Monday Metal and GnR wrap up

Very little sportsball yesterday, though we did catch the end of the Pats and Bucs last night. Instead we took the girls to one of those 1770s reenactor thingies. There's plenty of that stuff here in New Jersey, as one might imagine. This one was held at Stirling Manor. Lord Stirling (William Alexander) was one of Washington's best generals and something of a swashbuckler. Stirling was extremely loyal to the general. Of course Stirling was a Scot. You don't mess with North American Scots. Ever. As General Gage once said of the Rebels gathering atop Bunker Hill, 'They're a crazy Presbyterian lot out of the woods.'

October is the home stretch month for The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We intend to put the MS in formal production on 1 November. Maybe 15 December for release? Maybe. We're a tad frustrated that we may not get a book out this year, and probably won't. Then again we got three books out last year and this just means we'll get four books out next year. You people will be fine. Time to put on that 80's training montage and get to work. 

Will Writes*: Don't ever listen to anyone who says, 'This is what all writers need to do.' That's total, absolute crap, probably given by someone who teaches creative writing (don't get us started on them). All writers are different. There's one rule, only one: write every day. You can take the weekends off if you want. Everything else is negotiable. 

Today is Monday which means Monday Metal, which means it's time to wrap up our Guns and Roses discussion. For our final video, here's You Could be Mine, the first track released from Use Your Illusion. YCbM was also included in the Terminator 2 soundtrack. The song was important enough for Schwarzenegger to appear in the video:

YCbM is another punch in the face from GnR. Behold the viciousness and ferocity. YCbM is a throwback and it'd be just fine on Appetite for Destruction. We'll have a few final thoughts on the band later in the week. 

*A new semi daily thing in which we parcel out wisdom accrued from 30ish years of writing. 

Monday Metal G N R Week Two: The Excess Exceeds

Reader(s) didn't think one week was enough to chronicle the rock n roll decadence and excess that is Use Your Illusion, did they? Do you even need to ask?  Well then Live and Let Die...

Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die is best heard in the original Guns n Roses version:

What an ass kicking. We're not a big drums guy, but we love the drum lead in here, Boom! Bam! Bam! Boom! Sounds like one's being punched in the face. We don't know what's going on there with the brass section and flute, but it's awesome. 

We shall finish reading The Great Nuclear War of 1975 this week. We hope to write a few ad-ons. changes and additions next week. After that it's just a matter of seeing what the Beta People think. Inshallah, we shall all eat lamb in paradise.

Also this week we'll be working on The Final Storm's Barents Sea chapter. We did a ton of work on the chapter previously so in theory it should be pretty squared away. [When will you fear your god, Knobhead?-ed] My god? [I don't belong to an organized religion, mate. I'm Church of England-Ed]

So Joe managed to go from one colossal fuck up (Afghanistan) to another colossal fuck up (the Border Crisis). Remarkable. But rather than focus on Joe, we'd like to draw reader(s) attention to this Axios Tweet: 'We deleted a previous tweet that referred to Border Patrol agents as whipping at Haitian migrants.' What the what? Who is writing headlines over there and have any of them ever perused a copy of Strunk and White. Omit needless words. That shouldn't be hard to understand. It's three words and five syllables. Even the neurotic millennial J-School grads at Axios ought to be able to understand. 

We'll say it again  Omit. Needless. Words. That Axios Tweet should read, 'We deleted a previous Tweet alleging Broder Patrol Agents whipped migrants.' As we wrote the previous sentence it occurred to us that Axios is be run by mouth breathing sub-literate J-school grads who in a more just time would be cleaning out New Jersey Turnpike  rest stop lavatories for a living.

Friday GnR, Flags, Sat Com Organizational Ineptitude, Russian Collusion, et al

We had another appointment with DirecTV yesterday. They were supposed to move our satellite dish as some water damage has developed beneath the base. But get this. When a tech arrives at your house he doesn't know the purpose of the service call. We know this for two reasons. Yesterday the tech rang the doorbell and asked, 'So what's the problem, sir?' Also, there was a thunderstorm outside. We declined to send the man up on our roof during a thunderstorm and told him to have a nice day. We give up.

As we write congress is trying to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, a $3.5 trillion budget and raise the debt ceiling. Cocaine Mitch said that the Dems will raise the debt ceiling without GOP help. Quite right. The Dems control congress. Run things. To paraphrase OJ Simpson, this blog is absolutely 100% comfortable with the US failing to raise the debt ceiling and defaulting on the debt. Denis Miller is right:

Of course we've colluded with the Ruski's on this: Last week the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute held its annual ball, colloquially known as the Met Gala. This is the fashion industry’s annual celebration of itself, and it is a seminal event in New York City. Tickets cost more than $30,000. This year’s Met Gala was attended by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The unofficial leader of The Squad of young firebrand House progressives, AOC was resplendent in makeup, jewelry and a dress that cost more than most people’s cars. Across her backside were the words, ‘Tax the Rich’. AOC has been defending herself against allegations of hypocrisy and total lack of self-awareness ever since.' That's just how we do.

Sorry losers. We came from the nice, respectable wing of the GOP that was interested in trimming government spending and government reform. This was the mid-90s and we actively resisted the social con, family values types. The Dems said we were going to starve children and throw old people into the street. And you believed them, America. If we may quote GnR bassist Duff McKagan, fuck you. Suck my fucking dick.

Which brings us to Guns N Roses most outrageous song, Get in the Ring. This is a full volley attack on all the people in the press Axl, Slash and Duff hate. It's silly and immature and a lot of fun. We loved Get in the Ring back in the day, and we like it now. If we may quote Duff McKagan once more, 'If you want to antagonize me, antagonize me, motherfucker.' Someone in World War 1990: The Weser, will utter these words. To conclude with another quote, 'I don't like you. I just hate you. I'm gonna kick your ass.'

Below, your Friday Flag:

In honor of Boris' visit

DirecTV Flung crap and missed

It took those pooh flinging monkeys at DirecTV two weeks, four phone calls, two hours + of phone time, and five fucking seconds once they actually got here to fix our fucking problem. 

Mrs. Stroock was pleased as it turned out her Eagles were on the local telly. We caught a quarter but otherwise watched no sports ball yesterday. Sorry, we don't need lectures on racism from a league like that. And we like the college game better. Mrs. Stroock's Penn State is ranked #6, well done Nittany Lions. We find ourselves anticipating the start of hockey season.

This pic of Joe's Bridge migrants looks like a scene out of The Great Nuclear War of 1975. We read another chapter yesterday and are once again pleased. We really don't feel like talking politics but maaaan. One is tempted to think everything going wrong is part of some coherent plan. No one is this incompetent, right? Who looks at this border fiasco and thinks, 'Stay the course'? Democrats, that's who. They're impervious to empirical evidence. 'Fireproof,' Tucker Carlson once called Gavin Newsom. 

It's election day in Canada. As goes Newsom so goes Justin, we suspect. The polls show a minority government for Justin, but who knows? The conservatives are so low-T, were they to win, we suspect they'd celebrate by making themselves some white wine spritzers and binging Providence. Canadian cons owe these people zero loyalty. This blog endorses Maxime Bernier. 

What Will's Watching, more Voyager: the more we see of her, the more we like Kate Mulgrew as Captain Katherine Janeway. Just a great name, by the way. She's a scientist who does a lot of her own work, unlike Picard who would just let the crew come up with the data. She'll fight if she has to and will talk smack as well. We like that too. Without looking we're sure there are plenty of articles bashing Janeway's hair. Her nondescript non hair style was smart. The producers didn't want Janeway's new seasonal haircut making Vogue or anything like that. It's almost like Janeway was a feminist without being a feminist. 

Lets get Guns N Roses Week off to a GnR start. Here they are performing November Rain at the 1992 VMAs. We remember watching it. Because a 20 piece orchestra, brass section, and back up singers weren't enough, they got Elton John to play with them. The result is epic..:

...epic in a way only GnR could be epic. The actual video cost something like $4 million to shoot. Axl needed a Hollywood set piece, oil tanker, coast guard and the world's most famous fashion model to realize his vision. 'No, I don't think it's excessive, Axl. Why do you ask?' If the outro doesn't make reader(s) think Thor, Zeus, Shiva and the gods of Heavy Metal have come together to battle for control of the universe then this blog has failed. 'You're not the only one...you're not the only one...'