Bloody Righteous and Mentally Slow

When I was in the Army, I had a roll of brown packaging tape. I used to write things on the tape with a black sharpie, stick them to a piece of paper and hang the on my wall. It may have been a reminder or something important (at least at the time I wrote it). I did a lot of drinking in the Army and this was one way to identify something that was important at that time. Sometimes it made no sense the next day but some days it brought foggy thoughts into focus and provided fodder for the cranial cannon.

For the longest time, I had the letters B R A M S written on the tape. It is a line from a Roger Taylor song called Strange Frontier. It is also the name of his second album. The phrase bloody righteous and mentally slow seemed to strike a harmonious chord with me. It described the officer cadre we had in my unit at the time. They were restricting all kinds of things like smoking and drinking in the billets and doing more frequent room inspections. For some reason, they had gotten a wild bug up their behinds and thought it would make us better troops. It just pissed the enlisted men living in the barracks off. Those that were married and lived off post did not have the same harsh treatment.

The album Strange Frontier was produced during the Reagan administration and is filled with references to total nuclear destruction and protesting the arms race. It was basically musical doom and gloom. Many musicians from that period were putting out that musical tone in an attempt to sway public opinion. But, Uncle Ronny stood his ground and we toppled the Bear. Shows that a strong well focused front and the implied/actual force to back it up, accomplishes the impossible. Makes the phrase “we need to talk” seem like a pale shadow. Maybe the desire for dialog is a representation of how the left wants to handle issues. All talk, no action. That way they can appear bloody righteous when they are actually mentally slow.

Icool

Cobb