It is
the hour before midnight, on the harsh, gray flat asphalt road along the
banks of one of the Great Lakes . A truck races by like a
shadow, the moon glowing behind a small house. The car swiftly goes on
by, the dim light from the fogy night: --moon penetrating through the
fog onto the tuck and house, where a man is standing by the road; --
music is heard coming from the car, Rock & Roll, as this stranger
standing by the road, a man in a red plaid shirt, he stands erect, as if
he was Paul Bunion; standing in-between the road and the house as a
truck races by.
I learned from him that the Hatch Valley
once had a volcano erruption and the hot lave might be what made the
chile taste so good. One thing was for certain, the best chile is
planted and harvested in southern New Mexico.
She remembered the day her son Teddie had
brought Charlie home. They'd just moved into an apartment after selling
the house he'd been born in. She'd done it for the worst reason of all,
to try to hang on to a new man she'd just met and with whom her son had,
at best, a nervous relationship. It seemed as though she just couldn't
stop making mistakes, and now this. She remembered her last days in the
house, how she'd walked out and never looked back and how she hadn't
been able to drive by it for the longest time, long after the man had
gone, long after Charlie had died and been reborn at least a dozen more
times. http://www.infoplease.com/ipka/A0883578.html&rct=j&q=&esrc=s
Skip: "Not sure, --maybe a skunk, dead frogs, the water
smells sometimes; maybe shit, who knows up here, could be a combination
... let's shut our windows." As another mile goes by it
starts to get a little foggy looking out the window, shadows seem to be
everywhere. The dark
figure standing, staring by the street, is noticed by the two men in the
front seat of the truck, they stare but keep going, --trees blowing to
his right and left, the waves of the Great Lake of Superior, makes a
humming sound, and everything else, as if you were in the middle of a
hurricane, the stranger stands erect yet, never moving. He sees the eyes
of the passenger in the Ford-truck, a small figure, a man of about
forty, the driver calls him Skip, and he hears that. The taller man at
the wheel, his arms are solid, and frozen to the wheel, is called Amery,
for some reason you know he knows that.
But there
is certainly good news for those who just have no idea where to
celebrate the holidays. You see, the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum is
actually inviting everybody for a big event. The event is to actually
celebrate the arrival of the new year, 2007. Come the last day of this
year, 31st of December, there would be a celebration and an event which
the museum dubbed as "A Classic New Year's Eve". No, the museum is not
going to give away some of their cars or even some of the Custom
buy truck mud flaps parts at the very least. It is perhaps a way
of saying thank you to all those auto lovers and to all of the public
who has wholeheartedly supported the auto museum through the year. To digress a bit, I need to tell you that Sgt. Grace lied. First,
the language I was assigned to study was Vietnamese. Second, after going
through the 101st Airborne Division's jungle combat school in Phan Rang,
I was assigned to the 1st Brigade, a reactionary unit. I joined them in
Dak To, and early the next morning was flown out to join an artillery
battery in what was called "Operation Eagle Bait". Didn't take long to
find out we were the bait, and Charlie was the eagle. The objective was
to tempt the Viet Cong into attacking us, then bring in an assault wave
of Huey's loaded with infantry, and wipe the enemy out. What I quickly
discovered is that there is nothing in the world comparable to the first
night you are brought out of a deep sleep by M-60 machine gun fire. When driving at high speeds, make sure that your windows are
closed to avoid aerodynamic drag. At low speeds, you can put off the AC
system and open the windows instead to save fuel. Likewise, it is
important to check that all AC system parts especially the Ford AC
condenser is at perfect working condition. It's hard to do anything. It's hard to button your pants or brush
your teeth, let alone jump off a three-story building into a pad. This
movie was the most physical thing I've ever had to do, and I had to do
it with a broken hand. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my
life. Constantly having to take hits and fall and run through explosions
and get hit and beat up all day. Aside from my hand, I also got 25
stitches making this movie, in various parts of my body -- stuff that
had nothing to do with my hand.