Movies

I should be happier than the proverbial pig in mud. One of my favorite movies from the '70s actually predicted some of what we are going through today. Now. In 2010. That's the good news, the bad news is that the predictions made in the movie aren't particularly good.

The movie was/is 'Network' with Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, William Holden and Faye Dunaway. It centered on a mythical fourth network television newsroom which was having money and ratings problems. Aging news anchor Howard Beale (played by Finch, who won a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal) announces that he is being sacked and that he will end his career by shooting himself on live TV. Beale eventually has visions and comes into his broadcast raving "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Because of the tremendous surge in ratings after the Beale rants, the news operation is put under control of the network's entertainment division - Beale's ravings are rationalized as editorial content and the ratings soar even further.

So far, the operation sounds a lot like Fox. Fox is primarily an entertainment company which just happens to run a news operation... with lots of editorial content and more than a few Howard Beales given the opportunity to entertain us with... editorial content.

In the place of Howard Beale, we have the presence of someone called Glenn Beck who, like Beale, developed a following and who, unlike Beale, has no real-world experience as a journalist, serious or otherwise. Also unlike Beale, Beck has an agenda. He has something to sell. The man comes across to me like a smarmy used car salesperson trying to pawn off a rusty '67 Buick with sawdust in the transmission and at least 50,000 miles rolled off of the odometer to some 18 year old kid with a few bucks burning a hole in his pocket. (To be fair to the used car salesman, at least he would find some way to keep from burning the kid.) Both Beck and Beale take/took themselves seriously. Beale claimed to hear the voice of God - Beck, these days, seems to be in the process of positioning himself as the personification of the 'second coming'.

Toward the end of the movie, Howard Beale is called upon to face the Chairman of the Board of the network, Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty in one of very few serious roles I have seen him in). Jensen convinces Beale that Beale's mission was to push public opinion in the direction Jensen wanted to have opinion pushed. Though I'm not really certain of it, I can imagine that Glenn Beck had a similar communication with Rupert Murdoch... which does raise an eyebrow. What business does an Australian billionaire have in attempting to be involved in American politics? Perhaps it has something to do with Arthur Jensen's world view... "The world is a business, Mr. Beale..."

When Howard Beale preaches the Gospel according to Arthur Jensen, his ratings drop and depression sets in among his audience. "No one wants to hear that his life is useless..." the narrator reminds us in the film. Howard Beale is the accidental messiah up to the point of his meeting with Jensen. From that point, his life and the ratings drop like a lead-filled balloon.

Beck, on the other hand, is so adept at the art of using smoke and mirrors that the overriding reality of corporate interference in our lives disappears. He is at least in partial control of his destiny and is setting himself up as a new messiah who will deliver us from the pain and misery of having to be subservient to brown-skinned people. We're all supposed to be happy little monkeys, content that there are people who are attempting to keep the Mexicans out of our sweatshops and that billionaires are able to keep their money without paying confiscatory tax rates or even having to trickle that money down to support our disappearing middle class.

And that's part of the reason why people gathered in Washinton last weekend to hear a former drug addict tell us that we are on the edge of another "Great Awakening". In the movie, Howard Beale unknowingly tapped the fears of the unknown to unleash an army of followers. In real life, Glenn Beck is knowingly tapping the same fears and is, in the process, attempting to equate religion with a political agenda.

When I first saw 'Network' in its initial run, I was impressed by how closely the film's reality was like the reality of the time (with references to the still-fresh Patricia Hearst kidnapping and mention of the UBS affiliate in Atlanta, WTCG*). Little did I know that some of the realities of the film would be played out 30+ years later in real life. Satire is wonderful, until it's taken seriously or being played out in reality as it seems to be happening now.

I still like 'Network' for the same reasons I liked it when I first saw it. I did not think of it then as a harbinger of the future nor did I ever think that a news organization would do nothing other than report the news. While FOX is attempting to bend our political system, ABC's news seems to be becoming a shill for the pharmaceutical industry. (I don't keep up with CBS, NBC or CNN... the only reason I do ABC news is that the local channel has what I consider to be the best news in the Metroplex.) These are strange times we are living in... strange times, indeed.


* As a quick aside, billboard owner Ted Turner purchased a relatively unknown UHF television station in Atlanta some years ago and changed the call letters to WTCG - Watch This Channel Grow... and it did. Yeah. THAT channel!


Be Seeing You!

Hate

Anyone can spread hate. It takes someone special to keep it from spreading. Lord, let that someone special be me.

I've just quoted myself from Facebook. It was one of those things which just came to me suddenly in the middle of the day. The lovely Miss Carol and I had been to South Dallas to visit the new baby and recover the dog. On the way down I was listening to the local talk show host in between traffic reports in regards to the "Ground Zero Mosque" in NYC.

From what I have heard, 3,000 red-blooded Christian Americans were herded into the World Trade Center where they were brutally murdered by ordinary followers of Islam who, as we all "know" are commanded by God to eliminate the infidels. Kinda stirs you up, doesn't it? Makes your blood boil. It reaches out to the inner xenophobic in all of us.

Grrrrrr!

The 3,000 weren't all Americans. They weren't all Christian. The killers weren't necessarily representative of Islam, either. To say that the fanatics who crashed airplanes into the WTC on 9/11 were representative of all of Islam is the same as saying that the rabble known as the Westboro Baptist Church are representatives of all of Christendom. To listen to the radio, though, one would think that this "Ground Zero Mosque" is deliberately being erected on top of the rubble of the WTC to so that the entire Islamic world will be able to thumb their nose at the United States.

So what is happening is that there is an attempt being made to manipulate the greater portion of us into thinking that adherents of Islam are less than human... that they should be kept in their place... that we should take actions to spread the hate. I'm being told that my friend from Lebannon who came in to my workplace on the afternoon of 9/11, my friend who was in just as much shock as I was concerning the day's events, is sub-human and deserves to die just because of his Islamic beliefs? If we're going after the Lebanese, then, let's spread out the hate a bit... let's hate Danny Thomas, Casey Kasem and Jamie Farr. They're all Lebanese...

Then there's the woman who came to visit while we were getting acquainted with Big Myrtle and the Walden Ponderer (one of my brothers-in-law). She was dressed in a full burkah (in Texas heat, no less) and had graciously cooked a meal for her friend's out of town guests. I'm supposed to hate her, too?

We're being told that we should hate illegal immigrants, these days. Historically, we have been told to hate just about any group of people who aren't like us. Blacks, Jews, Indians (both kinds), Irish, Poles, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese... gee, I could go on for quite some time and still not be finished with the list (ah, the Finnish... let's find a reason to hate them, shall we?).

For some reason, the virulent attack has become the order of the day. We are told to hate people for their politics, the color of their skin, their haircuts or their body piercings. If you don't hate the same way that I want you to hate, then to hell with you, I'll find someone else to pal around with. On 9/11 I had the audacity to offer a prayer 'For our Enemies' (BCP page 816) at a hastily arranged church service. It was met with stoney silence. It's much easier to hate, you see.

Indeed, we have become a nation which seemingly prides itself with its ability to hate just about everyone for just about any reason we can think of. Odd, that, because if we are at the same time a Christian nation, shouldn't we follow the teachings of Jesus who admonished us to "...love your neighbor as yourself"?

While we're at it, my understanding is that it is a Community center, not a Mosque, it's adjacent to but not on "Ground Zero", and there's already Islamic worship space in the Pentagon, at just about the point where it, too was hit on 9/11.

Be Seeing You!


(BCP=Book of Common Prayer - Episcopalian, you see.)

Beards

There were just two words on a Facebook posting. "It's gone". I knew almost instantly what was gone. The summer beard grown by a long time friend of mine had found its way into the trash. Pity. I saw a picture of him and his beard and remarked to myself, "Gee, he looks quite good!" Remarks were made by others regarding the salt and pepper appearance... something quite natural for people of our age. My beard was salt and pepper when I let mine grow out eight summers ago.

My friend and I had been either cursed or blessed since High School with a surplus of facial hair. I managed to cultivate and keep a moustache through most of my Senior year, alternately growing or disposing of it in the mmmmmfttty mffffffff years since. The moustache has been gone permanently since I grew my summer beard back in 2002.

The family took a trip that summer and I decided that I would just quit shaving and see what would happen. I had deliberately attempted to grow a beard at other points in my life, only to have the attempt aborted because of the itch which developed on or about the third day or so. This time, the third day came about while we were camped at a parched campground in a South Dakota State Park, at least a two day drive from where I had left my razor in Texas.

We were on our way back to the Lone Star State when it finally dawned on she to whom I was once married what I was doing. When we got back home, I did some strategic shaving to alleviate the itch which was most bothersome around my neck. For the next two years or so, I kept the beard, trimming it from time to time to keep the people at work happy with my appearance. Yes, it was salt and pepper, just like the hair on the top of my head is to this day (more pepper than salt, by the way). I finally decided that the beard and I needed to part company due to some skin problems.

Beards seem to run in the family. One brother-in-law has had his beard ever since I've known him. I honestly would not recognize him if he were to walk up to me with a naked face. One of the new brothers-in-law sports sort of a Van Dyke which can count as a beard... it's just not a full beard. The older step-son sports a Van Dyke, too. I guess that counts. My younger brother has a beard which he's had for 15-20 years much to the chagrin of our mother. She's gotten used to it. Finally, there's Stuart, my son the High School student, who managed to cultivate a summer beard while he was at Boy Scout camp up in the wilds of Canada. His beard is gone, now, a victim of the first day of school. I had hopes that he would follow in my footsteps, but it seems that facial hair is a big no-no as far as the Allen school district is concerned.

Many of the men I know seem to wear a beard well. There are exceptions. One person of my acquintance has taken his beard to extremes, not trimming the thing for months at a time. I attribute it to the fact that he really can't seem to keep quiet long enough to apply clippers and/or a razor long enough to keep from doing himself bodily harm.

In the end, though, while many who can wear beards and look darn good in them, there are those who, for one reason or another, shave them just after proving that they look darn good in a beard. I was a tad disappointed to see my friend's post "It's gone" this morning. Not that my vote would account for anything... from the picture I saw, it looked darn good. Mine didn't look half shabby, either. Maybe I should reconsider...


Be Seeing You!

The Boys

Tis the weekend before school starts and I have the boys in the house.


The phenonemon does not happen too very often due to scheduling conflicts and activities which keep the both of them busy. Stuart has immersed himself in Scouting and in Cross Country. Warren is a band maniac. Warren lives with us, Stuart is the part-time (and not often enough I may add) visitor. The lovely Miss Carol and I have one each. In age, they are less than six months apart. At times they are quite alike, at others, as similar as chalk and cheese. It is during those times when they are quite alike when we have the most fun around here.


For instance, on Friday evening the boys and I took a trip to the grocery store to get some oranges for Warren's march-a-thon Saturday morning. While I was choosing, they were going back and forth with each other about who they knew and to what degree and whether or not they liked the person being discussed at the moment. The conversation was centered mostly around girls. What made the conversation interesting is that Stuart is the social gadabout while Warren mostly keeps to himself, yet at the time, Warren was talking about the girls in his section of the band - girls that Stuart knows, too, and Warren was generally speaking kindly about them. I could have been knocked over with a feather. Warren had been shy about the subject of girls until rather recently. When we went camping last month, I noted a moment when a girl actually noticed Warren and sat down next to him without his bolting off to the other side of the county. I wrote a story about it, too... but don't tell him.



Warren went on his March-A-Thon on Saturday morning, covering around 10 miles total in a 6 hour period, quite an undertaking for a kid who isn't so athletic. On the way back from picking Warren up, he and Stuart got into a further discussion about girls... this time centering on a girl who knows Stuart and incidentally plays Bass Clarinet in the Marching Band just like Warren. The particular conversation about the particular girl had continued more or less, ending only when Stuart had to be taken back to his mother's.

Other than that, most of the weekend was spent killing monsters or whatever else they kill on those video games that they play as it was too darn hot to go outside and camp... and fish... and talk about the girls they know.

So here I am on Sunday evening, winding down my weekend with Stuart, listening to Warren gargle to a tune he made up. First day of school tomorrow. Hope that someone else appreciates when the two boys are together.

(Insert appropriate object of humor here)

I've always kept a large number of jokes in my head covering a wide variety of subjects. Many of them are repeats of previous jokes which are customized to the persons of ridicule in a given geographical area. What I was told as a Polish joke by a Jewish acquaintance 45 years ago became a Kentuckian joke, became a Hillbilly joke, became an Aggie joke and so on. (For the benefit of my friends not familiar with Texas, and Aggie is someone from Texas A&M University, a fine school indeed... unless you are a "Longhorn".)



When the one-liner "Redneck" jokes came around by way of Jeff Foxworthy, I became a fan.



What makes many jokes work are stereotypes... "the stingy scotsman" or "the dumb ----" or "the empty-headed---" or... well, you get the idea. Racial stereotypes can be funny, too, but there are lines which should not be crossed. On the whole, most racial jokes are not appropriate (ask Dr. Laura) as they are generally mean-spirited or really degrading.


This morning, I was witness to a family of stereotypes which occupied a portion of the day surgery waiting room at Baylor Hospital in Plano. The patient was accompanied by 8 adults and three children under the age of 8 - every one of them talking in a drawl so deep that the Grand Canyon would have had a hard time keeping up. I kept myself in a corner observing this crew from what I considered to be a safe distance. Among the group were the fat woman who couldn't keep her hands off the snacks (Hostess Miniature Donuts, followed by a large bag of Doritos), the Preacher (the only one of the males in the group with at least a sport coat and a decent shirt) and the thirty-something... I guess he was a mechanic... with the ball cap (complete with a tail coming out of the back), accidental beard, a dirty T-Shirt (at least it identified him or someone he knows as a blood donor) and Hawaiian shorts! To top it all off, one of the kids was named 'Bubba'.


Jeff Foxworthy would have been on the floor with this bunch.


Other than being a bit noisy and in seeming constant motion, they were relatively benign. The woman with the snacks (she was fat... not obese, but clearly more overweight than I am) spent the time she wasn't eating scolding the kids who had managed to bring in a miniature football and were throwing it in and around the area the group had staked out for themselves. The fellow with the ball cap was in and out on a regular basis. I suspect that he was stepping outside to smoke cigarettes on a regular basis. One of the group had a cell phone with a distinct ring tone. The name of that tune is "The Fishing Hole", written by the late Earl Hagen. You know it as the theme song for The Andy Griffith Show. I'm sure that the Hagen estate gets a cut every time someone purchases the song to use as a ring tone.


The group left the waiting room en-mass just twice. The first time was when it was announced that the patient was just about to be put under and wheeled into the operating room. Everyone had to say goodbye, don't you know. The second time came after some confusion... it was decided that the patient needed some overnight observation before undergoing the knife due to an irregular heartbeat. Everyone left and the room became almost deadly quiet. All that were left were two admissions reps, a waiting room volunteer, and three people (myself included) still in there waiting for news. I noted to one of the admissions persons that there seemed to be this giant sucking sound. Turns out it was the ventilation system.


It's not very often that I encounter the stereotypical. When I do, I end up cringing at the thoughts of the various jokes which seem to be playing out right in front of my eyes. A good part of the cringing has to do with the fact that I dare not laugh at what's going on. As I get older, the job gets harder.


By the way, the Lovely Miss Carol breezed through her surgery. We were home before 3:00.



Be Seeing You!

Fuzzies

I walked into a grocery store just after work to pick up a gallon of milk this evening and found myself developing a lump in my throat. The music was to blame. The overhead speakers were playing Bruce Springsteen's 'My Hometown', a story of typical decay in the northeast and a family's surrender to the inevitable and preparing to leave for warmer climates. 'My Hometown' is one of several Springsteen songs which I like to listen to over and over again because of the warm fuzzies I get when listening to them.

Warm fuzzies from the Boss of Rock and Roll. It seems almost ironic.

I get warm fuzzies about other things, too. For instance, I am in the middle of my umpteenth reading of 'The Lord of the Rings', a book I know all too well since discovering the tome during my Senior year in High School. For a while, I made a point of reading the book cover to cover on a yearly basis whether I wanted to or not. I know how it ends and some would argue "What's the point?" Maybe I do it just to get the warm fuzzies.

I've been reading the book during breaks at work and I know darn good and well that I had best quit reading it at work fairly much between the time Frodo actually dumps the ring and the Host in front of the teeth of Mordor are assisted by the Gwahir the Windlord. I'll be to a saturation point with the warm fuzzies. I'm male. I'm expected to keep a stiff upper lip, you know.

My encounters with the warm fuzzies even extend into what I write. I have a novel of sorts in the works and there are certain passages which give me the goosebumps. It's not particularly a good piece of literature nor do I anticipate what I've written to shoot to the top of the New York Times Bestseller lists. To me, it's entertainment - something I am doing just for the sake of saying that I am doing it. The story does have its moments, though. I've killed a character and a couple of other characters have had moments of revelation which, to me at least, are quite profound. At least I'm having fun with the exercise.

A couple of weeks ago the warm fuzzies were almost overwhelming. I took Stuart to see Toy Story 3 (not 3 D) and just about left the theater bawling like a baby. The story, while familiar, was well done and provided a satisfactory ending to the the Toy Story saga. I was totally happy to the point of tears at the resolution... a fact that I finally did tell Stuart despite the damage I envisioned happening to my ego. Sometimes ya just gotta let it loose.

Other warm fuzzies have invaded my life from time to time. I have gotten to the point in life where those fuzzies are no longer as threatening as they used to be. A good thing, perhaps. Good warm fuzzies are invaluable to keeping this pilgrim on an even keel.

May you have many warm fuzzies yourself.

Be Seeing You!