves. More lion footage, shot on the dry and dusty veldt. Mike hears a growl. Stock footage of lion running at camera. Mike shoots. Stock footage of leaping lion. The camera's POV savagely attacks Mike, who drops the rifle and puts his arms up.

Lomas and Radlett hear the gunshot.

Radlett: "He got him! I wish I'd been with him!" Right. You know,  you're not fooling anyone.

Back to Mike. The (off-camera) lion's dead, though he did give Mike a nasty boo-boo in the left shoulder. Saidi runs to help him. I never knew you could fend off a charging, fully-grown, 500-pound African lion by simply putting your arms out in front of you.

Back to Lomas and Radlett. Ominous thunder of drums. Radlett wants to know that it means.

Lomas: "It means the hunter has become the hunted!" Thank you, Major Exposition.

Back to Mike and Saidi, who's applying some first aid to where the lion nicked Mike in the shoulder. Mike takes a swig from his hip flask. The drums are getting louder. Saidi's worried: "We must get out of here, Mr. Mike: this is a bad place!" But Mike insists they skin the lion for Radlett, first. Of course, they won't be attacked by outraged Simbazas – that would be too easy. Plus, as we'll see, the Simbazas are major wusses.

Happy Birthday, Scott - I Got You a Cliff!

Yes, for a few more hours it is the birthday of Wo'C CEO and MVP,  Scott C.! 

As most of you can attest, Scott is one of the wittiest people on the Internet - fast with a quip, possessing a way with words like few others, and with an unrivaled knowledge of history, politics, and the wingiest nuts in existence.  And many of you also know that he is a caring, compassionate man: a guy who remembers birthdays,  helps those in need, and fights for the underdog and overcat.  And a good friend.  But did you know that he loves bad movies, MST3K, and old-timey stuff?  Okay, you did.  Fine.  Then here's Renew America's Cliff Kincaid with "Can marijuana fuel jihad?"  I am having problems with Blogger, so just pretend that the parts in quotation marks are indented. We join Cliff already in progress.

 "It may be too early to draw a direct connection between jihad, marijuana, and mass murder,"

No, it's never too early to say, "The Tsarnaev brothers were terrorists, they used marijuana, and so marijuana causes mass murder."  So, let's find some more examples to further your theory.

"We also have the case of Michael Brown, the black thug who was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri. An autopsy and toxicology report finds that he had marijuana in his system and had been a user for some time."

So, there you have it: having used marijuana at some time in the past causes the police to shoot you, and the wingnut press to label you a "black thug."  Although I wonder how many "white thugs" Cliff has written about.

"There is no hint of jihad here, only anti-police violence."

Yes, kids, it's Opposite Day!

 "But the role of marijuana in this violent confrontation deserves extensive coverage, not just a footnote. Trayvon Martin, the black juvenile delinquent shot and killed after he assaulted anti-crime activist George Zimmerman, also smoked marijuana regularly."

Cliff, if you're just going to say idiotic things in any effort to get attention, I have no more time for you!

So, on to the ceremonial sexy birthday lizard:

 And because Scott birthday is extra-special, here's the sexy Ann Coulter birthday lizard:

Now, won't you all join me in wishing Scott the happiest of birthdays!
..

We Had Joy, We Had Fun, We Had Treason in the Sun

You may remember Douglas MacKinnon -- former flack for Bob Dole, ex-Commander of Joints, and the author of novels so abysmal they make Snoopy look like Trollope.  But Doug is vast, he contains multitudes, and like all men should be judged not solely by his deeds, but by the content of his character; so I'll just point out that he's also a traitor.

Recently, Douglas huddled in a corner booth at the Shake Shack with members of his seditious Breakfast Club and planned the dissolution of the Union over a plate of Eggs Benedict Arnold.  The result was his new book, The Secessionist States of America: The Blueprint for Creating a Traditional Values Country . . . Now.  But I know what you're wondering: who are these shadowy members of Doug's Early Bird Cabal?  Fortunately, commenter jackd performed a Herculean feat of taxonomy and broke them down by alleged area of expertise, and where they'd likely get to sit in the A-Team van:

Let's see how low we can go and still qualify for MacKinnnon's Brain Trust: 

a constitutional law expert 

Someone who attended law school. Might have graduated. Might have passed the bar. Might be practicing. Might even be teaching Con Law, given how many for-profit colleges and law schools are out there. 

two former military officers 

Note he didn't say *commissioned* officers. 

two former diplomats 

Guys who used to be in the State department. Somewhere. 

a minister 

Volunteer youth minister? Leader of a storefront church with a congregation numbering firmly in the dozen? 

another special operator 

And here I'm going to quote Sheri: "I was believing his whole back story about him and his unemployed men's group getting together to foment an uprising until I got to the mention of "another special operator." Is this a Time/Life operator, or does he mean "special operative"? Is Douglas implying that HE was a special operative?

I had to track down this mystery. So, I read his bio, that said that he had a Government Top Secret clearance - which means only that his treasonous hadn't yet been discovered, because everybody in the DC area has a TS clearance."

and experts on banking, energy, farming, and infrastructure 

A guy who worked at a bank, a guy who worked for a power company, a guy who worked on a farm, and a guy who dug ditches. Note that this could be as few as two people to merit the plural of expert. 

And that's the kind of expertise you bring together to agree that the right thing for true patriots to do is commit treason.

Well, Doug's book is out, and he's hitting the trail to promote it.  A number of sites have already printed some of the juicy bits from his appearance on evangelical talk radio host Janet Mefferd's program, so I decided to go the extra six inches and transcribe the whole thing. It was extremely illuminating, much like someone driving toward you with their highbeams on until it triggers a migraine.  Take it away, Doug...

We looked at what states would be viable in terms of doing something like this and in fact what states would provides sort of the new land mass for a new republic dedicated to traditional values, and the consensus was that the three best states in the union would be South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. 

Suck it, Alabama. Even the neo-Confederates would rather not have to explain you.

Because of not only their population and so many folks in those states have, you know, a strong belief in traditional values, but also because of the natural resources within those states, the infrastructure within those states, and their access to both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, about that infrastructure...A lot of it was subsidized, or entirely paid for by the Federal Government of the United States, so...you're gonna give that back, right?  And don't just leave it out on the lawn, either; when we come by in the U-Haul, you need to get off your ass and help us load I-95 in the truck. There's pizza and beer in it for you.

As for the natural resources, South Carolina's top crop is tobacco, which kills its consumers, so it's not really a huge growth industry. Number two is cotton, but there's no real textile industry in this country anymore, and most of the sweatshops are overseas, so who knows how long that'll last. On the bright side, the third top cash crop is marijuana, which Larry Kudlow advises you to buy, buy, buy!, so you'll stop trying to bum his cocaine.

Georgia's top three crops are cotton (see above), peanuts, and -- once again -- marijuana, so while they may be pining for the past, they're planting for the future!  Florida's number two crop is dope, behind oranges, while in my native state of California the Devil's Weed with Roots in Hell and Humboldt County is number one, ahead of grapes, almonds, and Kryptonian Hamster Ball Babies.

A lot of folks of course talk about Texas, and I’m a huge fan of Texas 

Although I prefer their early, funny stuff.

but one of the problems that we discussed as a group in regard to Texas is what problems would crop up if that ever came up – and we’re only talking in academic discussion here and in theory – and just so the government understands. 

At this point Doug chuckled in a way that said, "Even though I've just published a plan to carve a three-state empire out of the U.S. like some 19th Century filibuster, the Feds can't arrest me for sedition because I uttered a fake laugh, which is the audible equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back. You know, most historians agree that Hitler wouldn't have gone to jail for his part in the Beer Hall Putsch if he'd only paused periodically to snicker and say, 'Just kidding.'"

But if in fact you tried to do something like that, then would the government of Mexico look at Texas as sort of you know, in more hostile manner than it already does now

Does Mexico look at Texas in a hostile manner?  I mean, I know I do, but then I look at most things that way (I've been throwing shade at this Otter Pop for like fifteen minutes).

because there has certainly been a number of incursions into Texas and other places from SOME of the folks in Mexico. 

I made an incursion into Texas once.  I mean, American Airlines called it a "layover," and all I did was eat cole slaw and drink a Tab, but I prefer to think of it as an act of aggression.

And so that’s one of the things the group looked at, And then it’s one of those things too, where again, the state legislatures, you know, have the ability, as they did, you know – people tend to forget the PAST, you know, at their own peril, but when the America Civil War, before it happened, you have to remember that ALL ELEVEN STATES, from the South – including ultimately Texas – seceded LEGALLY. And so they left the Union PEACEFULLY. They left the Union LEGALLY. 

You may wonder why Doug repeatedly bellowed those particular words. Well, it actually goes back to the siege of Fort Sumter, when U.S. Army Captain Abner Doubleday asked his commanding officer, Major Robert Anderson, if the South Carolina militia hadn't committed an act of war by firing on them. Major Anderson replied, "That's what I thought too, but according to the Constitution, they're shelling the shit out of us legally and peacefully." Except that Anderson had to shout the words "legally" and "peacefully" so they could be heard over the sound of his horse exploding.

Then President Lincoln – and part of the problem there was that the NORTH realized very quickly that it could not survive economically without the power of the South.

They controlled nearly the entirety of America's strategic reserve of Honey Boo-Boo.

... lot of the historians, at least on the South, and scholars from the South will certainly tell you that President Lincoln waged an ILLEGAL war that was in fact not declared against the South, after the South, you know, basically did what we’re talking about in this book now in terms of peacefully, legally, and constitutionally leaving the Union.

Douglas is right that the U.S. never declared war on the South, because it never recognized the Confederate States of America -- But then, neither did any other nation on earth.  To quote Doghouse Riley: "There’s a famous precedent that no one could be tried for treason after the Civil War because the United States never recognized the CSA."

But despite these superficial disagreements, we're not really so different, Doug and I. He merely wants the South to repeat what it did at the start of the Civil War, while I only want the North to repeat what it did at the end.

Okay, that's about all I can take of Commander Joint. More later.