Whose the best?

“Whose the best?”  That’s a continuing refrain throughout, “Top Gun”, 1986, Tom Cruise.  I think the movie supports the idea that winning is a team solution and credit to all: all heroes win.

We, here in the Bay Area, have a new hero.  Well, we’ve had many heroes – let me clarify – a new football hero.  Not since Joe Montana, have we had such a hero.  Still, it’s a team heroism.

A real hero, going back to Greek and Roman mythology, must have many flaws.  Jimmy Garoppolo has many flaws.  Just like Joe, we may never see the end of them.  But just like Joe, he was able to overcome his flaws, by sheer talent and will.  Today we watched will and talent.

Jimmy G had a terrible 1^st half, and wound up throwing two INTs, by game’s end.  Yet he acquired a 115 QB rating; threw for over four hundred yards and four TDs.  What explains this mercurial performance?

It’s the same thing that Joe had.

They both saw/see the field, in an instant, and with continuous brain updates; they both had lightening speed brains that could adjust to the field, and defensive conditions; they both could re-adjust the play to what was happening on the field.  These days we might call them robots.  But Jimmy G and Joe had/have GUT WILL to win.

People will still be talking about Jimmy G in thirty years, just as we still talk about Joe.  He’s flawed, but we love him anyway.  He’s trying all the time. He is a great passer, the best in the league, I think.  But it is his game presence that makes him a hero.  He knows, and will run a QB sneak, when conditions call for it.  He can also execute a trick play to a fake back to make the winning score.

We will win the Super Bowl this year.

Juxtaposition: Fact and Fiction

It is interesting considering Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony this past week, to be watching The Adventures of Jack Ryan [Amazon Prime] Season 2 – Episode 6 “Persona non Grata”.

I had to stop watching the Prime episode, halfway through, because it was so probably real in its’ depiction of a situation gone awry, and I wanted to write these thoughts down.  No one’s fault explicitly, but they are evacuating the Embassy in Caracas, because of “bad actors” stirring the pot.  There is potential election fraud and corruption in the government going on.

The bottom line is that the Ambassador (a woman) is dealing with the situation as best she can.  There are rogue Venezuelans, as well as many foreign “agents” stirring up unrest, all with different agendas.  It is a seething cauldron of chaos.

That’s Marie Yovanovitch’s workplace environment, and she didn’t stoop to displaying her dirty laundry, but as a loyal American State Department employee, she just answered the questions asked.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

This is the best modern novel I have read in several years.  I regretfully read less these days [ 3-4 a month, not 6-7 anymore].  But I still read quality (ask about my Senior Center Classics). 

I have followed Ann Patchett since “Bel Canto” and “Truth & Beauty” days.  I have watched her grow and develop as an author: “State of Wonder” and “Commonwealth”.  It is a pleasure to live long enough to see your authors, as well as your kids, become brilliant and well respected.

I think this is her finest work to date.  She succeeds at many of the challenges of the modern novel: writing as another gender protagonist, I totally believe her brother’s every thought; handling scene changes in time without totally confusing most readers, she does this flawlessly; pacing the novel, so that dramatic tension grows chapter by chapter, and yet the reveals are seamlessly integrated with the novel as a whole, nothing is totally surprising, albeit possibly unexpected.

The last interesting novel to go into depth about a brother sister relationship that I can think of is “To Kill a Mockingbird”, also written by a woman.  With billions of boy-girl families all over the globe, there have got to be thousands of untold, rich family sagas.

The plot lines are middle-of-the-road: never too rich, never too poor, successful through hard work.  Also “Ye good works precede thee.”

The theme isn’t quite Dr. House’s, “everybody lies”, rather more, “No one ever tells the whole truth.”

And this is the device she uses to slowly unfold the whole story.  Yes, dialogue is the standard way to explain things in a novel, but she does it in such a natural way.  In many of the scenes, my imagery was of my sister and I holding their many conversations, side by side in cars.  She captured the often, mostly unspoken, yet intimate relationship between brother and sister – a bond that can sometimes transcend all other relationships.

I watched the movie DAVE last night

Last night I watched “Dave”, on Amazon Prime; , a 1993 film with Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.

A mean & nasty, philandering President has a fatal stroke while dorking his secretary.  But the plot twist is that a talented stunt double fills in, initially fooling everyone, including his 1^st Lady wife.

The theme then switches to what WE really want in a President: compassion, honesty, transparency, street smarts, concern for the Nation as a whole.

At the end, with Hollywood magic, Dave returns to his Temp Service business; and runs for town council – the now ex 1^st Lady joins his campaign.