Podcast 301

American Sniper. Updates for Monday morning include a review of American Sniper. What’s all the fuss about? Director Clint Eastwood says he dismayed by the controversy — most of which is being generated by Hollywood — over his movie, which he says portrays one man’s experience in war. Is it possible American Sniper and Wild are two movies which actually portray an individual’s struggle with inner demons? Is Hollywood stumbling onto something going on out here in the rest of the country it is unaware of? While everyone is fighting over the question of whether American Sniper portrays the Iraq war ‘as it should be’ portrayed, maybe in spite of itself its actually about something completely different? Are the American people turning inward to fight their own demons, after so many years of outward focus. The Bob Davis Podcasts will keep track of current movies, characters and TV shows, to see if this pattern can be detected, and report back. Another thing no one is talking about is whether American Sniper touches something in Rural America,  that Urban America does not see, or understand. Particularly touching is the end credit sequence in American Sniper which shows the respect paid to Kyle – regardless of controversy – when he was laid to rest. As the news media is starting to cover this ‘divide’ between Rural and Urban America, of course we have to be careful of story lines … we are ALL Americans … but there are different values, and ‘Sniper’ seems to touch on the values of the rural part of our country rather than say, Manhattan. Get ready, the big snowstorm is hitting the east coast, so prepare yourselves for wall to wall coverage of Snowmageddon, the sequel. If you live in the Upper Midwest the weather has been pretty good the last ten days or so … anyone envious of the east for getting all this snow? And, an IRS story you won’t — er will — believe. Sponsored by Xgovernment Cars

Podcast 299

Weekend Update! What starts as a weekend update ends up as a romp through the mind of Bob Davis. Oh yeah, this podcast looks at the latest numbers for Clint Eastwood’s winning ‘American Sniper’, and suggests petty Hollywood Envy is perhaps behind much of the snark. The fact that people are getting sub-prime and insanely long auto loans, goosing new car sales and endangering the financial system is a concern of Honda, which says it will not offer 84 month loans, concerned its customers might end up so upside down they won’t be able to buy another car for like, a while. And an Asteroid Fly-By has NASA atwitter since 2004 BL86 (that’s its name) is huge and is coming very close to earth this weekend. Don’t worry, it’s path takes it almost a million miles away from the Earth — well outside the orbit of the moon — but it would be crazy if an asteroid like this one hit the earth, wouldn’t it? Thus begins the listener’s off the rail journey, discussing bad documentaries on Netflix, Nazis and the Final Solution, stories and movies which might include asteroids hitting the earth and turning Minneapolis and Saint Paul into an equatorial (and wonderfully tropical) paradise, aliens living on the moon, or maybe its human beings on the moon ’cause they have a time machine, alien women in spacecraft and more. So. Much. More. Closing it all out, another ice age is on the way since there have been no sun spots and according to scientists, the last time this happened was the 17th century, when people wore ermine collars, and we can’t forget the rich environmentally conscious Davos attendees this weekend, shelling out forty thousand dollars a head to attend this ridiculously useless conference to complain about inequality, and global warming, and rub elbows with Pharrell Williams and Al Gore. Sigh. Get your weekend started right, with the Bob Davis Podcasts. Don’t forget to join Bob Davis this weekend at the SD-61 Chili Dinner AND CONTEST in South Minneapolis, Sunday January 25th. Sponsored by Baklund R&D.