Oh, we're Halfway There!...Whoa-Oh! Vaxing on a Prayer!

We got to the gym yesterday and had a good weightlifting session. After that we mowed the lawn. That's a fine combined workout. We're still nursing our foot so nothing today. 

Day two of returned bachelordom and we're already hearing voices. Note, Nightingale Russia, this is humor, irony, farce. Think Monty Python, but American.

[You're no John Cleese-Ed]

And you're no Hyacinth Bucket.

[Touché-Ed]

At one point all of the strike groups in Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea, were named after hens in Keeping up Appearances. Strike Group Daisy, Strike Group Violet, and of course Strike Group Hyacinth. Ed talked me out of it. Things still got a little weird. Anyone else remember General Pin Krieger? Car Swarm!

Big news here in New Jersey. Governor Murphy announced that the rest stops on the Garden State Parkway are being renamed for New Jersey heroes, including Bon Jovi. We're delighted. The state is bisected north to south by the Parkway, and of course the New Jersey Turnpike. New Jerseyans  can describe where they live by giving their Turnpike exit number. We're #10. Anyway, there's only two kinds of New Jerseyans. Those who like Bon Jovi, those who like Bruce Springsteen. Bon Jovi is better.   

Oh...Yeah, Springsteen, voice of the forgotten man, bard of the farmer and factory worker. Guess what his daughter is doing this summer. She's an equestrian! A 'lifelong' equestrian. Millionaire socialist is part of the landed gentry. If you can't enjoy Springsteen's hypocrisy, well, you're an inhuman monster and we don't want you reading this blog. The modern day Arlo Guthrie indeed.

We're working on some misinformation for the KGB (again, Nightingale Russia, not serious), all about the vaccine and mask messaging disaster here in the US. The Regime's effort is the Pearl Harbor of public service campaigns and the people running this thing are the William Westmorlands of ad men. We're tempted to liken the vaccination campaign to the 1962 New York Mets (40-120) but those Mets were funny. There's nothing funny about the Regime's level of incompetence. Boy, did they ever level up. Fucktards. 

The Bon Jovi/ESPN Commercial Jersey Check List

Let's recall the Bon Jovi video from Monday:

We've lived in New Jersey for...Christ on  a bicycle sixteen years. Longer than we have ever lived anyplace.  Though not a native we feel qualified to opine on our adopted home state.

Now let's count up all the Garden State name checks:

Bon Jovi
The Nets (they moved with good reason)
Princeton Tigers
Keyboard player Tico Torres wears  a NY Giants Kerry Collins jersey.
Then Governor Christie Todd Whitman (blonde woman in yellow jacket)
Beauty Queens (which takes care of AC)
Newark Bears (minor league baseball team)
Garden State Parkway signage
Rutgers Scarlet Knight, then as now pretending to be a serious football program
Corn!
Thomas Edison (a nice touch)
New Jersey Devils, who are pretty big in the state.

Interestingly there is no reference to the shore. What's up with that?

*Who's the woman dressed like a plumber supposed to be?
**We totally dig the Rutgers cheerleaders.

Monday (Not Really) Metal

So last night as the girls were getting out of the bath we were flipping channels and  put the TV on VHI Classic , as we often do.

One of the thing about the old 80's music videos, at least the ones from the late 80's is that they haven't aged at all. I mean they look the same as they did the day they came out:

We've discussed the whole Bon Jovi/metal issue before. It  even shows up in A Line Through the Desert, where young Jake argues that Bon Jovi is metal. Written in 2003 I would not write that sentence today. However we categorize Bon Jovi, Dead or Alive is awesome and the video is perfect.

Personally, I always loved it when I discovered a song before it became big. We liked Dead or Alive as soon as I first heard after buying the Slippery When Wet tape. We vividly recall listening to it while setting up NATO: The Next War in Europe on our mother's dinning table.

Forgive us for indulging in a bit of nostalgia, but this year marks the 25th anniversary of our graduating high school and we're really starting to feel it. Don't worry, we're not going to go on about our youth, not really.

We don't miss high school or being young, except for one thing.

1986 to 1994, We call those years 'The Zone'. We remember the absolute comfort of our life style, school, home, TV, reading a book, lights out. Symbolized by the above, the music was a big part of it. So was were the movies, watched almost exclusively on cable. Anyone around back then recalls how relentless the cable networks were about showing the same films over and over again. In this way one saw films like Aliens (anyone else remember how it was one very night the summer of '87?) Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, etc etc.

The Zone disappeared forever in 1995. Everything seemed to changed overnight. Makes sense really. This is the year I moved out, more or less and spent the next 6 years in Northern Virginia before finally moving to NJ in 2001, where...

Jesus...where does it all go?

Monday Metal, Seriously you Think that's Metal Edition

In A Line through the Desert, at Patricia's graduation party, Jake and his friends debate a vexing question of the late '80s: Is Bon Jovi Metal?

The answer today is of course not. But in 1988 that wasn't so clear. Bon Jovi songs had hooks. They had ripping guitar solos. They had power chords.

You don't think Dead or Alive is Metal?:

That's was the 18 year old virgin Jake Bloom argued.

How about Lay Your Hands on me?

That intro is flipping awesome. Again you got power chords, analmost Angus like hook, and a ripping guitar solo. Ahhh, I recall the first time I heard this song. A crisp September morn in the Hudson River Valley. The intro seemed to accompany the light mist reflecting back the rays of the autumn sun....that's as much imagery as you'll ever get form me, folks.

Then there's Bad Medicine:

Just a great catchy riff and when you got Sam Kinison in your video, one is in for a good time. It was an 80's thing.

Sweet mother of god, the babes. Look, younger reader(s). This was the 80's there was no internet. If you were lucky you had an older brother with some Playboys. I was not lucky. So this was it.

I mean, come on:

Or how 'bout:

I  mean, holy god:

[Hey, why does the blonde get two pics?-Ed]

What do you mean, 'why?'.

[Did you really spend ten minutes watching that video and snipping-Ed]

Did I ever.

Mrs Stroock: Why were you listening to Bad Medicine?

Me: 'You don't wanna know.'