Buffa's Buffet: Backes love, Clooney's 'Sky', a beagle's dreams, and fall meditation

Let's open the weekend vault of thoughts.

Believe it or not, I hate listicles. Articles that include “5 reasons” or “5 things to ponder” are easy productions for writers and get our points across without a need for cohesive paragraph planning. Just dial and style it on the fly. Don’t expect them to slow down any time soon, but appreciate these kinds of posts where I just let it rip.

A few words about MIDNIGHT SKY. George Clooney’s moody science fiction film, released in the middle of a pandemic, got a bad overall rap from critics and audiences. Pushed aside for being too slow or ponderous about our future, the deep cast-carrying drama won me over quickly due to the filmmaker’s sure hand about what he was making and that very real idea of a global catastrophe reshaping our world and destinies.

Being an organic Clooney fan, it wasn’t hard for me to adore his bolder vision. I don’t love all of his work, especially behind the camera. “Suburbicon” was a mess, for example. It felt like the SYRIANA Oscar-winner was dry-humping the Coen Brothers again, and it didn’t look good. But this was a more measured and direct effort at exploring an existential crisis in the middle of continental doom.

I’ll die on the hill that says it was a thought-provoking effort that gets better with time. It’s one of Netflix’s better Originals.

My beagle is me in dog form. Talking about Roscoe Jenkins Buffa, the Arkansas hound my wife rescued upon escaping the most boring city in one of the most blah states in the country. Known to go crazy over food and post up like Dennis Rodman under the stove during dinner-prepping and cooking, Roscoe is the kind of dog who stares so hard and deeply into your soul, it won’t be a surprise to know he’s wearing (not really) eye shadow around his pupils.

He’s our oldest pet and someone who has become the rock of our household. Walking with a tick fever limp and known to check other beagles into the fence outside if they come near his chihuahua brother, Roscoe doesn’t fuck around and appreciates a good seven hour nap on the couch. His form of security is sophisticated and multi-faceted.

If you ever come near our backyard, you’ll meet him. If not, check this out:

There’s a few things I love about fall. The temperature starts to fall, the humidity and bugs start to die, and the leaves go berserk. The colors of the leaves range from pure red to golden orange and yellow, packed in with the green like grass assortment that detaches from the trees right around this time of year. Halloween and Thanksgiving, and then the end of the year is suddenly upon us.

If a studio can ever pry through St. Louis’s fierce “we’re not giving a film production tax breaks” defense, a director should shoot here during the fall. Get the secret weapon they call Clooney-the star who gave Jason Reitman the artillery to shoot UP IN THE AIR here many years ago-and find a timely story. Or just go all WILD MEN on us, and draft a kooky and loopy tale about best friends having an adventure in late night St. Louis.

“Nothing good in the Lou” will debut on Amazon in two years. Haha.

A tip of the cap to Jack Patrick’s Bar and Grill. The downtown-located, a rock toss from my work, pub offers decent prices on good bar food and a wise bartender who becomes a friend inside two drinks. The space is open and the tables have a nice distance between each other. While it’s nice to see what that table is having, smelling it and getting 75% of their conversation can go downhill fast. JPs gets it right.

Also, they have a half-pound burger that will make an adult out of you, and that’s before you stack it with L-T-O-P and start taking out the large pile of French fries in the nicely packed to-go tray that I enjoyed in house. Support places like JPs, so they can stay around and always offer the authentic comfort of history and fine grub in one setting.

David Backes should be in the St. Louis Blues Hall of Fame. I don’t care what the detractors would say. He put up 200 goals, carried our team through a shit period of ownership and transition before taking the Captain badge and becoming one of the franchise’s finest two-way forwards. Backes could bury a team’s best player while putting a couple of pucks past their goalie. The man was fearless and productive, especially when he had the team to do some damage in the playoffs.

It’ll always be bittersweet that a single year on a new contract was the difference maker that put him in Boston over a finish in St. Louis. Then again, that’s how the game of sports and the personal life politics of monstrous decisions go. 58 power play goals, a constant Selke finalist, racking up six seasons of 20 goals or more, and being a great Captain should put him in the STL HOF.

Also, his episode on the Cam and Strick podcast was genuinely my favorite yet. No offense to Brett Hull, Tom Stillman, or Colton Parayko.

Three cups of coffee in and I better go help my wife with Sunday adulting. Subscribe below and keep getting the daily doses from the so-called Prince of Princeton Heights.