If only the pilots had parachutes.

One of the Ten is a Marine aviator. One of his more recent assignments was learning to fly the newest plane in the Marine Corp, the V-22 Osprey. Until a few months ago, that is, when he told us he was applying for a land-based gig.

To which we all said to ourselves: “Phew. Maybe he'll get sent to Iraq. He’ll be much safer there.


Photo found via flickr.com

Ahhhhh, Boston

Just when we've almost given up on you, you come through and make us want to cry....

A naïve bleeding heart encounters his first beggar, and scolds all of Boston. He's promptly put in his place.

Must See TV

Family guy returns, with a 2 part retelling of Star Wars. Great stuff. It’s a fanboy tribute, too- all the little things are there. They use the original john Williams Score, the wipes between scenes, the sound effects, some of the special effects, even scenes that are restaged exactly as they were shot.

You can probly find Part 1 on Youtube someplace by now, but here’s a 10 min preview. Pt 2 is next Sunday on Fox.

It’s More Than Just the Shoes

Allow us to paraphrase the entire NFL television coverage from this past Sunday:

"Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah ….

We interrupt our scolding of Bill Belicheat to bring you this paid endorsement of Shawn Merriman.

Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah Bill Belicheat Blah blah …."

That Nike ad is a Great ad, with that great musical hook from Braveheart, with some cool effects - but what an awful choice of an athlete to celebrate.

Ten Men and a Movie: Eastern Promises

One of the cool things about living in LA is we get to see some movies before the rest of you people do. One of those movies is Eastern Promises, which we saw this past Friday night.

It’s a good movie with a stupid title. “Eastern Promises” sounds like the name of an upstate NY rehab clinic, or a Yugoslavian brand of laxatives. What the movie really is about however, is a story set in London about human trafficking, Russian immigrants, and the Russian version of the mob, the Vor V Zakone. Throw in some of the Departed, and a nice twist (which we figured out about halfway thru) and you've got yourself a good movie.

When we first saw the preview, we weren't sure if it was Viggo Mortenson or Ed Harris, but whoever it was, they had a great head of fucking hair. Like a younger, Russian Paulie walnuts. He's a driver for a Russian godfather who we encounter when a nurse played by Naomi Watts tries to translate a diary left behind by a pregnant Russian sex slave.

It’s violent- any wannabe throat surgeons out here, put down that $100 copy of Gray’s Anatomy and just spend the $7 on this movie instead. There's also a brutal knife fight inside a Russian Steam Room, between a naked Vigo Mortenson and 2 Chechnyans. (So there's something for the ladies too.) Those of you up to date on your world affairs knows what to expect when you hear two Chechnyans are in town.

Come to find out the director consulted with a woman we briefly worked with out here, Alix Lambert. She made a documentary on Russian prison tattoos; one of the biggest elements in this film is the tattoos worn by members of the Russian mob.

Currently playing only in NY and LA, but soon to open across the rest of the Nation. When it does open nationwide, there's a few Cold Warriors we know who should climb out of their bunkers and see this one.

How Can You NOT Want to See this Movie?

Dragon Wars. Promises to be every bit as ridiculous as it looks.

View trailer here

Ron Paul made a West Coast swing this past week. This guy’s HUGE among the college set, the 2007 version of Denis Kucinich (who was treated like a rock star when he was walking around Boston during the 2004 Democratic National convention)

There are Ron Paul bumper stickers all over the place, touting the Ron Paul Revolution.

Riiiiiight. A ‘revolution.” A republican congressman who's campaigning to succeed a two term president from his own party.

Ech.

We wrote many a speech in the years following 9/11 that referred to what happened that Tuesday. Most of them were boring, all of them irrelevant to any lasting understanding of what happened that day. But in none of these speeches do we recall ascribing the 911 attacks to a “failure of human beings to understand each other and to learn to love each other.”

Thanks to Jon Keller for the find. He also links to an outstanding summation of what really happened that day by one of the surviving family members.

Six Years Ago Today

Ten Years Ago This Weekend

Diana died, London mourned, and we just prayed the coverage wouldn’t interfere with Tuna Bowl V, Pete Carrol and the Patriots showdown against Bill Parcells and the Jets.

We were actually in London shortly afterward*, and we took some photos of the flowers left at the gates of Buckingham Palace. It was like nothing we’d ever seen. Photos below:


The Gates to the Palace, which tourists can ordinarily walk right up to, were unreachable.

Flowers stretching into infinity.

Yup, it was as high as a man's shoulder.

This is the final destination of those flowers that were so lovingly placed on the grounds - cut up and dumped into trash barrels. Since the Palace was surrounded by an acre of quickly-rotting vegetation, they had to dispose of them while the people were still hanging around the Palace. But they had enuff p.r. sense to do so in a dignified and elaborately staged manner. Note the giant photo of Diana and the care in which the guy is cutting down and disposing of the flowers. Anything less and he probably would have been savaged by an angry crowd.

*We weren’t there FOR her death. Please. People who know us knows there's nothing we hate more than a procession of complete strangers looking to interject themselves into a tragedy, bouquet and teddy bear in hand.

About London: we had such a great time in ’97, we gladly went back a few months ago. Great place, fun time. Expensive, but we recommend the Imperial War Museum, the Churchill Museum, the Changing of the Guard, any of the other London-area museums, and of course any pub that's more than 100 years old.

And for Diana fans out there who are reading this and may be headed to London, put down your High School Musical lunchbox and write this down: be sure to visit the wonderfully garish and absurd statue of Diana and Dodi Fayed reaching into the sky and releasing a dove inside the Harrod's Department store.