R. Lee Ermey passes, 1944 to 2018, age 74

God apparently ran a little low on Gunnies in Heaven.

From the UKIndependent.com:

R Lee Ermey, a former Marine who made a career in Hollywood playing hard-nosed military men like Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” has died. 

Ermey’s longtime manager Bill Rogin says he died Sunday morning from pneumonia-related complications. He was 74. 

The Kanas native was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his memorable performance in “Full Metal Jacket,” in which he immortalised lines such as: “What is your major malfunction?” 

Born Ronald Lee Ermey in 1944, Ermey served 11 years in the Marine Corps and spent 14 months in Vietnam and then in Okinawa, Japan, where he became staff sergeant. His first film credit was as a helicopter pilot in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” which was quickly followed by a part in “The Boys in Company C” as a drill instructor. 

He raked in more than 60 credits in film and television across his long career in the industry, often playing authority figures in everything from “Se7en” to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake. 

But check this out:

The part he would become most well-known for, in “Full Metal Jacket,” wasn’t even originally his. Ermey had been brought on as a technical consultant for the 1987 film, but he had his eyes on the role of the brutal gunnery sergeant and filmed his own audition tape of him yelling out insults while tennis balls flew at him. An impressed Kubrick gave him the role. 

In 1961, at age 17, Ermey enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and went through recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in San Diego, California.[2] For his first few years, he served in the aviation support field before becoming a drill instructor in India Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, where he was assigned from 1965 to 1967.[4]

Ermey then served in Marine Wing Support Group 17 at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in OkinawaJapan.[2] In 1968, he was ordered to Vietnam with MWSG-17, and spent 14 months in country. The remainder of his service was on Okinawa where he was advanced to staff sergeant (E-6). He was medically discharged in 1972 because of several injuries incurred during his service.[5] On May 17, 2002, he received an honorary promotion to gunnery sergeant (E-7) by the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James L. Jones.[6]

Here’s is Ermey’s second role, as that of an Eagle Thrust Seven helicopter pilot (listen and watch for him to say “I’m going to check it out below”).

R Lee Ermey’s first role was as drill instructor Staff Sergeant Sgt Loyce for the 1978 Sidney Furie film “The Boys In Company C,” a role so remarkably real because, well, it’s what Ermey did in his beloved corps.

Following The Boys of Company C, Ermey appeared in 1979’s Francis Ford Coppola-directed Apocalypse Now as indicated above — though completely uncredited in the movie.

He was next in a terrible 1979 science fiction entitled “Up From the Depths” as Lee. He returned for director Sidney Furie in 1984’s “Purple Hearts” where he appeared as Gunny.

R. Lee Ermey’s big break came in 1987 for director Stanley Kubrick in “Full Metal Jacket” where he portrayed Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The classic scene follows.

Here, Ermey talks about filming Full Metal Jacket for the History Channel.

Kubrick told Rolling Stone that 50 percent of Ermey’s dialogue in the film was his own.

“In the course of hiring the marine recruits, we interviewed hundreds of guys. We lined them all up and did an improvisation of the first meeting with the drill instructor. They didn’t know what he was going to say, and we could see how they reacted. Lee came up with, I don’t know, 150 pages of insults,” Kubrick said.

According to Kubrick, Ermey also had a terrible car accident one night in the middle of production and was out for four and half months with broken ribs.

It’s no surprise that Ermey was a conservative. This should leave no doubt.

However, like many other actors in Hollywood who “come out” as Conservative, Ermey’s film roles dried up.

The Marine turned actor told FOX411 while his reality show is in its second season, he can’t seem to book any other gigs in Hollywood.

“I’ve had a very fruitful career. I’ve done over 70 feature films,” Gunny told FOX411. “I’ve done over 200 episodes of [‘GunnyTime’]… and then [Hollywood] found out that I’m a Conservative.”

Actually, he corrected, “I’m an Independent, but I said something bad about the president. I had something unsavory to say about the president’s administration, and even though I did vote for him the first time around, I was blackballed.”

Gunny, who is an NRA board member, explained that his association with the organization and his disapproval of President Obama cost him acting jobs.

“Do you realize I have not done a movie in five to six years? Why? Because I was totally blackballed by the… liberals in Hollywood,” he alleged. “They can destroy you. They’re hateful people [who] don’t just not like you, they want to take away your livelihood… that’s why I live up in the desert on a dirt road… I don’t have to put up with their crap.”

Ermey earned a Golden Globe nomination as Sgt Hartman, and:

Ermey was an official spokesman for Black Book (National Auto Research)Glock firearms, TRU-SPEC apparel, TupperwareVictory MotorcyclesHooverSOG Specialty KnivesWD-40Young Marines, and appeared in commercials for Coors LightDick’s Sporting Goods, GEICO, and pistachio nuts. He provided the introduction for the Professional Bull Riders.[16] He can be seen giving a service announcement for Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, demanding that viewers be quiet during the film.[17] He was a board member for the National Rifle Association.[18]

Ermey’s Gunny Time was an arseload of fun as well.

And if this isn’t damned funny, I don’t know what is.

What did the “R” stand for in his name? Ronald.

God bless you Gunny.

We miss you already.

BZ

 

BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show: the Saturday Night Special, April 14th, 2018

Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract — as well as appear on the Sack Heads: Against Tyranny Show every Wednesday night.

Tonight BZ lamented the passing of radio personality Art Bell at the age of 72, an icon in the world of the paranormal and the unexplained. Art could somehow make you feel that, had you experienced something out of the ordinary, you weren’t alone.

But wait: BZ on a Saturday? What’s up with that? Answer: the SHR studios had an internet blackout on Thursday which was rectified the next day courtesy of the amazingly-skilled Sack Heads Shaun. BZ, disliking a failure to produce, vowed to offer a Saturday show in order to comply with his shameless contract.

After that, Happy Stories, welfare reform, Michael Cohen, Leftists and the Kurt Schlichter article entitled “They Take the Second Amendment First and the First Amendment Second.” Then: I pile on Booster Seat Markie Zuckerberg.

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, please click on the yellow start button at the upper left.

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Saturday Edition, 4-14-18” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on the SHR Media YouTube channel, click on the red arrow in the middle of the video. Please SUBSCRIBE to the SHR Media channel.

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Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep, Facebook as Biff Zeppe and the Bloviating Zeppelin, and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.

As a replacement to the Sack Heads Radio Show, the SHR Media Network offers the new Sack Heads: Against Tyranny Show, same bat time, same bat channel — every Wednesday night at 8 PM Pacific, 11 PM Eastern, and 19:83 and 847.723 seconds in Bolivia.

This show rails against tyranny levied against the right, Conservatives, the GOP and common sense. You can find the show on Twitter @2againsttyranny. It truly is a SHAT Show. Jump into SHAT Chat at SHRMEDIA.COM.

A continuing word about the chat room, splendiferously resplendent in its fine Corinthian leather and custom 500-gallon salt water aquarium.

BZ can only monitor the SHRMEDIA.COM chat — though there is chat available on both Facebook and YouTube. If you wish to interact with myself and the bulk of the chatters, I heartily recommend and invite you into the SHR Media page for complete and utter satisfaction or triple your money back. Only a slight 92% restocking fee involved. Offer not valid in Bolivia or on Zephron.

  • Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
  • Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media page on Facebook here.
  • Want to watch past Berserk Bobcat Saloon shows on YouTube? Go here.
  • Want to watch the show on High Plains TV? Go here.

Thank you one and all for listening, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right.”

BZ

 

All you need to know about Mark Zuckerberg in a few videos

Mark Zuckerberg’s $72.7 billion dollar booster seat.

But before we begin, a bit of insight unprovided by the American Media Maggots but covered by BZ.

Something tells me Zuckerberg, at 33, is too young to have hemorrhoids.

Mark Zuckerberg, owner and creator of Facebook, is 5’7″ tall. That’s even shorter than BZ by two inches. Oddly enough, that’s the height of Vladimir Putin. Make of that what you will. From FoxNews.com:

Mark Zuckerberg mocked online for using ‘booster seat’ during Facebook hearing

by Jennifer Earl

Mark Zuckerberg spend a grueling five hours testifying before a joint hearing of the Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees on Tuesday, but the internet wasn’t exactly as concerned with the Facebook CEO’s words as they were with his seating arrangement.

Photographs of an uncomfortable Zuckerberg, 33, perched atop a seat pillow that Twitter users dubbed a “billionaire’s booster seat” quickly made the rounds online — and inspired countless memes.

“I might not be a billionaire, I might not own a massive business. But, I can say, that if I ever have to face a US Senate inquiry, I won’t need a booster seat to sit at the big boy table,” one Twitter user quipped.

Facts in evidence. Note the photographs. Then look at Zuckerberg’s own notes at the hearing. He has to be reminded as to the “accomplishments” of Facebook.

First up to bat: Zuckie and Ted Cruz.

If you have to prevaricate and quantify then, uh, no, you are not an adherent to the First Amendment. You’re an adherent to your own biased political views.

A few more testy bits. Say Zuckie, what about that 2% compliancy rate at Facebook in terms of diversity, eh wot? NC Representative George Butterfield was unhappy. George wasn’t interested in security, oh no. Diversity. Where are the jobs for unskilled blacks at Facebook besides the janitorial staff? Why not a black on the board?

Remember now, it’s EVIL when the GOP finally figures out how to collect data for the Trump campaign. Let’s listen.

On the other hand, it’s perfect acceptable that the Demorats figured this out back in 2015. Carol Davidsen, Obama’s campaign manager, had this to say about that event.

Let’s listen to Maxine Waters talk about Obama’s database and the plans she has for its utilization. Because, naturally, data collection on behalf of Demorats and Leftists by any means necessary is quite acceptable. Take it away Maxine, who talks about the Organizing for America secret database.

In summary:

You want some more insight? Listen to what former Facebook employee Sandy Parakilas says about Zuckerberg.

Are the clouds beginning to part for you yet?

If Facebook likes your ideology, you’re golden.

If you’re a Conservative or a Republican, you can go to hell. Begone, Evildoers.

So sayeth Zuckie the Booster Seat Boy.

BZ

 

BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Tuesday, 4-10-18 with guest DAN BUTCHER

Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract — as well as appear on the Sack Heads: Against Tyranny Show every Wednesday night.

Tonight BZ spoke to the inescapably loquacious DAN BUTCHER of HighPlainsDailyNews.com. It’s your one-stop shop for all things news, sports, politics, national and international.

We talked about Syria, Trump, Mueller, Cohen, the FBI, the Second Amendment, Deerfield, London, graham crackers, hubcaps, flypaper, fedoras and, oh yeah, some politics.

After that? Some more politics of course.

If you care to listen to the show in Spreaker, please click on the yellow start button at the upper left.

Listen to “BZ’s Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show, Tuesday, 4-10-18” on Spreaker.

If you care to watch the show on the SHR Media Facebook page (in glorious color), click right here. Please LIKE us on Facebook.

Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin (on Twitter @BZep, Facebook as Biff Zeppe and the Bloviating Zeppelin, and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.

Thanks to Dan for staying up late but, as everyone already knows, Dan only gets about five hours of sleep a night anyway. Oddly enough, the sign in Dan’s office reads: “Sleep is over-rated.”

As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.

As a replacement to the Sack Heads Radio Show, the SHR Media Network offers the new Sack Heads: Against Tyranny Show, same bat time, same bat channel — every Wednesday night at 8 PM Pacific, 11 PM Eastern, and 19:83 and 847.723 seconds in Bolivia.

This show will rail against tyranny levied against the right, Conservatives, the GOP and common sense. You can find the show on Twitter @2againsttyranny. It truly will be a SHAT Show. Jump into SHAT Chat at SHRMEDIA.COM.

A continuing word about the chat room (see the newly-renovated chat room for BZ’s show), above, splendiferously resplendent in its fine Corinthian leather and custom 500-gallon salt water aquarium): I can only monitor the SHRMEDIA.COM chat though there is chat available on both Facebook and YouTube. If you wish to interact with myself and the bulk of the chatters, I heartily recommend and invite you the SHR Media page for complete and utter satisfaction or your money back. Only a slight 92% restocking fee involved. Offer not valid in Bolivia or on Zephron.

  • Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here.
  • Want to watch the show live on Facebook? Go to the SHR Media page on Facebook here.
  • Want to watch past Berserk Bobcat Saloon shows on YouTube? Go here.
  • Want to watch the show on High Plains TV? Go here.

Thank you one and all for listening, watching and supporting the SHR Media Network: “Conservative Media Done Right.”

BZ

 

Goodbye to the Sack Heads Radio Show

Sack Heads BZ, Clint and Shaun.

Wednesday night (4-4-18) was the last broadcast of the Sack Heads Radio Show as we know it. And it came out of thin air at the last moment, totally unexpected. Sack Heads Shaun wasn’t prepared either. I got the call from him on Monday, April 2nd. Because of unforeseen complications, his schedule was now such that he would no longer be able to participate in the Sack Heads Radio Show on Wednesday nights.

He was gobsmacked. I was gobsmacked. Clint was gobsmacked. Gobs were gobsmacked. We went through the stages of the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle.

First there was denial, then anger, then bargaining. Shaun and I tried to bargain the fuck out of the situation, but it just wasn’t workable. We’re both kinda depressed right now. Give it time; we’ll hit acceptance. Time wounds all heels.

You know how you go through stages in life where the bear opens your lunchbox and just shits right on your sandwich? That’s been Shaun recently and myself as well, but for vastly different reasons. Just when you think you’ve hosed it out, poured bleach all over the damned thing, rinsed it thoroughly, let it sit in the sun to dry and then made another sandwich?

Yeah. The bear opens your lunchbox and shits on the sandwich again.

Too scatological for you? Hold that thought and keep reading.

It makes me sad, but perhaps not in the way you’re thinking.

I retired in 2016. Since then I’ve had a bit of difficulty in retirement, having gone from the Type A job I possessed in law enforcement to, the next day, completely irrelevant. In my mind. I met Sack Heads Shaun on Twitter and explored the possibility of getting my own radio show on their air. Shaun and I met at the Starbucks on Stockton Boulevard to discuss the situation and, after the meeting, I noticed I had a parking ticket on my windshield. Fucking City of Sacramento.

This was an opportunity to get back into radio because, decades before, I had worked in terrestrial radio for KFBK AM and FM, KERS, KEG, KNDE, KOBO as well as WWSU and WING back east. Those were the days of Sparta boards, Sparta turntables, Sparta cart decks, Ampex reel-to-reel tape machines and sound editing where you physically cut tape on horizontal metal editing bars in either a block or diagonal cut with a razor blade. And white editing tape. No. I’m not kidding.

After the meeting, Shaun was kind enough to invite me on the June 22nd, 2016 Sack Heads Radio Show. That was my very first appearance. He warned me about Clint, though. “I think he’ll be good with this. I’m not entirely sure. But I think so.” My. That was reassuring.

In truth they were both welcoming and I soon became a staple on the Sack Heads. It wasn’t until I carried their luggage at the July 2016 Freedom Fest in Las Vegas that they began to realize: “hey, this old fat fart is for real. He really does want to be on our network.” They flew to Las Vegas. I drove to Las Vegas with all their equipment in the back of my Kraut Kar SUV.

Like a bad tick that was dangerously embedded they finally realized I wasn’t going away. And that I would yield actual physical labor for them. I didn’t produce my first show on the SHR Media Network until Tuesday, January 17th of 2017.

Since then both Shaun and Clint have garnered not only my everlasting thanks but my undying loyalty as well. Providing me with an outlet to vent — as I’d been writing a Conservative political blog since 2004 at BloviatingZeppelin.net — this became the perfect confluence of diversion, application, concentration and, truly, therapy. Here were two guys with similar backgrounds to mine and whose Conservative philosophies happened to mirror mine as well.

That said, I’ll have to make my own personal revelation. They happened to save me. I was rudderless and searching for anything solid in tumultuous seas the likes of which I’d never before navigated. Irrelevance was a status I’d never yet experienced. And yet irrelevant I was. In the course of one day.

Turn in your badge, turn in your gun, give us your shit, you’re out.

But the Sack Heads centered me. They gave me something to look forward to. They managed to provide some personal dignity and relevancy. It felt like I’d really found a new home with some very good new friends. And for that I shall never forget their kindness.

The Sack Heads rescued me.

That, frankly, is why not having the Sack Heads Radio Show to look forward to every Wednesday night leaves a chunk taken out of my heart. It really is painful.

Yes, I know, Shaun isn’t really going anywhere, all of that. But haven’t you been in a situation where just the presence of someone or something was comforting in and of itself and immediately jarring and destabilizing when, suddenly, it’s no longer there?

Me too.

At the beginning of the show we provided a moment of silence for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Sack Heads Shaun and Clint then talked about the inception of their show, how it managed to grow, how the SHR Media Network was born and how it led to any number of associations and friendships with persons too numerous to mention.

  • Dan Butcher called into the show with Sack Heads memories and thanks.
  • Jeff Dunetz called into the show with Sack Heads memories and thanks.
  • Jersey Joe Antrobus called into the show with Sack Heads memories and thanks.
  • As did Ken McClenton, with Sack Heads memories and thanks.

If you want to listen to the farewell show in Spreaker, click on the yellow button to the upper left.

Listen to “Sack Heads Radio Show, Wednesday, 4-4-2016” on Spreaker.

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Due of various scheduling issues Shaun had to step away from the Sack Heads Radio Show. And frankly, it’s not really Sack Heads without Shaun. Which is why the show had to cease.

And why there is a replacement — at least until Shaun can somehow rectify his situation. Because, after all, Shaun and Clint worked long and hard to build up a significant Wednesday night audience. They decided they didn’t want to let that audience wither and blow away.

That’s where Sack Heads AGAINST TYRANNY comes in.

Every Wednesday night in the same time slot, 8 PM Pacific and 11 PM Eastern, live and direct from the SHR Media Network studios, comes the Sack Heads AGAINST TYRANNY Show with Sack Heads Clint and Sack Heads BZ.

And it begins next week.

The Sack Heads Radio Show is dead; long live the Sack Heads Radio Show.

The next iteration?

It really is a SHAT show.