Our mission at BigDawg Music Mafia is to unite and encourage conservatives with creative abilities to get engaged in the culture revolution – to promote American exceptionalism through the arts.  While many of us are using our talents to draw attention to the destruction of liberty by the current administration and those on the far left, there are times when we can use our creativity to bridge that partisan divide, even if only in a light-hearted way. This was one of those times.

Taking a cue from Senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd who recently visited the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s grave site to channel his bipartisan spirit by pouring whiskey on his grave and reciting a prayer in hopes the Super Committee would reach an agreement on the budget cuts, BigDawg Music Mafia decided to answer their call for bipartisanship in a mission we dubbed “Operation Jelly Bean.”

Having heard radio’s Rush Limbaugh talk about the Super Committee’s failed attempt to reach an agreement and how the two Senators contributed to the process by their visit with Kennedy; and having heard the challenge Limbaugh posed to one of his callers to visit Kennedy’s grave site on his behalf, BigDawg Music Mafia Co-Founder, Andrew (a.k.a. BigDawg) convinced me we needed to take that challenge since the caller indicated she was not local.  My friend Reese and I, however, are.

Here’s what Rush asked of one of his callers:

If you’re ever in Washington and you stay at a hotel, grab a bottle of scotch, one of those mini-bar bottles of scotch, and go to Ted Kennedy’s grave and pour it on the grave.

As both Andrew and I are retired military, and Reese’s husband is a vet, Arlington National Cemetery is sacred ground to us so we wanted to ensure we maintained proper decorum in what we did.

Instead of just pouring some scotch on Kennedy’s grave (respecting the fact that we were on hallowed ground) we decided to concoct a brand new “bipartisan” adult beverage.  We thought since Kennedy liked Chevis, and Reid and Dodd already poured some on his grave, why not answer their call for bipartisanship and mix some of that Chevis with something enjoyed by many of us on the right?  What better than Rush’s fabulous Two If By Tea … and what better garnish than President Ronald Reagan’s favorite sweet treat, Jelly Belly Jelly Beans?

Two If By Tea Manhattan
1 part Chevis
2 parts Raspberry Two if By Tea (regular or diet)
3 Jelly Belly jellybeans (garnish)

• Blue jelly bean representing the left
• Red jelly bean representing the right
• White jelly bean representing unity/bipartisanship

We brought the sealed bottle of Chevis and a small cooler of Two If By Tea with us … placed the bottle of Chevis and a bottle of Two if By Tea in front of Ted’s headstone … along with one of each color of the Jelly Belly jellybeans (that came with Rush’s Two if By Tea gift set as a tribute to President Ronald Reagan) to channel Ted’s “spirit” … or love of spirits as it were.

Since Virginia has an open container law and alcohol consumption is not allowed on the National Mall and surrounding federal park lands we made sure we kept the Chevis sealed until we got home.

So, in honor of our fallen brothers and sisters, we did not follow Rush’s challenge as posed to his caller. Instead, we waited until we got back to my house, then mixed the drink and offered the following toast – in honor of Mr. Kennedy:

We heard you were visited by Dodd and by Reid
In the spirit of bi-partisanship you’ll be pleased
Rush sends his regards but we’ve added a twist
Your Chevis, his Tea make a tasty new mix
A drink in your honor that’s smooth as satin
Reagan Jellybeans with a Two If By Tea Manhattan

Cheers to ‘The Lion of the Senate’, ‘The Doctor of Democracy’, and ‘The Gipper’.

Believe it or not, this is a very smooth, sweet and refreshing drink!

Mementos for Corporal Ira Hamilton Hayes

While at Arlington, Reese and I also paid a visit to the grave site of Corporal Ira Hamilton Hayes, one of the six men immortalized in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, and left a bottle of Two if By Tea, some Jelly Belly Jellybeans, and a copy of a CD from the  great new patriotic rock bands at our site, Madison Rising, who just hit the top 100 rock albums on Amazon, and will be doing a cover of “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” in the near future.  The story of Ira Hayes is one that needs to be told as it highlights the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which so many of our veterans are suffering from today.  Who better than a band whose lead singer, David Owen Bray, is a veteran himself?  Their debut CD, Madison Rising, has a song called “In The Days That Reagan Ruled” which ends with the following chorus:

Tearing down an iron wall
Acting in his greatest role
Made all his critics look like fools
‘Cause even jelly beans were cool!

We truly enjoyed executing this mission; the weather was gorgeous, the symbolism of what we were doing there was priceless, and we ended up with a great new cocktail to enjoy just in time for the holidays!

President Reagan would be proud.

Cheers!

You’ve probably experienced the Basterds publicity blitz.  Brad Pitt looks like he stepped out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Folks I know who have been around him say he really is a pleasant and laid-back guy, and these are hardly the characteristics of a beady-eyed killer.  Creepy Eli Roth, taking some time off from directing his degenerate torture movies, is just a leering clown – he looks like he should be squatting in the back of his Ford panel van offering Tootsie Rolls to passing tweens.  And B.J. Novak?  The guy is a hilarious writer and is really funny in The Office , but I’m not buying this cat as the scourge of the Third Reich.

In contrast, Lee Marvin’s tough guy legacy lives on despite the fact that his body rests with thousands of other heroes in Arlington National Cemetery. He earned that right when he was wounded fighting the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific as a Marine private. His Purple Heart is 100% USDA certified proof positive of his prime badassary. Who is the Hollywood tough guy of today who can dare step up to the Lee Marvin plate and take a swing?

Nobody.

Marvin got discharged from the Corps, came home and started doing crummy odd jobs to support himself – his willingness to work instead of freeloading off of others is itself an anachronism in today’s entitlement culture. He found acting and appeared in various supporting roles until he starred in a hit television series (M Squad) and moved on to bigger roles. He even won an Oscar for Cat Ballou.  Serving his country, working hard, honing his craft and winning the recognition of his peers – Lee Marvin’s career had a lot in common with that of fellow all-American badass Ernest Borgnine.   

How tough was the on-screen Marvin? He brawled with the Duke in Donovan’s Reef and stalked Chuck Bronson as a Mountie (!) in Death Hunt. His classic performance as the grizzled First Infantry Division squad leader in The Big Red One has inspired legions of American sergeants.

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Check him out in 1967’s Point Blank. As Walker, a single-minded human tsunami of violence, he smashes through the psychedelic Sixties’ Summer of Love with his .357 and mantra of “I want my money!” This flick works for me on several levels. As a soldier, I respect his character’s fearsome firepower choices; as an attorney, I find his character’s single-minded focus on getting paid inspiring.

Remade in 1999 as the tepid Payback, Point Blank was harder-core than any of the watered-down, focus-tested, suit-neutered, glorified filmstrips that limp out of the studios today and pretend to be edgy.  

For sheer cinematic awesomeness, his performance in The Dirty Dozen as Major Reisman, leader of the cutthroat band of condemned convicts on a mission to solve the Nazi overpopulation crisis, is never going to be matched. It’s actually unfair to even use it as a standard against which to measure subsequent action films. In the teachable moment regarding action movies that accompanies the release of The Inglorious Basterds, The Dirty Dozen would be Sgt. Crowley’s Full Moon beer while Little Quentin’s movie would be the President’s Bud Light.

Marvin was totally fearless, including when he should have been afraid. He did a terrifying musical, Paint Your Wagon, and even had something of a hit song – Wanderin’ Star. Sadly, that little ditty sounds like a duet between Tom Waits and a drunken leaf blower, but it did lead to Marvin being paid homage to by The Simpsons – another great honor he shares with Ernest Borgnine. 

In his personal life, his shacking up with his girlfriend led to a lawsuit that led to the creation of the legal concept of “palimony,” empowering a new generation of golddiggers. And politically, according to the always accurate Wikipedia, he was a liberal Democrat – hey, nobody’s perfect. But if you get shot fighting for this country, dude, for all I care you can vote for a transsexual Marxist cocker spaniel that buys into global warming.

Hollywood needs to look harder for its tough guys because the new ones just can’t cut it. All the fake blood and stylized mayhem in the world are no substitute for the hard edge of real life experience that WWII vets like Lee Marvin and Jimmy Stewart – I should say, Brigadier General James Stewart – brought to their roles.  Today, the critics’ favorite director sends boy toys, torture pornographers and comedians to battle the SS. Yawn.

If Tarantino really wanted to kill Nazis, he could just bore them to death with his endless, pseudo-academic dissertations on so-bad-they-are-just-plain-bad B-movies. Too bad Eisenhower didn’t have a videotape of QT sounding off at Cannes about his personal artistic vision to use to soften up Omaha Beach. But fortunately for us, he had men like Lee Marvin.