#- he shows up like a whirling dervish of a man - he will certainly have a bone to pick w/ saruman once gwaihir catches him up

[mervynbunter]

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955), Appendix B, “The Third Age”

[walkthroughtheword]

Reading for July 5th                                       Deuteronomy 22

Well, we get to start off our writings this week with a lot of musts and must nots. We think, for the sake of you visualizing us blushing, we will pass on some of the sexual matters and just give it the ol’ Rev. Shane statement, “Because that’s what it says…”. I hope we can all agree that’s fair and move forward. 

We are going to approach chapter 22 by tying it together with the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. The first 4 verses in chapter 22 call the reader to personal responsibility. Twice in the NLT it says, “don’t ignore your responsibility.” As we refer to Luke 10:30-37, we see that two people (religious people, mind you) took notice of the Jewish man that was beaten, robbed and left for dead and they walked right on by, ignoring their responsibilities. It wasn’t until the Samaritan, a man who knew what being rejected, neglected and despised by society felt like, took notice and did not ignore his responsibility, gave the poor fellow the help that he needed.

As we read and meditate on this principle, fellow believers, we would do well to ask the Holy Spirit to give us eyes to see the needs of others. We get it; we’re all busy. Appointments, work, family obligations, and more have us in a tailspin most days. We’re tired, stressed, and the calendar is too full. But there’s something about sitting still at the feet of Jesus and getting our directives from Him. We see needs, but because of the whirling dervish lives most of us live, we may ignore the pings and don’t stop long enough to be “moved with compassion” as Jesus was. He always went about doing good because He spent time with His Father, He listened, He shut out the noise and the clamor, and He didn’t ignore His responsibility. He simply obeyed. 

Jesus asked those He was telling the story to answer, “Which of the three would you say was a neighbor to the man?” and they answered, “The one who showed him mercy.” The answer pleased Him, and he said, “Yes, now go and do the same.” Let’s ask ourselves in this hurting world what we can do to show kindness, love, and mercy. We may not return a lost donkey to our neighbor as the passage exhorts in Deuteronomy, but we certainly can go about doing good to show people that Jesus is real and so is His love. 

Question: In the comments today, give some examples of what we can do to go about doing good. It may be as simple as paying it forward in the fast food drive up, but let’s spur each other on to good works!

[nsrecovery2022]

And indeed the man who sits coffee-sipping before Blender is no fresh-faced kid. His straight chestnut hair is shoulder-length and center-parted, giving his narrow face a carved American Indian look that may show early signs of Iggy Pop syndrome. His dark eyes seem warm if slightly guarded, his demeanor easygoing, his speech thoughtful. He obligingly reveals the latest tattoo on his famously inked-up body: a beautifully rendered koi fish on his forearm. It’s a symbol of overcoming adversity,” he says. “Of swimming up current, so to speak.” Around his left wrist he wears a diver’s watch and a red string. The latter, he says, “reminds me not to fuck with people. It’s supposed to prevent you from receiving the negative intentions of other people, which I’m not terribly worried about. But I do need a reminder not to throw negative fireballs at others.”

It’s a thoughtful gesture. Because, simply by surviving and thriving, Kiedis has become one of the foremost potential bad influences for a new generation. For decades, whenever youngsters were inclined to experiment with their lifestyle, certain public figures were there to make the choice seem viable. There was Beat writer William S. Burroughs: unrepentant heroin, pill and Moroccan-boy aficionado – lived to be 180. Keith Richards: incorrigible partier and millionaire -once quipped, “I’ve never had a problem with drugs, I’ve had problems with police.” And now Kiedis – who has survived the drug-related deaths of bandmate Slovak and friends River Phoenix, Kurt Cobain and many others, stayed a junkie for years after and finally made it to health, wealth and sobriety unscathed. Does he feel responsibility to counsel others against bad choices?

“I don’t,” he says. “I’ve lost the need to push my ideas or experiences on other people.” He does, however, make a savvy point. “It’s easy to be a junkie. It’s not easy to be one of the greatest guitar players of all time, or one of the greatest writers.” As an alt-rock-credentialed artist with incongruously great abs, Kiedis acknowledges he’s walking a different path from most of his cultural heroes. “The majority of the music that I love comes from people who are in rebellion against the physical part of their lives,”he says. “Joey Ramone, for instance. But I think the two go together great. There’s something absolutely freeing about being able to turn your body into a whirling dervish. There’s a reason why people have danced for 20,000 years. Dancing gets the attention of the spirits.”

..........

“Yeah,” he says, after a lengthy exhale. “Energetically, I’ve certainly been guilty of that which I don’t support. Obviously, sex can have a dark side. And it’s one the modern world can make darker. “When I finally got a computer, I discovered this limitless world of pornography. And I recognized the feeling that I was having was like the feeling that I used to get when I’d go score drugs. I actually had to make a commitment to myself to stop.”

[kfdirector]

Student Awareness of Nonstandard Danger Society

    From the Vice-Principal for Student Affairs, greetings, the e-mail had begun.  You have been selected by your friends and colleagues…

    Niewitzski didn’t think the joke was in particularly good taste, but then he considered the source.  It was entirely possible that it wasn’t a joke at all.  He flicked dirt from under his fingernails with a pocket knife, and kept leaning against the wall of the school cafeteria, one ear on a police scanner and the other on the proceedings.

    Hard-working student council members and people suckered into volunteering by student council members pushed tables around and hung streamers up on the ceiling.  “Fall Ball”, the notice had said.  “Ball” seemed a bit ambitious, judging by the decoration quality - but he was just here to chaperone, and he would give that all the attention it deserved.

    “Am I going to be paid?” he had asked Jibrail in the hallway.

    That had gotten a laugh from the vice-principal.  On the one hand, Niewitzski was proud to have finally cracked the code on even his funny bone.  On the other...it hadn’t been that funny, had it?

    His phone buzzed, letting him know he had a text.  The outgoing message had been to Miss Early. The reply had arrived: “HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAA” followed a moment later by “No.”  Perhaps, he thought, he should abandon his dreams of the law and go into stand-up instead.  He was apparently displaying a real knack tonight!  Perhaps he could test some of his material on the DJ - he looked familiar, possibly even from Niewitzski’s class, although being reduced to DJing a high school dance with a stack of flash drives said that the recent circumstances of his life could not have been too inspiring.

    Just as Niewitzski was starting to feel just bored enough to go and try to reconnect with the DJ, he was interrupted by the arrival of a colleague.  Unfortunately…

    “Doc.”  Niewitzski switched his pocket knife from a blade to a file, and gave his fingernails some attention.  “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

    Doane sniffed audibly.  “Apparently, their wretched lottery makes no provision for whether people with actual ability might have better things to do with their time.”

    Niewitzski shrugged; the lack of...whatever had been in that cocktail...left his urge to be argumentative somewhat moderated.  “Eh, it’s not that bad.  You can hang out with the kids outside of class for once.”

    There was a pause, and he could feel himself being stared at.  He looked up to Doane’s face, and saw a look that wasn’t easily described, but could, at minimum, be characterized as ‘unpleasant’.

    “Grow up.”

    “What?”

    “Show some...dignity.  You are a teacher now, after all.  Somehow.”

    Niewitzski excused himself to take some pills to find off a migraine.  He wasn’t actually feeling it yet, but he could see it coming down the road.  Students in charge of collecting money were trickling in, followed shortly by students intending to pay money, followed closely by a cop.

    She evaded eye contact with Niewitzski; he decided to try and approach her after all.  No sense in being immature about this.

    “Hi, Regina.”

    “You’re not dying,” she observed flatly, staring through him.

    “Would apologizing again help?”

    “I’m on duty.  Keep it professional, civilian.”

    He backed off, retreating from water fountain to his spot against the wall.  He glanced over, to see something very disturbing on Doane’s face - a grin.  Outside of some French novels, Niewitzski hadn’t realized that someone could somehow be bad at smiling, and his skin crawled as the doctor stepped away from his own spot on the wall, advancing towards Regina.

    Niewitzski kept his place.  He couldn’t hear what Doane was saying over the blare of the DJ’s sound test, but he made some assumptions to fill in the scene as her eyes narrowed, as she assumed an interview stance, as she consciously put her gun side back and then finally as her right hand rested on the butt of her firearm.  He even began to whistle tunelessly yet cheerfully to himself as Doane seemed to fail the notice the effect he was having, even as she said something terse back to him, and then, finally, when she had her left hand in front of her, pushing back, the doctor finally took the hint.

    Growling, the retreating Doane returned to the impromptu chaperone station near Niewitzski.  “Christ, what a bitch.”

    Niewitzski was barely conscious of his response: “Say that again, to my face.”

    Doane crossed his arms and sniffed again.  “What?  She shot you down, too, didn’t she?”

    He didn’t feel like there was anything productive to be had in this conversation - nor in ‘defending the honor’ of a lady currently present, far better armed than he, better trained, and still angry with him as well - so he let what little conversation there had been die unmourned.  His attention wandered to a few students he found more interesting than the rest filing inside: Stella, towing along Tracey and Craig with much enthusiasm; Joe, walking in afterwards at a pace that said he was probably there of his own volition rather than that of Miss Saint-James’; and then, a little ways after that, Mario, with a girl Niewitzski recognized from the hallways but certainly not from his classes.

    Then a few others, familiar to him for other reasons: Buddy, Natalie, Shane, and even Tony himself.

    Against his better judgment, Niewitzski elbowed Doane.  “Well, look who’s here tonight.  Murder suspect and his fan club.  Should we be ready for violence?”

    He sniffed, again.  Apparently whatever his degree was, it wasn’t good for a prescription for allergies.  “It’s not as if there would be much worth mourning here.”

    Niewitzski considered that response as it hung in the air, like a foul black antisocial cloud.  He couldn’t help but verbally poke at it.  “You’re not really a ‘people person’, are you, Doc?”  The initial reply was only another sniff; Niewitzski fingered the utility knife in his pocket, wondering if one of the attachments could help unblock the poor man’s nasal passages.  “I mean, really, Doc, why are you a teacher?”

    “To mold young minds.”

    The music started, giving Niewitzski an excellent excuse to neither talk nor listen any further.  The DJ was embarking on some kind of grand adventure to explore the boundaries between techno-rave and a genre he could not name but was forced to describe as “TV show themes, but faster and higher pitched”.  He found more melody in the gentle drone of the police scanner, and turned up the volume on his earpiece while he quietly observed the group dynamics in play and, at least in theory, watched for trouble.

    Stella, for one, had decided she was going to teach her freshmen how to dance.  She scurried around Craig and Tracey, positioning them relative to each other, adjusting their bodies and limbs to some kind of step for a beat, clapping her hands, re-adjusting, clapping again - setting up some kind of rhythm heedless of what was actually coming out of the speakers, apparently.  Niewitzski wondered if he should have a word with her about her hand placement, as both freshmen looked beet-red under her attentive approach.  Putting himself in Craig’s shoes, he supposed that an intervention would probably not be welcomed, but in Tracey’s, well...but before he could push off from the wall, Joe cut in, said something to Stella, and then pulled Tracey off to go dance with him.  Tracey’s face got even redder, but also had an expression that suggested she didn’t mind so much.

Stella, for her part, seemed to gripe for a few seconds about the interruption before filling in as her abducted freshman to teach the remaining one how to dance.  A conversation about boundary issues might still be appropriate, Niewitzski thought, but he also doubted Craig would appreciate him showing up to give that public service announcement at this precise moment.  Niewitzski’s gaze wandered onwards.

Mario had his own issues on display.  Niewitzski hadn’t seen him with that particular girl before, and judging from their behavior around each other, he gathered that they weren’t, strictly speaking, dating - he must have just asked her to this dance.  Niewitzski shook his head sadly.

Mario went to get punch and she wandered off; she started to talk to girl friends and he tapped his foot impatiently; she talked animatedly to a guy that wasn’t him - Buddy Brown, Niewitzski noticed with concern - and Mario’s eyes flashed with what Niewitzski would guess was a hormone-driven rage.  That, he figured, would be a good idea to keep an eye on: Mario wasn’t stupid, Buddy wasn’t all that stupid, but they both associated with other people who were themselves stupid.

Where were those others, anyway, he wondered?  He watched the dancing mob, the whirling dervishes, and the awkward rock-and-huggers; Shane was hanging around by the punch bowl, always a bad sign, wearing a button-up shirt he didn’t look comfortable in with an upturned collar and a nasty look in his eyes; Natalie was sulking to no one in particular by the vending machines; Tony was with a girl Niewitzski didn’t even recognize from school - he supposed it made sense that the boy had to look elsewhere to avoid a tainted dating pool, given the whispers about him here at Xavier.

Niewitzski sighed, closed his eyes in the repeated flash of the stage lights, and listened to the scanner for a few minutes.

Thud.

It was subtle among the pounding beats, but it was there.  Niewitzski looked up again.  The situation was unfolding: Natalie had just shoved Mario, who had been knocked into a vending machine, which had been knocked into a wall.  Mario had been pointing towards his date, who was rapidly slipping away into the crowd, leaving an indignant-looking Buddy in her place.  And Shane was making his way from the punch bowl towards the three of them, cracking his knuckles, which inspired Niewitzski with exactly zero confidence that this was going to be defused on its own.

“Nice kids,” Niewitzski muttered.  Doane ignored him, deeply engrossed in something on his cell phone.  Niewitzski pushed his way towards the incipient crisis, some of the crowd of students yielding hesitantly to his authority as a teacher, as a chaperone, as a tall guy in a suit - where was Regina, anyway, he wondered.  A quick glance around the room was unrewarded; he kept the old saw about there never being a cop when you needed one buried, given the episode earlier in the week with the shotgun.

Now a circle was opening up around the crisis.  Mario, Natalie, Buddy, Shane - Tony was hanging back; Joe was squeezing through the crowd on the opposite side to join the fun.

Mario grit his teeth, giving ‘don’t do anything stupid’ the old college try.  In the face of Buddy and Shane flexing and trash-talking, and Natalie shouting wildly about an inch from his nose, Niewitzski both respected the effort and doubted its long-term success: Mario was clearly unwilling to hit a girl, and it was also pretty clearly not the case vice-versa.  He struggled through the crowd, but not quickly enough - Natalie pulled back her fist - Mario glared defiantly - and Joe grabbed the short-haired girl’s arm before it could strike forward.

That ought to have defused the situation.

It did not.

She proceeded to kick Joe in the groin, and cool, calm, steady Joe Fitzgerald rapidly boiled with fury at that.  Just as Niewitzski managed to break into the circle, vocalizing not much more than the ‘Bre’ in ‘Break it up’, Natalie suddenly sprawled to the floor; Stella stood behind her, looking smug.

Niewitzski was certain he didn’t see Stella quickly slipping a stun gun back into her purse, because that would have been utterly crazy.

This, too, failed to defuse the situation.  Someone punched someone else, and as far as Niewitzski could see neither of those parties had been involved in this, and from that instant a wave of chaos spread through the dance, which in six seconds more became rather properly called a brawl set to a techno beat.

After a moment of shock wore off, he dodged a wild punch and grabbed ahold of the first set of shoulders within reach - they happened to be Shane’s - and decided he would try to restrain the combatants, one at a time if necessary.  He was forced to re-evaluate when the boy proved stronger than he’d have guessed but every bit as mean; Niewitzski failed to hit the floor only because there were too many other people in the way of falling all the way down.

“Okay,” he said as he staggered back up, wiping blood off his nose, “now you’re really going to - ”

His earpiece squawked.  “Repeat, dangerous animal, westbound on foot, officers available please respond”

The timing was...suboptimal, at best, but he saw something to be gained here, at least.  He bellowed:  “SANDS!  Stand down, and get ready to move out!”

Stella backed off - Joe Backed off - Mario was in a headlock and so had no choice in the matter - so Niewitzski laid hands on Buddy, and forcibly adjusted his face to be staring into Niewitzski’s.  “Let. Go.”

Buddy released his grip, and Niewitzski looked around - Craig and Tracey, at the edge of the room, creeping with their backs to the wall towards the door.  Niewitzski nodded, and once more searched for Regina.  No sign of her.  No sign of Doane, either.  In fact, the only other adult he could see in the room was the DJ, who was cowering behind his sound system and wincing every time a thrown chair came near, which was not an entirely inappropriate reaction all told.  He jerked his head at Mario, Stella, and Joe, and then towards the door, and then began pushing his way through the brawl.  With only a few more stray punches hitting his side, he reached the door, and the cool night air.

And if he was being derelict of his duties, well, there was a senior teacher and a sworn peace officer also absent, so at least he figured he wouldn’t be against the wall alone.  He let the wind rustle his hair and cool his face as the five SANDS assembled.

“What’s up, Coach?”  Joe had not been wearing an earpiece.

“Police report of dangerous animal, just off the highway, heading this way.  And this time the thing is between us and the van. We need whatever we have handy.”

The kids looked to each other.  Joe shook his head.

“Which is...nothing, I think, Coach.  Unless you’re carrying again?”

“I - no.  I’ve had enough close calls.  I might have something in my car, but I’m not going to run around with it when the police are on their way.  So.”  Niewitzski rubbed his beard.  “Recon first, then.  Try and lay eyes on it, let me know what I might need to get out of the back or not.”

Joe smiled and clapped his hands.  “Okay, team!  Fan out, Delta formation!”

“Delta...formation?”  Stella was looking confused, although still a somewhat enthusiastic sort of confused.

“Oh, fine, just follow me!”  Joe waved the others onward, and they dashed forward, vanishing into the night.

“Kids.”  Niewitzski turned - it hadn’t been he who had said that.  It was Doane, somehow now behind him.

“Shouldn’t you be helping inside?” asked Niewitzski, ignoring his hypocrisy.

“Over-excitable kids,” Doane went on, ignoring Niewitzski in turn, “positively crazy.  Violent movies, violent video games, too much instant gratification.  Twists their brains, makes them irrational.”

Niewitzski shrugged, killing time for a phone call and more curious about where Doane had been than anything.  “I don’t know about that, Doc: maybe it makes them more open-minded, ready to accept and adapt to unusual circumstances.”

Doane gave him an odd look.  “What...'unusual circumstances’?”

“Zombie uprising, nuclear war, revolution - you know, whatever might happen.”

The doctor sniffed again.  The night air was apparently not what his allergies needed.  “Of course.  Because those are relevant life skills.”

“Hey.  When the ‘elite’ young minds you so carefully molded decide to take over the world, someone’s got to stop them.  And don’t you have something to do?”  Niewitzski heard glass breaking, and to hear it from outside, that meant it had to be a window.  “Like finding the cop back so we can stop that riot?  Where’d she go, anyway?”

Once again the air rushed into Doane’s nostrils in a way that grated on Niewitzski’s nerves.  “I am your senior.  You do it.”

Niewitzski rolled his eyes and turned back around, looking for any sign of the SANDS.  “What, you plan on trotting that out?  Remember, peasant doctor, I am your social superior, being titled nobility.”  Niewitzski had given it an over-the-top haughty tone he assumed would signal it as a joke; the altered sound of Doane’s breathing said it hadn’t quite been taken as one.  Niewitzski started to turn to see the look on the doctor’s face when -

A momentary spasm throughout his entire body, and after a discontinuity, he pulled his face out of the grass, eyes watering, back of his neck burning.  Doane was gone, Stella’s stun gun was lying beside him.  As he added up what had just happened in his head, his cell phone rang.  He sat up, and answered it.

“Sir!  We have visual!”

“Describe it, Stella!”

“Ten legs!  Face like a - a - a whole lot of tendrils!  A big toothy hole at the center!  Of the face, I mean!”

His brow furrowed; would the monsters be unique every time?  “Can you engage?”

“Oh hell n - uh, negative, sir!  Our combatants have zero confidence given our equipment situation!”

“Right, right.  Can you get to the van and at least get the sensors online?”

“Yes, sir!” She huffed, a rare betrayal of the fact that she needed to breathe to speak.  She must have been sprinting through the night.  “Already on the whole slipping-past-it thing, sir!  It’s heading towards the school for sure I think, sir!”

“Right.  I’ll keep it busy.”

“Very courageous of you, sir!”

It may have been, but Niewitzski wasn’t sure he was feeling it.  He got into his car - wondering about reporting Doane for jabbing him with a stun gun, but given that it had been Stella’s stun gun and, well, the melee engulfing the school, he decided to hold that thought.  He started the engine, and wonder if, perhaps, he should have some sort of plan.

Nah.

He drove in the direction the monster had been sighted, switched on his brights, and said: “Nuts.”

Ten legs had been a slight misstatement on Stella’s part; ten pairs of legs would have been more accurate.  It was charging down the road at a fast clip, too; it could easily outpace a bicycle.  He drove past it - it ignored him.  He pulled an illegal U-turn, and it ignored him still as he honked the horn at its backside.  He flashed his headlights: still no reaction.

“Never thought the day would come when a monster ignoring me would be a problem.”

He estimated the speed as he approached it; his speedometer read forty-two miles per hour.  Less than a cheetah, but a cheetah would have given up and got bored by now.  He slammed his accelerator, riding up right alongside it - still no reaction.  He accelerated even harder, shooting ahead of the creature down the street and pulling another U-turn, coming to a halt, to get a look at the creature’s front end.  Nothing near its face looked much like an eye or ear - could it be entirely sense of smell, and have no interest in car exhaust?

His cell phone rang again.

“Coach, we’re in the van and heading that way!  Keep it busy!  Don’t kill it until we get there!”

“I can definitely handle the second bit.”

He rolled down his window, leaned out, and hollered:  “Hey, big ugly!  My grandma - ”

A shifting breeze blew past his hair, and the creature rumbled to a halt, stopping, sniffing the air with tendrils.

Niewitzski’s eyes widened as the creature’s mouth made a brief horking noise - and then a giant glob of something disgusting splattered against his windshield.  Along with disgusting, he noted, it apparently also could corrode glass.  He gulped.

“Okay!  Now that I have your attention!”  He steadied his foot on the accelerator, trying to be faster, but not much faster, than it, while he kept his head out the window.  Each sound of a hork gave him a second’s warning to pull his head back, although the creature’s aim meant that he was mostly losing windows and paint job rather than skin.  He kept one eye on the side view mirror, and noted that one particular object in the mirror was indeed closer than it appeared.

He saw headlights approaching, and eased off the accelerator, trying to see - van or cop? - a flicker of movement in the side view mirror, and he snapped back to the chase as the monster lunged forward into the back of his car - and then his head jerked against the doorframe as the rear of his car spun out.

“Turn into the spin, turn into the - ”

A swarm of tendrils was now sticking into his open car window.  He found something very unfair about centipedes twice the size of his car knowing the PIT maneuver, but forgot to complain about it as a foggy stench blasted onto the left side of his face, leaving a burning sensation - he lurched and slammed on the accelerator, and, for a moment, the thing was being dragged along with him still.  The hork started again, and he threw himself sideways in his seat to dodge another glob, this one beginning to dissolve the interior of his passenger side door.

“I just bought this,” he whined to whomever was listening.

The gutless motor of his car whined in protest as he nursed the last few RPM out of it, and finally the creature lost its hold on his car, its tendril-covered face yanked out as he proceeded to then make real distance between he and it.

His cell phone rang once more.  He answered, voice ragged.  “Tell me you’ve got the readings!”

“What readings?!  You assholes locked me in a pantry!”

“R-Regina?  What?” He heard the beep of call waiting.

“You’d better be coming to - ”

“I will totally come help you, Regina - in a few minutes!” He pressed the button to answer the other call.

“Coach!  If you want to kill it, you can!  We have the readings!  The freshmen who do science say they have what they need!”

Between the damage to his car and the certainty that the police were near, Niewitzski had no plans of involving a gun this time.  Fortunately, he had the means for an alternative kinetic energy delivery method.  He pulled one more U-turn.

In the space available, even this car could hit seventy miles an hour.  He aimed just to the right of the charging creature, and at the last second kicked open the driver door.

With a tremendous thud and a clang-clang-clang as his door rolled off down the road, he confirmed a hypothesis.  He rolled the car to a halt and stepped out into the night.  Creature, rapidly fading to nothing.  Car door, departed.  Most of his windows, the passenger side door, and the passenger seat, largely dissolved, with no trace of the putrid-smelling corrosive globs that had been working their destructive craft just seconds before.  Niewitzski rubbed his hand against the side of his face that the creature had breathed on - it felt sore and tender, like severe sunburn.

The black van rolled up next to him.  Stella lowered a tinted window and poked her head out, looking quizzical.

“We’ll debrief on Monday afternoon, Stella.  No need for you to be caught at the riot and I’ll be spending the morning getting fired.  Good night.”

[viraljournalist]

Andy Reid's Super Bowl LIV win is the capper on a Hall of Fame career for Chiefs coach

New Post has been published on https://viraljournalist.com/andy-reids-super-bowl-liv-win-is-the-capper-on-a-hall-of-fame-career-for-chiefs-coach/

Andy Reid's Super Bowl LIV win is the capper on a Hall of Fame career for Chiefs coach

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — “MAN ALIVE!” Andrew Walter Reid bellowed from his toes as he marched through his Kansas City Chiefs locker room, glowing like a teenager who had just scored a date with the prettiest girl in school. Reid had just finished handing out credit for this epic Super Bowl victory as easily as one would hand out a business card at a job fair, even giving a shoutout to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, the billionaire who fired him.

Man Alive! Those two shouted words on the way to his office said it all. Reid was letting it all out, all those seasons of chasing in vain that NFL grail that was finally, mercifully, in his hands. Reid ended his 20-year title drought by ending the Chiefs’ 50-year title drought by coming from behind to beat Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers 31-20.

After the game, still on the field, Reid kissed the Lombardi trophy and raised it to the South Florida sky, and then Andy did what Andy always does.

Andy said this wasn’t about Andy. He talked about his whirling dervish of a quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, and the executive who long ago saw Mahomes as a developing Mozart, Brett Veach. He talked about the Hunt family, his assistants, his players in Kansas City, his players in Philly. If Andy went long enough at his news conference podium, he would’ve gotten around to thanking his mailman, too.

But if Reid thought he was getting away with his selfless act, sorry pal, that was a no-can-do on this forever Sunday night.

This one was about the human teddy bear with a rainforest for a mustache, the guy who once put away a 40-ounce steak in 19 minutes.

This one was all about Big Red.

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“He’s one of the best coaches of all time; he already was before we won this game,” said Mahomes, the MVP of Super Bowl LIV. “But we wanted to get that trophy just because he deserved it. The work that he puts in day in and day out. He’s there at like 3 in the morning, and he leaves at 11 [at night]. I don’t think he sleeps. I’ve tried to beat him in, and I never can. He’s someone that works harder than anyone I’ve ever known, and he deserves it.”

The rifle-armed son of a former big league reliever, Mahomes said he had two goals when he became the starting quarterback of the Chiefs. One, to win the AFC championship and bring the Lamar Hunt Trophy back to the hometown of the late Chiefs owner who came up with the term “Super Bowl” for what has effectively become a national holiday.

“And the second-most important thing was to get Coach Reid a Super Bowl trophy,” Mahomes said.

Will this liberating triumph change Coach Reid? What do you think? This is a man who said he celebrated his AFC title game victory over Tennessee — which booked him a trip back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 15 years — by eating a cheeseburger and then going to bed. “I’ll have a double cheeseburger tonight,” Reid said Sunday. “Extra cheese.”

And why not? With this win, Reid finally proved that nice guys do indeed finish first, even if they have to wait a little while to get there. In the weeks leading up to his crowning career achievement, it was clear the 61-year-old Reid had already proven you can be almost universally admired and adored even if you don’t finish first once across two decades as an NFL head coach.

Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

But man, it will be so sweet for this grandfather of nine, the son of a Los Angeles-based doctor (his mother, Elizabeth) and a Hollywood set designer and artist (his father, Walter, a Navy veteran of World War II), to never again answer for his inability to win the big one over 14 seasons in Philadelphia, and then over his first six in Kansas City.

No more questions about time management, about choking in the playoffs, about Dee Ford lining up offside against New England, about watching his Eagles treat a two-score deficit late in their Super Bowl loss to the Patriots 15 years ago as an opportunity to move at a pace better suited for a ballroom walk-through.

Just like in that crushing defeat in Jacksonville in February 2005, Reid’s team was down 10 points in the middle of the fourth quarter. Only this time his players ran a Showtime fastbreak through the league’s most ferocious defense, led by a visionary, Mahomes, who handles the ball and passes it the way few quarterbacks ever have.

“Keep going,” Reid told his players as they struggled to put points on the board. “We’re going to be OK. We’ve done it before; we’ll do it again.”

Reid was a prophet carrying an oversize dinner menu for a play card. So now the questions will not be about Reid’s failures. Instead, they’ll ask Reid about the night he became football’s champion, the night his 222nd career victory silenced all that noise about him being the sport’s most prolific winner without a ring.

Now they’ll ask Reid about the night he almost certainly sealed his future induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“Nobody deserves this trophy more than Andy Reid,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, son of Lamar, told the crowd and the Fox TV audience during the postgame ceremony.

“We got that ring for Big Red,” Travis Kelce said. “He acts like a father figure to everyone in the building, and you appreciate that. … We’re married together forever now.”

Many of Reid’s friends and colleagues had spent the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl being asked how they would react in the event that Reid finally won a Super Bowl. Some predicted they would cry. All predicted they would be choked up, and as happy for Andy as Andy was for his wife, Tammy, his sons, Britt and Spencer, and his daughters, Crosby and Drew Ann, and all those wearing Chiefs jerseys around them.

“Andy gave me a kiss right on the cheek when we won,” said Dave Merritt, his defensive backs coach and an assistant who won two titles with Tom Coughlin’s New York Giants. “As soon as it was over I thought about Andy’s family, his kids, his wife, his cousins, his brothers, everyone associated with him. Not only Coach Reid became a world champ, they all became world champs. I was so moved watching Andy on the stage with his family around and all that confetti coming down on top of them.”

REID’S FOOTBALL JOURNEY, which started in 1971 when an outsize 13-year-old famously wore a Rams uniform while competing in the punt, pass and kick competition, culminated at last on the biggest stage in sports. With the NFL celebrating an entire century of games, and with old haunts Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in the house for the ceremony, Reid was the right guy to lead the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl victory in a half-century. And San Francisco was a most appropriate full-circle opponent — Reid worked his first real coaching job at San Francisco State, where he sold hot dogs to help raise money for the now-defunct Division II program. He has come a long way, baby, and his generosity of spirit made him relatable, huggable and easy to root for.

Everything you need to know: • Box score | Mahomes wins MVP • O’Connor on Reid’s legacy win • Barnwell: How Chiefs came back • Graziano: Mahomes to the rescue More: Super Bowl LIV » | NFL coverage »

“Andy truly puts others before himself,” says his former VP of player personnel in Philadelphia, Jason Licht, now the GM of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “He’s been wanting to win this for everybody else before he wants to win it for himself, and he’s an unbelievable leader because of that. He’s one of those leaders that when things aren’t going well he takes all the blame, and when things are going good he gives credit to all the great work everyone else did. And that’s why everybody loves playing for him, and goes the extra mile for him.”

In the end, for Reid, it all comes back to trust and empowerment, and to letting his players breathe. In practice, his quarterback and receivers are permitted — if not outright encouraged — to close their eyes as they work on some creative pitching and catching. Mahomes says the everyday fun sanctioned by Reid “keeps us loose and ready to go on game days.” No wonder that the quarterback, at age 24, is already on record saying he wants to spend his entire career in Kansas City.

Reid is one of the brilliant offensive minds of his generation, or of any generation, and yet his belief in freedom of expression works on the defensive side of the ball, too. “This is my third program in the league,” Tyrann Mathieu says, “but I feel I can be myself here. … [Reid] wants us to be comfortable, relaxed, at ease.”

By all accounts, his insistence that his players stay true to themselves inspired them to play at the highest possible level, and doubled their affection for the coach who always looked as if he should be wearing a striped red and white jacket, red bow tie, and straw skimmer hat as part of a barbershop quartet.

“He tells them all the time in team meetings, ‘Let your personality show,'” says Britt Reid, his father’s linebackers coach. “I think that’s important. You can’t be someone you’re not. If you want to play this game to the best of your ability, you’ve got to be you.”

With a win over the 49ers, Andy Reid finally put an end to the questions over his big-game management — and secured a capper on his Hall of Fame career. Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports

Sometimes Merritt will head out to practice and find his defensive backs working on moves that have nothing to do with containing opposing receivers. “They’re dancing, the music is on, and they’re going crazy on the sideline,” Merritt says with a laugh. “But I can’t say anything to them because the head coach said, ‘Let your personalities show.'”

Britt says his father got his creativity from his own dad (Andy has a talent for drawing caricatures, including some of his youngest son, Spencer, a strength and conditioning coach at Colorado State), and his refined and calculating intellect from his mom, the radiologist. Those handed-down gifts have helped Reid coach his freewheeling Mozart at quarterback. Mahomes, Britt says, “has definitely reinvigorated him.”

Nothing against Mahomes’ predecessor, of course, as Alex Smith was a dignified winner in Kansas City who could not have handled the transition to the kid with any more grace. But Mahomes is a generational talent and an improvisational thinker who enables the artistic half of Reid’s beautiful football mind to dream up all kinds of exotic route trees in the middle of the night.

“The thing people don’t see about Andy is that this is still a kid’s game to him,” says Tom Melvin, Reid’s assistant for more than two decades and an alumnus of his offensive line at San Francisco State. “And during a play in practice, Patrick will throw the ball and before it’s caught he’ll go, ‘You like that throw, don’t you?’ He’s playing a kid’s game like a kid. So for Andy and Patrick, it’s just playtime now.”

It was playtime for all Chiefs during this championship run. The exclamation point was a fitting defeat of a team that suited up Dee Ford, the goat who allowed the GOAT, Tom Brady, to shake off what would’ve been a fatal interception last year and lead the Patriots to the AFC title. Sunday night, after winning the big game, Reid exonerated his former player for lining up where he did on the penalty, repeating for the 47th time, “It wasn’t Dee Ford, it was all of us. …We could’ve done four inches better.”

It was just Andy being Andy, taking on the burden himself to avoid making anyone — even a former player on the opposing team — carry a heavier load than he needed to.

FOR THE RECORD: Reid’s user-friendly practices shouldn’t suggest that good ol’ Andy is running the league’s answer to Club Med. He no longer has the GM responsibilities he had in Philadelphia, yet Reid still works absurdly long hours, even by NFL standards, and expects his assistants and front-office people to keep up. Licht said Reid slept in that office three or four nights a week in Philly, and it’s obvious that nothing much has changed in Kansas City.

NFL PrimeTime continues this postseason with extended highlights and analysis following the conclusion of each day’s playoff games. Watch on ESPN+

But Reid’s near-maniacal devotion to his craft, and to every imaginable game-prep detail, has never twisted him into an angry or paranoid mess. He can be stern with players and staffers when necessary, but Licht described him as a coach with “a relaxed California swag and chill way about him.”

“Andy can get along with anybody,” Licht says. “He has a way of coming into your office, sitting down, and realizing when somebody needs to get his mind off things. He’ll talk about anything and everything, and you love being around him. When he’s putting in all those hours, you just didn’t want to let him down and not be there in case he had a question for you. You didn’t want to miss the opportunity to have another five or 15 minutes of bonding with him.”

“The entire league wants Andy to win because of how he treats and leads his men,” says Dave Merritt, his defensive backs coach. Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Merritt sees the same man in Kansas City that Licht saw in Philly, and it comes as no surprise. “Leslie Frazier told me about him 20 years ago,” Merritt says of the former Eagles assistant. “He said, ‘Dave, if you ever get a chance to work with Andy Reid, don’t ever turn it down.'”

He didn’t, not after taking a call from Reid in the middle of a golf round and, by his estimation, completing contract talks between a pitch and a putt. Merritt’s experiences with his new boss are quite different from those he had in New York. Coughlin, he reminds, was an iron-fisted ruler who fined Giants for wearing the wrong socks in hotel lobbies. Reid responds to relatively benign rules violations more like a nurturing father.

“Another thing I learned is that Andy really trusts us to coach these players, and that gives you so much confidence as an assistant,” Merritt says. “With Tom Coughlin, we had staff meetings every day, sometimes twice a day, three times a day. I’ve never seen a coach operate the way Andy operates, where we go through the week and never have a staff meeting.”

REID’S STORY PROBABLY makes you feel good inside, unless you’re a fan of the 49ers or someone who lost a few bucks betting that their defense would win San Francisco its sixth Lombardi trophy. Who couldn’t feel good about an NFL head coach who still occasionally drives the Ford Model A his father bought after the war for $25? And besides, we all sorta needed a story like this at the end of a heartbreaking week in sports.

Andy Reid personally knew Kobe Bryant, another tough guy with Philly roots, and would talk about him here and there at the Eagles’ facility. “He would just say of Kobe, ‘That’s a good dude, man. That’s a good dude,'” Licht recalls. “People who know Andy know that’s high praise for him.”

Asked during Super Bowl week about the helicopter crash that killed the Lakers legend, his teenage daughter Gianna and seven other passengers, Reid predicted the Bryant family would “get back into the swing of life and do great things.” Just like the Reids did after one of their sons, Garrett, died of an accidental heroin overdose during training camp in 2012.

Later that year, Andy ignored friends’ suggestions that he should take a year off to regroup after the Eagles fired him. Instead, he immediately filled the opening in Kansas City, where linebacker Jovan Belcher had just killed his girlfriend before taking his own life in the team parking lot. Reid needed the Chiefs as much as the Chiefs needed him. Andy immediately added to his staff his second-oldest of three sons, Britt, despite his own past of drug and gun charges and jail time.

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Sunday night, Britt was on the winning Super Bowl side as a sober linebackers coach for his old man.

What a moment for Kansas City. What a week for the Reids. The Chiefs honored Reid at the start of Super Bowl week by wearing his cherished Hawaiian shirts and Air Force 1 sneakers, and they honored him again at the end of Super Bowl week by scoring more points than the 49ers scored.

“An-dy … An-dy … An-dy,” the Chiefs fans chanted in the final seconds of Sunday’s game. Reid was Gatorade-d by his players. It was all hugs and kisses and confetti from there.

“Hey, how about those Chieeeeeeeeeeefs!” Reid roared to the crowd during the ceremony as he wore his white championship cap. Tammy Reid had described her husband as “calm as a cucumber” in the lead-up to the game, and soon enough Reid was in his news conference already talking about a potential title No. 2.

“I’m really excited about it,” Reid said. “You get one, you want to go get another one.”

When he was done at the microphone, Andy loaded himself into a golf cart with Tammy, the woman he still calls his girlfriend, and headed for the locker room.

He will surely spend the coming days handing out credit to everyone who has helped him in his eight college and pro jobs, and way back to his time as a student-athlete and aspiring sportswriter at Brigham Young. Back then, Reid wrote columns for The Provo Daily Herald. All these years later, that young journalist inside the old coach knows exactly how this story needs to be written.

Above all, Super Bowl LIV belongs to a vital member of the Kansas City Chiefs. The one in Andy Reid’s mirror.

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#Egypt’s #Best #Kept #Secret #– #Taba #and #Taba #Heights, #South #Sinai #babe #explorepage #fashionmodels #instadaily #look #makeupaddict #nature #nikon #quotes #redcarpet

If you are seeking for a place to get pleasure from your vacation that presents eveninggolf equipment, stayly bars, discotheques and so forth – you are on the improper web page as Taba offers none of people centers. What this incredible vacation resort does offer is extreme natural cosmetic, tranquility, stunning cafes, globe – class diving and drinking watersports, golfing and the friendliest and most true men and women who will make your vacation experience very special.

Taba is located in a prime location to discover not entirely the Sinai and Egypt, nevertheless you also have the possibility to visit Israel and the Urban of Jerusalem, Masada and the Lifeless Sea, or swim with dolphins in the cosmopolitan City of Eilat. Taba is the gateway to Petra in Jordan so you can avail of this golden opportunity to explore this incredible historic city, now deprovidedly one of the 7 Miracles of the Entire world.

Taba Heights is also house to Crimson Sea Waterworld, the watersports and diving center voted by divers the prime dive center in the world several moments over. There you can enjoy water – ski and wake – board, catamaran sailing, windsurfing and even benefit VDWS certificate with instruction from their top – level trainers and have a wonderful time performing it! They also offer snorkeling cruises on their sail boat; they’ve a glass base boat and even a semi – submarine so that you can view the beautiful coral reef which sursphericals the coast without having even getting moist – great for aged attendees, small young children or if you never swim.

The Waterworld textbooks all discuss fluent English and ptrip on their own on their expertise and knowledge of the regional reef, and risk-freety is paramount. You can have a go on the fun rides as well on bananas, donuts and other contraptions! Red Sea Waterworld is a place to pay out the working day, their beach front and every is the greatest in Taba and totally cost-free of charge adding a solar bed. Their beach bar and restaurant has a total menu, and their helpful personnel will even serve your food and beverages on the beach to you on your sun bed! Their home cooked shepherd’s pie and apple crumble is to die for, and their candy and bitter hen is the best I ever ate wherever.

There is certainly no reason for you to buy a full Egyptian visa to visit Taba or the Sinai. If you visit Israel or Jordan you’ll buy a visa for those international locations on introduction there, and any Egyptian visa would be cancelled. The only reason you’d purchase a full visa is if you are making ready to visit the African side of Egypt to show up at Cairo or Luxor on an tour. Taba is in Asia, and the Suez Tunnel is the route into Africa. Other factors to have a full visa would be if you are an innovative diver and you want to dive on the Thistlegorm or Dunraven wrecks. This would by natural means not be an process presented from Taba, but from Sharm El Sheikh which is around a two and a 50 percent hour power from Taba. If you land in Cairo en route to Taba, you would need the full visa; in a different way they give you a Sinai stamp which is legitimate for a stay of two months.

Taba Heights is a very secure and safe resort; objective – constructed by specialists Orascom who also have other resorts in El Gouna and all over the Centre East. The resort has 5 accommodations the Marriott, Hyatt Regency, A few Corners El Wekala, the Insidetercontinental and my possess preferred the Sofitel. All are outstanding hotels, not just for their facilities but for the good quality of their staff. They are going to bend over againwards to make confident that your stay with them exceeds all your specifications.

The Sofitel has the upper edge for me, most of their staff have labored there given that they opened their doors and they never overlook any person. The areas are enormous, all placelessly clean and new and the younger man who seems following it’ll typically surpincrease you with his abilities in towel sculpture! You may return to your room to uncover your white bathtub towels on your bed and sculpted into swans, mummies, monkeys and all fashion of other designs. You will truly feel negative undoing his endeavours, and most guests take photos of these skillful arts. The Sofitel has a pleasant stability of global guests and they make a level of being that very crucial function. Several a vacation has been destroyed by hotels who take also a lot of guests of one nationality as it leads to complications with the differing life, restaurant behavior and alternatives of menu for the minorities. Here’s specifically important in an Arab vacation spot as the Arab culture is very different to the Western one.The Sofitel offers an international menu to remember to from time to time up to 15 nationalities at one sitting down. They’ve themed evening meal, including an Egyptian night, and after your meal the enjoyment consist ofs stomach dancers and the standard whirling dervish.

There is a golf club in Taba Heights, with a resident golf pro. The system offers eighteen holes, and hosts televised Pro – Am 2 times a 12 months. This is a extremely – rated world one hundred course and many people are now coming to Taba just to enjoy it. You can e-book a round, or even obstacle the golf pro to a round, or have classes. Other facilities include a driving variety, club house, golf shop and special technique for children.

If you are a food vacationer or simply enjoy a special evening out at a specialty restaurant, Taba is the choice for you! The International Resort has the El Mar seafood restaurant, the Chicken’s Nest Thai Cafe and a Tapas restaurant overlooking their salt water lagoon. The Tapas is really low cost, but you will have one eye on your plate and the other on the most beautiful serenity you will ever find. Taba is immediately contrary the Saudi Arabian coastline, it really is just 10 km throughout the Red Sea. The moon sits on the top of the Saudi mountains opposite, providing a reflection on the water cringesting a view that would make you cry with contentment. This is exactly where to make wedding proposals or notify a special somebody you love them. The food is beautiful, not just enormous quantities of tapas, they offer tasty steaks and vegetarian alternatives as well.

The Thai restaurant is out of the hotel, once once again top – level with a chef who has won world championship acclaim for his creations. L’Asiatic restaurant is in the Sofitel hotel, and involves a Teppan grill so that the chef chefs the food as you watch. This is pure entertainment, and he will have you be a part of in at the grill, cooking lobster, steaks, chicken and other delighting. This hotel has even entertained movie star guests, and they ended up very influenced with the L’Asiatic. If you are looking for a distinct experience, the Sofitel has a tower overlooking the whole Bay of Aqaba. They will set up a individual dinner at the top of the tower for you with your exact choice of menu for very humble cash. This is one thing which is a life span memory and can not be recurring anywhere else, the view from the tower is just past words and phrases.

Other excellent dining places include the Lebanese at the Hyatt Regency who also have tandoori and charcoal grill restaurants, the Italian in the Marriott who also host a Mexican restaurant which is as first as it turns into. The Traveling Carpet is a favourite not just with visitors, but with locals as well. This is the most household friendly restaurant choice – you can eat almost everything in there from fish and chips to an remarkable fish platter, and you can round off your evening with a traditional Shisha pipe.

All the restaurants and hotels in Taba are a part of the Crystal Strategy, assuring guests that all delicacies and beverage is entirely safe to drink. Crystal Program means all water for drinking, ice and all water employed in food preparing and washing is bottled mineral water. Kitchens and food storage are inspected frequently, and staff have special training in “Posi” processes, a very comprehensive cleanliness program. This includes the restaurant of Castle Zaman, which is owned by Orascom and a 20 – mins ride out of Taba Heights. The Castle can only be noted as the last eating experience; the food calls for to be requested at minimum a few hrs ahead as it is sminimal cooked in a stone oven. It really is great, make certain to be starving prior to you eat; portions are fit for at least two! You can go from 1.30pm and enjoy their pool bar, which has beautiful thoughts of a abandoned white sand beach, and overlooks the Bay of Aqaba.

As the moon rises later on, enjoy the magnificent view of the moon on the water and twinkling Saudi lights as you devour the delicious food. An activity not to be skipped in Taba comes absolutely free of charge except for a minor effort on your part. Sunlight rise in summertime is close to four.30am or in wintertime later than that, it comes over the Saudi mountains and is never the exact same twice. The colours are indescribable, a mix of hues and ochre, purples to pinks, reds by means of to yellows. Your digicam helps make testimony to that, and again in the evening. The sun sets guiding the Sinai mountains, a backdrop to the resort losing potent rays over the Saudi mountains, reflecting their red color on to the water among. After there is certainly no wind, the sea is like glass, a reflect and this influence adjustments it to a deep mauve color. The sundown is best considered from the Mexican restaurant, the dawn from any sea dealing with spot.

An additional excellent photo spot is from the top of the hill at the Hyatt Regency, the beach route which operates from Red Sea Waterworld, earlier the Intercontinental, Marriott, Sofitel and Hyatt proceeds up this hill. That’s your sunrise prize photo. Quad cycling in Egypt is best booked with your tour owner as there are so many cowboy clothing enticing in risky practices. They’re very easily noticed, as their motorcycles are shabby looking, they’ll offer you a scarf alternatively than a crash helmet and heading take you via general public streets. Your insurance policies will never cover public roads or using without a crash helmet. In Taba, there is an outfit Quads Canyon who are associated to Red Sea Waterworld, and function with the same quality. Their one and two hours canyon rides are practically nothing quick of amazing, and they’re insured for children over six several years. All staff are crisis initial solution focused, and the bulk of their guests go back for a moment spin!

Horse riding is obtainable in Dahab, but you need to be mindful. As a qualified instructor and very experienced rider, I’d be anxious about beginner riders doing this activity. The horse tack departs a good deal to be wanted, girth (the strap that holds the saddle on) needs your eye to verify. There need to be 2 independent short straps identified under the saddle flap, one with 2 buckles, and the other with 1. It is crucial that the 2 buckles on the actual strap that goes around the horse are mounted one on each separate short strap, leaving the short strap with 2 buckles with 1 free. If your girth breaks, this means you and the saddle will not likely come off the horse.

Every single time I’ve ridden there, there has been a discrepancy on this. You also need sneakers with a low heel, NOT trainers and certainly not change – flops or sandals. The tongue of your trainer receives trapped in your stirrup, and if you drop off – you will be dragged, likely at pace. They do not offer hats which are absolutely essential but if you ask, they do provide hats and leg chaps. Many of their horses have no brakes, so make sure you are reasonable about your ability! Taking stated all that, I have experienced many a wonderful experience riding there on their beautiful but frisky Arab horses.

Other suggested objects to do and see from Taba include the Bedouin evening with dinner and stargazing in the desert, a visit to the Monastery of St Catherine and Mount Sinai and a visit to Dahab to loosen up at the beach entrance restaurants. You can shop in Taba Heights; there is a resort segment with many stores and facilities. The Salt Cave there not only offers the cave experience but sells Dead Sea merchandise. There are numerous artist and craft shops, memento shops, a wonderful fragrance shop, jewelry, apparel and traditional shops. This is the one place in Egypt you will shop with zero headache!

The shop house owners are forbidden by Orascom from getting pushy or hassling anyone to buy. They will make you tea – the perfume shop is a great place for tea, and you are certain to leave smelling wonderful even without having invested one penny! April to November at Taba Heights offers a free of charge competition every Friday. E-book the Flying Carpet, outside the house desk and you’ve front row view of the phase to watch the traditional demonstrate, live band usually of gentle rock style and a disco after – something for each person.

Taba offers a unique and very special experience, bringing visitors back continuously to their recently found corner of the world. There are no banging clubs, bars or discotheques in Taba, entertainment is primarily limited to the hotels. Taba Heights is a resort especially ideal to people with young children, partners, retired people, enthusiasts, honeymooners, single people and people with a feeling of journey who want to explore by availing of what is actually perhaps the best excursion choice in the world. Occur to Taba!

The post Egypt’s Best Kept Secret – Taba and Taba Heights, South Sinai appeared first on Beautiful Women.

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Iron Maiden Kicks Off The Book of Souls U.S. Tour Run in Virginia

Iron Maiden – Jiffy Lube Live – Bristow, VA – June 3, 2017

Iron Maiden continues to prove that if Father Time is actually knocking on their proverbial metal doors, the band must be opening up that doorway and having Eddie beat the ever living crap out of him time and time again.

The band kicked off the current U.S. leg of their Book of Souls tour at the Jiffy Lube Live amphitheater in Bristow, VA this past Saturday with a performance that if had to be described in a singular word, that word would be legendary.

As the day’s twilight faded into the darkness of the night UFO’s, “Doctor Doctor” began to play over the venue’s PA system. This of course is a signal that all die hard Maiden fans know all to well as being the final countdown to the lads storming the stage to begin another one of their vaunted live performances.

One by one Steve Harris, Nicko McBrain, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers sauntered onto the Jiffy Lube Live stage while launching into the opening bars of “If Eternity Should Fail,” the title track off of 2015’s The Book of Souls.  Shortly thereafter the 58-year-old Bruce Dickinson creepily appeared atop the Mayan temple the band is using as the theme for their Book of Souls tour run.

Menacingly hovering over a bubbly cauldron for a few moments, while creating an air of palpable tension, Dickinson then launched himself as if being shot out of canon down the temple steps to join his mates in delivering what would turn out to be a 15-song career spanning set.

Iron Maiden’s fans are beyond loyal, thus it was no surprise that even though the band chose to open with two tracks off of their latest release, the audience reaction was still beyond exuberant.

Based on this spirited rejoinder alone you would have thought they had kicked the performance off with something along the lines of “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” a track the band is sadly not currently playing due to some pointless litigation surrounding the song.

Long time fans didn’t have to wait all too long for the band to turn back the clock, as two of Maiden’s classics in the form of “Wrathchild,” which everyone in attendance seemingly sang word for word, and “Children of the Damned,” from 1982’s Number of the Beast, the first Iron Maiden album to feature Bruce Dickinson on vocals, followed next.

The meat of the performance would go on to follow this same formula of Maiden playing a few songs off of The Book of Souls such as “Death or Glory” and “The Red and The Black,” only to have these newer tracks be balanced by classics such as “The Trooper” and the definitely fan favorite, “Powerslave.”

During “The Trooper” Dickinson raced up the pillars of the Mayan temple in his familiar revolutionary times British military garb waving the Union Jack furiously back and forth.  At the mid-point of the song the front man even teased a few of the fans close to stage by faux tossing the the British flag directly at them.

It’s safe to assume had Dickinson actually hit a fan in the head with the flag that individual would have probably been eternally grateful for the experience of getting to personally interact with Dickinson himself, even if said interaction came via a head wound, imagine that?

Who knows if Harris Murray, Smith and Gers are taking the equivalent to metal Viagra or Cialis but for a gang of musicians now in their fifth decade of performing the quartet are a non-stop motor of metal hysteria from the very moment the band’s performance begins.

Gers in particular is beyond animated as he and his guitar were a whirling dervish of ferocity throughout the entirety of Maiden’s time on the lighted stage.   The guitarist also shared more than a few evil moments with Dickinson as the pair regularly engaged, hamming it up for a crowd that continued to beg for more from their storied British musical heroes.

Harris, who has served as the backbone of Iron Maiden since the band’s inception, never disappoints as a showman, as he too shared countless personal moments with the fans, regularly striking his all too familiar machine gun pose with his trusty Fender bass.

Although a bit less animated than Gers and Harris, and let’s face what musicians would even dare keep up the pair’s live performance pace, Murray and Smith dropped countless surreal guitar solos on the night, while delighting the crowd every time they came together to trade off leads.

Iron Maiden’s beloved Eddie would make his first appearance on the Jiffy Lube Live’s stage during the band’s performance of “Book of Souls.”  The beastly mascot stalked the stage attacking band members randomly until his final showdown with Dickinson.

The front man exchanged a few blows with Eddie until the lead singer channeled his Mortal Kombat “finish him” move by literally reaching into Eddie’s guts, ripping his heart out and tossing the bloody organ into the crowd for the crazies to fight over.   If that doesn’t sum up the theatrical and metal lunacy that is an Iron Maiden live performance, what on Earth possibly could?

As the show winded down Dickinson addressed the crowd and the state of the current world we live in commenting, “The world is run by lunatics and I don’t know who picked these lunatics or how they all managed to screw it up.”

The front man also touched on how music can unite the masses and regardless of color, race, creed or religion that we all had come together on the night to have a blast with one another.

Dickinson’s statement might have very well been understated as countless smiling faces, fevered hugs and waves of high fives could be spotted throughout the entire venue before, during and after the band’s performance.

Music, friendship, love, high fives and Iron Maiden.   Maybe those things can’t save the world but for one evening in Bristow, Virginia the boys in Iron Maiden sure made 20,000 people believe they can. Well played Iron Maiden, well played.

Swedish metal icons Ghost opened for Iron Maiden and provided what could only be described as a truncated greatest hits set.  Highlights included refulgent takes on tracks such as “From the Pinnacle to the Pit,” “Year Zero,” set closer “Monstrance Clock” and the song the band won the 2016 Grammy for Best Metal Performance for, “Cirice.”  Tobias Forge, more recognizable known as Ghost’s front man Papa Emeritus, and his current band of Nameless Ghouls, unfortunately received only a mixed response from the Jiffy Lube Live crowd.   This certainly couldn’t be attributed to Ghost’s performance as Iron Maiden’s fans were likely just far too focused on Maiden’s impending performance to pay the requisite enough attention to a band that was actually delivering a more than solid set of Scandinavian tinged evil metal in front of their very eyes.

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All Writing and Photography:  Robert Forte

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Iron Maiden Kicks Off The Book of Souls U.S. Tour Run in Virginia was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

[supermovielover-blog]

[Movie Review] One, Two, Three

Billy Wilder’s frenetic Cold War comedy One, Two, Three is a farce of verbal, rather than physical, slapstick.

One, Two, Three (1961)

Released: 18 Dec 1961

Rated: UNRATED

Runtime: 115 min

Director: Billy Wilder

Genre: Comedy

Cast: James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, Arlene Francis

Writer(s): Billy Wilder (screenplay), I.A.L. Diamond (screenplay), Ferenc Molnár (play)

Plot: In West Berlin during the Cold War, a Coca-Cola executive is given the task of taking care of his boss' socialite daughter.

IMDB rating: 8.0

MetaScore: N/A

Disc Information

Studio: MGM

Distributed By: Kino Lorber

Video Resolution: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH

Rating: Not Rated

Run Time: 1 Hr. 55 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray

Case Type: keep case

Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: A

Release Date: 05/30/2017

MSRP: $29.95

The Production: 4/5

Billy Wilder’s frenetic Cold War comedy One, Two, Three is a farce of verbal, rather than physical, slapstick. The master writer-director uses the international political situation of 1961 to concoct a raucous array of satirical and generational wordplay that seems almost unparalleled in cinema history. That much of the film may not play as well to younger members of today’s audiences depends on how much any one individual knows of the East-West stalemates and dogma of the Cold War era, but for Baby Boomers, this is one hilariously constructed comedy of in-jokes, sarcasm, and puns in which all nationalities are in for a thorough ribbing.

C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney) is head of the Coca-Cola operations in Germany stationed in Berlin, but when the Communists erect the Brandenburg Gate splitting Berlin in two, MacNamara knows he needs to get out as the political situation is becoming hotter by the day. He dreams of a promotion to London to become Head of European Operations and gets his chance to impress his Atlanta-based boss Wendell P. Hazeltine (Howard St. John) by taking guardianship of his seventeen-year old daughter Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin) during her visit to Berlin. During her two months in the city, however, the flighty party girl manages to get herself married secretly to Russian agitator Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz) which MacNamara knows will spell doom to any plans he has for advancement in the company. After plotting diabolically to get the marriage annulled and have Otto arrested by the Communists for disloyalty, MacNamara is chagrined to learn that Scarlett is pregnant making it necessary for MacNamara to undo his previous scheme and come up with a new plan to reunite the newlyweds and make the caustic Otto a suitable bridegroom in the eyes of his soon-to-arrive father-in-law.

Billy Wilder and writing partner I.A.L. Diamond have created a chaotically paced verbal farce with rat-a-tat dialogue which gets more frenetic as the movie runs. In fact, in the film’s last half, Cagney’s MacNamara rarely pauses to take a breath (the film’s title refers to the lists of objectives the Coke magnate barks out to his employees as scheme after scheme comes to his mind to force things to work out so he can earn his promotion), and Horst Buchholz as the always critical Otto Piffl practically matches him word for word (though the film never quite makes us believe Otto’s eventual transformation from Communist to Capitalist). Filmed in Berlin with Aram Khachaturian’s fast tempo “Sabre Dance” serving as the fitting accompaniment for the zany, zippy wordplay, Wilder rarely stops to let the characters or the viewers take a breath, and familiar symbols of the era (pictures of Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and Josef Stalin, banging shoes on tables, talks of missiles and Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin and threats of “burying you”) are everywhere to drive home the Cold War tone of the proceedings. Though mainly a dialogue comedy, Wilder can film a chase scene with the best of them, and the sequence where MacNamara and company frantically try to get from East to West Berlin while being chased by the German police adds some frantic action in the middle of all the verbiage.

James Cagney was 61 at the time of filming, and the exhausting pace of his scenes must have been the last straw for the veteran actor as he retired shortly afterward and didn’t make another film for twenty years. He’s certainly a whirling dervish throughout with superb split second timing with his lines and his props and rarely taking a moment of repose. Horst Buchholz likewise works overtime on spitting out those lines at lightning speed, and the two men (who didn’t like one another in real life) certainly make great dueling adversaries. Pamela Tiffin’s airhead Dixie belle is an acquired taste as the accent is too syrupy Southern for words yet she, like Otto, casts off her longing for a Siberian adventure all too quickly. Still, they make a gorgeous couple. Arlene Francis does very nicely as MacNamara’s long-suffering wife, and Lilo Pulver strikes some provocative poses as MacNamara’s voluptuous and quite efficient secretary. Howard St. John is okay as the big boss man, but Hanns Lothar steals the show as MacNamara’s executive assistant Schlemmer who will do anything for his boss including donning drag in a funny bit midway through the picture.

Video: 4/5

3D Rating: NA

The film’s Panavision aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is wonderfully delivered in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. While there are some flecks and the odd bit of debris here and there and a bit of flickering and line twitter, too, most of the image is sharp and clear. The grayscale offers excellent black levels and crisp whites. Contrast has been consistently applied for a good visual experience. The movie has been divided into 8 chapters.

Audio: 4/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix is typical of its era with limited range but strong delivery of the dialogue. Andre Previn’s musical adaptation uses not only “Sabre Dance” but also novelty tunes like “Yes, We Have No Bananas” and “Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” at critical moments with sound effects also appropriate in their placement. There are no instances of age-related artifacts like hiss or crackle.

Special Features: 3/5

Audio Commentary: film historian Michael Schlesinger delivers an excellent, informative commentary track with background on all the leading players and insight into production problems and the film’s reception.

Billy Wilder and Volker Schlondorff Interview (3:08, SD): the men talk in both English and German (subtitled) about problems in making the picture.

Billy Wilder on Politics (6:03, SD): the director talks about how his political leanings were averse to his star’s but were tempered throughout the making of the movie.

Theatrical Trailer (2:11, SD)

Promo Trailers: Witness for the Prosecution, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Gallant Hours.

Overall: 4/5

An excellent Cold War satire, One, Two Three requires multiple viewings to catch all of the many puns and pokes at both sides of the Cold War skirmish. Kino Lorber’s excellent Blu-ray release of this Billy Wilder classic makes return visits pleasurable indeed. Recommended!