Thursday Afternoon Quarterback

>> Spent the past two weekends partying with some of our country's finest servicemen. First with my very good friend Alex, who is in the Air Force and stationed in Virginia. He got to come home and visit his family since his younger sister, Elizabeth, recently had a kidney transplant. It was successful and she is doing so much better, which we're all very happy about. Then the next weekend my freind Chrissy's older brother, Josh, also an ex-Bastropian, came home for a mid-tour leave from Kuwait where he serves in the Army. Our military is populated with so many great young Americans, who have friends and families that love and miss them. It's a shameful how they exploitive this administration has been towards them and thier service.

I don't want to go off a political rant right now and I don't want to spills the beans on too much of what happened while partying with Alex and Josh respectively. I now know that too many people read this blog and what happens at the party or on 6th Street stays there. I'll simply say that many drinks and laughs were shared and I very much look forward to the next time each of them are home.

>> This week I've been working a lot on my play, The 9th Ghostly Figure, so that I can have some of it read on 16th of this month when my freind Englea, who is the Artistic Director of EASY Theatre, is hosting a reading for a new one-act play by a local actor and lawyer, Sam Damon. It's going to be nice to hear the words coming out someone else's voice other than my own. My dad has already the first quarter of the script and he liked it and he definitely got the tone that I am going for early on in the play, before the climax takes a decidedly darker and more intense turn. It'll be tricky to make it work, but I think I can do it.

>> So Brett Favre is New York Jet. Which means barring a catastrophic injury, he'll be a Jet in 2009 as well. Because even with Brett taking over the reigns for the Jets this season the best case scenario is just making the playoffs. They are still playing in the NFC East with the Patriots(who for the first time during this current dynasty will be playing with chip on thier shoulder, so watch out) although the hapless Dolphins won't be any trouble, the Bills are up and coming and the Wildcard race will be tight as usual with Tennessee and Cleveland both unlikely to win thier divisions. Still I think this is a better fit for Brett than having to play for an egomaniac like John Gruden who chews up and spits out Quarterbacks like a wood chipper. Sure Gruden won a Super Bowl, although that was with the team Tony Dungy built. And Gruden and the Bucs are so shady they won't even give Chris Simms a shot to play for them again nor will they release him so he can go try to find and compete for a job somewhere else, like Dallas, who is interested in having him as a back-up for Tony Romo.

>> The Summer Olympics start this weekend in China. I'm all for the US Athletes wearing masks, for both the political statement of it and the practical usage since the air quality is so bad. And pollution is not even close to being the biggest problem I and many other people have with China and the Olympics being held there. Team China, with Yao Ming, faces off against Team USA (the Redeem Team, as oppossed to the Dream Team of 1992) in the first round of the Basketball tournament. Hopefully it will be a blow-out, no offense to Yao, and then the Redeem Team can roll on it's way to a Gold Medal. My only other real interest in this year's games is the Women's Soccer team and it's feisty, sexy and kick-ass goalie Hope Solo. If you're reading this Hope, call me, text me, e-mail me, smoke signal, carrier pigeon. Whatever it takes baby. You and me, we could paint this planet red together.

>> So this has been the summer of the Superhero Action Blockbusters at the cinemas, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones 4(not technically a superhero), Will Smith's Hancock(still haven't seen yet) and of course THE DARK KNIGHT. But now it's late in the summer and we are finally getting treated to some good old raunchy comedy. Step Brothers, the latest collaboration between Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay is just what you'd expect; a funny, silly, simple and instantly quotable film. The same can be said for Pineapple Express, which finds Seth Rogen and James Franco teaming up as potheads on the run from some crooked cops and drug dealers after witnessing a murder. Like Step Brothers the comedy is familiar but comforting and instead of the usual aimlessness of a stoner buddy film there's an attempt to tell a story and there's real relationships formed and evolved throughout. Next week, we get Ben Stiller's big budget War movie satire, Tropic Thunder, that costars Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black and Pineapple Express' scene stealing Danny McBride(also see The Heartbreak Kid, Drillbit Taylor, Foot Fist Way). Tropic Thunder also features British comedic actor Steve Coogan, who will also be seen in the upcoming Hamlet 2, which looks fantastic as well. So as we hit these dog days of summer I say hit the multiplex and laugh your arse off. I know I will.