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Hell Drivers
America's Original Crash Test Dummies



An email recently arrived from our favorite Boston chronicler, Darren Garnick, who is the producer of a about-to-be-released movie "Hell Drivers: America's Original Crash Test Dummies". [www.helldriversmovie.com].

Darren usually runneth-over with info, and his latest didn't disappoint.

Hell Drivers is about guys who drive halfway across the country for the chance to drive a flaming garbage truck off a dirt ramp into a mound of junk cars. About motorcycle jumpers who have bounced back from brain-injuring crashes to soar fearlessly above county fair crowds. Most have no health insurance, no life insurance and don't get Hannah Montana money to go on tour.

Whether you work in a cubicle or an auto body shop, you'll be inspired by guys who get off their butts and follow their dreams -- even when all logic tells them to give it up for something "safe."

Hell Drivers premieres on June 13 at the New Jersey International Film Festival (details here: http://helldriversmovie.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/world-premiere/ ) and then moves on to screenings in Philadelphia (late June), the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Iowa (early August) and Orlando (late August). Final scheduling details are being worked out on those other locations and will be updated soon at www.helldriversmovie.com. Rest assured, we are also working on some New England screenings over the next few months.

To learn more about Hell-Drivers, check out:
Hell Drivers: America's Original Crash Test Dummies

At last, a movie for the whole family!

"Hell Drivers": a movie for the whole family

Darren adds this note for the athletically-inclined:

P.S. Anyone interested in sprinting up the Rocky steps after our Philadelphia screening is welcome to join me and director Peter Koziell!

A movie about guys who drive fast, jump over cars and crash into stuff--maybe with flames?!?!

A chick flick, it's not.


by Mondoreb
by Mondoreb
Sources:
* helldriversmovie - image
* autoexpress -image
* Hell Drivers: America's Original Crash Test Dummies

pictured at left: Carter Secretary of State, Cy Vance

The news that Jimmy "I'll Submit" Carter has scheduled a sit-down with Hamas (Carter to Meet Hamas Leader: Jazeera) reminds one of the whole difference in tone between the Carter years and the Bush years.

"Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter plans to meet Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria next week, despite U.S. efforts to isolate the Islamist Palestinian group, Al Jazeera television said. Carter served one term between 1977 and 1981."

There were many reasons Carter was an unlamented one-termer, but one stands out: his thankfully now-forgotten foreign policy, led by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Carter and Company claimed it was a "human rights-oriented agenda".

The rest of the world quickly translated that to mean something completely different, although there is some argument over whether it was "putz" or "pussy".

Now, we always had a soft spot for native West Virginian Cyrus Vance, but whether it was working out on America's enemies or just working out, he was no Condi Rice.

Darren Garnick, of the Boston Herald (and his own Darren Garnick's Media Lab blog) takes it from here:

By now, surely you’ve heard that Condi Rice starts her “No Excuses” workout routine at 4:30 a.m. in the State Department gym. For a deep analysis on how this affects you, check out my Boston Herald column, “My secretary of state can beat up your foreign minister.”.

As Darren put it:

Condi’s hours on the treadmill watching SportsCenter have produced enviable results. She’s much buffer than her pudgy predecessor, Colin Powell. And Clinton’s people? Please. Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher always looked like they were picked last in sixth-grade gym class.

But just how tough is Rice?

But as menacing as Secretary Rice looks on the bench press, she’s unlikely to ever intimidate Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Remember when he posed shirtless last summer during a Siberian fishing trip? Let’s just say he’s Ivan Drago, the steroids-loving blond boxer in “Rocky IV.” Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should rethink those comparisons they’ve been making to Rocky Balboa [trailer]. Based on his pin-up, it looks like Putin could pummel a Democratic tag team and McCain in the ring.

Maybe Rice would be the underdog in a Putin-Rice cage match, but the smart money would have been on Condi in a Boris Yeltsin-Rice 10K run--especially if she could've negotiated a few toasts for the pre-race ceremonies.

But Darren noticed something about how Rice's workouts were covered.

Read the rest of Condi Rice-Cyrus Vance Foreign Policy Cage Match at DBKP.com.


by Mondoreb
Sources:
* Condi Rice-Cyrus Vance Foreign Policy Cage Match
* un
* My secretary of state can beat your foreign minister
* Do Republican women read fitness magazines?


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Pregnant Man Sparks Thoughts of Pregnancy Suits



The "pregnant man", Thomas Beatie--who is actually a woman who had her breasts, but not her uterus, removed and now lives as a man, got that?--is in the news, and seemingly basking in the glow of his/her/whatever 15-minutes of media fame.

Beatie was on Oprah this week for the expected "ohhs" and "ahhhs" of the studio audience. For more on that, see "Pregnant 'Man' Due in July after Wife Unable to Conceive" and "Pregnant Man on Oprah: Complete 2nd Phase of Media Trifecta".

It was about that time that a letter was received by a real man, one Darren Garnick, who apparently wasn't interested in the transgender experience, but wanted to empathize with his pregnant wife by strapping on an "empathy belly".



He then wrote about the experience for the Boston Herald. Here's a bit to get the reader started.

Two weeks before my daughter was born, I strapped on a pregnancy suit called “The Empathy Belly,” and chronicled my experiences for the Boston Herald.

I participated in a birthing class, went to restaurants in the suit (surprisingly difficult to pull a chair close to the table), and even slept in it. Although there is no way to prove what people do in the privacy of their own homes, the inventor of The Empathy Belly told me she believed I wore it for the longest consecutive period of time. I was the record holder.

Not so fast, my wife Stacy reminded me.

She was experiencing pregnancy far longer than a measley 24 hours. And her suit would only come off in the delivery room.

You can read the rest of Darren's interesting media experiment at "Labor of Love: 24 Hours of Male Pregnancy"

This is where we empathize.

With Darren.

You see, no matter how many "empathy bellies" a man straps on, he's always going to catch abuse--by both men and women.

The men, typically, are dismissive with good reason. Who knows when next someone will propose this idea and want you to participate in it?

So that reaction is to be expected.

But the women are the ones who really sneer. Typical female reactions are usually: "Oh sure, you had it on for 24 hours. Try it on for nine months, Buster, then we'll talk."

Or something on that order.

So poor Darren, aspiring to be emphatic, ends up being dissed by the ladies for the audacity of entertaining the very idea. The only one who makes out in this whole deal is the manufacturer of these pregnancy suits.

Which, one can only hope, goes the way of the Pet Rock and platform shoes.

And soon, Thomas Beatie's fleeting media fame.

by Mondoreb
image: Darren Garnick's Media Lab; DBKP file
Sources:
* Labor of Love: 24 Hours of Male Pregnancy
* Pregnant Man, Pregnancy Suits and Over-rated Empathy
* Pregnant 'Man' Due in July after Wife Unable to Conceive
* Pregnant Man on Oprah: Complete 2nd Phase of Media Trifecta


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