The Cowboys Suck

Plus frustration and ennui on the Raritan. 

We thought we'd have to shovel snow this morning, but the rain washed away everything overnight. 

A bloody day in the NFL. 

Thoughts and prayers to Dallas Cowboys fans everywhere. You hate to see it. 

[No, you don't-Ed]

In our 2022 predictions column for Moscow, we wrote that Dallas would go to the Super Bowl. Whoops. KGB handler is not pleased. Wonder what else we'll get wrong this year.

Mrs. Stroock's own Eagles were overmatched in every way by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-15. The game wasn't that close, as Philadelphia managed a couple of garbage time touchdowns. 

The San Francisco 49ers looked like tough bastards. I wouldn't want to play them. 

Arizona plays Los Angeles tonight. We love Los Angeles. 

The Times of Israel reports that if Netanyahu gets a plea deal on his (no doubt trumped up) corruption charges, members of Lapid's government fear the coalition will collapse, 'It is generally thought that this could lead the government’s right-wing factions to break away and form a coalition with Likud under new leadership.' Do they mean a Likud government under Bibi or someone else? Unclear. Bibi again would just crack us up.

This is our final week working on The Great Salvation of 1976. We need to add a few things. We're not sure what yet. We shall endeavor to come up with some juju for a Final Storm attack scene. We've done the Brits, the Aussies, The Italians...we have to write up the Israelis....We already wrote the SAS scene, we just need to add to it.

For Monday Metal, we return to Bill Joel. With three novels at or near the final draft stage, Pressure is exactly how we feel. 'Now here you are, in the ninth. Two men out and three men on...'

When Billy Joel got....Middle Aged

A reliable source tells us that the college football National Championship was last night. Congratulations Georgia Bulldogs. Wow, another national champ from the Southeast Athletic Conference. Seriously, over the last decade the champs have all been SEC + Ohio State. 

Foreign readers, don't trust nobody from the lowdown, dirty, no-good SEC. Think of a Futball team that cheats, gets away with cheating, and then brags about cheating after defeating you 3-nil, all while the authorities let them get away with it.* Those lying bastards in the SEC would sellout their own mothers to win a football game. 

Student athletes...sure.

For those who don't know, college football isn't very big in the Northeast, except for Notre Dameb. But that's because of all the Irish. New Jersey has Rutgers...no mocking now, and it's totally a thing here. Rutgers has been pretending to be a serious college football program for 20 years now. They're in The Big Ten with Mrs. Stroock's own Penn State. She and her sisters think Rutgers should be kicked out of the conference. 

Moving on...

For a decade Billy Joel churned out melodic albums with piano centered songs. This blog believes the man peeked with 1983's An Innocent Man, which is a homage to the Do-Wop and Motown of the 50's and 60's. The videos are so much fun. 

Then we come to 1986's The Bridge. Here's the big track, A Matter of Trust. This a guitar power chord song and the video is channeling The Beatles. Alert viewers will see Ringo and Paul, which is kind of cool. Still, A Matter of Trust is unmemorable. What happened? Watch the video again. Also appearing are Billy Joel's mega-hot fashion model wife and baby daughter. That's what happened. Also, this is the go-go 80's not the manic depressive 70's, which we will discuss tomorrow. 

Hot Air reports future House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will kick several Dems off their committees. These include the usual suspects, compromised Eric Swalwell, Mogadishu's own, etc. But Hot Air points out that McCarthy is merely kicking them off some committees, not banning them from committee service en toto. We agree with Hot Air's analysis. Still, McCarthy is making progress, no? Colonel Schlichter, who is always right, likes to tell Dems that they're gonna hate the new rules. Stroock's Books goes even further, and calls on the House to expel Swalwell and Omar. Escalate, GOP. 

*Argentina? Italy? You tell me.

Monday Not-Metal

This blog had high hopes for new NYC Mayor Eric Adams. So far his is Bill de Blasio's third term. Adams seems okay with jailbreak Manhattan DA Albert Bragg, appointed his brother Deputy Police Commish, and endorses none-citizens voting.  New York City elections: not legitimate. 

What Will's Watching, the team whose name may not be spoken*: We caught the last minute and a half of the Giants' suck-fest yesterday. It sucked more than anything has sucked ever before. It really sucked.  Blow the stadium up. Leave no two bricks together and sow the field with salt. Biblical destruction is the only solution. 

We got back to pulling carpet tacks yesterday. We'll have to go through one more time, but we're pretty much done. We listened to a lot of music while pulling tacks the last two days and we'll get to that in a moment.

But first a little retro. Twenty years ago we'd been living in Peapack, New Jersey for just over six months. After nearly a decade in Delaware and Northern Virginia we were getting reacquainted with the Yankee winter. We were living in a rustic farmhouse shielded from the sun by a pair of massive elms. The house was drafty. That winter was cold and gray. We were still back at school, going to American Military University online, on a dial up. 

Which brings us to the Monday (Not) Metal.

Back in 2002 we were still a year away from our Heavy Metal revival, spurred by the realization that in 15 years of loving the band, we'd never made a Led Zeppelin mixed tape.  Fun fact, yesterday was Jimmy Page's 78th birthday. 

Anyway, back in that dark winter of 2002 we listened to Billy Joel's greatest hits a lot. This album had most of the essentials, though curiously, not Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. 

Younger reader(s) Joel was huge when we were a youth. He had several smash albums in the 1970s* and easily made the 80's transition to MTV. We think Joel's greatest album is 1983's An Innocent Man. This is a homage to the Do-wop, Motown and R&B Joel listened in his youth and it's a work of art.  Joel had a lot to do with making the 1980's feel like the 1950's and 60's, man. Here's the totally catchy Uptown Girl and its brilliant video:

Joel wrote Uptown Girl for his future wife, Christie Brinkley. Guys....wow, right? Speaking of famous people who ruled the 80's. Needless to say, Joel doesn't play Uptown Girl live anymore. 

The man is our favorite non-metal, non-hard tock artist. It's Billy Joel Week all week here at Stroock's Books. Below is another classic off of An Innocent Man, Tell Her About it. Another song and video  that helped set the 80's retro-tone. There's a lot of scantily-clad babes in this video. Before the internet, that was kind of a big deal..  And keep an eye out for a very famous comedian:

*We watched the Jets too. They also suck. 

**Joel really captured the feel of 1970s New York in songs like Captain Jack and Miami 2017, among others. Listen carefully Mayor Adams. 

Metal Monday (Not)

Billy Joel edition.

Did we ever mention we love Billy Joel?

It's kinda a New Yorker thing.

Billy Joel got big on MTV in the 80's via his retro-songs and videos (see Uptown Girl, Tell her About it, etc etc) but there's no better artist for songs about New York in the 70's.

It's a tough city, a rundown city, a cynical city.

Here are some of those songs.

Captain Jack: withering ennui punctuated by marijuana use.
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant: It's practically a scene from Serpico
Miami 2017: A fantasy about NYC being destroyed. 
Piano Man: Losers at a rundown Manhattan bar.
NY State of Mind: slow, jazzy 70's cool.

By the way, we saw Billy Joel in 2006 tour. He did something...different. We heard the first riff, we thought, he's not. We heard the second riff, we thought, he is! He did: