We’re Not Russian

In the current political climate that we’re in, you’re concerned that this not actually a political humor site, and you’re wondering if it’s a Russian Propaganda site. I understand your concerns, and can tell you that you don’t have to be worried at all, because I’m a member of the Sons of The American Revolution, which means I have ancestors who were in this country in the 1700’s and fought in the Revolutionary War. You’re still not convinced, fine here are 50 cultural references and specific observations that span multiple decades that prove I grew up and live in the United States. There are also links to date stamped archives of this post proving when it was first published and not copied from somewhere.

1. My family is originally from West Virginia, which is one of the greenest and most beautiful places on this planet. My Great Grandfather left and came to the big city to get a job. His family didn’t approve. People in that area like to think of themselves as Hill Billies and the derogatory names they use for Hill Billies who’ve left to go work in the big city is a Mountain William.
2. I grew up in a not nice area of Queens, three people were shot and killed in the abandoned house on my block. On of my friends who lived two blocks away had a drug dealer living on his block, the SWAT team raided the house half a dozen times over the years. Three Greek Brothers owned a diner in the neighborhood, they were connected with the Mafia and the Police. There were questionable activities occurring there on a regular basis.
3. I grew up watching Saturday Morning cartoons, “Wonder Twin Powers Activate… “. Land of The Lost was another favorite, although looking back I can’t figure out why. Chaka was always funny, but I remember the Sleestaks being terrifying. When I think about it today I can’t explain why I was afraid of them, they moved so slowly that I can’t see how they ever captured anything. The show completely jumped the shark when they swapped out the father for Uncle Jack.
4. The first car I really ever wanted was the Smokey and The Bandit Trans-Am. The black one with the gold leaf screaming chicken on the hood, I still get a happy memory whenever I see one pop up on the internet.
5. When Star Wars came out I remember begging my Mom for weeks to take me to see it. She didn’t get it, and didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Eventually at the end of the summer before school started she relented and took me. We went to the Green Acres Drive In, even though the viewing experience was terrible and the audio was even worse, coming through the ridiculously cumbersome portable speaker you hung on the door window, it was still a life changing experience for me.
6. I remember how boring and unending it seems when you are driving from New York to Disney World in a car. I also know that if your sister leaves a Crayola 64 pack on the deck by the rear window on a hot day with the windows closed the crayons will melt, and your Mom won’t be happy about it at all.
7. I remember being a Yankees fan in the 70’s and how they completely dominated the league. I remember when Reggie hit those three homeruns. I remember how sad it was when Thurmun Munson died. I remember how George Stienbrener used to fight with and eventually fire Billy Martin. And then hire him back. And then fire him again. Which just kept repeating until Billy died in a car crash.
8. I remember going to Hot Skates in Lynbrook on Friday Nights. Double Session. I even remember the Father Guido Sarducci Hot Skates commercial.
9. I remember when Disco became a big thing and everybody’s favorite DJ with a deep sexy latin voice was Paco on 92 KTU. I also remember when Disco died and KTU switched to KROC a classic rock station. I also remember WLIR had Screamer of the Week which changed Shriek of the Week, and the DJs Donna Donna and Larry the Duck from the ‘Bu.
10. I remember spending a lot of time in the arcade as teenager and getting rug burns from the carpeting on the walls. Galaga was my game, I could totally kick your ass at it even today. Zaxxon was another favorite the 3-D graphics were revolutionary. I remember When Donkey Kong was born, as were Mario and Peach. I remember how unlike anything Dragon’s Lair was when it came out.
11. I remember how everyone completely lost their minds over the summer hiatus trying to figure out ‘Who Shot JR’.
12. I remember watching Donny & Marie and his purple socks.
13. I remember whenever we would go on a car trip and take the Belt Parkway it would smell awful as you passed between the garbage dump and Starret City.
14. I remember the blackout in the summer of 77, and how for the first hour my Mom completely blamed me for knocking out power to the entire neighborhood.
15. I remember going to Kennedy Airport to protest them bringing in the new Concord Jet. We lived near the airport and when the wind was right the planes flew over the house to reach the runway. You learned how to sleep through every plane no matter how low they were flying. The only plane you could Never sleep through was the Concord. The engines had a completely different sound, like this weird whirring. The windows would always rattle when it flew over too. It was a spectacular looking plane that looked like a vulture with it’s nose angled down when it was landing, it was just a real pain in the ass to live with.
16. When I reached driving age the car all the guys wanted was the IROC-Z. It was really flashy looking, but honestly didn’t have a lot of power. What I really wanted though was a Buick Grand National. I even dreamed of one day getting my hands on a decommissioned law enforcement model, which had the speed governing chip removed.
17. For a young teen boy The Dukes of Hazzard tv show was as close to perfection as your could get. It had the “buddy film” appeal of two cousins looking out for each other. It had the Yoda like figure of Uncle Jesse dispensing wisdom to the youngins. It had Daisy Duke in her daisy duke shorts and heels. It had easy to identify villan in Boss JD Hogg, and his two bumbling lackeys Sheriff Roscoe P. Coletrain (trademark snigger) and Deputy Enos. And it had the 1969 Dodge Charger as the General Lee. IMHO the 1969 body type was absolutely the best design they ever had. I’ve loved Chargers my entire life, and I drive a modern one today. It’s the first car I’ve ever liked enough to give name to. It’s Jolene.
18. I can tell you that even though the signs say ‘Southern Parkway’ and ‘Northern Parkway’ no one calls them that. They are the ‘Southern State’ and ‘Northern State’ without the word parkway, the word parkway is never used at all.
19. I remember when the rumor started about spider eggs being in Bubble Yum Bubble Gum. I also remember the rumor about Mikey from the Life Cereal commercial dying from eating Pop Rocks and soda.
20. On a hot summer day I remember drinking water straight out of the hose and not getting sick or dying.
21. I remember when no one cared about being politically correct and told kids to sit Indian Style.
22. I remember it being a big deal when Reagan took office and they let the hostages go.
23. I remember how the local ABC channel, channel 7 WABC, had this thing called the 4:30 Movie. Throughout the year they would occasionally do themed weeks, and how Planet of The Apes Week was my favorite.
24. I remember watching a Saturn V rocket launch at grammar school one day.
25. When I grew up it was called Junior High not Middle School.
26. I know that when you say ‘The City’ you can only be referring to Manhattan. People in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, or any place else who use ‘The City’ to refer to anyplace other than Manhattan are using it incorrectly.
27. I was broke growing up and couldn’t afford to pay for internet access. To solve this problem I became a disk skater. I would use those Get AOL for Free for 30 Days disks that would constantly come in the mail. At the end of 30 days I would abandon the old account and switch to a new one. I did this for years. Kids today don’t appreciate how easy they have the internet, and don’t know what it’s like when your Mom picks up the phone while you’re online and starts yelling at you to get off.
28. Captain Kirk was the best Star Trek Captain, it isn’t even close.
29. Han shot first.
30. I got into digital music much earlier than everyone else, I got Audiotron AT-101 back in 2002. It was a nice 1U rack mountable stereo component that I paired with an Onkyo receiver. I used an old Windows NT box as a file server. Audiotron was too far ahead of the curve to be commercially viable, and stopped production a few years later. Thankfully they weren’t dicks and didn’t brick the hardware like companies do today. I migrated to Sonos which has a much higher quality of sound. It also costs three times more which completely sucks. They completely dropped the ball when it came to voice use and let the Amazon Echo eat their lunch.
31. I learned to drive in a Mulsane Blue hardtop 1972 Chevy Impala sport with a 350 V-8. The thing was gigantic, just barely smaller than a modern day aircraft carrier. The ride was super smooth and floaty, which is something you just don’t see in cars today. Despite being a huge monstrosity it was a lot easier to drive than the Duster because it had power steering. Today these cars are highly sought after by people who compete in demolition derbies, their gigantic mass gives them a huge edge over other cars.
32. My friend who lived next door had an older brother who for some unknown reason decided it was appropriate to take two teenage boys to Apocalypse Now, which had an R rating. Most of the movie was over my head, especially the second half where Marlin Brando is just babbling complete nonsense. However the entire segment where Robert Duval is leading the airborne division was amazing. The helicopter attack scene where they fly in to Ride of the Valkyries is a completely different experience in a theatre with a good sound system. I can remember that moment with complete clarity and it still gives me goose bumps.
33. For my birthday one year I got boombox with and 8-track player. You probably didn’t even know that was something that ever existed. The 8-track I got with it was Parallel Lines by Blondie.
34. The first auto race I attended was at the Islip Speedway, at the start of the regular people raced against each on an oval track. The people who loved their cars and had spent a lot of time customizing them were usually too afraid of damaging them and didn’t compete hard enough. Even though they had a faster car they almost always lost, the guys who drove jacked up beaters usually won. The night ended with the Joie Chitwood Stunt Show which had all sorts of crazy stunt driving and ended with a car being launched out of a cannon. It was really a guy driving a small car that had been lightened through a gigantic inclined tube that looked like an canon. When the car come out the other end there was carefully timed explosion and lots of smoke. It was a great effect and the fans in the grandstand loved it.
35. I owned MeatLoaf’s Bat Out of Hell album in vinyl format, I played in 90 jillion times. I didn’t realize the double entendre aspect until years later. Having Phil Rizzuto, who I knew as the Yankees Announcer, calling the play by play action definitely played a role in me not getting the hidden meaning right away.
36. I cut school to go to the first showing of Return of the Jedi, they didn’t have midnight showings back then. I even had a Revenge of the Jedi shirt, although looking back it was probably a bootleg and not an original.
37. I owned Queens News of the World Album, which had the song We Are the Champions on it. I know that the song really ends with the last line “Of The World” despite what you hear now on the internet. People who claim this is part of the Mandela Effect are just weak minded fools. I know it has the last “Of The World” bit because I would sing it out loudly along with the album at the end, and my Mom yelled at me multiple times for doing it.
38. I discovered the magic of having a blacklight in your bedroom around the same time as Pink Floyd’s The Wall album came out.
39. Frank Frazetta is an American artist who isn’t given the recognition he deserves. The first piece of his work I saw was the Molly Hatchet Flirtin’ With Disaster album, it had massively muscled Viking like warrior in gold helmet with wings carrying an axe and stepping over skeleton bones. Some guy around the neighborhood had a mod 70’s van with Conan Chained painted on the side. For art class I did a mirror etching of simplified version of Against the Gods. When I got an off the books job helping Mr Schnieder, who was a salesman for Arax Hardware, I saved up my money and paid $80 for a custom Death Dealer painting on the back of my denim jacket. That was huge amount of money back then, but it definitely was a cool jacket.
40. Don’t get me wrong Alex Ross is a great comic book artist, but the artist who’s work I really enjoy is Kelly Jones, specifically the work he did in the Batman books. The exaggerated long ears and unrealistic but overly dramatic cape movements really capture the essence of the Batman character.
41. I remember when comic book movies made a comeback with Batman. Michael Keaton was surprisingly believable as Batman. The part of the movie I most enjoyed was the soundtrack by Danny Elfman. I still get goosebumps when I listen to Charge of the Batmobile. Scrooged was another great Elfman Soundtrack, as were Planet of the Apes and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. His work on Nightmare Before Christmas is just shy of perfection. Years later I heard his Serenade Schizophrenia performed at Carnegie Hall. It was weird seeing all of his emo goth kid fans in the audience mixed in with the stuffy overly conservative folks you normally see at Carnegie Hall.
42. To this day I’m still amazed that Brad Metzler was able to get someone to turn in the flag that the firefighters hoisted at the World Trade Center site that had gone missing. The flag came from a rich couple’s boat in the area, and a year later when the couple held a fundraiser for a 9/11 charity they got permission to borrow the flag for the event. When they went to put the flag up the grommets where the flag was originally attached didn’t line up, and they realized this wasn’t the original flag it was a smaller flag. Years later Brad did a show on the History Channel about the missing flag, and few weeks later someone turned it in anonymously at a fire house in Seattle. Dirt samples from the flag were analyzed and they completely matched debris samples from 9/11, and the flag matched up the flagpole from the original boat.
43. I currently live on LawnGUYLand (one word) in a town that’s named after a local Indian tribe that’s completely unpronounceable if you didn’t grow up here. Some other unpronounceable towns include Hauppauge, Copiague, Massapequa, Patchogue, Quogue, and Nissequogue.
44. I have purchased the Star Wars original Trilogy three times. Once on VHS, once on DVD, and again digitally. Currently my copy is in Apple TV, which sucks because I now use an Amazon FireStick 90% of the time.
45. When I grew up the Brontosaurus was still a dinosaur.
46. It’s a hero, not a sub, not a wedge, not a grinder, not po’ boy, and not a blimpie.
47. Only in a NY Deli will they have a numbered breakfast sandwich with bacon, sausage, cheese and egg whites.
48. Mexican Coke is absolutely superior to American Coke. In the US they switched to corn syrup, in Mexico they still use real sugar. They tell you it tastes the same, but if you’ve ever tasted soda with real sugar you know that’s a complete lie. If you ever see Mexican Sprite you should buy it on the spot, it’s like drinking champagne that was bottled by angels.
49. My favorite live classical music performance was when Skitch Henderson conducted the New York Pops play Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Skitch wasn’t like any other conductors, he would stop between sets and talk to the audience. Before he played The Planets he told a story how he met Gustav Holst’s daughter and he mentioned to her that he plays her fathers music from time to time. According to him she was a stern woman, and demanded that he play it once a year. She even went as far as to get Skitch’s home phone number, would call him on her father’s birthday to check that he was still playing her father’s music regularly.
50. Ring Dings are the superior snack cake. Yodels don’t have the right chocolate to cream ratio. Suzy-Q’s are too spongey and lack the complexity of an outer hard chocolate shell casing. For Ring Dings to achieve their full potential they have to be refrigerated for few hours, the chocolate warming and melting on your tongue increases the flavor profile.

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