The Explorers Club
No. LXXIX - The XF-85 Goblin.






My mother hails from Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton, home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base which is in turn the home of the National Museum of the United States Air Force (called the United States Air Force Museum during my youth; so, I will forever think of it by that name). Grandma Little, my mother's mother and my sole surviving grandparent, has disliked my father for all thirty-eight years that she has known him. As a consequence, whenever we'd visit my grandparents in Kettering, the Wilson men would invariably pay a visit to the Air Force Museum; so, I've seen the Goblin at Wright-Pat in person more times than I can count. And it is ever cooler in person than in the above photographs. Wright-Pat is one of only two attractions in verdammt Ohio I am willing to endorse (the other is Cedar Point, which isn't even really in Ohio). If you get the chance to visit the Air Force Museum, I recommend it highly.

Also, I am greatly enamored of the entire concept of parasite aircraft; so, The Explorers Club has surely not seen the last of these aerial oddballs.

The Duke!
I've just finished watching the lion's share (pun fully intended) of Hatari!, starring none other than John Wayne. There didn't seem to be much in the way of plot, merely a string of phenomenally entertaining scenes, alternating between wild animal adventure and chummy camaraderie. If anything, it reminds me of The Life Aquatic, except without the melancholy endemic to all of Wes Anderson's pictures, and about not a sea cruise but a prolonged African safari. (Are there non-African safaris? If one went big game hunting in India during the Raj, would it be rightly called a safari?) 'Twas on A.M.C., so there were commercials, and I missed the first hour and a half (in the T.V. guide, not T.V. Guide, the running time with commercials is given as three and a half hours); so, one of these days I'll have to sit down and watch all of Hatari!

We really don't make enough films sporting an exclamation point in the title.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Denis Leary, "Asshole" from No Cure For Cancer (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "I walk around in the summertime saying, 'How about this heat?'"

Is "@$$hole" an acceptably less offensive substitute fit for public display, or even more offensive due to the annoyance factor? Debate.

Freitag, 6 Juni
Queen, "We Are the Champions" from Greatest Hits I (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: As I am certain the Red Wings have not for the last time in my lifetime claimed Lord Stanley's Cup, one of these years I'll be there in the heart of Detroit for the parade, by thunder! An estimated crowd of 1,400,000 lined the parade route: even though not all were from Michigan (the Wings' local fanbase extends southward into both Ohio and Ontario), that's more than one in ten people in the whole damn state! That's bloody ridiculous in the best possible sense!