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. 

Admiral Redskin?

New York City Mayor Eric Adams may be tough on crime, but it won't matter if the new Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, is pro-criminal. John Podhoretz laments: 'The newly sworn-in Manhattan district attorney has just made the largest in-kind contribution to the GOP in modern history in the form of the already-notorious memo he sent to his underlings announcing how his office would handle its caseload. Simply put, Bragg’s approach is to pretend crime isn’t crime, that criminals aren’t criminals and that punishing people for breaking the law is bad.' This blog supports prison, bail, and sentencing reform. DA's like Alving Bragg make it difficult to do so. 

Moving on...25 House Democrats have announced they're retiring.  We'll declare that the number of House Dems retiring will be the number of House seats the GOP picks up in 2022. This blog feels that because of Gerrymandering and the Great Blue State Exodus, the 2022 Red Wave will not be as huge as the 1994 and 2010 Red Waves. 

The retiring Dems are bad enough, 7 from the Congressional Black Caucus alone. Celebrate all you want, but these people will be replaced by the young and woke. You know, AOC and the rest of the brother loving Squad. Enjoy the short-term gains, GOP. In the long-term, this will be bad. 

Breitbart reports that the Washington Football Team may have inadvertently revealed its name change, which was not to be announced till 2 Feb. We've loathed the Redskins for a quarter of a century now, so anything that adds to their humiliation is alright by us. Washington Admirals? It's....Okaaaay? A few years ago, we called on Redskin's owner Daniel Snyder (spawn of Satan) to rename the team the Red Tails and use the tail fin of a Tuskegee P-51 for the logo. But no one listens to us. 

I hate the Redskins/ Oh, yes I do

And Danny Snyder/ Go to hell fuck you

Baring Red Tails, how about the Washington Foreskins?

Should we expound on our loathing of the WFT in a Substack post? Maybe.

Extrapolating further...the NFL has a real naming problem. The two 90's expansion teams, Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers are terrible and unimaginative names.  And don't get us started on the black and teal uniforms. What's your favorite/least favorite team name?

What Will's Watching, The Book of Boba Fett, episode II: This episode told the story of Boba Fett's time with the Tusken Sand People and eventual acceptance into the tribe. Was this the Book of Boba Fett, or the Book of Paul Atredies? Better than episode I, but still rote and predictable. We actually nodded off for a few seconds. Here's hoping The Book of Boba Fett continues to improve. 1/4

Can't Anybody here Play this Game?

So asked Casey Stengel, the poor manager of the hapless 1962 Mets who lost 120 games. For foreign readers, losing baseball is actually kind of entertaining. It's fun to see a truly horrendous team like the 1962 Mets lose baseball games in ways previously thought impossible by scientists. 

Beat the Mets. Cheat the Mets. Step right up and defeat the Mets. Bring your kiddies. Bring your dog. Come on out and eat like a hog.

Anyway, this brings us to the NYC Board of Elections. Says the New York Post: 'The Democratic primary race for mayor was thrown into chaos Tuesday as the city Board of Elections appeared to have botched the count amid the city’s first ranked-choice election — adding 135,000 pre-election “test” ballots that hadn’t been cleared from a computer.' Sure, that explains the discrepancy. Officer, I didn't see the stop sign. 

Last night Eric Adams' people were hinting at election fraud. NYC being a big Democrat city, there's a racial undertone to all this. After all the ranked choice shenanigans, the election has come down to Adams vs Sanitation Comish Kathryn Garcia. Throw in Andrew Yang, who made a voting alliance with Garcia and well....Hit your laugh track button, folks. just hit it. By the way, Trump won. 

We got Instalanched again:

This led to another impressive surge in sales, which is surprising. We assumed Instapundit readership was maxed out since The Austrian Painter got instalanched a few weeks ago. Huh. Such is the power of the fully armed and operational Instapundit. 

We are working through two chapters of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. First, the Argentine chapter is looking good. It will need some naval editing, details, technical stuff, but it looks good.   Second we went through the harsh winter chapter. Also looking good. The one-off scenes are good on their own but nag us for reasons previously stated. It doesn't matter anymore. This is the novel. We said the read through would be done by the end of the month. The Many Faced God intervened. Still, it's the end of the month and we're almost done.

When the God of Your Choice Force Lightnings You

Have we ever told the readership that we plan and god laughs? For we plan and god laughs. And it doesn't really matter which god we're talking about. Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Thoth, the Lords of Kobol, Kek, Thor, the Many Faced God, Shiva, Zeus, the Buddha, the gods of the NFL, they will all laugh when you plan. 

Yesterday's post didn't go up till 11:30 because at just about the time we had finished said post, Mrs. Stroock self diagnosed and concluded she had an appendicitis. We concurred (had it in 1998). And away we went to the emergency room. The doctors concurred with our double diagnoses, and Mrs. Stroock went into surgery at about 5 PM. All went well and she'll be home today.

Because we are extremely good at our job we still managed to write a few hundred words and edit our way through The Great Nuclear War's finance chapter. Readers sit in on a meeting between Rockefeller and the secretary of the treasury about monetary policy. Then we see the National Guard removing Italy's bullion holdings from beneath the rubble of the New York fed. This is a goodwill gesture designed to build faith in the nation's credit. After that we go to a market in Texas where they're bartering and trying to enforce use of greenbacks, as the president has said. In between, the comms team at Casper locates a famous news man. He is flown to Casper where he will resume his daily radio broadcasts....stand by for news!

What's Hebrew for ho li fuk?. Hot Air reports the US has seized the domain of  Iranian Press TV and a bunch of other Iranian/Hamas/Hezbollah friendly sites. We know people who know people that work at Press TV. They can blame the US all they want, but the Imams know it was al Yahud.

Let's see what happened with New York's mayoral primary last night...Okay, good, Eric Adams...Uh-oh crazy lady Mara Wiley: 'The first round of the Democratic mayoral primary voting had Adams (212,963 votes), Maya Wiley (150,675 votes) and Kathryn Garcia (139,438 votes) one, two, three, with 95 percent of the precincts reporting.' The Post tells us it'll take a couple of weeks to sort everything out. At this point we're going to assume that Wiley, endorsed by AOC and the rest of the Hitler Youth, is going to steal the election. This blog endorses the left's election fraud efforts 100%. Get it good and hard New Yorkers. You've earned it. 

Various and Sun-Drenched Graduations

Oldest Daughter graduated from Bridgewater/Raritan Middle School yesterday. We have to admit we were impressed with the school's graduation procedures. The speeches were short and to the point. In all 702 names were read; quickly, cleverly. Two officials were reading names, so there was no natural pause, just a bang/bang recitation. It took about 20 minutes. There were a lot of Li's and Zhou's and Gupta's and Patel's, but not as many as we anticipated. There are still many, many Italians in New Jersey. It was a scorcher, 90+. We got some sun. 

NYC's mayoral primary is today. The New York Post has endorsed Eric Adams. 'Eric Adams is unequivocally the best candidate to save the city. Pick him as your first choice on your ballot.' Quite right. Younger New Yorkers really do think those clean, safe streets are the norm. They've probably also listened to idiots reminiscing about the hard edged New York of the 70's. Schmucks.

We can't believe Murphy's lead isn't bigger. NJ.com reports: 'Gov. Phil Murphy carries a strong lead to win a second term in New Jersey against a Republican opponent who’s struggling to get voters’ attention, according to a new poll. The Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll released Monday shows Murphy, a Democrat, has a 15-point lead — 48% to 33% — over former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who won the Republican nomination nearly two weeks ago.'  Ciattarelli has nowhere to go but up and probably will a bit. We voted for Hirsch Singh in the Primary. There's really no reason to vote for Jack, as his campaign signs call him. So we won't. Murphy: He's no Cuomo.

Also, we advanced the plot of The Weser. Two Soviet divisions come down to hit the 8th Infantry Division. The British 4th Armoured Division hits the second in the flank, pushes through and then slams into the East Germans. We began an Apache scene and are proceeding slowly, with great trepidation. They're scouting things out, showing the terrain and what not. It's all flat farmland.

Back to The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We can't shake that foreboding feeling about our one-off chapters. As has been said, a full six pack but without the plastic thingy to hold it all together. Baaaaa, we're over thinking. As the Critical Drinker says, 'It'll be fine.'