Year In Review (Apocalypse Now Version)

 Man, it's been a crazy year.... two years.... whatever. Time is a construct and means nothing anymore.  

January 2021. Humanity peeks its head out from underneath a crusty blanket and wonders if the time has come to try and sort out all those refunds from the fifty concerts and sporting events that have repeatedly gotten canceled, or is there hope of a rescheduled date in the future...

February 2021. This isn't too bad! *Goes and screams in the woods* One or two performers are doing small venues! Our favorite restaurants are allowing us to eat outside in the frigid arctic air with a space heater and we don't even mind the cold because we are seeing other humans and practicing our Wim Hof extreme endurance skills. Framing Britney Spears is released and within days the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl.  We all decide to re-read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and immediately regret it. 

March 2021. A guy who forgot the most basic principles of a k-turn gets stuck in the Suez Canal and we all collectively wonder if he's going to get fired for basically snarling the supply chain and causing a huge big boat back up. This is our life now.  Godzilla vs. Kong is released on the final day of March and we put on our hazmat gear and go to the movies. IT IS EPIC.

April 2021. Someone promises us that Rage Against The Machine is touring. They've been saying that since last year and we don't believe them anymore.  We are no longer incensed when movies clearly meant for the big screen start popping up on HBO Max but somewhere deep inside we know this can't last forever.....right? Christopher Nolan will not allow this. 

May 2021. Things are looking up! People are getting out of the house! It's getting warmer and everyone is getting on flights to destinations previously unavailable to them. The Friends Reunion show is released on HBO Max ( we are all becoming vaguely suspicious of HBO Max ). A Quiet Place II knocks it out of the box office park while we root for that Top Gun Maverick premiere that Tom Cruise has been promising us for months. Mare of Easttown reminds us why Kate Winslet is an international treasure. 

June 2021.  Disney + proves to be a must-see-tv hitmaker after WandaVision, The Mandalorian, and now this month's binge-worthy series featuring the God of Mischief, Loki. We're enjoying shrimp cocktails and mojitos on the beach when we overhear some killjoy talking about "delta". Whatever sir, stop using the Greek alphabet to appear smarter than you are. This is the (almost) pandemic-free, summer of YES.

July 2021. AAAAHHHHHHHH. We all brace for impact and find out that the zombie movies we've been watching since the early 80s have equipped us with the skills to pivot and find the bright spot in any disaster. Life goes on. Enjoying giant pyrotechnic displays in the sky has never felt so liberating and someone in public relations coins the term "summer of freedom".  We're eating INDOORS. 

August 2021. Damn it's hot. Hurricane Ida cuts a swath through the gulf. That promised Bikini Kill tour is rescheduled for 2022 and we all invest in some K 95 masks because Gen X knows that unless you completely destroy any villain by setting them on fire and throwing them off a hundred story building, they're going to pop back up to wreak havoc in the final scene. *Keeps wary eye on pandemic*

September 2021. The Foo Fighters play the 9:30 Club in Washington DC as a "surprise artist" and the world begins to right itself after over a year of being completely off-kilter.  We say goodbye to funnyman Norm Macdonald and watch as our kids head out the door and back to school. Billionaires Elon and Jeff duke it out in front of federal regulators over space-based internet and we listen as projects like Starlink and Kuiper get discussed and remind us that Star Wars showcased why capitalism in space leads to the building of the Death Star.

October 2021. Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and Denis Villeneuve's Dune help kick off the fall box office excitement. Tori Amos reappears and drops her sixteenth album, Ocean to Ocean- and we all love it. Colin Powell shuffles off the mortal coil and for Halloween we all prepare to dress up in our tracksuits emulating player 456 (Seong Gi-hun) from the terrifyingly addictictive Squid Game. Red light, green light will never be the same. 

November 2021. On November 12, 2021, Britney Jean Spears wins her long legal battle to end her thirteen year conservatorship. VIVA BRITNEY.  Meghan Markle sits down with Oprah Winfrey and spills the royal tea. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez get back together, leaving the public scratching their heads. They Might Be Giants release BOOK. Which at first is confusing, because it has photographs and lyrics but no music and then you realize there's a CD, or you can download it digitally, and you're suddenly in need of your kids to enjoy a collectors item from one of your favorite 80s bands, so now you're just sad. A conspiracy theorist claims a rise in turkey prices is part of a plot to ruin Thanksgiving and we all buy extra stuffing and mashed potatoes just in case. 

December 2021. Keanu helps us through the last month of the year with The Matrix Resurrections. The Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes looks like it's going to happen....and then.... no. A malicious variant that sounds like a particularly vengeful Transformer villain starts shutting everything down. *breathes into bag*. Our neighbors build a greenhouse and begin homesteading and I now have a book on trading and the barter system because apparently society is going to collapse. But hey, Netflix has seasons 1-4 of the original Knight Rider and a new Tiger King spinoff installment- The Doc Antle Story. And as a final kick in the gut, 2021waited until New Years Eve to take everyones favorite iconic Golden Girl, Betty White, from us. Thank you for being a friend!

So, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times but , *looks around* living on the brink of the apocalypse has sharpened our senses and given us a keen appreciation for all good things. Here's to an eventful (the good kind) 2022.

Book Review: Dave "Bio" Baranek, TOPGUN Days

For those of us who loved the movie Top Gun, who have at least some small connection to aviation in the military (my grandfather flew bombers in WWII and my husband's cousin was also a pilot who was killed in an incident on an air craft carrier), or even those who are just interested in airplanes and the military, Dave "Bio" Baranek's TOPGUN Days: Dogfighting, Cheating Death, And Hollywood Glory As One Of America's Best Fighter Jocks is an interesting and engaging read.

I chose this as my entertainment during the car ride to visit my in-laws and it did entertain. Reading the book, which includes a glossary of military terms and lingo at the back to reference, you get a small sense of the nerve that those who fly for our military must possess to put themselves at risk each day.

Bio (Baranek's callsign) puts the reader in the cockpit with him and his pilots and describes routine and not-so-routine flights, practice dogfights, and takes us inside the elite TOPGUN training facility both as a student and as an instructor. If you were ever interested how things really happen at TOPGUN (not the Hollywood version), this is the book to read.

Baranek was also at TOPGUN when Hollywood came to call for the making of the movie. Though not a pilot, he was one of the best RIOs (Radar Intercept Officer, or "Goose" for those of us who watched Top Gun at least 285 times) our country has had. Bio is one of the men you see in the planes in the movie. (You knew Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards, and Val Kilmer weren't really the ones in the planes, right?)

The book also includes more than 50 full-color photographs of the fighter jets in action and some personal photos from the author.

Dave "Bio" Baranek's TOPGUN Days: Dogfighting, Cheating Death, And Hollywood Glory As One Of America's Best Fighter Jocks is available at bookstores. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie Top Gun, you can download the Kindle and Nook versions of the book for only $4.99.

I Want To Be Charlie!

Paramount is releasing a video based on the cinematic masterpiece Top Gun:



I'm just hoping there's some secret "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start" cheat code that lets you do the super menacing Iceman tooth chomp!



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Headed Back to the Danger Zone?

I have a friend who thinks that Top Gun tells the three best love stories of all time: The love between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis, the love between a man and his jet, and the love between Maverick and Goose. My pal is very, very passionate about his love for Top Gun. So I think he's going to wig out about the news coming from MTV this week.

While doing an interview about the new Disney film, The Sorcerer's Apprentice (ugh), Jerry Bruckheimer told MTV that he's been approached recently about doing a Top Gun sequel. And Jerry said it's possible that Tom Cruise would be a part of said sequel, if they can figure out a way around the story.

While Top Gun isn't the first film Tom made, I'd argue that it's the one that made him a HUGE star. He is smoking hot in it. As is Val Kilmer. And the soundtrack is full of Kenny Loggins awesomeness. There's been a lot of discussion around Cruise, ever since his image got wrecked with the insane Oprah couch jumping and some odd interviews about Scientology. He's been looking to rehab his image and get back to opening movies in a big way. Might Top Gun 2 be the way for him to achieve this?

I dunno about that, but I do think, Top Gun Tom will give this a big ole American thumbs up.


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