Bottom of a Heartbreak

To internal combustion, and the wind in your face.

Ken Miles got screwed.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
P.J. O'Rourke, 1947-2022

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

Very important post.

[🎩Laird of the Manor🎩 @LairdOfThManor]

A small public service announcement from the Department of Things That You Should Know…

It has not “peeked” your interest.
Nor has it “peaked” your interest.

…It has piqued your interest.

You are not “phased” by something.
You are fazed by it.

If you’ve had a long day, you are weary.
If you suspect someone is an idiot, you are wary.

It is “due course”, not “do course”.
“Per se”, not “per say”.

And while we’re here, it’s “could have”, not “could of”, but that particular battle may already be lost.

Thank you for your attention during this brief outbreak of grammatical housekeeping.

This has been a @LairdofthManor announcement.🎩💙

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

Stanley Kubrick demanded 70 takes from actors. He let this medically discharged Marine improvise.
In 1985, R. Lee Ermey stood on a film set in England with nothing but memories and a voice that could cut through steel. He was not supposed to be there. Not as an actor, anyway.
Stanley Kubrick had hired him as a technical advisor for Full Metal Jacket. The role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was already cast with a trained professional. Ermey's job was to teach actors how drill instructors actually behaved.
But Ermey had spent years watching Hollywood get it wrong. He approached Kubrick with a request that bordered on audacity.
"Let me show you what a real drill instructor sounds like."
Kubrick was skeptical. This was a director who shot scenes 40, 50, sometimes 70 times until they were perfect. He controlled every word. Every gesture. Every breath.
But he agreed to watch.
Ermey positioned actors in formation. The cameras rolled. And he began screaming.
For two hours, he unleashed a torrent of creative, devastating verbal assault. Stagehands pelted him with tennis balls and oranges to simulate chaos. He never flinched. Never broke rhythm. Never repeated himself.
Because he wasn't acting.
He was remembering.
Ronald Lee Ermey had enlisted in the Marines at seventeen after a Kansas judge gave him a choice: jail or the military. He chose the Corps. From 1965 to 1967, he served as a drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, breaking down civilians and rebuilding them as Marines.
In 1968, he deployed to Vietnam for fourteen months.
Then injuries ended his career. Medical discharge. Twenty-seven years old. No college degree. No plan.
He drifted to the Philippines, enrolled in university using his GI Bill, and stumbled into film work as a technical advisor. Small roles followed. A helicopter pilot in Apocalypse Now. A drill instructor in The Boys in Company C.
But nothing that changed his life.
Until Kubrick watched those tapes.
The director saw something no acting class could manufacture: authenticity so complete it became art. Ermey had produced 150 pages of original insults. His intensity never wavered. His knowledge was absolute.
Kubrick made a decision almost unheard of in his career.
He fired the original actor. He gave Ermey the role. And he allowed him to improvise more than half of his own dialogue.
Stanley Kubrick, the perfectionist who demanded endless takes from every performer, needed only two or three takes from a former drill instructor with no formal training.
Because you cannot fake what is real.
When Full Metal Jacket premiered in 1987, Ermey's performance became instantly iconic. Real drill instructors said it was the most accurate portrayal ever filmed. Veterans said it triggered memories they had buried for decades.
Ermey earned a Golden Globe nomination. He went on to appear in over sixty films. He voiced Sarge in Toy Story. He hosted military programs on the History Channel.
But he never forgot his brothers and sisters in uniform.
In 2002, the Marine Corps awarded him an honorary promotion to Gunnery Sergeant, making him the only retiree in Corps history to receive that recognition. He spent years visiting troops overseas, supporting veterans, and keeping the military spirit alive.
R. Lee Ermey passed away on April 15, 2018. The Marine Corps called him a great American and an even greater Marine.
Think about that journey.
A troubled teenager from Kansas. A drill instructor. A combat veteran. A medical discharge. Odd jobs in foreign countries. And then, at forty-three, convincing one of cinema's most demanding directors to trust him with creative freedom.
He did not succeed because he pretended to be something he wasn't.
He succeeded because he refused to be anything else.
That is not a Hollywood story.
That is a Marine who improvised, adapted, and overcame, all the way to immortality.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@MrGeorgeWallace "All this for a damn flag."

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

SMH.

[Elmer Keith @MagnumKeith]

Had my nose smashed flat as a pancake and had to fix it by hand.
I elected to ride a grey bronc that belonged to my brother. As I was attempting to get a stirrup, he whirled and struck me in the face with a left forefoot. I just didn’t have any nose.

“Hell, I Was There” (1979)

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@EruseaRise It was a good tweet. I followed you and @ReactionaryLuma off that discussion.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@BenObeseJecty @nwnatur Yeah, that'd be 2 decades, mate.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

The falling-block Rugers are some of the sexiest rifles ever made.

[Elmer Keith @MagnumKeith]

Ruger agrees

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@reddit_lies @SheilaGunnReid "I've read too many stories on Facebook..."

Fixed it for ze/zim/zer/wthelse.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@SkylineReport @BobOnTheGeaux Almost without fail the people who whine that Trump and his supporters are stupid and dishonest will post stupid and dishonest crap on here and then refuse to admit the error.

To call you infantile would be to disrespect small children.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Time to get that volcano lair I’ve always wanted.

I think it’s in the “Beyond” section of BB&B.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@joespal @CraigHarrisNews @PaulDBoyer @azcentral @DeAngelisCorey Good.

If government schools are so delicate, so fragile, that they can be damaged by vouchers then they need to be damaged. Even destroyed if it comes to that.

If you leeches can't compete you need to disappear.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@HeatherK9070 Who died and left you in charge? They can call themselves whatever they want and applaud whatever they want. You can do the same, you infantile little twit.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

"You won't believe this crazy trick to LOSE WEIGHT FAST!”

[SSGoodGirl @USSGoodGirl]

Stands on scale.
Hits the Tare button.
I weigh 0.0 lbs.

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@TracesofTexas I've enjoyed watching these too, partly because their excitement and enthusiasm reminds me of the way I felt spending a week in England!

I came home with an Oxford hoody and some IWM souvenirs. They're going home with gear from Buc-ee's, WVU, Bass Pro Shop, TN Volunteers...🥰🥰

[Traces of Texas @TracesofTexas]

Have y'all seen any of the countless videos of Europeans in the U.S. for the World Cup that are flooding social media right now? They are the best, funnest things I've seen in forever. I've been brooding/depressed for the past couple of weeks, but seeing British people discover Buc-ees at 2:00 a.m. is just the absolute best palette cleanser. I just watched a young Dutch man who had rented a Dodge Ram truck and he's driving along, and he said "I've been driving for five minutes and I can't stop smiling. I'm driving a RAM pickup truck! In America! " And whoever is filming said "How sick is that?" and the young man said "FREEDOM FOREVER!" I watched a British couple who overnighted in Amarillo and the young woman was going on and on about how open and friendly Texans are. She said they were just walking down the sidewalk and they had three different conversations with various people. She said (paraphrasing)"That would never happen in Britain, where everybody is so reserved, almost depressed, and keeps to themselves."

Mind you, I'm not saying that everything in the U.S. is so great or anything like that, just that it really does my poor old Texas heart good to see this place through the eyes of others. It's easy to get bogged down in fighting with one another (over things that are unimportant or even made-up issues) and not see the forest for the trees. This young Dutch man who was driving a RAM pickup truck that he'd rented was on a wide open highway, driving a vehicle approximately three times larger and three times higher off the road than anything he'd ever driven before --- and was positively giddy over something that we Texans take for granted.

Watching these videos makes me feel a bit foolish, actually, for being down about some stuff that is ultimately inconsequential. Also, it appears that y'all are doing a really good job at making these folks feel completely welcome ---- which of course comes naturally to any Texan ---- to the point that some of them are saying things like "I never want to leave." When you think about it, tasty brisket sandwich at 2:00 a.m. is a pretty miraculous thing. Here's a little video that's sort of an overview of what I'm talking about.

https://t.co/8fFvXpGNu8

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

Remember, during today's literal cage match on the White House grounds:

No matter what, it's not his house. It's our house.

Get a hat, coaster, or sticker to support groups and candidates who will respect the form AND the function of the people's house. https://t.co/yGDgJciDQZ

[Bottom of a Heartbreak @JoeDan1024]

@wayofftheres @mike1zr2 I didn't know that. Pretty freakin' cool!

[Matt Stamper @Sneketoshi]

I want to introduce you to Steve. He’s 83. His wife died a few months ago and he comes to this lodge in Spring Mill, Indiana and draws. He taught art in Terre Haute, IN his whole life. He also did courtroom sketches in court cases. In the comments I’ll share some pics from his sketchbook. He was excited when I said I was going to share his sketches with the world.

[Alex Armstrong @Alexarmstrong]

What?! This is mental.

It has been claimed that a secretive UK govt unit intervenes to write statements by the families of victims of potentially racially linked incidents to stop them from inflaming tensions further with their remarks.

This is allegedly a secret unit called the ‘Research, Information and Communications Unit’

They reportedly try to manage the 'challenges' of multiculturalism.

“Its techniques range from planting stories in the media, using undercover operatives to lay flowers at the scene of terrorist attacks and even, in one case, sending a pop group to sing anti-extremist songs in Muslim schools.“

Via @DailyMail