Author Archives: Old Jules

Thank you for your service – Cold War Conscription era sleeze

Posted on June 10, 2014 | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Someone posted a sign telling us veterans thank you for your service in one of the places I go, and in the Dollar Tree they asked again if I’d like to contribute to help the dependents of US active service military.  Fact is the romance and drama of thanking GIs for their service has been happening so long it’s probably okay to give it a break.

I got transferred once and hadn’t gotten paid yet, no money until payday.  Red Cross loaned me the money to last until the end of the month or my pay records caught up.  At loan-shark interest rates.  I was getting paid $68 per month at that time.

Maybe if they paid the all volunteer military less money they would be able to take care of their dependents without begging by proxy at the cash registers of the stores in the US.  Paying the bejesus out of them evidently hasn’t done the trick.

Seems to me it’s a sickness resulting from the supporting wars where you’re own kids aren’t being forced to go off to serve.  The out-of-balance “let’s you and him fight” paid for with a “Thank you” and nobody in my family had anything to do with the war and I support it so long as they don’t.  I’ll shower you with thankyous and give a buck down at the Dollar Tree for your kids.

All American Boy – Bobby Bare

Working for the Yankee Dollar

Hank Locklin, My Little Geisha Girl

Fraulein – Bobby Helms – 1957

Kitty Wells – I’ll Always Be Your Fraulein

COWBOY COPAS: “FILIPINO BABY”, 1945

Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky – A Dear John Letter

Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky – Forgive Me, John

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town

Ballad of the Green Berets – [HD] – – – SSGT Barry SADLER

Johnny Burnette…..God, Country, And My Baby

Merle Travis – Re-Enlistment Blues

Elvis Presley – G.I.Blues

I’m thinking of writing a CW song about GIs sitting around waiting rooms in VA hospitals wearing their VETERAN caps and wondering whether they made the secret lists.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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City of Adventure

Posted on June 10, 2014 | 4 comments

hydrox june 2014

He’s too old to cut the mustard anymore.

Hi readers.  Thanks for the visit.

Jeanne’s next door neighbor saw us on the back porch the other day:  “Hi.  Is that big, fluffy-looking black and white cat yours?”

Me:  “He came with me from Texas.”  No point giving my cat-ownership philosophy dissertation.

Neighbor grinning:  “We watch television late at night with the front door open.  He comes by every night and sticks his head inside, looks at us a moment, then leaves.  It’s eery when he meets your eye.”

Hydrox is evidently as determined to milk as much living out of this life as I am.  Even if it means spying on the neighbors.  They’re older than him, but barely.

Old Jules

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Posted in Adventure, America

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Rally Round the Flag Boys, by Max Shulman

Posted on June 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

1959, 1960, I was reading everything Max Shulman wrote because of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  In that one he introduced Maynard G. Cribbs of later fame, and gave most people their first look at Beat, Beatniks, and much of the como se llama life outside anything most had considered.  Although Dobie Gillis had a TV series in his name, the Maynard Cribbs character lived longer in another vapid TV series about an Island somewhere.

So when I encountered Rally Round the Flag Boys in a box of books at a garage sale recently I happily paid out a quarter for an unexpected delight far in excess of my memories of the book from 50 years ago.

In a 278 page yarn filled with laughs and poignant human insights Shulman peels away the 21st Century fantasies of how America ‘was’, “Thank you veterans, for your service“, and any lingering thoughts you might have about romance, marriage and the American dream when  the citizenry saw career military men as “too lazy to steal“.

A wonderful, hilarious book before during and after its own time.  Story of a small Yankee town in Connecticut where the US Army needs to place a Nike Missile Site.  A brutally honest story of the wealthy people running the town and why they oppose a sanitary landfill because of the cost, oppose sex education in their public schools because of the danger of KNOWING, oppose anything that stands in the way of development of real estate into more neighborhoods for NYC commuters.  Neighborhoods located in quarries, bogs, swamps, with names like Powderhorn Hill and Patriot Valley.

What a fun book.  I’m finished with it and will happily mail it to you if you’d care to read it.  Contact me by email.

Old Jules

Afterthought note:  This book teeters on the brink of upcoming events, but barely pre-dates them.  No Berlin Wall until 1961, no Cuban Missile Crisis until 19 what?62?, no Vietnam War until 1965, no Kennedys assassinated yet, no Martin Luther King, no Watergate.   No Fidel Castro.   Cuba was still clean sandy beaches for US tourists.  And the book is the “How I view the world” of those US citizens back before things got nasty.  J.

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Posted in 2014, America

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Hi diddle diddle – Google driverless cars

Posted on June 8, 2014 | 10 comments
If you live in one of the states darkened in blue you might have already seen a Google-driven car as you gnashed your teeth over traffic jams. They've logged over 700,000 miles on public roads as of April, 2014.

If you live in one of the states darkened in blue you might have already seen a Google-driven car as you gnashed your teeth over traffic jams. They’ve logged over 700,000 miles on public roads as of April, 2014.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Probably I was the last person on the planet to find out this is happening.  And I should have guessed it, anyway.  There’s a particular place in New Mexico where a police car sits around with a dummy in uniform at the wheel to discourage speeding.  The inevitable next step was to replace the drivers of cars going past, standing their cars on their noses when they saw the police cruiser.

Admittedly the Google Driverless car doesn't have the snazzy appearance, the pizzazz of the average cracker boxes and 1948 Dodge-looking cars running around the roads in 2014. But I think if I had a car and a few bucks to spare I'd paint it white, install a fake antenna array on the top, darken the windows, and go around ramming into things just to blow the foam off the top of a long life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Admittedly the Google Driverless car doesn’t have the snazzy appearance, the pizzazz of the average cracker boxes and 1948 Dodge-looking cars running around the roads in 2014. But I think if I had a car and a few bucks to spare I’d paint it white, install a fake antenna array on the top, darken the windows, and go around ramming into things just to blow the foam off the top of a long life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car

Things do have a way of making the full circle.  Half the drivers today are being directed by the voices of their friendly GPS devices while they text their wives, mistresses, husbands, boyfriends, parents, kids, and people they’re trying to buy something from on Craigslist.  A nice Google package would relieve them of the burden of having to be distracted by red lights and road rage.  In fact, the model that’s not equipped with steering wheel or pedals would go a step further to allow them to spend every waking minute texting and talking on the cell.

Put a mannequin in the driver seat and give it a cell phone to talk on and this thing will be lobbying for the right to vote and get mechanical insurance.  With an inflatable girl-friend sitting in the passenger seat we wouldn’t need Americans anymore.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Might as well face it: China isn’t a credible threat

Posted on June 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

Hi readers:

Despite the fact the US military budget needs a second potential front we can fight wars on to justify being the war material overkill superpower we insist we are, China’s just not going to fill the bill.  Yeah, as Yahoo News reports, they’ve got a lot of military spending going on.  Whoopteedoo.

Fact is, China doesn’t win wars.  Maybe has never won a war in the entirety of Chinese history.  Didn’t win against the Japanese in WWII.  Didn’t win the Chinese Revolution thoroughly enough to take the Nationalists out of the picture.

Didn’t win the Korean War enough to make it all North Korea.  Didn’t even win in 1978-1979 against war-weary Vietnam.

Yeah, Washington and the threat-hungry news services would give a testicle if China could get out there and run someone off a piece of real estate they wanted.  But the Chinese have had their asses whipped so many times and in so many places they’re just hoping if they have to fight someone bigger than Tibet they can bluster enough to scare them off.

China ain’t going anywhere.  Might as well try to stir up some trouble with Mexico if we’re going to have a credible threat to justify a military budget capable of taking over all the banana republics and oil sheikdoms everywhere when the mood strikes us.  Even the Muslims are falling down on the job these days.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Busted

Posted on June 6, 2014 | 10 comments

Hi readers.  The cardiac physical therapy nurses gave me a little counselling today after they caught me cheating on their machines.  I haven’t been sticking with the piddling little times and settings they give me on a piece of paper each session.

So I was boosting my walking speeds up as much as I thought I could get by with, staying longer, and when I saw them approaching I’d quickly adjust the settings.  Same with the como se llama arm exercizing machine and the walking while sitting down one.

But today I saw them getting cagey, trying to use their animal cunning to outsmart me.  Spang caught me trying to spend 15 minutes making circular movements with my arms instead of 10, and at heavier loads and higher speeds.

They’ve got that thing attached to me all the time, shows I-don’t-know-what, and sometimes it twigs them to tell me to pause.  If it isn’t ratting me out I figure nobody else has any business being my governor.

Well heck.  Those little bitty pissant things they put on the paper for me to do just ain’t where I want to be.  Seems to me I ought to have some say in it.  But that isn’t going to happen.  “You shouldn’t even be walking around!”  She scowled at me.  Scowled!  “You are amazing with what you were doing before you even started coming to these sessions.  But you’re going to have to go slow or you’re going to be dead.”

Screw them.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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Real synthetic meat

Posted on June 6, 2014 | 20 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Sitting around waiting rooms exposes a person to a lot of reading material he’d proabably never encounter otherwise.  Popular Science magazines are a favorite example for me.  They’ve always been great predictors of how our lives will be in the not-too-distant future.  As John Prine observed, “We’re all driving rocket ships and talking with our minds” here in this future we’re living in.

Anyway, the November, 2013 edition of Popular Science had a series of articles I found fascinating about some folks who are in the final phases of development of synthetic meats to replace those that came off living animals and poultry.  Indistinguishable from the real item.  Columbia University’s one of the places it’s happening, not because of better health, but because of the greenhouse gasses resulting from grazing livestock.

Evidently it’s so far along in getting it going they’re already producing real leather that never rode a cow for use on automobile upholstery, etc.  And they’re doing well with chicken, since almost everything tastes like chicken.

Naturally, if this doesn’t happen now it well be because the cow industry went in at night and destroyed everything they couldn’t buy up and squash.  It won’t be the fault of the lousy record Popular Science has in predicting the future.

Still, it’s nice to think of future generations being able to walk around in the woods without stepping on cow manure if they ever go outside.  And driving along rural highways in the west not having to see a yellow sign with a cow on it to warn there’s a rancher feeding his black cows on the pavement at dusk for the insurance.

Interesting stuff, and it ought to get more interesting.  Human beings ought to get a lot more violent in a world where there was no real meat that needed killing to take the edge off natural inclinations.  And thus far there’s been no mention of where Kosher fits into it all.  Synthetic pork might come from the factory Kosher and Jews and Muslims could start sitting down together to a nice ham instead of shooting one another.

Old Jules

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Posted in America, Animals

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The Korean Korean War to protect Japan

Posted on June 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

  [The Front Line is available on Netflix]

Hi readers.  Although the Korean War wouldn’t have happened if General Douglas MacArthur hadn’t been so preoccupied about protecting Japan, the Japanese film makers have never said thank you by making a movie about it.  Although MacArthur’s, “Korea is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan” assertion got a lot of US, British, Chinese and other soldiers killed, no Japanese died in it.  And no Japanese money, troops, anything, has supported then non-war existing during the half-century since.

Thanks to the Korean film industry and the Chinese film industry a whole new perspective on the Korean War is being handed out to anyone interested enough to watch some movies.  I’ll throw one in from the British film industry just to spread the wealth around.  A Hill in Korea was Michael Caine’s first movie role, and as it happens he was a British Army Korean War Vet.

GIs and Korean women:

A Chinese movie about a hard fought battle against US troops during the Korean War:

Two brothers are drafted into the South Korean Army during the war.  Excellent film.

Here’s one about British troops fighting in Korea to protect Japan:

But it’s just movies.  Fact is, once Japan quit slaughtering troops from all over the planet, other troops from all over the planet began dying to protect the Japanese.  And 20-30 thousand US troops are still in Korea prepared to die to protect Japan.

Thank you for your service.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 1950's, America

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Koreans fighting alongside Japanese in the first tank battle of WWII era

Posted on June 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=my+way+movie+

Hi readers:  I first saw this film on Netflix and it made a big impression on me.  Unfortunately it’s been a while.  I was in the hospital when I watched it first, so some of the details are vague to me now.  But it’s probably the first movie ever to be filmed about Khalkhin Gol.

Khalkhin-Gol: The forgotten battle that shaped WW2

In August 1939, just weeks before Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and Japan fought a massive tank battle on the Mongolian border – the largest the world had ever seen.

Under the then unknown Georgy Zhukov, the Soviets won a crushing victory at the batte of Khalkhin-Gol (known in Japan as the Nomonhan Incident). Defeat persuaded the Japanese to expand into the Pacific, where they saw the United States as a weaker opponent than the Soviet Union. If the Japanese had not lost at Khalkhin Gol, they may never have attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese decision to expand southwards also meant that the Soviet Eastern flank was secured for the duration of the war. Instead of having to fight on two fronts, the Soviets could mass their troops – under the newly promoted General Zhukov – against the threat of Nazi Germany in the West.

In terms of its strategic impact, the battle of Khalkhin Gol was one of the most decisive battles of the Second World War, but no-one has ever heard of it. Why?

http://historyofrussia.org/khalkhin-gol-battle-nomonhan/

The Korean movie industry scored a big one with My Way.  The theme or setting is two kids, one Japanese, the other Korean competing as runners in pre-WWII Japan.  But when the Japanese Kwantung Army rubs up against the Soviet Army in Manchuria both are sent there in time for the earliest tank battle of WWII era.  [Western thought about when WWII began places the battle pre-WWII]

So when the USSR kicks the ass of Japan in the battle, the two are captured and sent to a Soviet POW camp.  Eventually they’re allowed to volunteer for slave labor on the front where the USSR is fighting German troops.  And they’re captured, allowed to fight for the Germans next, because Japan, of course, was an ally to Germany.

As D Day approaches they find themselves on the beaches of Normandy constructing shore defenses.

One hell of a movie.

I see by the clips on YouTube a lot of people agree with me.  Some even say it’s the best movie they’ve ever seen.  Maybe you’ll find it absorbing.

Thank you for your service, all you young Soviets, Japanese and Koreans.

Old Jules

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in 1940's, 2014, History

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Korean kids are higher quality stupid than US kids

Posted on June 3, 2014 | 13 comments

Hi readers.  I saw the entire movie, Attack the Gas Station 2, on Netflix and found it fascinating.  It ain’t the same Korea I spent 14 months in back in 1963-’64.  Hell, it ain’t even a 3rd world country anymore.

jackjeepkorea2

When this photo was taken near Camp Howze, Korea [Pong Il Chon], I can say with authority there was a rice paddy somewhere nearby where people toiled from daybreak to dark. Somewhere nearby men were carrying a-frames loaded with firewood several times their own weight. Probably somewhere in Korea there was affluence staying well hidden, but the ‘average’ Korean made a few dollars per month and most would never expect to be able to afford a bicycle anytime during their lives.

But several things impressed me about the Korean film.  First, it’s the best photography I’ve seen in any of the foreign films I’ve watched on Netflix lately.  Secondly, the characters are wealthy in the middle-class way US citizens,  even the poor ones, are wealthy by standards of the 1960s.

Secondly, the kids are easily as stupid as US kids, but it’s a higher quality stupidity.  I suppose it hasn’t had time to mature, to become as decadent as US kids manifest constantly in public.  Stupidity of Korean kids has the quality of an over-ripe apple that hasn’t yet begun to rot.

And thirdly, the amazing wealth.  Look at that gas station, the cars and the people driving them.  The motorcycles those kids are riding and the clothes they’re wearing.  Observe the body-fat.  Those people might well be Americans in  the better neighborhoods.

By comparison, consider another Netflix foreign film, this one from Russia.  The Suit.  Some Russian youngsters fall in love with a Gucci suit in a store window and the adventures they go through to acquire it.  And what happens once they have it in their possession.

The Suit is a damned eye-opening good movie, well done and fun to watch, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Attack the Gas Station 2.  The Russian kids are smarter, incidently, and not so wealthy.

Anyone who tells you different is wrong.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Art

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