February 2014 – Page 2 – Looking to God

Karen Hill

Posted on February 12, 2014February 14, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Ignored as a date, Karen gives him another chance. Couldn’t stand him, obnoxious, fidgeting around—that’s what she thinks of her future husband. Promises to meet him again on a Friday night and he stands her up.

Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill in Goodfellas

“You’ve got some nerve standing me up. Nobody does that to me. Who do you think you are, Frankie Valli or some kind of big shot?”

Henry Hill tries reasoning with her telling her he thought it was the following Friday.

“It was this Friday and you agreed, so you’re a liar!”

On their first date, Henry takes Karen on a whirlwind trip through the service entrance of the fanciest restaurant in town. A special table at the front, fine food, a live show with the king of the one-liners, she didn’t know what to think. Henry pays for everything in cash. They even have Bobby Vinton sending them a bottle of the finest champagne.

One day, Karen calls Henry, screaming the boy across the street pushed her out of a car when she wouldn’t respond to his advances.

“He started to touch me. He started to grab me. I told him to stop. He didn’t stop. I hit him back. And then he got really angry.”

Henry takes care of it. He marches across the street and pistol-whips the boy ten times, breaking the kid’s nose. To make his point, after having some words with him, Henry pounds the kid one last time.

“I know there are women, like my best friends who would have gotten out the minute their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But I didn’t. I’ve got to admit the truth. It turned me on.”

The couple marries and things change quickly. She realizes she’d married into two families.

“We weren’t married to nine-to-five guys. But the first time I realized how different was when Mickey had a hostess party. They had bad skin and wore too much makeup. They didn’t look very good. They looked beat-up. They talked about how rotten their kids were and about beating them with broom handles and belts. When Henry picked me up, I was dizzy. I don’t know if I could live like that.”

Whatever Karen thinks of her new family, she reasons around the quirks.

“Being together all the time made everything seem all the more normal.”

What normal is, is what normal does.

“We always did everything together, and we always were in the same crowd. Anniversaries, christenings. We only went to each other’s houses.”

And this is where I come in. I write my Women Who Wow Wednesday series in the context of strong women who stand on their own two feet. Fighters, if you will, who aren’t afraid of taking on someone or something greater than themselves. Although Goodfellas comes from a true story, characterization of real people is inevitable. Karen Hill falls into that category.

For a while, she plays by the rules, respecting her husband, keeping the status quo with his crew. But it’s that ability to think for herself that gets her in trouble. More to the point, her ability to go against the flow makes her unique. In a world of murder, deceit and betrayal, Karen demonstrates a strong conviction to do what she thinks is right.

In the end, isn’t that what matters?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Have you seen Goodfellas? What do you think of Karen?

Monday Mayhem

Zombification

Posted on February 10, 2014February 12, 2014 by Jack Flacco

My Monday Mayhem series has had its share of interesting moments. For instance, my Classic Films Zombie Style theme explores popular movies with a zombie twist. Same goes for Classic Literature Zombie Style, except the theme works with popular books. The other theme is my Zombie What Ifs where I pose various zombie scenarios and your job is to escape the horde.

Today, I’d like to introduce a new theme that I thought might spark a few ideas for all you artists out there. I’m simply going to call it Zombification for lack of a better term. I will feature pop culture icons rendered as zombies. Perhaps, I’ll even add a few anecdotes to lighten the mood, but we’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, here are this week’s picks:

Charlie Brown—Who doesn’t like the Peanuts gang? I grew up with them. Granted, it’s a far cry from A Charlie Brown Christmas but a zombie Charlie Brown makes for an interesting cartoon, don’t you think? Imagine the whole Peanuts crew succumbing to a persistent virus that in turn makes them eat the townsfolk. I’d buy the Blu-Ray, for sure. Nothing quite like introducing a little anarchy where the protagonist ascends to the top of the food chain.

Super Mario—I wonder what Mario would do if instead of collecting coins he’d have an express mandate to collect body parts. It shouldn’t be any different from what it is now. After all, he is collecting hearts, so what big difference would it make if he collected a set of lungs, kidneys or a liver? I think we should all request Nintendo to replace all collectibles with limbs. Wouldn’t that make the game interesting? Gory, but interesting.

Superman—Since we’re on the topic of supers, how about Superman finding a malignant chunk of kryptonite that renders him Superzombie? Then again, the likelihood of him crashing through a brick wall would be remote. If anything, Superzombie would careen toward a stationary object and the impact alone would have him land with a big huge splat. Not good, considering he should be the most powerful zombie in the world. What chance would we have?

Batman—The Caped Zombie. Yeah, I can see that happening. The Joker himself would run for his life. No more Batmobile, Batcave or, in fact, Bat-anything. In its place we’d have the Zombmobile, Zombcave and a crowd of the undead roaming about under Bruce Wayne’s mansion.

Marvel Superheroes—I couldn’t choose one Marvel superhero, so I decided to choose them all. There are just too many to look at on their own. I’m sure I’ll do it someday, but not this time. Let’s enjoy them all for now and hope they don’t become real. I mean, could you see a day when Spider-Man spins this creepy web resembling internal digestive organs? I know I can’t.

Your turn, hunt and scavenge. If you have any characters you’d like to see zombified, post the idea here. I may choose your character as a highlight for the next go around.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Do you have any zombified characters you would like to share? Which character or who would you like to see zombified?

Cucumber Salad

Posted on February 7, 2014May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Cucumbers are one of my favorite vegetables. I add them to salads. I have them plain. I even toss them into a bowl, dipping them into olive oil as a snack. Cucumbers are great. That’s why for this Freedom Friday post I’m going to share with you one of my absolute favorite cucumber salad recipes ever. If you’re looking for something to eat on a Sunday afternoon, this is the recipe for you.

Although tailored for summer fun, this recipe came from my ongoing experimentation with different food combinations. If anything, this dish has more of a Greek/Mediterranean flavor combination suitable for an evening get-together with friends and family alike. But it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it any other time.

Let’s get to it.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

Half an English cucumber
1 avocado
Half a lemon
Oregano
Half a garlic clove
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Greek olives
Feta cheese
Olive oil

Directions:

Cut an English cucumber in half, peel it and slice it into small pieces, and add it to a deep bowl. Some folks like keeping the skin on the cucumber, which is great because the skin has lot of vitamins. In this case, however, I peel it to give the dish a particular flavor I’ve grown to like. Nonetheless, you can keep the peel if you want.
Chop half a garlic clove and add it to the bowl. Trust me, adding half a garlic is being stingy. I’m Italian, garlic runs in our veins. Too much garlic is never enough.
Now, add oregano, fresh ground pepper, salt, Greek olives, a generous dousing of olive oil and a splash of lemon juice. Regarding the amounts to add, I can answer that simply by saying “to taste”. I love oregano, so I add quite a bit of it. The same goes for the fresh ground pepper, nothing quite like the flavor to surprise someone trying it for the first time.
Toss the ingredients with salad spoons or ordinary spoons for that matter.
The last step is to scoop the meat from an avocado into the bowl. Add a good amount of feta cheese on top and you’re good to go. The reason we don’t toss the final ingredients in the salad is to avoid them from getting soggy. No one wants a mushy salad.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. If you ever do try it out, make it part of a BBQ on a hot summer evening and let me know what you think.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Do you have any cucumber recipes you’d like to share?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Elvira

Posted on February 5, 2014April 15, 2019 by Jack Flacco

From the moment she appears on the screen, she captures Tony Montana’s heart and doesn’t let go. A blonde bombshell from Baltimore, Elvira Hancock is the token prize to whoever can claim her as his. That is, whoever can afford her.

For those who have been following Women Who Wow Wednesday, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer) seems an unlikely candidate to include in the series. After all, she’s spoiled, a narcissist, a drug addict—everything about her would make a family man cringe not wanting to have anything to do with her.

But there are moments—moments when in the throes of confusion—when she can utter just one line and it would relate years of wisdom within a single thought.

First, let’s get to the backstory. Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a political refuge from Cuba, lands on United States soil seeking asylum. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fidel Castro, the little island’s leader, had opened the floodgates releasing the dregs of his jails to an unsuspecting American people. Tony, a possible former assassin, is one of them.

In a refugee camp, Tony earns his Green Card by murdering a former Castro associate in a brutal act of vengeance. Released to the streets of Miami, he rises from dishwasher to a full-fledged drug dealer importing cocaine from Columbia. His world changes once he meets Elvira.

You see, Elvira is Frank Lopez’s wife. Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) is a drug kingpin. Frank Lopez is Tony’s boss.

It doesn’t stop Tony from chasing after the knockout waif. Despite her illegal cravings, her self-absorbed attitude and her constant need for attention, Elvira is a fighter and that is what Tony recognizes. The men she associates with can have her snuffed out without so much as a second thought. Yet she gets away with talking back without much resistance.

When Elvira wants something, she goes for it. She doesn’t beat around the bush:

Elvira: So do you want to dance, Frank, or do you want to sit there and have a heart attack?
Frank: Me, dance? Hey, I think I wanna have a heart attack.

When Tony steps out of line, disrespecting her, she has this to say:

Tony: Now you’re talking to me, Baby.
Elvira: Don’t call me “Baby”. I’m not your “Baby”.

At the height of her drug abuse, she manages to utter one of the most prolific lines in the entire movie:

Elvira: Nothing exceeds like excess. You should know that, Tony.

It gets better. When things begin to sour between her and Tony, her quick wit provides some much-needed levity in their marriage:

Tony: I work hard for this. I want you to know that.
Elvira: It’s too bad. Somebody should’ve given it to you. You would’ve been a nicer person.

Finally, while everything falls apart, Elvira sticks to her guns:

Tony: Look at that: a junkie… I got a junkie for a wife… Her womb is so polluted… I can’t even have a little baby with her!
[Elvira throws wine in Tony’s face]
Elvira: How dare you talk to me like that! What makes you so much better than me? What do you do? Kill people? Deal your drugs? Real contribution to human history, Tony. What makes you think you can be a father? You don’t even know how to be a good husband.

Now, Tony could easily put a bullet in her head, but he doesn’t. Regardless of her shortcomings, she not only makes sense, she also proves that standing up to a force much more powerful than herself proves her ability to dictate her self-worth. And that’s something to wow about.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Have you seen Scarface? What did you think of Elvira?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Insects

Posted on February 3, 2014February 5, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Ever hear of zombie bees? Me neither. I didn’t know about them until my wife sent me an article posted on Facebook featuring these unfortunate creatures. For a while there, I thought it was a joke. You know the kind, “Two-Headed Dog Discovered in Ecuador.” But after having read the blurb, I knew I had stumbled upon something different. And different is what Monday Mayhem is all about.

Honeybee [Photo Credit: Used in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License]

In a nutshell, the behavior of these bees is nothing short of zombie. They fly around without a sense of direction, veer toward the light, then drop to the ground wandering as would the undead. No two ways about it, something wicked happened to these bees.

Scientists call the flies Apocephalus borealis. What they are really is parasites that latch on to European honeybees, laying their eggs and causing nothing but chaos to these gentle insects of nature. As the eggs grow, the bees lose their ability to control their motor muscles. Once the eggs hatch, the bees die.

Reminiscent of the movie Alien where the creature inhabits the body of its host until such time that it explodes in a birth of gory proportions, the parasite’s eggs reside in the bee’s body and feeds on its host’s nutrients.

Discovered in Maine in the 1920s, the parasite had infested yellow jacket hornets and bumblebees. This is the first time these critters have ventured to attack honeybees.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis [Photo Credit: Used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license]

This is not the first time insects have exhibited traces of zombie-like behavior. For instance, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a parasitoidal fungus infecting ants, altering their behavior, killing them to feed off their dead bodies. This dreaded organism infects the ant causing the insect to wander around disoriented until it hooks its mandibles to the stem of a plant and dies. The fungus then grows from the remains to reproduce spores that will eventually infect other ants, thereby continuing the cycle.

What makes the fungus so fascinating is how it infects the ant by invading the cuticles and consuming the non-vital tissues much like a yeast infection. As the infection spreads to the brain, the ant begins to convulse, dropping from its canopy and losing the ability to control its muscle functions. At this point, the ant becomes a zombie, slave to the infection that inhabits its body. The infection leads the ant to a suitable plant where it causes it to lock its jaws on one of the veins of a leaf and die a miserable death.

It gets better. Whole ant colonies have died due to the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infection. The cure? There isn’t one. Fossil leaf from the Messel Pit in Germany indicates the fungus may have been around for more than 48 million years. That’s a long time for something to have outlasted extinction. Nonetheless, the ant colonies’ only recourse has been to drag the infected from populated areas in order for them to die alone, away from the multitude.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there for all of us.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Have you ever heard of the Apocephalus borealis parasite or the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus?

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