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Tuesday, March 29, 1983
Dally Nebrsskan
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SMife snjisocdoinis liimk holes amid
The Nash Rambler: Victim of circumstance
Sash Rambler is sliot in the shoulder by
illicit tycoon Randy Ewing. Adding insult
to the injury, Rambler is framed as a des
perate criminal. Vie FBI assigns rookie
Ace King to the case, but then fires him
for excessive bungling. Ramber's friends
Duncan Drumm, Went Thathaway and Lois
Terms band together in search of vigilante
revenge. Along the way, they amass
massive evidence of Living's felonious past.
Chapter Fourteen
Went Thataway, still dressed in his
bathrobe, sat in the kitchen of his bomb
shelter. His hair was a mess, his eyes
bleary, as lie read the morning Star. All of
a sudden, his Eggos popped from the
toaster and lie popped from his chair in
quirky unison.
'"Holy smoke," he exploded, waking
his pet wolfhound, Klaus.
The mutt festively joined Went's
stampede to the bathroom, where Went's
girlfriend, Lois Terms, was carefully apply
ing her daily face. Winning the sprint by
a wet nose, Klaus jubilantly lunged into
Lois' arms,.
Ltfis almost put out an eye with her
mascara brush and huffed, in the breath
knocked out of her, "Boys."
"Sinkholes, sweetpie. Sure as spit,
sinkholes," Went exclaimed, ridiculously
giddy, "Sinkholes."
Slow to catch the drift, Lois looked at
the drain. "Hh?" her half made-up face
asked.
"Sinkholes." he went on. He rattled the
Star open to the article he intended to
quote.
But, quick as calamity, the paper was
soon tattered when Klaus reared up nd
started playing heavyweight patty-cake. If
that wasn't enough, Klaus, excitedly jump
ing around, fell into the filling bathtub,
then drenched everyone and everything
by shaking himself dry.
The news story had been adorned by a
photo, which, at first glance, had looked
like a dull shot of an unspectacular
pothole. Closer inspection, however,
revealed that the small geometric shapes
to the side were the rooftops of a
farmhouse, its barns and silos. The smudge
in the corner was the shadow of a heli
copter. Jt wasn't a patch of concrete that had
collapsed, but acres of Nebraskan great
plain. The wire-service reporter called the
sinkhole, which had appeared overnight
just outside Republican City, "a phenome
non." He went on to editorialize and called
it "bizarre."
Sinkholes have only sprung up, or
rather down, in recent years and, until
the Republican City sinkhole, have only
been in Florida and Texas. Because they
are so novel and rare, they make excellent
tourist traps. The residents, the reporter
reported, were ecstatic about the collapse
of their farmland.
The writer wrote that sinkholes occur
after water tables or oil fields are so
drained that they can't support the earth
above them. He contradicted himself,
this lime calling the sinkhole "an enigma,"
and said experts had been summoned.
But the Republican City sinkhole was
no more mysterious to Went than the facts
he had stumbled on the day before in the
Wall Street Journal. A page-31 article
stated that the half of Ewing Oil owned by
J.R. Ewing had doubled its barrel produc
tion in a single day. If J.R.'s brother, who
owned the other half of Ewing Oil,
couldn't match the high production, the
article said, Bobby would lose his share of
the business in accordance with a strange
clause in the E wings' father's will.
Went had a hunch the two news items
were as intimately linked as cause and
effect, and he spelled his reasoning out
fur Lois.
"Randy Ewing. the guy who shot Nash
Rambler, remember, is J.R.'s blood -grudged
stepcousin," he said, enumerating his
points on outstretched fingers. "He
planned to reap revenge by siphoning J.R.'s
oil into the Ogallala aquifer via a network
of secret tunnels. The water would float
the oil up through irrigators in place on the
farmland he was buying up."
"Right, right," Lois said, painfully
plucking an eyebrow. "Speed it up, Sher
lock." "However, if J.R. knew of the plot,
he could subvert the subterfuge by revers
ing the underground engines. Instead of
pumping Texas oil into Nebraska, Nebraska
water gets pumped into Texas, gushing
gushers, and thereby accounting for the
upped production and the sinkhole."
"Elementary."
"The question is How did J.R. find
out?' Obviously, that FBI flunk-out Ace
King must have tipped him off, for a tidy
fee, and he presumably got the poop from
none other than our own Duncan Drumm,
thus explaining King's sudden wealth and
Drumm's kidnapping."
The sudden wealth referred to was the
Porsche and color-matched leisure suit he
had spied King sporting about town in.
The kidnapping he alluded to was what
Went considered the only reason imagin
able that could have stayed Duncan from
his daily rounds to the bomb shelter. It was
speculation, of course, but Duncan had
commented, even argued, that King, a
trained flunky, could be used as a pawn to
draw Randy Ewing into the open.
"Hon, get dressed," Went ordered.
"Klaus, we're a-goin' huntin'."
Lois didn't look too enthused. Actually,
she looked quite the opposite. Klaus, on
the other hand, went bonkers, leaping,
bounding and wagging a savage tail amid
the toilet paper he had been rabidly shred
ding to bits. The man and his beast left
in a flurry of confetti to finish off some
Eggos and then King.
David Wood
i tuA a
By Jeff Goodwin
jr ij?
mxQt good eraonaglh
Back in the 1960s the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
a film was not pornographic if it had any redeeming social
value at all.
, "Tough Enough" is not pornographic in the usual
sense, in fact a little sex might make it more appealing -but
it is offensive in that 20th Century Fox has chosen
to pawn this tripe off on the public as a legitimate movie.
Any freshman film class at USC could make a better film
than this.
Art Long (played by Dennis Quaid) is a country and
western singer fa bad one at that) who can't get a break.
To make ends meet, he decides to enter a Tough Man
contest a boxing tournament for anyone who wants
to enter.
Despite an average physique and marginal boxing
experience, he manages to win the Ft. Worth tournament
and qualify for the national finals in Detroit.
But all Art really wants to do is make it as a musician.
The promoter of this competition tells him he'll give him
a chance to make it musically if he goes to Detroit for the
national competition.
So Art hits the road for Detroit and gets a record
contract. His wife doesn't want him to go through with
the contest. The promoter is afraid he'll get hurt and
doesn't want him to go through with it. Guess what?
'You got it. He fights anyway.
Surprise! He wins, beating in the process a guy who
makes Mr. T look like Tiny Tim. Will wonders never
cease?
x
f v v V' V
' V Y v V
y y v v v
Speaking of wonders . . . it's a wonder that this movie
was ever made. Secondly, it's a wonder that anybody,
assuming they know what they're getting into,
would ever pay hard-earned money, nay, even stolen
money, to see this film.
This movie tries very hard to be like "Rocky" even to
the point of aping the famous scene where he runs the
steps and cavorts around while "Gonna Fly Now" is
played. But any resemblance to "Rocky" - and there is
none - is purely coincidental.
The acting is awful, but that's not surprising consider
ing the script.
Remember the story about putting the monkey at the
typewriter and, theoretically at least, he would write
War and Peace in so many years?
This film is proof that they actually carried out the
experiment and the monkey did it in a half-hour tops.
But I'm sure he would have done better on his second
effort. Hopefully, the producers of this crime against
society won't get another chance.
One refrain that runs throughout the film is the
promotor's cry, "Who will be the toughest man?" My
answer: Who cares?
Americans discover
Stan Shaw, Warren Oates and Dennis Quaid become involved in fighting for money in Tough Man contests in the
new picture, "Tough Enough."
pleasures i wine
By Kenneth Meier
For many years, drinking wine in this country was
dominated by two equally extravagant images. On one
side were the "Bowery Boys" with crumpled brown bags
of port and muscatel. The other image is of Baccarat
Crystal, elaborate, stuffy formality and expensive
European wines from historical vineyards. Neither of
these images did much to encourage most Americans to
enjoy a bottle of wine.
Today, through advertising, news reports, word-of-mouth
and good ole American curiosity, the two old
traditional images of the wine consumer have become
historical comicry. The problem has been bridged by the
overall increase in America's wine knowledge. Any person
in the wine business will tell you lack of wine knowledge
is the only deterrent to wine consumption.
Continued on Page 5
