Teaching or Something Like It

Hey all.

This is my obligatory blog post explaining that I will not be updating as often because the real world beckons.  I'll be teaching high school English in Las Vegas (stylistic spelling errors and all).

I plan on writing movie reviews and blurbs on history/football/other nonsense, just not weekly.

Apollo 11: The Great Mooning

In 1903, the Wright Brothers flew their airplane for the first time. Less than a lifetime later, Neil Armstrong wiped gum off his shoe and onto the Moon. In the forty-plus years since, the world put up an American flag, abandoned a car there and dumped some golf clubs along with piles of other garbage. Basically, save for a kiddie pool and drunken brother-in-law, we turned the Moon into some redneck’s front yard. It’s almost a tragedy that Armstrong didn’t accidentally strike oil while planting Old Glory; or, for that matter, just sneak some gold in his suit, let it fall out of his pocket and then “discover” the gold on the moon.

The last man walked on the Moon in 1972. At an average age of 38, that means the moon-walkers are somewhere in the range of “old.” With no successors immediately lined up, it seems probable that the world will suffer—for the first time since 1969—the sad distinction of having not one living being with an experience on another celestial body. So what happened?

"That's a negative, Houston; there are no hot alien-babes here."

In 1957, America soiled about 150 million pairs of pants when the USSR put the satellite Sputnik in orbit. Any hang-ups on the immorality of education (validated in the Scopes Monkey Trial) were shrugged off with the aimless and determined patriotism that only open warfare could muster within America. Afraid that the newly–created NASA program would have a volunteer shortage for the new position of “astronaut,” President Eisenhower suggested recruiting Air Force test pilots. That way, if the pilots didn’t want to be tied to a missile and launched into the stratosphere, the Commander in Chief could just draft them into the program. The logic and legality were shaky, but Eisenhower made his point: America was damn serious.

To create immediate returns on the new start-up, NASA was designed as an incredibly open and public organization. Unlike the Russians who kept everything a secret until the successes, the Americans made every technological advancement a news item and called them successes. In no other regard, were the successes as obvious and thrilling as the overnight celebrity-heroes: the astronauts.

To a man, the early astronauts were test pilots—men who flew the airplanes deemed not yet safe enough for regular pilots. To them, going into outer space in novel, even hypothetical, machines was just part of the job. Their bravado was recast for the papers as “devil may care” and the like, but at their most cordial they were indifferent to the attention. Buzz Aldrin, among others, straight up hated the publicity tours and interviews and photographers and 10-hour-long Media Day press conferences. At best, Aldrin and the others were ever only half-prepared to go into space.

The other half of their training could have been dedicated to the real purpose of the Moon Landing. That is, America’s public relations. More so than any real military advantage, getting a satellite around Earth, putting creatures in space and getting a man to the moon were all gambits pulled for global bragging rights. If Russia could accomplish what America could not, then surely Communism was the system of efficiency and thus the wave of the future. Like divorced parents passive-aggressively vying for their child’s attention, each nation pointed to its own measurable superiority in a rudimentary effort to persuade Greek and Iranian nationals to choose the one, true, winning side in international politics. NASA was a PR campaign for America, and democracy, meant to woo the world.

The space capsule was shot into space by a Saturn V rocket, which had 6 million individual parts. This means that if each part had a success rate of 99.99%, there would still be an estimated 600 separate, individual failures. Just between the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia disasters, 17 astronauts have been killed. 12 people have walked on the moon.

The last person on the Moon was Eugene Cernan, Commander of Apollo 17. He did that in 1972. The next year, the air bag was invented. 1974 saw the birth of the Rubix cube. 1975 was the dawn of push tabs on drink cans and in 1976 the world, for the first time, bore witness to the ink-jet printer. That’s right; that $25 piece of plastic crap on the floor next to your computer that could be smashed with a loaf of bread is actually several years more technologically advanced than whatever the hell we were strapping astronauts into moments before putting them in the infinite cosmos.

Despite the billions upon billions of dollars and loss of several promising young lives, what could have been the most psychologically ruinous tragedy did not occur—though preparations were made. As much as any explosion, there existed the fear of stranding Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the Moon. See, the actual landing on the Moon was easily the most hypothetical element of the whole mission. The x-factors even seemed to out-number the certainties. Nobody really even knew what the Moon’s surface was going to be like. Was it solid? Would the landing craft sink into the dust? Beyond that, nobody really knew how the fuel would hold up or if launching back into orbit was even possible, given that no place on Earth could properly replicate the low-gravity, zero-oxygen, solar radiation of the Moon. In the event of the lunar module’s failure to launch, there was no back-up plan. So astronaut Frank Borman and Nixon speechwriter William Safire crafted one of the most chilling and heartbreaking speeches never read to the American public:

“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”

Damn.

I mean....damn.

It strikes me that had Aldrin and Armstrong been stranded on the Moon, the foremost objective of all following Apollo missions would have been the recovery of their bodies. Curiously, the original Moon landing was way off-target and so it’s not even guaranteed that ensuing missions would have been immediately able to find and bring home the lost space voyagers. But we would find them. Looking up at the Moon, every night, knowing there are two dead explorers looking back would simply have been far too much for the country, if not the world, to handle.

But it’s hard to find other reasons to go back to the Moon, or to Mars for that matter. Probably not until India or China put people on the Moon will America seriously consider such an endeavor again—mostly because we don’t need the publicity.

Admittedly, NASA spokesman Robert Wilson had a much more eloquent, insightful and optimist opinion at a Senate hearing when asked what purpose his quasi-military, government organization had in the interests of national defense:

“It has nothing to do directly with defending our country,” said Wilson, “Except to make it worth defending.”

The New England Patriots: Football's Ultimate David

The “David vs. Goliath” plot line in sports is as fun as it is cliché and, in fact, it might be the most of both. In 2002, New England beat the 14-point favorite St. Louis Rams. Largely remembered as a case study for the “NFL is rigged” conspiracy theorists (Jesse Ventura, etc.), this was the first Superbowl after the September 11th attacks and so it seemed “too fitting” that the scrappy “Patriots” would prove to be America’s best team. Hell, the Superbowl logo for that year was deliberately changed to be more patriotic and the game itself was pushed back a week in honor of the attacks four months prior. From a PR prospective, the Rams didn’t have a snowball's chance in Vegas. Still, the Patriots came to dominate professional football for the next decade with a narrative beauty that is entirely unmatched.

The 14-point spread granted by the gambling gods was one of the largest for any Superbowl ever. Yes, even “Dallas vs. Buffalo: Part Two: First Blood.” Even if they had no other information, the sports media would have called this a “David vs. Goliath” story. Fortunately, they had even more evidence to support this set-up. The St. Louis Rams, fueled by their “Greatest Show on Turf,” had won the 2000 Superbowl and coasted to a 14-2 record and blasted through two previous playoff games like James Bond at an Atlantic City poker table. Indeed, for the first time ever, things were looking good in St. Louis.

Conversely, New England barely started the football season off in the right stadium, they were so lost. In their second game, star (?) quarterback Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury and the Patriots were forced to trod out a doughy second-year quarterback named Tom Brady. Baby Face Brady (as he was never called) experienced record-breaking success and matched up famously with Coach Bill Belicheck (who was still in his Senator Palpatine stage).

"So he looks like Joe Lieberman to everybody else too, right?"

Continuing the narrative symbolism to an almost redundant level, the Patriots broke NFL tradition by not introducing the starters individually but by having the entire team introduced as one collective. Lifted from the school of Disney sports movies, the corny beauty of athletic camaraderie (in the backdrop of national solidarity) set an obvious precedent of which the NFL has yet to waiver from to this day.

As the story had to go, with some dashing luck and plenty of moxie, the Patriots turned what should have been the worst Superbowl since the year before (that Ravens-Giants stinker) into a game worthy of watching for 86 million television viewers. David had slain Goliath. All was well. But then something happened. Something nobody could have dreamed. The David Story continued.

I was raised Catholic—which, among other things, means I never really had to read the Bible. Every week my family would go to church and hear the priest give a book report on the Bible that could go no longer than 60 minutes or people would hold up their arms and start tapping on their watches. However, I did pick up that the same David that killed Goliath later became king. Similarly, the Patriots went on to win 2 more Superbowls and otherwise ruled the NFL for a few years.

As the story of Bible-David goes, King David lost God’s favor royally by screwing around with Bathsheba—a married woman. The song “Hallelujah” covers this story somewhat, but has since been used in so many movies and TV shows that the song’s original writer/singer, Leonard Cohen, has asked for it not to be used anymore. Regardless, King David acted a fool with some broad and then tried to cover his tracks by having her husband sent to the front lines of a battle and get killed. For his misdeeds, King David would lose a newly-born son, a wife and favor with God.

This comes back to the Patriots with the devastating spy-camera scandal and subsequent investigation--predicatively--named Spygate. I guess it’s like “Watergate”…except there’s spying…or whatever. Yeah, the sports writers didn’t exactly earn their paychecks with that one. 

Anyhow, the New England Patriots were found guilty of videotaping the New York Jets and punished with a series of fines and loss of their…pause for dramatic effect…first-round selection in the 2008 draft. Just when they were about to bring some new life into their football family, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell smote them. However, other stinging accusations of videotapes never came to pass and so 31 self-righteous teams felt the Patriots got off easy.

A few millenniums ago, King David would spend his remaining years vainly fighting off insurrections orchestrated by his own sons until eventually ceding the throne to wise Solomon. Appropriately, the New England Patriots would experience similar, fleeting success for the next four years; but ultimately found themselves humiliated twice by the New York Giants—a team that shared a stadium with the Patriots’ original accusers, the Jets. In both Superbowl matchups, the Patriots were the odds-on favorite but fell short to New York--who continued their revenge spree with the death of Osama Bin Laden two months after the second Superbowl win (just to pointlessly tie this all back to September 11th).

Perhaps the Patriots (David) had become Goliath and thus deserved to fall twice for their previous, but now tainted, victories. Perhaps they just stayed as “David” and lost to the most appropriately-named team of Goliaths: the Giants. In either case, I feel the narrative has wrapped up nicely and I would like to conclude my well-documented dislike of the New England Patriots.

This season will be a fresh start for me and the Patriots, which is huge relief because rooting against the previous decade’s most successful NFL team was really exhausting. Now I can focus on bashing the would-be Cinderella team that has since turned into the Courtney Love of football: the Detroit Lions.

The Mexican-American War: A Historic Review

Almost 8 years to this day, local Mexican soldiers blocked U.S. Marines from acting as funeral Honor Guard to a Mexican immigrant-turned Marine soldier named Juan Lopez Rangel—who was killed in Iraq. The Marines, carrying replica rifles, were escorted from the grave site to their Embassy vehicle and surrounded by more Mexican troops while the band continued to play taps. The whole thing would have been a mutual international embarrassment but the media got distracted by the death of Marlon Brando.

Almost 166 years to this day, Commodore John Sloat landed in California and claimed the Mexican territory for the United States.

Running Time: 1846-1848 (inspiring the more concise name “Guerra del 47”)

Setting: Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Old Mexico…er, regular Mexico.

Concept (to Americans): Defending Texas…well…not really. Americans wanted to fulfill their “Manifest Destiny”; the assumption that America was always intended to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. However, the country was not ready for imperial intentions and so needed the thinnest veil of a “defensive response” ever calculated--which meant defending the newly independent Texas.

Concept (to Mexicans): Defending Mexico…well…not really. They had lost Texas during that war of independence, and most other nations begged Mexico to let the land go as Mexico had asked foreigners (Americans) to come to Texas and cultivate the land years ago. Beyond that, the treaty signed by Mexicans to end the war ceded said land.

Before the War: While Mexico achieved it’s own independence from a European power shortly after the United States, its territory was much harder to transverse and the Spanish had not left the infrastructure the Americans so readily inherited from the British. So Mexico gave away vast amounts of land to Americans (Sam Houston, others) under the assumption that one day those Americans will just become Mexican. Go figure, it didn’t really work out that way and the Texans seceded from Mexico. Mexican General Santa Anna tried to crush the rebellion but was sent home packing after—and this is huge—signing a treaty that redrew the Texas-Mexico border. President James K. Polk—inappropriately eulogized in this previous post—offered Mexico $30 million for the hard feelings.

The Opening Shot: The Mexicans were absolutely agast that Texans would move the border but America applauded the moxie and let Texas into the Union despite rampant Northern fears of expanding slavery. Partially concerned that Mexico would attack America’s newest state, partially wanting Mexico to attack, President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor and his army to protect the border claimed on rather dubious grounds. Mexico saw this as an invasion and attacked. Future general and American president, Ulysses S. Grant called the war, “one of the most unjust ever.” As did a young Abraham Lincoln. Fair or foul, both countries declared war over a piece of land, not 1/10th the size of modern Texas.

Anymore, America would probably give this land back

in exchange for three trucks filled with guacamole.

The Plot: In short, very, very little went right for Mexico. Within days, Americans won battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. While America declared war in supposed “self-defense,” it became immediately clear that this would be a war only won through invasion. In a disheartening display of déjà vu, the Americans largely invaded Mexico much like the conquistadors. Much like then, the defending Mexican forces failed to unite against the invaders. The internal political, economic and social strife in Mexico made them as ready to defend themselves as a bunch of extras in a Roland Emmerich film. The war essentially became a race to Mexico City between American generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott.

Any Twists?: Nearly every unusual aspect of this rather drab war can be connected to Mexican general, and perpetual President, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Immortalized by the Pyrrhic victory at the Alamo during the Texas Revolution, signing the Rio Grande-border treaty, stealing from churches and marrying a 15-year-old (when he was 50), Santa Anna rarely went a week before doing something catastrophically insane. During the invasion, Santa Anna promised the American forces he could declare peace within Mexico if the Americans just gave him $100,000 and a few days. Stunning absolutely nobody besides the Flanders-esque sap that handed over the sack of money, Santa Anna immediately negated, ran off with the small American fortune and mounted an ineffectual counter-attack.

After the War: America paid Mexico $15 million for Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Utah. Mainly a public relations move, this international “hush money” relieved many Americans who were afraid their nation had unlawfully conquered the land. Within the next couple of years, $200 million worth of gold would be extracted from California alone. Meanwhile, Mexico was crushed and broke in almost every aspect and suffered internal violence and a devastating cholera outbreak. There was also a funeral procession for Santa Anna’s amputated leg. Not Santa Anna himself, mind you….but his leg.

Contemporary Controversy: To this day, historians heartily debate President Polk’s intentions. Did he even want to buy the land from Mexico or was war always planned? Was the war inevitable? Why would anybody fight over Texas? And, seriously, a funeral for a leg?

Foreshadowing: All this new land for America immediately resurrected the debate over American slavery and eventually brokered the Compromise of 1850—which held off the Civil War until deadlier weapons could be manufactured. The Mexican-American War also became something akin to “The Outsiders” for Civil War buffs, as many famed generals cut their teeth (is that the expression?) in Mexico. Mexican War veteran PT Beauregard attacked Fort Sumpter; Jefferson Davis became the CSA President; George McClellan protected Washington, D.C.; James Longstreet and Winfield Scott Hancock fought at Gettysburg. Most notably, Robert E. Lee and Grant served together, which Grant fondly remembered when the two met again at the Appomattox Court House.

Sub-plot: The Annexation of all of Mexico. After American forces took the capital city and the peace treaties were being drawn up, some Americans voiced confusion if Mexico was even a country any more. For bad or worse, America did not absorb all of Mexico out of sheer racism. The land obtained (Utah, Arizona, etc.) was considered empty and so more valuable than picking up a few million more citizens who don’t speak English. Beyond that, racist Americans could not agree between themselves if Mexican citizens would become American citizens or American slaves.

Film adaptation: I’m going to go with “Bad Boys.” Like that film, the Mexican-American War was hard to understand, loud, pointless, the precipice of disaster and all the while catapulting the early careers of madmen.

Glory level: High at first, as America doesn’t do anything with any collective passion other than going to war. Later, the glory dissipated as none of the victories, or defeats, inspired songs, stories or heroes. Now the glory level is among the lowest of all American wars.

Influence level: Low, then high. The conflict was too short to change the tactics of war or introduce any new technology. However, the war did foster a still-lingering sense of distrust and racism on both sides of the border.

As a distant point to make, Puerto Rico should probably become a state, if only for the party. It’s been a while since we have had a national celebration and I don’t like the OCD people--who think 50 is “just a nice, even, number”--holding us back. Come on, Puerto Rico, jump in! Join America. The water is fine.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The National WWI Museum (part three)

To catch up, I am in the National WWI Museum in Kansas City...

The largest set piece of the museum follows shortly after in the Horizon Theater. From a crosswalk, Matt and I looked down at more soldier mannequins trudging through muck and rubble on a set at least 80 x 30 feet. By this point we had come to understand that hell is not made of fire, but rather made of mud. After three years, millions of soldiers had died and millions more remained stretched across a 475 mile front line, from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps. The background of the set was a projector screen that ran a 15-minute movie presenting the question, “Should America enter the war?” By 1917, not only had the Germans sunk the Lusitania and other vessels carrying Americans but President Wilson had won reelection on the somber campaign slogan, “He Kept Us Out of the War.”

10 million German immigrants lived in the US. One of them, Eric Muenter, tried to blow up Congress—in mixed act of insanity and necessity. For the previous hour in the museum, we had been so stuck in European misery that I only barely realized the museum held back the spoilers in history. How would this war end? Who would win? What could America do? More questions are asked and more pictures are faded into one another and more Terminator-inspired music plays. The suspense was killing me, or maybe it was just the chemical warfare the museum patron next to me unleashed during the film.

Through another doorway we learned of the Zimmerman Telegram and German’s plea for Mexico to join the war by attacking the United States. Unfortunately for Germany, Mexico and the U.S. may have had, and still have, our own problems, but we don’t fight each other. Well…except for that whole Mexican War thing. And the drug and gun trafficking. And college kids getting trashed in Tijuana. Anyway…

A whole new round of propaganda posters line the walls as if bearing the load of the ceiling. My personal favorites were the ones telling Americans that it was time to repay France for their help during the Revolutionary War. It takes a historical surgeon to make that kind of argument, a careful avoidance of intentions and facts. Beyond that, American-French relations have been slow to grow back from our 2003 low-point. Maybe we need to send them more study abroad students. Maybe we need to send them less. Maybe they need to quit being jerks; they got a Woody Allen movie, isn’t that enough?

With America’s introduction to the war, Matt and I saw how radically out-of-touch America had been with the rest of the world in the years before the first shots. As mentioned earlier, the European countries (and Japan) had begun a military build-up in the event of war, which turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as everybody’s military build-up scared everybody else into building-up their own militaries. America, though, was absolutely nowhere; and the American didn’t realize it until the day after Congress declared war. To get four million American soldiers in Europe by 1918, we needed 2.5 million rifles and 72 million pairs of underpants. I don’t know, I think the soldiers would have needed so many changes of underpants had they just been given more rifles, but, hey, I’m no military genius (surprise!). Embarrassing to anybody more enlightened than Strom Thurman, America’s first bunch of soldiers sent to the front lines were entirely African-American and outfitted in (sigh…) former uniforms from the Civil War.

Continuing the regrets of the past, before America could send much of an army overseas, President Wilson signed into law the Espionage Act of 1917 and jailed several women suffragists and former presidential candidate Eugene Debs—where he remained until receiving a commuted sentence from President Harding in 1921. Of course if there’s one thing America does better than imprisoning people, it’s building bad ass weapons and you better believe this museum has those by the armful.

The best “weapon” is a criminally easy to miss wooden cane, as it is seemingly lumped in with assorted WWI airplane memorabilia. The cane was carved from a wooden propeller off of the crashed airplane flown by Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest and most Theodore-like son of former president Theodore Roosevelt. Quentin Roosevelt was a daredevil—which his father loved—and always pushed himself past the limits of normal people—including his three older brothers who ALL served on the front lines in WWI. Because the only thing that can kill a Roosevelt is himself, it seems with almost certainty that Quentin’s gun on the plane was disabled during a dogfight and so he whittled his own propeller into a wooden cane, beat a German pilot over the head with it and then crashed the plane into the ground—which also would have created the Grand Canyon on the other side of the world. The museum makes no such claim, but I think we all know that I’m right.

-Look at this, said Matt. Our allies called American soldiers “witty” and “stubborn.”

-Yeah, I think we’re okay with that description.

-Yeah.

Not far after this, Matt continued reading the lengthy chronology of events and quotes still on the interior wall while I looked at motorcycles, wagons, cannons, maps and a tank that got an artillery shell shoved up its tailpipe. A museum can’t just all be about learning, it requires a little bit of imagination, too. When you look at a handwritten letter, really look at it. See how deep the pencil marking go into the paper. Look at the stains on the paper. That letter isn’t just a movie prop, it was really somewhere else at one point. It was important to somebody and the fun is in imagining when that importance was new. People like books because it can take them to another world inside their heads and people like movies because there is something visceral to experience and I think the best museums capture the essence of both.

At the end of the museum I was struck by how much of World War I, the Great War as once called, felt untouched. The museum felt less like an immersion and more like an introduction. Modern estimates say over 9 million combatants were killed. Over 21 million seriously wounded. This doesn’t count the uncountable amount who suffered the loss of their homes, means of support or even their complete sanity. 9 million killed. That’s like wiping out all of New York City when the world’s population was a fourth what it is now. How can a two or three hour tour encompass all that? Simply, it can’t.

World War I was the collapse of empires. Even the Allied nations were too defeated to maintain the stranglehold on natural resources they had just five years prior. Worse off, Russia and Germany were not allowed at the negotiating table, which raises the question: who was negotiating about what? Russia went under the knife and cut out its old self-identity with the Bolshevik Revolution. Germany fared no better and the Allied nations—in an act rivaling grade school children—refused to let Germany join the League of Nations for six years after the creation of the world’s largest tree house club. My guess is that even then, Germany still had to eat a worm to hang out with the other neighborhood kids. That kind of stuff hurts people’s feelings…and their economies.

From the conception, through the build-up and execution and finale and aftermath, WWI remains an unrivaled low point for far too many people. It was a war like no other and properly remembered as an absolute disaster. And that’s okay. What continues the misfortune is when the war is disregarded, misunderstood or forgotten. Forgive, but don’t forget. So how did the war end?

On the one hand, nobody won. Everyone loses in war and the last country to know it’s losing claims victory. In this case, Germany saw the writing on the wall before Britain, France and the U.S. And for seeing the destruction for what it was and what it would become, Germany asked for peace—at the sacrifice of it’s own pride and people. For pleading for peace, U.S. ran away in disgust and France and Britain shoved mountains of self-righteous debt onto Germany. For ending the war, Germany was branded The Loser. And for losing over 116,000 men in a little over one year and having a President who didn’t mind a sea voyage, America was found to be the biggest winner.

And twenty years later, the world went back to war.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The National WWI Museum (part two)

Continuing in the National WWI Museum...

I can’t guess what percentage of people consider the cause of WWI to be the assassination of Franz Ferdinand (the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary) on June 28, 1914. But that explanation, with all of its obvious political nuances, isn’t good enough. A much broader, and more accurate, explanation would be simply that almost all the major players in the world wanted to go to war. Ferdinand didn’t need to die, anybody could have died and the European countries would still have lost their tops. There had been a decade of patriotic pumping, empire expanding and over-terrified military build-ups. Like Charlie and Dee from “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” these countries (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungry, Japan, etc.) were taking handfuls of steroids and washing them down with barrels of alcohol. By mid-1914, testosterone (metaphor continued: an unhealthy mix of nationalism and fear) had been loaded into a cannon three times over. Countries were flexing and crying at the same time; talking in barely contained, quivering whispers because letting out a normal voice would let out a roaring string of profanities that would embarrass Christian Bale.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was no more the cause of the First World War than the starting gun is the reason Usain Bolt can run 200 meters in the time it takes you to pick out a box of Pop-Tarts.

Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published some fifty years prior, giving politicos just enough time to skim the work and corrupt Darwin’s point as a theory on human society, not just biology. It has since become the default argument for capitalism: survival of the fittest. Competition breeds excellence, etc. On an international scale, this meant that it became time for the most efficient nations to devour the weaker ones. War, as a concept, was not a crime anymore, but rather a solution. The real crime, it was said, was to not unite all humanity under one, true, banner of righteousness. To the British, Germans and others, the world had become too small, the resources too few and so war became a cleansing.

Serbian nationalists assassinate attacked Ferdinand and that was wrong. Austria-Hungry made impossible demands for peace on the Kingdom of Serbia and that was wrong. Russia moved to protect its cultural brethren, even though the conflict was still considered domestic…and Russia was in the wrong. Germany should not have declared war on Russia and so on. Basically, only the trigger man Gavrilo Princip can be blamed for his actions; everybody else should be blamed for their reactions.

Over the coarse of the conflict, 34 countries officially declared war (often against multiple enemies) and almost all within a six-week period—which was about how long that Geico Caveman show was on the air. The museum, which various graphs and charts chronicles the major declarations but regrettably leaves out the smaller players, such as Greece declaring war on Bulgaria and Turkey declaring war on Romania.

The layout of the museum is a giant circle, so the walk is organized but area is also wide. While Matt and myself both started in 1914, we were drawn to different displays. I didn’t know what he saw at first but I took good note of the swords and guns. The size of the rifles made me wonder if the armies expected to be fighting a battalion of T-Rexes. Seriously bad ass guns.

I then found Matt at the propaganda posters and was thankful he wasn’t so convinced by them that he planned on going to war. WWI was definitely the first major conflict to make use of the media and the posters (from several countries) show a level of government intimidation unique not for its efforts but for the lack of subtlety. “What’s your excuse?” demands one poster, willing to publicly de-pant any able-bodied man.

Beyond the posters, Matt and I found a life-size recreation of a trench, complete with a couple of dummy soldiers (no offense?) playing cards. The trench had wood siding and planks put down for a makeshift floor.

-Kind of looks like a tree house, I said.

-A tree house?

-Well, underground, of course. Like a snow fort, made of dirt.

Down the way, Matt and I found more sections of the trench as it evolved and discovered by description was unfortunately accurate. Snow forts rarely lost more than an hour, and nearly same with the trenches. At least with snow though, one can climb out, be a little cold and go drink hot cocoa. WWI took a more elongated and darker turn. At any point, walls could give in and bury men in mud while they slept. If the walls stayed strong, the mud crept up from underneath and just remained at men’s knees for months on end. Weapons jammed, food tasted like mud and blankets hardened. And this was when the enemy wasn’t throwing grenades, launching shells, shooting machine guns, attacking with weaponized gases and bayonets otherwise attacking like a bunch of jerks.

The interior wall, from floor to ceiling, catalogues major events and quotes in chronological order and provides most of the reading material. Personally, I just like reading about displays that catch my eye rather than reading long passages on a wall. If I wanted to read about WWI, I get a book about WWI. However, the wall does contain several gem jokes—usefully highlighted in bright red—that are definitely worth a glance. By the first Christmas of the war, gas masks had become pretty standard and had the unfortunate effect of dehumanizing the wearer. A German soldier recounts being attacked by “creatures” in gas masks while a British soldier lamented in his journal about how life on the battlefield “is not worth a damn.”

Within minutes of walking around the museum, the chaos can become over-whelming. Food riots in Germany, fifty thousand British soldiers killed in a couple of hours, failing crops and the intentional bombing of cultural treasures in a ridiculously ignorant attempt to “break the will of the people.” I can not over-emphasis how many times in the history of mankind—and the marginally shorter history of war—an army has tried to “break the will” of a civilian population and failed. A hundred times over, even a thousand times over, attacking a civilian does more harm to the effort than good. A political leader or a general can be broke and surrender, a people never do.

5 million civilians died from the war. That’s more than Dallas, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Detroit, Boston and Denver…put together. Damn.

In the interior of the circle, there were Cultural Reflections Booths and interactive table displays. The giant table touch-screen displays immediately impressed me as some space-age/everyday cell phone technology; until I tried to use one. They weren’t so much “touch-screens” as they were displays that were supposed to move with the click of an attached laser pointer. Alas, the screen rarely reacted properly and I struggled like some lab monkey for a while until I decided to go pout in what looked like a photo booth. Unlike the baffling no-touch touch-screen table from moments prior, the Cultural Reflections Booths had real touch screens and let me scroll through music, literature and sound bites from WWI and the years shortly after.

A lot of beauty came from WWI, in that the war affected, inspired or at least mentally damaged artisans of every medium. Who knows what Fitzgerald and Hemmingway would have written in their post-WWI years if not “The Great Gatsby” and “A Farewell to Arms.” This is not an appreciation for the war, though, as I can’t say I’d save any piece of art or literature at the cost of one life. The grandest achievement for any of the literature at the time was the ability to summarize the impossibly huge concepts.

To be continued in a third, and final, segment....

Arrested Development: The Godfather of TV

It’s not often that the Internet culture can be so rocked by news that anyone over 40 couldn’t give two farts about. It’s also not often that a TV show deserving of a greater fate is created, ignored, canceled, immortalized and finally brought back to life and shoved on the air.

Lazarus’s heart took a break for a couple of days; Arrested Development has been stranded on millions of DVD shelves for the last six years. Message boards and the like have actually turned the show into some self-referential zombie. At this point, can Arrested Development’s new fourth season be better than what would have been the fourth season more than half a decade ago?

I’m here to say, to say to doubters and myself, that there is a way.

For some time, I have described Arrested Development as a comic TV version of The Godfather. They are both stories about a youngest son attempting to take over and legitimize his father’s, periodically-legal, business and empire. Specifically:

Michael is Michael Corleone
George Sr. is Vito Corleone
Lucille is Mama Corleone
GOB is Sonny
Buster is Fredo
Lindsey is Connie
Tobias is Carlo
Barry Zuckerkorn is Tom Hagen
J. Walter Weatherman is Clemenza
Stan Sitwell is Barzini
Tracey (Michael’s Wife) is Kay
Rita/Maggie/Marta/Sally is Apollonia

Now I’ve never heard show creator Mitch Hurwitz say anything remotely about The Godfather and I’m not about to go and “do research.” I just want to point out that the saga and the similarities can be continued. Expecting a sequel to the The Godfather would be a bit much, as well as the return of Arrested Development.

Simply then, the next season of Arrested Development should just be The Godfather: Part Two played out. Obviously the characters and their parallels don’t match up perfectly one-to-one (ex. GOB is alive, Sonny is dead). However, the dynamics are still there. And the betrayals! And murders! Murders? Probably.

With Community on the brink in a way that can only be properly described as “Arrested Development-esque” combined with my personal disinterest in watching more than one TV show at a time, I just know I’ve found myself excited by television for the first time in a long time.

MOONRISE KINGDOM: The Creepy Detail

"Moonrise Kingdom" is a charming tale of youngsters running away from 1906s home and blossoming into early adulthood. At one point, the preteen boy and girl swim in a cove in their underpants. They also gently wade into the waters of adolescent sexuality. Unique? Yes. Realistic? Sure. But this is where movies are different from real life.

Writer/direction Wes Anderson is stylistically a stickler for detail--specifically costumes and set design. His visual flare is always a unique, other-worldly combination of direct symmetry and vibrant colors. And so I don't think its unreasonable to say the movie "Moonrise Kingdom" came to a screeching halt around the beginning of Act II. In our world, Wes Anderson, at some point, certainly had discussions with his costume coordinator and set designer and whoever else about...children's underpants.

Uhhh...

Anderson, at some point, looked a row of who-knows-how-many children's underpants and picked the ones he wanted the child actors to wear because "they pop." Anderson, at some point, told the 12-year-olds to get in their underwear so that he could properly light them and make sure everything was in focus.

Was there concept art for those costumes, the underpants? Storyboards? What reasoning did Anderson have to make the choices he made--again, in regards to the children in their underpants?

Wes Anderson may be a wonderful director. He may have made a wonderful movie filled with wonderful performances. He may now have the strongest and most lucid understanding of his own ambitions in his entire career. He could make millions and win awards and inspire a legion of film students and film lovers.

But he should probably also be on some FBI watch lists.

Nothing personal, Wes.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The National WWI Museum

Matt and I went to the National WWI Museum in Kansas City.

The Liberty Memorial in Kansas City is a limestone structure that thrusts itself into the Kansas City skyline with the grace, determination and raging pride long since forgotten by its brother-in-spirit, the Washington Monument. Indeed, the Washington Monument is so engrain in pop culture, via dirty humor, that reiteration would be redundant if not wholly confusing. The Washington Monument is just an example of the obelisk architectural genre and by the same revelation, Chuck Norris jokes have very little to do with Chuck Norris. 


Regardless, in an attack on originality, many lifeless jokes surround the Liberty Memorial. Hilariously, the Liberty Memorial is not even technically an obelisk, but rather more cylinder—and I suppose such details are not so much “hilarious” as they are “tedious.”

-When you’re ready to come back down, press the button by the lift, said the elevator operator as we reached the top.

-Don’t worry, I said back, I brought my parachute today.

-Oh don’t do that, he said before going back down—immediately unwilling to talk me down from such dare devil antics.

It wasn’t until some time later that I was able to reflect on the Liberty Memorial at all, as I spent most of my time at the viewing balcony crushing Kansas City skyscrapers with my fingers. I roared and watched a five-legged, spider-like monster crush the Sprint Center and climb the Power and Light Building. Other observers left me alone and a small child started crying. Even in my fantasy, those people were safe so I can’t imagine what the problem was.

The 360-degree view was nice, but not entirely for why I was expecting.

There’s an old joke that goes, “In Kansas, you can watch your dog run away from home for two days. If you stand on top of a phone book, you can watch for three days.” Basically, an expansive view is nothing new. Every town east of Abilene has a suitable hill to stand-in as a “make-out point,” drug rendezvous or the occasional combination of the two. 


What was unique about the Liberty Memorial view was that there was something to look at. My imaginary hand monster had something to crush. Also, the Liberty Memorial was more unique than your average mound of dirt because underneath it sat the National World War I Museum and a more fun two hours spent than any of the last handful of movies I have braved my way through.

Above the entrance, two large stone sphinxes cower and cover their eyes from one another. A short investigation led to the museum’s explanation that the one facing East shrouds its face from the horrors of the past; while the mirroring sphinx, facing West, shields its face to symbolize the unseen future. 


My friend on this excursion, Matt, seemed impressed by the answer but I felt a nagging blip on my bullshit detector. Yeah, okay, I said, I’ll accept the museum’s explanation; art and obscurity are common bedfellows. Still, why would two identical statues supposedly convey two nearly opposite sentiments? Just as easily, there are mysteries in our past and horrors in our future.

Entering the museum was like entering a cave as we were forced to surrender all natural light. We purchased tickets for the museum in the gift shop, which seemed oddly inefficient at first. Generally, gift shops are set up to be a last destination for the patron—a place to solidify family memories in the only way our society knows how to do anything with any kind of confidence or energy anymore: by buying things. I suppose unlike presidential museums or Six Flags, this WWI museum is a bit more somber and so useless knick-knacks and T-shirts don’t lose or gain value after the forthcoming stroll.

On a small financial note, I’d recommend going to the museum on a Wednesday to take advantage of a two-for-one ticket special (one ticket normally running around $12). Also, there is a student discount but the following harassment from Missourian museum volunteers might not make it worth whipping out an old KU student ID. Literally, three museum workers, through various friendly/prying conversations, vocally disapproved of my educational history and historical education. Before long, the Mizzou fans had provided extra motivation for me to run into the dark halls in a desperate escape and join the WWI war effort.

Near the entrance, Matt and I crossed a glass bridge spanning a poppy flower garden beneath the last skylight for the self-guided tour. The garden was massive. Thousands of flowers. 9,000 flowers, we learned. Each flower represented 1,000 combat deaths during WWI. Wow, I thought out loud, war is kind of dark.

As expected, though perhaps necessary, the first section of the museum was a short video setting up the origins of a very underrated war. To me, World War II is just a younger brother who benefited from an absurd twenty-year technological boom. WWII is flashy, big and (relatively) simple—not unlike the highly popular “Star Wars” films. Even Bart Simpson once said, “There are no good wars…with the following exceptions: The Revolutionary War, World War Two and the Star Wars Trilogy.” And he was referring to the original trilogy for all you kids under the age of 13, who have never known the concept of ‘only’ three “Star Wars” films. A necessary digression.

The thought has also occurred to me that I’m just a history elitist; I am so unable to develop uniquely obscure music tastes that I have found and latched onto my favorite stories, characters and musings. Still, when the lights dimmed, I was excited.

The film was edited with a smooth grasp, exceeding the capabilities—or at least the confidence—of the History Channel. The modern intangibles were there, a nearly subconscious remainder that the museum is only six years old. Despite no real evidence to support my hope, I can only pray that the museum directors will create at least a new intro video every ten years so as to not cheapened the experience with dated film reels (ala the Dwight Eisenhower museum). History has to fight the stigma of dusty, impotent, nonsense. If that means adding a little MTV-style pepper to the production, then so be it--nothing will be lost. A secret handshake is worthless if it’s so complicated that only one person knows it. As is, the WWI video was more than competent.

At times, the video may have even been over-written. Nearly every line was dropped like a stone tablet, carved by modern day philosophers. “Peace is war at check,” the audience is told with a careful sigh. Is war the default relationship for humanity? The War on Poverty was interrupted by the Vietnam War, which exhausted itself and left room in the political landscape for a War on Drugs, Communism, Christmas, Terror, Libya, Women and the Upper Class.

To be continued...

BERNIE: Real Failings and Virtues

Small town, middle Americans are mocked as uncultured, uneducated, discriminatory and naïve. At the same time, many of the residents pride themselves on simple joys, practical know-how, camaraderie and displaying trust. Having grown up in Kansas and lived in other places, I’ve lived through interactions of both states of mind and saw each on display yet again in Richard Linklater’s refreshing and personable film, “Bernie.”

Linklater, while not quite worthy of household recognition, is essentially the Otto Graham of Mumblecore cinema and to a lesser extent, the indie film movement from the early nineties. In such a sense, Linklater is as condemnable (if not more so) as Quentin Tarantino for his legions of film school imitators who have far less to offer the world than their silver screen superstars. As he has for the last twenty years, Linklater’s newest movie can only knock at the door of mainstream cinema—which is a sad limitation given the quiet brilliance of “Bernie.”

While the movie is billed as a “true story,” I’m going to ignore the “true story” because sometimes a movie can be bigger than the facts.

Bernie Tiede (played by the periodically impressive Jack Black) is a funeral home director who achieves unrivalled popularity in the small town of Carthage, Texas—partially thanks to his seemingly endless loyalty to the quintessential craggy old bat: Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine).

Bernie has the perfect handshake, a warm smile, charming talents and, perhaps most importantly, gives away money as if it isn’t the ultimate collection in life. Generosity breeds popularity, begging the possibility that friends can be bought. At this point, it would seem that to not buy friends would be a rejection of the American Dream. That the money is rarely Bernie’s at all is a point nearly all townspeople are willing to overlook.

In the first of many points articulated by characters, albeit with a salt-of-the-earth drawl, the greater good is more than a defense, it’s a virtue. For nearly the entire film, Bernie is just as close to receiving the Key to the City as he is to getting jail time. Similarly, when people finally become concerned about the condition of little old Nugent, it is not without their own financial interests at stake. Their condemnation of Bernie reeks of hypocrisy as it becomes clear that nobody (friends, family, the D.A., etc.) is seeking “good” for its own sake but rather all pursue self-advancement and would swear on the Holy Bible that any benefits they receive are only coincidently correlated to what “is right.”

Linklater’s direction proves extraordinarily deft in this regard. With the quasi-documentary style popularized in network television, most characters are given explicit opportunities to defend their views yet seem, at the very least, overwhelmingly guilty by association.

How a community—that would likely consider John Boehner a liberal—came to cherish a gay, big city, theater-loving, funeral director is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

The body baths say "friend";

the top-buttoned shirt says "mad man."

In shortest terms, it’s easy to hate the unknown and hard to hate what you understand. The townspeople purposefully overlooked Bernie’s obvious homosexuality because he did not confirm their expectation that all “the gays” do is march in parades, slap asses, mock the Bible, disregard children and consort with the President—you know, things meant to be left to professional athletes. Instead, Bernie was a kind, generous and fun person;  so gentle euphemisms and curious whispers replaced what were almost certainly cries of immortality and filth only one election prior. Basically, Bernie was just everybody’s “gay best friend”—a burgeoning stereotype that only feels like a slight improvement from the prostitution/AIDS stereotype flamed by “Midnight Cowboy” and others.

More than anything, Bernie’s earnest desire to be liked stops him from taking the role of a conman fleecing little old ladies and gullible townsfolk. Lyle Lanley, he is not and Jack Black makes sure of it when the script likely had such wiggle room. Black’s performance of the giddy/troubled newcomer is commanding in the most gentle sense. He doesn’t struggle to read, reconnect with a long lost daughter or give thunderous monologues, but rather sits back and smiles while listening and we love him all the more for it.

More than just a comedy, “Bernie” is a refreshing observation on reality and not afraid to play out scenes with more drama, animation or tension than a typical genre-comedy would permit. Characters are neither condemned nor applauded; each given a fair, and firm, shake. The movie strives for a moral equilibrium, and while not attained, the attempt is plenty entertaining and worthy of occupying far more movie theaters than “Bernie” will likely reach.

MEN IN BLACK 3: Political Gibberish Fun

I’ve put forth a theory before that the "Hollywood alien movie" is the most reflective genre of America’s military-industrial complex. In short terms: when the federal government nears a zenith of trust and efficiency (1960s, 1990s) alien movies are routinely about government employees saving the day. And when people are feeling rather low on their government (1970s, 2000s), alien movies are more personal, civilian and disaster-prone. This is the difference between “Independence Day” and “Men in Black” verses the post-9/11 counterparts, “War of the Worlds” and “Signs.” While the third “Men in Black”—in a rather inconsistent trilogy—offers nothing new cinematically, it at least hypothesizes that the nation has turned a corner in the last eight years.

Political polls be damned, “Men in Black 3” is about high-level government officials competently carrying out their duties with tact and professionalism. They are the good guys because they shoot the bad guys and clean up their own messes. Beyond that, in this newest edition to the MIB saga, our public service officials seek the solutions to modern problems by traveling back to the 1960s and involving themselves in one of the largest tax-payer projects of all-time: the moon landing. “States’ rights” nothing; I didn’t see Georgia land on the moon and plant one of the dumbest state flags there.

It’s not the laser guns blowing people’s minds, it's the political metaphors.

An injured, one armed alien ex-con demanding universal healthcare.

Do I need to draw you a map?

That the ringleader of the federal bureaucracy is played by Will Smith, baring a slight resemblance to President  Obama, and missing his father while searching the 1960s for solutions to save the world in 2012 is just gravy on top of all the (let’s just say unintended) symbolism. Ultimately, the world isn’t destroyed, but just stays on the verge of annihilation from the fade in to the ending credits.

Cultural significance aside, MIB3 is a safe two hours to waste. There’s nothing as surprising as the first film or anything as moronic as the second film. Granted, the trilogy--when taken as a whole--has gaps you could fly a spaceship through, but this third installment holds together well enough; not unlike that thinning “lazy Saturday” t-shirt still in your closet after all these years.

Because I don’t want to write a 500-word plot summary, it should suffice to say time-traveling is involved but not with any extraordinary explorations. It doesn’t completely avoid certain paradoxes, but it hurdles enough to keep clipping along. I’ll give it a 7 out of 10 on my paradox meter. Equally impressively, a four-dimensional being is represented in our three-dimensional world with clarity not far-removed from the likes of Futurama.

Josh Brolin does a fun Tommy Lee Jones impersonation. Tommy Lee Jones plays a bored man. Will Smith goes almost the entire length of the film without getting teary-eyed (a feat not pulled off since 2005’s “Hitch”). And Rip Torn is nowhere to be seen—thanks to his 2010 career-halting crime spree.

What’s left is a movie that has no more revelations than what can be pulled from the two-minute trailer. That is, unless you accept the political ideology of a movie that showcases the second breakout from a maximum security, Earth-orbiting, prison in as many months. I know I do.

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum (part four)

The last chapter on the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum:

Taking in the flood of praise, banners, photos and editorial cartoons, I realized a crippling aspect of the museum was its narrative incongruity. That is, the tourists going through time are asked to cognitively jump from one time frame to another with no chronological, social, emotional or thematic overlap. We went from Maime to Eisenhower’s WWII leadership to a WWII overview to Eisenhower’s accolades to his return home to his rise in American politics. The museum should have funneled the audiences’ interests to more specifics as the walk-through progresses. For instance, starting with WWII then narrowing into Eisenhower, then his honors, then his return home/his rise as a celebrity, then Maime’s popularity and then Eisenhower’s rise in politics.

We had stood at a statue and a pavilion, visited the reconstructed boyhood home, saw a Kansas library display and walked through half of a museum over the last two hours and still hadn’t gotten to the first inauguration for America’s 34th President until this point.

Eisenhower’s rise from being a celebrity-general to a sought after political leader was nothing too new—as the same can be said for Washington, Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor and Grant—but it’s hard to imagine it happening in this age of politics, especially with such vigor. The 1952 election was well demonstrated as a media frenzy in the museum, with no less than six videos playing on constant loops around various corners. The effect was confusing and even a little annoying, but it was the most immersive section of the museum. WWII was promptly forgotten as television boomed in popularity and society became so much more hyper-invasive and recognizable to modern day, 4G voyeurs.

The Cold War exhibit was once again mostly a book stapled to the walls, but it did pick up the argument that the Cold War was, in fact, a series of violent engagements, government overthrows and espionage. The only real reason we know the war as being “cold” is because both the USSR and the USA claimed it was. Well, that or because the Russians always have to wear jackets.

Some attention was given to the communists hearings and how Eisenhower “despised” Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy for badgering federal officials. The museum notes that McCarthy’s demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations really went too far when Eisenhower’s old friends George S. Marshall and Walter Smith came under attack. However, even the museum could not make the case that Eisenhower actually did anything to protect this friends, innocent Americans or even curb the influence of the verbose head(line) hunter. The hearings came a public climax when Joseph Welch famously cried out to McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency?” To which McCarthy shot back, “Damn, I knew I left something at your mom’s house.”

Oh, snap!

Okay, that story may only be half true, but the Eisenhower museum also appropriately credited news anchor Ed Murrow for denouncing fear-mongering and revealing McCarthy to the public for what he really was: a windbag cloaked in a soiled American flag.

On a small wall nearby, the museum softly noted the escalating Civil Rights crisis in America, which—unlike space travel, public education and even environmentalism—could not be acted upon by the federal government under the flimsy and unnecessary pretense of battling communism. A former history teacher of mine once said that traditionally Congress gets a lot more eager to spend when something can be connected to national defense. And if that’s what it takes to fund the construction of the interstate, reverse the Scopes Trial or put a man on the moon, I have no qualms. But even domestic instability, international embarrassment and basic morality were not good enough reasons for Eisenhower to get behind social equality. In fact, Eisenhower went out of his way to say appointing the liberal-leaning Chief Justice Earl Warren was his biggest mistake in office and that black leaders wanted too much too soon—as, you know, the Civil War had ended only some 80 years earlier. With only arguable self-awareness, the museum capped off the section, admitting that the battle over segregation and Civil Rights throughout the 1950s was one of Eisenhower’s “limitations as president.”

The next exhibits detailed Eisenhower’s general leadership style, with appropriately little regard to the specifics. Eisenhower delegated duties and so the museum delegated one’s education off to some other museum, book or History Channel documentary. Anecdotes were employed, though were as distressing as they were entertaining. For instance, that President Eisenhower grew weary from signing his name so often that he began just putting “DDE,” and later still just put down, “E.” Then three years into office, E had a heart attack and—wait, I can’t call him that; it sounds like the best episode of “Entourage” ever. Anyway, Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, ran for reelection in 1956, had a stroke in 1957 and inadvertently hurt the Nixon campaign in 1960 when the President failed to remember anything VP Nixon had done in the last 8 years. To the historically astute, that Eisenhower survived his own administration and then tripped trying to hand over the White House keys may been his last world-saving accomplishment. Had anything gone slightly differently, the volatile and vehemently anticommunist R.M. Nixon would have been President in 1962 and been the man in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Staying in the pattern of staying in no real pattern, the next exhibit was the “Splendors of State”—an expected display of gifts from around the world given to the former President. The whole room was filled with priceless artifacts; ‘priceless’ in that they are one of a kind but, frankly, just gibberish decorations. If something is priceless, a dollar amount can’t be figured and the item essentially becomes worthless. At no point is this more suspicious then when I noticed an ancient Corinthian helmet given to the President from Greece. Having never been at the Eisenhower museum before, I was struck by my own familiarity with the helmet. I had seen that exact kind of helmet before at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Museum. Back in the Eisenhower tomb of riches, I was livid that the Greeks would just give at least two American presidents the exact same gift under the guise of it being the least bit special or unique.

-What, are they just giving out ancient Greek war helmets at the airport, I asked out loud.

-No, said Matt, but in Greece it’s pretty common to just trip over ancient artifacts.

-Lousy cheap Greeks…

I left Eisenhower’s walk-in treasure chest and found a large board nearby that posed the question, “1956: Run again?” in an assumed effort to ready me for Eisenhower’s second term. Then, literally two steps later, another board read: “Passing the Torch in 1960.” Like so many old people, I looked back behind me, wondering where had the last four years gone. I spent some time looking for a hidden lever or trap door but found nothing and moved into Eisenhower’s post-presidency.

I think the key to cracking the code of Eisenhower’s legacy can be found in the last quote from the man that the museum offers, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” We can’t say Eisenhower was an inefficient leader because things happened under this hand. Critics say Eisenhower was puppet in issues involving domestic policies; but even then, Eisenhower’s goal was to appear like a duck on a pond, floating along. Were his feet kicking? Having no evidence that he personally strained himself in office is the proof that he succeded in crafting a perception he wanted. Like many presidents, the man was a paradox. And so are other people, whether they live in Abilene, Lawrence or anywhere else.

Lastly, as we drove back east, the sun came out and then it started raining on us and I realized that Eisenhower was in his element dealing with varied difficulties, perplexing characters and seemingly impossible situations. After all, Dwight D. Eisenhower had spent his whole life putting up with the weather in Kansas

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum (part three)

In the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum...:

The first display, a 1914 Rauch and Lange electric car, was a stand-alone piece and so unconnected to any theme or relevance that it would have just been the parking space for one of the more nostalgic construction workers had there not been a picture of Eisenhower off to the side. The electric got up to 13 mph and could go 100 miles, which I guess was enough to keep Dwight Eisenhower impressed. As reported, he liked driving it even though, or especially because, it was not his, but rather belonged to his father-in-law. This really small tidbit had to stand on its own to transition our perplexed, self-guided, group of two into the next area.

If the first two rooms (and that car) were a wash, then the first real exhibit, bafflingly, was all about Mamie Eisenhower—a.k.a. Kitty Forman from a theoretical "That 50s Show." Displays of Mamie’s hats and wardrobe were donned by terrifying mannequins that had faces but no eyes. Toward the back, one could then watch a short documentary about Mamie that combined all the worst parts of cheesy, 1960s documentaries you thought were left behind at grade school. Blunt font, scratchy audio recording; I didn’t finish it. “I like Mamie” political buttons (playing off the “I like Ike” slogan) were displayed but book-ended by chapter-amounts of reading. With my interest plummeting like a bald eagle suffering a heart attack, I turned a corner and found what I initially understood to be Mamie Eisenhower’s collection of M3A1 submachine guns.

Unfortunately, my original interpretation was incorrect, as the guns displayed were actually just the first part of the WWII section of the museum, though still a peculiar transition. The next few exhibits showcased rifles, side arms, grenades and knives and probably had enough restored to working condition to fend any forthcoming mummy-ocalypse. Large blocks of text, which made the whole experience rather slow moving, surrounded all the weaponry displays. Matt and myself took to reading different things at different times and thus dropped any potential discussion.

I imagine anybody with a child-like mind (like me) would have found this experience quiet, dull and even excruciating (again, like me). Often times, the panels of text were larger than the meager displays and begged the question, why not just read a book? At least then one gets to sit down. The WWII displays themselves were often times toy replicas of tanks, boats or, in the most interesting moments, maps of the English Channel printed upside down.

Early in the walk, Eisenhower’s team of experts were noted and given some credence. There were also original letters between the General and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though actually reading the letters was more difficult than the educational value of what was said. One nearby photo showed FDR sitting down while presenting Eisenhower with a medal. Failing to note the specific medal, I was distracted by the content of the picture—a clearly staged photo opportunity. As commonly known nowadays, FDR suffered from polio and could not walk, and rarely even stood without assistance. The photo is an awkward reminder of one of the most elaborate ploys pulled on the, seemingly naive, American public. This thought led me to wonder what future generations are going to laugh at us about; what we never saw that is right in front of us.

The WWII walk-through then slowly shifted focus away the top commanders and instead just acted as a general overview of the expensive sequel to a niche world war (which itself had only developed a cult following amongst 1920s surrealists). The information presented, in terms of entertainment and accuracy, rested somewhere between "Saving Private Ryan" and ramblings regurgitated by a college student who pulled a B+ in his military history class. Yeah, the Germans over-stretched themselves. Russians were united by Operation Barbarossa. French/Polish resistance hampered German forces. Winston Churchill advocated for the Allied invasion of Italy, incorrectly thinking the peninsula was Europe’s “soft underbelly.”

While the WWII saga presented was rather removed and overlong (again, so much text, so few things), it had a certain dignity—which was then dropped with a half-hearted attempt at the reconstruction of an Allied landing boat reaching Normandy. The hallway forced visitors into a short, narrow, passage way, with one panoramic (maybe 270 degree) picture of soldiers storming the beach with wood, boat-like paneling and distant battle sound effects so quiet that one could almost miss the whole experience of being dropped into one of the most extraordinary battles of all-time.

The museum’s further accounts of Operation Overlord painted too clean of a picture and sell it as some historic inevitability. The museum overstated the Allied bombers’ accuracy, understated German intelligence, and otherwise treated the whole thing as unquestionably America’s proudest moment, and not the operation-level disaster that killed over 3,000 Allied soldiers and forced the Allies to stumble their way through France.

It’s actually shortly after the D-Day segment, that the whole WWII comes to a highpoint with the exhibit on the Mulberry Harbours—which is neither the bar I frequent nor a brand of cigarettes. Maybe the most impressive, movable, civil engineering marvel since the original Ferris Wheel (if not ever), the Mulberry Harbours were platforms constructed in England, deconstructed, shipped to Normandy, and reconstructed to stand against Atlantic storms. Once there, tanks, military vehicles and around 2.5 million men drove off the ships, across the roadways and into France over the proceeding months. Nearly 70 years later, I can’t help but wonder if we could have just built a bridge to the moon by now had there been anything to kill on that orbiting rock.

As if calculating my awe and not wanting to keep me impressed or even comfortable for too long, the next bend revealed life-like, life-size, completely white statutes of WWII soldiers. While I was 99.9% the soldiers weren’t actually people frozen in place and would move at any point, that .1% drove me nuts and I kept an eye on them until I cleared the area. Fortunately, the only thing that could regain my attention was actually in the next section: a 4,000-lb bomb, alongside some cannons and military vehicles. I considered getting on top of the bomb, but then became concerned that our tour of the museum might come to an abrupt end—either from getting kicked out or accidentally blowing up half of Abilene.

     -Hey Matt, I said, why don’t you get on the bomb?

-No, he said back. Why don’t you ride it?

-Fine, be a jerk. I’ll do it next time.

Nearby, we found three separate glass cases of medals, decorations, honors and awards presented to General Dwight Eisenhower—which, everything else aside, reminded us that this was actually the Dwight Eisenhower museum. The medals and ribbons were so numerous that there was literally no way Eisenhower could have worn all of his accolades had he been an inch shorter than two stories tall. Unfortunately, Wikipedia says Eisenhower was only 5 foot, 10.5 inches and so likely found himself swimming in medals and decrees of honorary citizenship. Also, he may or may not have been allowed to secretly pick up to three Academy Award winners between the years 1948-1952.

In what had to be the smoothest transition between segments of the President’s life, we walked through a “The Hero Returns” room and into the extended process of getting the incredibly popular leader, who had yet to ever vote, to run for American politics (as a Democrat or Republican).

MY ROAD TRIPS: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum (part two)

About the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum...:

Unfortunately, the documentary's title ("Dwight Eisenhower: American") was not alluding to some forgotten controversy surrounding Eisenhower’s birth certificate; though I would like to take this time to advocate the necessity of these short documentaries that appear at several, if not all, presidential museums--no matter how bland and uncomfortably political.

That said, the rickety, 24-minute, documentary--possibly made in the 1970s--was mostly bland and uncomfortably political. The film chronicled the rise of a “compassionate” and “reliable” soldier who had so much, Abilene-inspired, “common sense” that he would never be found wanting a job, but rather any employment would find him. In line with this sentiment, the film is mostly devoid of facts, figures, testimonies or even anecdotal specifics regarding the leadership of Eisenhower, remaining instead on a stream of broad, subjective generalizations. Eisenhower was “a decent man” who garnered “respect and affection” from all people around the world. Some of the sweeping compliments provoked derisive sneers from Matt, perhaps emboldened by the otherwise empty theater.

Matt’s wordless sarcasm can’t be defended without a greater grasp of one of the inherent difficulties in discussing history—that is, that history is neither definite nor even over. Anything can be viewed with a political lens, and the resulting analysis can be contorted, stretched, squeezed, flipped around, smacked and given The Flying Dutchman. Often times it’s good to look at events and people with a different, even extreme, lens; but other times the lens conceal what other people see: gaping contradictions. Hopefully, my own lens is that of being a perpetual storyteller and so I see things not so much as political, but rather as a narrative.

And with a narrative mindset, I can say that complicated, paradoxical and even flawed protagonists are generally more interesting than impervious and infallible ones. In just one example, the conservative Eisenhower appointed the liberal Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But in this documentary, the moral, cultural and political ambiguity that previously defined the Eisenhower administration in my eyes was traded in for grandiose praise and unnecessary whitewashing in a celebration of America’s Grandpa.

From the film, we stumbled back outside—still no rain—and toward Dwight Eisenhower’s boyhood home: The Bethlehem of Kansas. Maybe it didn’t have that name, but it was advertised as the origin of “greatness.” Standing on the wooden front porch of the two-floor house, I wondered what it would be like to grow up in a park dedicated to your own forth-coming greatness. Did Little Ike like the statue of himself forty years in the future? Did he and his punk teenage friends ever tee-pee or tag the Visitor’s Center?

Ignoring my questions, the tour guide gave Matt and I a detailed history on the house’s ownership. Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower (the most American name since Chilidog Freeman) sold the house to Dwight’s dad, who felt like dying and Ike and his six other brothers kept the house, with their mom still living in it. Like the homes of all old people, most of the furnishings are originals and haven’t been touched in years. Other stuffs (wallpaper, etc.) are exact replicas.

The historic house can be interesting, but for most requires a substantial re-imaging of history. For instance, the tour guide pointed out a piano in one of the rooms, saying that while the future President, along with the other boys, was taught to play, Dwight didn’t continue to play into adulthood. Learning this, I had to envision some scenario where President Eisenhower was asked to play the piano but couldn’t and thus set off a chain of events for a reporter discovering that the leader of the free world had been replaced by a look-a-like. Maybe that really happened. Maybe it didn’t.

I noticed the house also had security cameras and so asked for proof of their authenticity. Mr. Killjoy informed us that, no, the cameras were not fixtures of the house in 1915, but in fact a response to a daring midnight heist years back when somebody lifted one of the original—and this is true—sugar cups from the Eisenhower tea set. It would seem even Batman would stay plenty busy fighting crime in Abilene, Kansas.

For reasons beyond me, the tour of the Eisenhower home required additional tickets to the tickets for the Presidential Museum. Seeing the house was two bucks, but if that was too cheap for anybody, there was also a tip box in the kitchen that I doubted was authentic to the house. Matt and I were quicker to take the tour of the house when we discovered, back in the Visitor’s Center, that the museum had a $3 discount on Wednesdays. Even with going to the house, I would save a dollar—or enough to buy half of a beer at the bar down the street from my apartment, which is how I’ve begun to measure money.

Back in the Eisenhower house, Matt noted the hat rack and flippantly suggested we get a hat rack for our place back in Lawrence. Tour Guide McFunderful, immediately went silent and looked around the room, as if seeing it the first time himself. Sometimes it takes an awkward person to sense an awkward moment, and with that I realized the false assumption. I wanted to say, no, no, we’re not gay…but then I figured it didn’t matter too much as the tour seemed finished anyway. And just for kicks, I put a dollar in the tip box after writing down a hotel address and room number for Mr. Part Time Tour Guide.

Learning, having fun and alienating people in our wake, we went back outside and made the short walk to the Eisenhower Presidential Museum. The entrance lobby was classically marble and ended at the far end with a large desk and, possibly, Clint Eastwood’s dad behind the desk.

The kindly gentleman who would make Old Ben Kenobi look like Young Ben Kenobi took our tickets and told us how to become “a Friend of the Eisenhower Foundation.” Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Friend? Eisenhower? Foundation? There’s no part of that I don’t like!” But one of the benefits was free admission for two to any NARA-operated Presidential Museum for the next year and I figured I would get rowdy at the Truman one in Independence at least four or five more times within the year. Frustratingly, I couldn’t buy the membership, refund my Eisenhower ticket and then come back to the Eisenhower museum four minutes later. So just like that, I was out 2.5 beers.

To my own continued chagrin, the first two rooms of the museum’s linear path were under massive, (authentic?) renovations. 2x4 wood planks and almost-discarded Pepsi cans gave the allusion of some temporary exhibit at least a month away from completion. Leaving the work zone, a sign hung advertising the forth-coming, temporary, exhibit: “Eisenhower: Agent of Change.” The details were murky but had a faint, unidentifiable, scent—raising my suspicions. I was not aware of any large-scale, politically motivated, re-imaging of Eisenhower’s legacy on the scale of FDR or Reagan. Then again, I was at this Presidential Center because one could fill a warehouse with what I didn’t know about Eisenhower—or, in this case, almost fill a museum.

To be continued...