Cause I am....perplexed.

If you're one of those people that don't go to the theater much, the last month or so has paid you dividends that you might not even be aware of. Here in Arizona, Mrs. Fletch and I are loyal Harkins Theaters customers, and for the past couple years, they've been running "programming" from ScreenVision, a company that packages interviews, clips, songs and advertising into 15-minute clips that run before a movie. They change the content roughly every month or so.

But it seems like the video seen below, a joint collaboration between Kid Rock, the National Guard, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., has been running for about 35 years. I'm certainly not an unbiased observer, being neither a fan of the Kid nor Dale, Jr., but this is just a baffling, awfully put together piece of "entertainment."

While Kid sings about...something (sample lyric: "'Cause freedom ain't so free/When you breathe red, white and blue/I'm giving all of myself/How 'bout you?"), we're shown a few subplots, if that's what you want to call them. On one hand, we have American soldiers, serving freedom all over the globe via the kicking of soccer balls to innocent children - always a gesture seen as heroic over the globe. On the other, we have Dale Jr. driving fast and turning left.

Say what you will for the marketing tactics of the U.S. military - this fits into the usual "trying to make it look cool" tactic, but it's a complete clusterf*ck. Aside from containing a number of elements that 17-year old Southern males might really, really like, can anyone tell what Detroit-based rap-rock-country fusion acts, NASCAR and the National Guard have to do with each other? Where's the Confederate Flag or shout-outs to Georgia football?

I hope Kid and Dale were paid handsomely, because it sure seems more like a sell-out move and less like a patriotic endorsement.