Who Shocked the Monkey?

As we all slouch toward the Apocalypse, my favorite headline of the week;

More Tampa Bay area residents report seeing mysterious monkey

Note to locals…"Tampa Bay" is a body of water. If the monkey is in Tampa Bay he/she is swimming, or perhaps sailing to Tampa. Anyway, I am concerned that this monkey is the beginning of some discount Florida "Yeti" mythology when the simple answer is that it's one of Hillary's surrogates, gotten loose from the circus.

Oddly, I discovered that in 2001, Peter Gabriel, who wrote "Shock the Monkey," spent some time at Georgia State University trying to teach 12 Bonobo apes to play keyboards. This explains much about the present state of popular music.

Instead of reasoned political analysis, I'm spending the morning watching the DeanMartin/Robert Mitchum barnburner "5 Card Stud" and tinkering with my match Glock, which I will put to use tomorrow. It's the G19 with the Suarez top end and RMR. Since I want to shoot this in USPSA Carry Optics, I pulled the Suarez trigger and put in a Vogel trigger from GlockTriggers that I had lying around the Bunker. The Vogel uses a stock Glock trigger and highly polished internals, so there is no exterior modification to the gun. Still an excellent trigger pull! Now, if I can just make myself shoot it as well as a 1911.

I managed to humiliate myself on camera last week with some really crappy shooting on close-in targets with a couple of Glock. Granted, I was filming, but there's no excuse for snatching that trigger the way I did, not once, but twice. Ironically, I changed to a box-stock 1911 Sig shooting .45 ball and everything went back to hunky-dory. Tom Yost, one of the best shooters I know (3rd in the IDPA Nationals, just behind Vogel and Seeklander…they don't keep HOA score that way, but there it is), says of course, all those hundreds of thousands of rounds through a 1911 over the years has a lingering effect.

Met with my orthopedic surgeon yesterday…not the news I hoped to hear, but not unequivocally bad. The 3rd surgery on my shattered right leg still hangs in the air like a malevolent moon, shedding a nasty light on 2017. Fingers crossed that I don't have to go there. He also ix-nayed any more weighted squats, which have kinda been my foundation exercise.

Busy weeks ahead, with filming for both SHOOTING GALLERY and SGO. Have some cool guns to feature on SGO, including the new Ruger American in .450 Bushmaster (there's a hig-buster for you! Damn, but I wish it was in .458 SOCOM, a caliber I reload!), the new Galil ACE in 7.62 X 51 (a gun I've shot a good bit and really like, BTW…as I think I mentioned on the podcast recently, I am considering making the Galil the "house carbine," because I live in a rural area…depends on if I ever get the .30 cal suppressor that's in the queue) and my choice for USPSA Pistol Caliber Carbine, an IWI X95 in 9mm! The Quarter Circle 10/Dead Foot Arms 9mm AR build is continuing apace.

I'll also finish my review of the Honor Defense 9mm, which I remain impressed with. It is a sold little gun that runs like a top. I would not hesitate to carry it. It's an ounce lighter than a G19, but you give up  some capacity (7+1 or 8+1 for the Honor Defense). I'm reaching out to Galco for one of their paddle holsters to give carrying the Honor Defense a try.

Finally, the inevitable political plug…for your own sake, for the sake of the Second Amendment:

VOTE!